Location, Location, Location: The Ethno-Geography of Oil and the Onset of Ethnic War

Abstract

Challenging and improving upon existing studies, we develop a more integrated and fine-grained theory regarding oil and the onset of ethnic war and present systematic quantitative evidences for our theory. We contend that it is the ethno-geographical location of oil rather than oil income, rent, or relative distribution/concentration that really connects oil with the onset of ethnic war. When the core territory of a minority group has a significant amount of oil, the minority group is more likely to rebel against a central state dominated by another group and oil is strongly associated with the onset of ethnic war. In contrast, when oil is located with the core territory of a dominant majority group or that a country has a fairly even distribution of ethnic groups and no group can lay an exclusive claim to oil, oil is not associated with a higher risk of ethnic war. We construct two new indicators regarding the ethno-geographical location of oil from two different sources and test our hypotheses with the two new indicators. Statistical results strongly support our hypotheses. Together with evidences from case studies with process-tracing that demonstrate the mechanisms singled out by our theory really did operate in driving ethnic wars in an accompanying paper, we provide a more complete and close-to-definitive answer to the question whether and how oil is associated with the onset of ethnic war. Our exercise also points to a broader theory regarding the ethno-geography of commodity-type mineral resource with the onset of ethnic war.