NATURAL RESOURCE RENTS AND INTERNAL CONFLICT: THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY

Abstract

The study explores the impact of natural resource rents on internal conflicts and examines how the aforementioned relationship is influenced by institutional quality. The study is based on a panel dataset of 70 countries for the period 1991–2018. The empirical evidence shows that natural resource rent leads to an increase in internal conflict in both developed and developing countries. However, the impact of natural resource rent on internal conflict is negative in the presence of better quality of government institutions for the global sample, developed and developing countries. Hence, natural resource rent leads to a reduction in internal conflict when it is supported by better institutional quality in terms of high bureaucratic quality, rule of law and low corruption in government institutions. Overall, the study finds that natural resource rent leads to an increase in internal conflict, however, this relationship is mitigated by better institutional quality.