Date of Submission

6-28-2015

Date of Award

6-28-2016

Institute Name (Publisher)

Indian Statistical Institute

Document Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Subject Name

Quantitative Economics

Department

Economics and Planning Unit (EPU-Delhi)

Supervisor

Chowdhury, Prabal Roy (EPU-Delhi; ISI)

Abstract (Summary of the Work)

Throughout the human civilization, domestic (intra country) conflicts have been present across societies, cultures and countries. These conflicts are extremely common as well as persistent. For the period 1960-2006, twenty percent of the countries have experienced at-least ten years of conflicts with more than 1000 casualties per year (Blattman and Miguel, 2010). It causes huge loss of human life, quantitatively, as well as qualitatively. It results in huge number of casualties, as well as damage to the existing output, resources and infrastructure. The persistent presence of such conflicts across the world means that a significant number of people as well as resources are always devoted to the these unproductive works. Combining all these, such conflicts have huge economic impact.Such conflicts are more common or intense in some regions. Latin America, Africa, developing countries in Asia and the Middle East have been severely affected from such conflicts for last three decades particularly. During the cold war, most of these conflicts were seen as the conflict between the communist and the capitalist ideologies. However, the end of the cold war has failed to stop or reduce such conflicts. Often poverty and underdevelopment are attributed as the cause for these conflicts. However the causality can be in other direction as well, so we need to be careful. Also historically such conflicts along with external conflicts have been instrumental in (successful) institution building. However, the wide presence of these conflicts warrants thorough analysis, both theoretical as well as empirical. Economics, with the tools and insights available with it’s sub-disciplines like- game theory, contract theory, industrial organization, behavioral economics, etc. can offer a good analysis in this area. In economics, we need to realize the importance of the appropriation and defense as a separate economic activity.South Asia has seen a lot of internal conflicts lately. In India, we have seen rise in left-wing extremism. It is also referred as the Maoist. There are also issues in the north-eastern states. Assam, Manipur and Nagaland have faced many separatist movements. Similar Maoist activities has caused a lot of bloodshed in Nepal, however it seems that it is settled now. Sri Lanka has also experienced huge bloodshed and conflict by the Tamil separatist group LTTE. This was settled by the decisive victory of the Sri Lankan army over LTTE, but it came at the huge cost of human life and other resources. Pakistan is also facing many such problem particularly in Balochistan and Sindh provinces. We are particularly interested in conflicts like the Maoists problem in India. We study it in an incumbent-rebel setup. However the line between the rebel and the terrorist as well as the line between the political instability and such conflict is not that clear.The origin of the Maoists in India can traced back to 1967. In a village of West Bengal state, Naxalbaari, a small group of farmers revolted against the local landlords. Owning to the origin place, it is also referred as the Naxalite movement. Through various chain of events, it has spread to the various parts of the country by 1970s and 80s. Currently it is affecting a large part of the country.

Comments

ProQuest Collection ID: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqm&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:28843039

Control Number

ISILib-TH397

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

http://dspace.isical.ac.in:8080/jspui/handle/10263/2146

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