1. Is There an Arab Exceptionalism
When It Comes to Conflict?
C. Breisinger, J.-F. Maystadt, P. Al-Riffai and J.-F. Trinh Tan
Presented by
Jean-Francois Maystadt
IFPRI-UNESCWA Conference: Food Secure Arab World—A Roadmap for Policy & Research
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; Beirut, 6-7 February 2012

2. 1. Conflicts in the Arab world
“How is it that countries in the Middle East and North Africa could
face explosions of popular grievances despite, in some cases,
sustained high growth and improvement in social indicators?”
(World Development Report 2011 on Conflict, Security and Development)

3. The Arab World at a crossroad
• “Power vacuum” : Particularly at risk
• But no determinism … also opportunities
Major causes of conflicts and which
preventive measures?
How best to accompany such political
transition?

4. 2. Conceptual framework
 ‘Motivation’
Grievances, Inequality, Polarization, etc.
 ‘Opportunity’
Opportunity cost to participate to violence depends on
alternative sources of income, the potential loss and
rewards (therefore capacity for leaders to finance)
 ‘Polity’
Poor governance and lack of political inclusion
State capacity to repress or “pay for peace”

5. 3. Arab Exceptionalism?
Collier and Hoeffler (2004, OEP)
• ‘Opportunity’ (per capita income, economic growth) matters, not
‘Motivation’ (‘grievance’)
Sorli et al. (2005, JCR) : 1960-2000
• No MENA specific effect : “Conflict is quite well explained by a
general model of civil war” (p.160)
Shortcomings:
• Reduced sample of countries (excl. e.g. Mauritania, Djibouti, Somalia,
Sudan)
• No Fixed Effect (Djankov and Reynal-Querol, forthcoming REStat)
• Predictive power 30% lower compared to SSA

6. 4. Arab exceptionalism: a puzzle
 Collier and Hoeffler framework is found to be too
limited:
 Something specific to the Arab world needs to be explained !
 Puzzling economic growth effect
 Possible explanations?
 Omitted variables: institutions inherited from the past,
historical grievances, … (country fixed effects)
 Where the growth is coming from? (‘Opportunity’)
 Sectoral growth, Youth bulges
 Better proxy for natural resource dependency (e.g. oil)
 Where the growth is going to? (‘Motivation’)
 Inequality
 Micro and Macro Food Security Index (FSI)
 Political dimension? (‘Polity’)

7. Main empirical model
������(������������������������������������������������������,������ ) = ������ + ������������ + ������������ + ������ ������������,������−1 + ������ ������������������−1 ∗ ������������������������ + ������������,������
 Economic growth is the only robust finding in Collier
and Hoeffler (2004)
 Arab exceptionalism is confirmed!
 ‘Opportunity’
 Sectoral growth does not matter
 Youth bulges (share of urban male aged 15-24 over the
urban (or male) population aged > 15) : no region-specific
effect
 Oil, gas, ores and minerals exports to GDP or dependency
(>40%) . Oil dependency increases conflict in a non-
monotonic way but the effect is totally driven by the Arab
world

8. Main empirical model
������(������������������������������������������������������,������ ) = ������ + ������������ + ������������ + ������ ������������,������−1 + ������ ������������������−1 ∗ ������������������������������ + ������������,������
 ‘Motivation’
 Gini coefficient is uncorrelated to conflicts but known to
poorly capture time-varying sources of grievances
 Macro and Micro Food Security Indexes significantly
increase the risk of major conflicts in Arab world
 ‘Polity’
 Economic and political discrimination against minorities
increase conflicts but not specifically for Arab countries
 Past transitions to full democracy and autocracy reduce the
risk of conflicts (using policyIV data, Persson and Tabellini
2006 AER)

9. Beyond Collier-Hoeffler framework
(1) (2) (3a) (3b) (4) (5)
Major Major Major Major Major Major
Conflict Conflict Conflict Conflict Conflict Conflict
GDP growth (t-1) -0.120** -0.197*** -0.0722 -0.25 -0.048 -0.0413
[0.0516] [0.0660] [0.170] [0.119] [0.0809] [0.0839]
GDP growth*MENA (t-1) 0.265*** 0.727 0.373*** 0.113 0.252
[0.079] [0.689] [0.129] [0.219] [0.161]
Child stunting (t-1) 0.000428 0.0000146
[0.00143] [0.00141]
Child stunting*MENA 0.0119* 0.0111*
[0.007] [0.0068]
Child mortality (t-1) 0.000134
[0.0002]
Child Mortality*MENA 0.0008
[0.0005]
P-value (0.128)
Food security index (t-1) -0.0407
[0.0462]
Food security index*MENA 0.412*
[0.216]
Time dummies YES YES YES YES YES YES
Country Fixed Effects YES YES YES YES YES YES
Observations 4,896 4,896 536 2,616 1,456 2,958
Number of ccode 140 140 130 130 139 131

