Friday, January 14, 2011

Conflict in Tunisia

Read about the recent rebellion in the north African nation here at Time Magazine , here at the Washington Post and here at the Guardian.

Interesting to contrast today's state of affairs with conditions just a couple of years ago.

Here is a map showing Tunisia's location.

What's at issue? Acute problems are unemployment, food prices and by extension, food security. More generally, it's about freedom.

Collier discusses the "conflict trap" in The Bottom Billion and notes that a large part of the economic costs of rebellion and civil war are realized long after the rebellion is over. We'd call this a lag effect, where today's actions have implications for tomorrow's outcomes. Perhaps more important for Tunisia, Collier finds that rebellion most often does not result in improvements in the conditions that ostensibly spawned the rebellion to begin with. Indeed, he notes that civil war can be the start of a long process of "development in reverse". Importantly for the rest of us, he finds that civil wars and rebellions result in adverse spillover effects on the region, often extending into high-income countries. Check out that map again. Also consider that nations in the EU are Tunisia's principal trade partners.

It's important to point out that Collier's work is based on analysis of many countries, and the results do not serve to predict what will happen in a particular situation. Rather, they should be interpreted as what is likely to occur on average. Let's hope Tunisia is an exception.

For more reading, here's a relatively short piece by Collier on economic development and conflict.

7 comments:

  1. There's more on Tunisia in today's Washington Post:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011405084.html

    Note the description of Tunisia's neighborhood. Geography is an important factor in economic growth for a host of reasons, two of which are the economic and political conditions of adjacent nations.

    Yesterday I noted that empirical research by Collier suggests revolution may induce development in reverse. Today's reports of violence and looting in Tunisia seem to back that up. Here's a report from ABC:

    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=12622178

    Thinking back to principles, what theory, models or intuition might we use to describe what's happening?

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  2. Just a few observations on the articles, through the lens of basic economic principles...

    From the Collier article, the prevalence of conflicts can be partially explained by the Tragedy of the Commons. Collier says, in italics no less, that, "[T]he costs of civil wars are very largely not borne by those responsible for them."

    The basic principle that I would use to describe Tunisia's political class is one of monopoly power. There is only one game in town, and the stadium fence is unsurmountable - at least while employing "lawful" or peaceful means.

    RPH

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  3. In the development and conflict article, Collier states that half of all-post conflict nations relapse into war within the decade.
    This would not bode well for Tunisia and the stability of Northern Africa. Espically the other countries surrounding because Collier says that it is the nieghboring countries that bear half of the economic cost of conflict.

    Also I think this topic corresponds to what is going on in Sudan right now. The south is most likely to succeed, but the two governments do not have an agreement on oil sharing and other important measures. This could send the region back into conflict (making Colliers point accurate). Or if the South does separate from Sudan peacefully, they have some of the lowest development stats of all of Sudan and Africa. And it is a landlocked country. If this does become a new nation i think it will be dissadvantaged for growth and development.

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  4. My question is, by what means can a country change its government peacefully (excluding democratic countries)? It seems that oppresive rulers aren't willing to just give up their power and without the people demanding change what way is there? In most historic situations change was brought about by revolution, protests, war, etc... In what way could Tunisia have handled this situation better? I'd really appreciate some input! Thanks

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  5. In response to the first question above (LH right?), there's the approach taken by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., i.e. non-violent protest inspired by Thoreau's Civil Disobedience.

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  6. Looking at this from the PPC or PPF we learned about in principles is extremely interesting. War, famine, oppression, unemployment, etc... all drive production (your point on the graph not the curve itself) inward. Now say tunisia overthrows its gov't, or Egypt, well now what? Gov't won't be efficient for a long time, generally and relatively speaking. The country will probably stagnate around that same production point. Without the help of other nations there is a big problem, especially with India and Russia not exporting grains this year. Stagflation has become a problem in these 2 countries, and with tunisia's leader overthrown, who is going to help reconstruct the country in an efficient manner. (Egypt may follow suite, perhaps violently) There is not a capable party in Tunisia because the were a one-party gov't system. The trick will be getting the production point to move out while doing their best to keep their opportunity cost extremely low. Speculation: It will probably be hard to keep opportunity cost low because the gov't needs to focus on feeding its people, and when you try to develop other things, it takes away from needs. It will be an interesting loop to work towards getting out of.

    KH

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  7. In the development and conflict article, Collier states that half of all-post conflict nations relapse into war within the decade.
    This would not bode well for Tunisia and the stability of Northern Africa. Espically the other countries surrounding because Collier says that it is the nieghboring countries that bear half of the economic cost of conflict.

    ReplyDelete