Conflict or Development?
Joseph Stiglitz discusses the role of information in conflict and draws a fascinating analogy between civil strife and a labor strike. Paul Collier and Neil Cooper take different positions on the prospects for reforming war economies, and E. Wayne Nafziger gives details of the evolution of humanitarian emergencies. In the two country studies, Tilman Brück examines the destruction and reconstruction of Mozambique, and Manuel Ferreira discusses the civil war in Angola. Paul Dunne tells the story of South Africa's defense contractor Denel from its origins under apartheid until today, and David Gold describes the context and history of the current actions against "Conflict Diamonds." In the chapter on "Trends in World Military Expenditure," Jurgen Brauer reflects on the weight imposed by the world's military burden.
This research was republished in 2006 and is available as a PDF.
Introduction, Civil Strife and Economic and Social Policies, Joseph E. Stiglitz
The issue of civil strife and economic and social policies is one I became engaged with while working at the World Bank. It is of tremendous importance, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The last 50 years have shown that development is possible, but far from inevitable. Fifty years ago, as many of the economies in the developing world were becoming independent, there was great hope for their success. In the half century that has gone by we have seen that one region in the world, East Asia, has had huge success in terms of per capita income (in countries like Korea, an eight-fold increase), but in many other parts of the world, such as sub-Saharan Africa, there has been by and large enormous failure. Incomes today in much of sub-Saharan Africa are lower than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Life expectancy, after increasing substantially over a number of years, now has begun to decline, mainly but not only because of the AIDS epidemic.