Abstract
Most aid spending by governments seeking to rebuild social and political
order is based on an opportunity-cost theory of distracting potential
recruits. The logic is that gainfully employed young men are less
likely to participate in political violence, implying a positive
correlation between unemployment and violence in locations with active
insurgencies. The authors test that prediction in Afghanistan, Iraq,
and the Philippines, using survey data on unemployment and two newly
available measures of insurgency: (1) attacks against government
and allied forces and (2) violence that kill civilians. Contrary
to the opportunity-cost theory, the data emphatically reject a positive
correlation between unemployment and attacks against government and
allied forces (p < .05 percent). There is no significant relationship
between unemployment and the rate of insurgent attacks that kill
civilians. The authors identify several potential explanations, introducing
the notion of insurgent precision to adjudicate between the possibilities
that predation on one hand, and security measures and information
costs on the other, account for the negative correlation between
unemployment and violence in these three conflicts.
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