Trade Openness and Intra-State Conflicts - under what circumstances do openness influence the risk of an outbreak of intra-state conflicts?

The aim of this report is to empirically examine if and under what circumstances an openness through trade with the rest of the world will influence the risk of an outbreak of armed intra-state conflicts and whether this effect is related to the intensity of the conflict. Using a statistical method (the logit method) a quantitative analysis is made, where data mainly from the World Bank and UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset are used. The results show us that being open to trade has a significant influence on the risk of an outbreak of civil war, regardless of how open the country is or if it is a poor or rich country. The effect may be reduced if the country exports primary commodities, which might have to do with the coding of civil war. The analysis also shows that openness does not affect the outbreak of minor internal conflicts, with an intensity of less then a thousand battle related deaths. Our results confirm the theory shown by Paul collier and Anke Hoeffler, which emphasizes the importance of rebel financing. To reduce future social and economic costs caused by civil war, countries should therefore, according to the results of this study, be more open through trade. The study also includes several appendices, which inter alia discusses the statistical method and presents a survey of armed conflicts 1960-2005.