Mining and Civil Conflict: Revisiting Grievance at Bougainville

Abstract

This paper explores the drivers of civil conflict on the island of Bougainville in PNG. While not a ‘popular’ or ‘traditional’ example used for exploring the various dimensions of civil violence prevalent in resource‐rich developing countries, Bougainville is, however, a unique case, which has proved difficult to reconcile with conventional explanations of causation. A particularly relevant event in the history of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was the opening of a copper mine in Bougainville in the 1960s, the establishment of which caused significant socioeconomic and political problems on the island, eventually culminating in civil war. It is argued that, rather than being driven by profit, civil war in Bougainville arose out of grievances caused by the convergence of social phenomena with economic and political factors.