Development Strategies and Inter-group Violence ― Insights on Conflict-sensitive Development

Throughout the world, development has been affected by armed violence - from civil wars and separatist struggles to explosions of religious and communal violence and terrorism. Ethnolinguistic and religious diversity, rivalries among regional groups and clans, and competing economic interests create a potential for acrimonious intergroup divisions. Yet some nations remain stable, while others, earlier touted as pillars of peaceful growth, have foundered badly. Development Strategies and Inter-Group Violence argues that economic development strategies, though embedded within a complex matrix of social and political conditions, have often shaped such different outcomes. Drawing on economic, political, and psychological theory, policy experiences, and case studies of the three regional volumes in the series (Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America; Development Strategies, Identities, and Conflict in Asia; and The Economic Roots of Conflict and Cooperation in Africa), this book assesses the risks and opportunities of development strategies regarding the likelihood of inter-group violence. Policymakers and development practitioners will greatly benefit from this detailed and comprehensive analysis of how development initiatives may affect group identities, influence multiple disparities among groups, create "conflict-opportunity structures," and change the dynamics of state-society relations.

William Ascher is the Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics at Claremont McKenna College, USA, where he also directs the Roberts Environmental Center. Previously, he directed the Duke University Center for International Development, USA. His research, based mainly in Latin America and Southeast Asia, focuses on development policy, natural-resource and environmental policy, policy sciences, and political psychology.

Natalia Mirovitskaya has been on the faculty at Duke University, USA, since 1995. Her professional focus is on political economy of development and peacebuilding. With William Ascher, she has also co-edited other books published in the Politics, Economics and Inclusive Development series: Economic Development Strategies and the Evolution of Violence in Latin America (2012), Development Strategies, Identities, and Conflict in Asia (2013) and The Economic Roots of Conflict and Cooperation in Africa (2013).