10. Beyond Collier-Hoeffler framework (6) (7) (8) (9)
Major Major Major Major
Conflict Conflict Conflict Conflict
GDP growth (t-1) -0.339** -0.335** -0.116* -0.117*
[0.139] [0.143] [0.0623] [0.0621]
GDP growth*MENA (t-1) 0.437*** 0.434** 0.180** 0.117
[0.158] [0.175] [0.0791] [0.0958]
Oil rents (t-1) 0.00265
[0.00227]
Oil rents*MENA (t-1) -0.00847*
[0.00445]
Oil rents squared (t-1) -3.81E-05
[3.33e-05]
Oil rents squared*MENA 0.000114**
[5.00e-05]
Oil dependency (t-1) -0.00876
[0.0298]
Oil dependency*MENA 0.0902*
[0.0486]
Pol. Transition to democracy (t-1) -0.00337***
[0.00103]
Pol. Transition to democracy*MENA -0.0256***
[0.00849]
Pol. Transition to autocracy (t-1) -0.0019
[0.00218]
Pol. Transition to autocracy*MENA -0.0189***
[0.00637]
Time dummies YES YES YES YES
Country Fixed Effects YES YES YES YES
Observations 2,087 2,087 4,452 4,461
Number of ccode 73 73 131 131

11. The Arab Food Security channel
������ ������������������������������������������������������,������ = ������ + ������������ + ������������ + ������ ������������������������,������ + ������������,������
������������������������,������ = ������ + ������������ + ������������ + ������ ������������,������ ∗ ������������,������ + ������������,������
Where
������������������������,������ = Macro and Micro Food Security Indexes
������������,������ = ������������������������������ ������������ ������������������������ ������
������������,������ = net food imports
For the sample restricted to the Arab world, 2SLS-FE
model points to the vulnerability of food net importers
to changes in food international prices for food
insecurity and in turn, to the risk of conflict

12. The Arab Food Security Channel
(1) (2) (3)
Second-stage
Dep. Var. Major Major Major
Conflict Conflict Conflict
Child stunting 0.0464***
[0.0176]
Child mortality 0.0139***
[0.00493]
Food security index 1.444**
[0.613]
GDP growth 0.22 -0.112 0.185*
(t-1) [0.206] [0.280] [0.0956]
First-stage
Dep. Var. Child stunting Child mortality Food security index
Food Import Price Index 0.0545*** 0.162*** 0.00104***
[0.0129] [0.0547] [0.000260]
GDP growth -3.343 16.25 -0.022
(t-1) [2.608] [13.82] [0.0410]
Time Dummies YES YES YES
Country Fixed effects YES YES YES
Observations 433 257 549
Number of countries 22 24 22

13. Preliminary conclusions
1) Transition to democracy is welcomed but the
transition period is risky
 Identifying the risk of conflicts is crucial, at a particularly
challenging time in history
2) Food insecurity matters for conflicts in the Arab world
 Avoid fiscally unsustainable and not well targeted
measures (e.g. subsidies)
 Smart mix of policies, investments and targeted programs in
the areas of trade, agriculture, water, health and education
 Need pro-poor and pro-nutrition growth (see IFPRI Food
Policy report “Beyond the Arab Awakening”)
3) Oil dependency increases the risk of conflict but could
create fiscal space and could in principle be wealth
enhancing

14. How to use oil revenues?
 ‘Paying for peace’ has become unsustainable, given
increased repression (e.g. social media) and
redistribution costs (e.g. youth and food prices)
 Many Arab countries show “Dutch disease”
symptoms, including low economic diversification and
governance issues
 Oil rents should be directed to pro-poor growth
enhancing investments, such as infrastructure and
education, and to targeted transfers to the most food
insecure populations

15. Ways forward
1. Not a paper on the Arab Awakening : only valid for
major conflict events
• Need for a conceptual framework aiming at
understanding the dynamics of public protests and
violence in the Arab countries, with a special focus on
food security and food policies (e.g. subsidies)
2. Cross-country analysis misses the heterogeneity
• Weather shocks and violence in Somalia and South
Sudan. Preliminary results stress the importance of
the livestock markets in Somalia
• Protests in Egypt and food policies (nutrition puzzle)
• The developmental costs of conflict in Yemen