Conflict is a malady that afflicts societies and individuals with incommensurable pain and stress. Over the last few decades, there has been an increased interest in understanding the mechanisms of conflict as a way to engage in preventive policy initiatives. Within this context, this chapter seeks to uncover the mechanisms associated with the initiation of conflict as identified in the literature. Contemporary academic writing associated with the term “resource curse” (which has been used to describe the failure of resource-rich countries to benefit from their natural wealth) and the “greed and grievance” model of conflict, significantly developed by the economist Paul Collier, are reviewed. The chapter concludes by evaluating the mechanisms identified, illustrating their possible effects on the dynamics of the initiation of intrastate conflict, normally referred to as civil war.

The chapter is divided into six parts, each corresponding to a category that groups related and relevant factors: the external environment, governance, economic factors, social factors, geography, and history. Based on this assessment, I conclude with a summary of factors that have been identified as the key contributors to conflict.

External Environment

Accepting the conceptualization of the nation-state for this analysis, the external environment encompasses all the factors and mechanisms that fall outside of a state’s control (especially in the case of poorer countries) and that directly conditions the domestic policy options of the actors in the country. Specifically, it includes the international markets, agreements, and behavior of key industries in the context of regional and global economic conditions and international relations.

Since the 1950s, the theory of the declining terms of trade has argued that resource-based growth is inefficient because world prices of primary exports relative to manufactures show a profound tendency toward decline, while rich countries are more protectionist against primary imports than manufacturing imports. Recent studies now agree that the aggregate terms of trade for primary commodities have been declining since at least the beginning of the 1900s (measured at an estimated 0.1 percent to 1.3 percent per annum), and although the impact of this phenomenon on economic growth needs further examination at the case study level, it is “statistically robust at the global level.