This paper focuses on a political economy of humanitarian emergencies, comprising a human-made crisis in which large numbers of people die from war and state violence. The article analyzes how economic decline, income inequality, pervasive rent seeking by ruling elites, a reduced surplus to threaten the survival income of a large portion of the population, a weakening state, and competition for control of mineral exports contribute to emergencies. Economic regress and political decay bring about relative deprivation or perception by influential social groups of injustice arising from a growing discrepancy between what they expect and get.

Economic Development, Inequality and War shows how economic decline, income inequality, pervasive rent seeking by ruling elites, political authoritarianism, military centrality and competition for mineral exports contribute to war and humanitarian emergencies. Economic regress and political decay bring about relative deprivation, perception by social groups of injustice arising from a growing discrepancy between what they expect and get. Nafziger and Auvinen indicate that both economic greed and social grievances drive contemporary civil wars. Finally, the authors also identify policies for preventing humanitarian emergencies.

How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling—mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues—have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent—and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.

This preliminary report asks whether there exist systematic relationships between changes in economic inequality and levels of state violence in countries around the world. The question is, of course, quite natural. Entire lexicons exist that describe economic relationships in terms that evoke violence; such words and phrases as exploitation, dependency, unequal exchange and class struggle are but prominent examples. And the case histories of war, revolution, state terrorism and coups d are certainly loaded with analyses of what seem transparently to be efforts either to rectify gross inequalities, or else to impose them. Yet from the standpoint of an empiricist, interested mainly in the search for patterns in data, substantial obstacles stand in the way of definite observations. There is first of all the difficulty that reliable measures of change in economic inequality, measures that are both consistent and consistently available, have not existed. Second, there is the problem of arriving at a consistent categorization of types of violence, so that one may predict the effect of each type on economic inequality and vice versa. Third, there is the problem of developing consistent and comparable data across countries and through time on levels and types of violence.

This book explains how political control of economic privileges is used to limit violence and coordinate coalitions of powerful organizations.

Low and middle-income economies of Africa and Asia comprise two-thirds of the World Population. This study provides an exploration of conflict and entrepreneurship in these developing economies. Its emphasis is on socio-economic and politico-economic approaches, focusing particularly on inequality, business development and the sources of conflict. This study examines the developing economies of Africa and Asia. It has a broad scope of analyses, exploring areas of entrepreneurship, conflict, and economic development throughout much of the developing world. It offers detailed discussions on the definition of economic development in relation to poverty, and examines the location and determinants of entrepreneurship, supply and demand for entrepreneurs, and policy implications. Individual case studies of different regions of India explore the impact of human capital and entrepreneurs on firm survival, the driving forces and impacts of technological advancements, as well the origins of manufacturing entrepreneurs, and the differences in economic opportunities between the privileged and underprivileged. It also examines at the political economy of humanitarian emergencies in Africa, such as war, state violence and terrorism. Finally it shows how economic development model of Meiji Japan and the economic ethics of the Mennonites can be used as framework to alleviate some of the problems and conflicts surrounding entrepreneurship in developing economies. Conflict in Entrepreneurship in Development Economics presents a detailed study of the interplay between conflict and entrepreneurship in development economics, making it indispensable reading for students and scholars interested in analyzing entrepreneurship and the developing economies of Africa and Asia.

Prosperity and Violence considers the history of human civilization and explains the origins of the modern state, focusing on the evolution of capitalism as cultures move from dispersed agrarian clans to the dense modern metropolis. Informed by firsthand experience with the political and economic development of many diverse cultures, Bates demonstrates how successful modern states harness ethnic diversity for prosperity rather than for violence and political power. Brief and compelling, Prosperity and Violence is certain to be an excellent supplement in any comparative politics course.