Economic Resiliency and the Measurement of the Risk of Social Conflict

Abstract

This thesis studies the general economic factors underlying social conflict by reviewing longitudinal data from 2002 until 2012. The study covers more than 200 countries, taking data from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and the University of Heidelberg. For decades, economists and social scientists have used various economic factors as one method of explaining phenomena of interest. This thesis correlates a set of economic variables consistent with economic resiliency and uses them in a longitudinal study of intrastate social conflicts. Credit rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have long considered a country’s level of economic resiliency to be a key factor in their evaluation of a country’s sovereign bonds. In other research studies, economic factors in various combinations are used to explain the nature of social conflict in many discrete cases and specific countries. By reviewing this data, this thesis provides an empirical explanation of the nature of conflict by examining common economic factors that appeared consistently over the study period. The results of this analysis are used to predict the incidence of intrastate social conflict.