To cite this work: Katy Ling. (2018). “Does Demographic Change Explain African Conflicts?”, katyling.com
P.S - Please don't plagiarise this essay... Turnitin will flag it if you do!
Does demographic change explain African conflicts?
Africa has experienced vast demographic change since the start of the twentieth century which has increased the overall population and changed the age structure. When considered in isolation, the extent to which changing demography can explain post-colonial conflict is limited. However, assessing demography in tandem with the myriad of other factors which explain contemporary conflicts in Africa – weak states, resource wealth and economic inequality – demographic change does contribute to the narrative. Importantly, population change helps to understand why African conflicts took the shape they did, especially in terms of the brutality of methods used. To investigate the interrelationship between demography and conflict, the influence of youth bulges on conflict will be assessed in the context of the greed-grievance literature. Next, the surge in the number of surplus males as a result of polygamy and the exacerbating effect this had on localised conflict and Islamic terrorism will be considered. Lastly, resource scarcity, as a result of accelerated population growth, and the consequence of migration are analysed in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Before the effect of demographic change on conflict can be explored, the actual shift of the size, structure and composition of the African population must be summarised. Pre-colonial Africa’s population density and growth-rate was low relative to other regions, but, the end of the 19th century saw substantial population growth, mainly from increased employment and lower mortality as a result of European technologies.[1] In the post-colonial period, Africa’s population has continued to swell as it moves through the stages of the classic demographic-transition model. Declining death rates – resulting from the introduction of new medicines and better sanitation – paired with a sustained high birth rate produced this population explosion. To demonstrate, in 1970, the population of the continent was 366 500, by 2015 it was just under 1.2 million and is projected to more than double by 2050.[2] A consequence of this demographic shift has been the skewing of Africa’s age structure towards large youth cohorts. For example, the median age in Africa currently stands at 19 years old, an increase from 17 in 1990, compared to Europe’s 41 years.[3] The relationship between this rapid demographic shift and conflict in Africa will now be analysed.
Termed a ‘youth bulge’, the exceptionally large cohort of 15 to 24 year olds in Africa has been presented as an explanation for the region’s susceptibility to conflict, as it increases both the motivation for and opportunity of political violence.[4] Most simply, the mere increase in the number of young people, especially males, is seen as raising the risk of conflict as they present a large and attractive pool for recruitment by rebel organisations. Youth bulges speak to the ‘greed’ literature on conflict, on the basis that a sudden influx of people into the working age population leads to high levels of unemployment and puts a strain on education resources.[5] This lowers the opportunity-cost of joining a rebellion, as there are few alternative-income opportunities, making it easier for a rebel organisation to build a labour force.[6] For example, the rebel group the AFL in Uganda used to pay US$150 per month to its recruits, a substantial incentive in the poverty-stricken country.[7] Alternatively, in line with the grievance argument, high youth unemployment also acts as a motivator to join rebel groups. Contrary to Collier’s hypothesis that higher levels of education will decrease the risk of conflict, Goldstone argues that slow economic growth leaves educated youth dissatisfied in jobs they are overqualified for.[8] Moreover, the accelerated growth of the African population has produced grievances through urban crowding and degradation of resources. This is linked to the relative-deprivation theory, whereby people feel they deserve more than they are currently getting producing popular discontent and culminating in violence.[9]
Whether the ‘greed’ or ‘grievance’ argument is the most convincing, both indicate that youth bulges should increase conflict. The civil war in Sierra Leone is one demonstration of a conflict with a decidedly youthful composition; child soldiers, many younger than 15 years old, made up 50 percent of the RUF/SL (Revolutionary United Front) and one-fifth of the government army.[10] Rebel groups quickly discovered that children were easy recruits when social conditions were poor. Perhaps this was one reason the RUF/SL targeted the already inadequate educational institutions, with just 13% of schools left operational at the end of the war.[11] With little to no opportunity to meet educational aspirations and not enough jobs to go around, joining an organisation that offered an alternative to poverty was an attractive option. To demonstrate, many of the young soldiers that partook in the Sierra Leone civil war did so voluntarily because “[j]oining a militia group is both meal ticket and substitute education”.[12] Therefore, both sides were able to recruit – willingly and unwillingly – a great number of young people which the high fertility rate in Sierra Leone provided in abundance.
The youth bulge does not explain the onset of war in Sierra Leone, rather the deterioration of state institutions and resource greed are generally noted for the outbreak in 1991. However, the surplus of youth does elucidate the shape the conflict took, in terms of the brutality of the combatants and the methods used. The civil war is infamous for the violence used: amputation, mass rape and kidnapping were common features. Anthropological research suggests that young people, particularly children, are more reckless with human life which helps to understand the violent character of the 11 year war. In interviews with child soldiers, Peters and Richards found that under-age combatants were sometimes casual about their wartime behaviour, fighting and killing without reserve and, in the absence of other stimulation, some children treated war like play.[13] Moreover, whilst there is debate over child soldiers’ agency, it is accepted that young people are more vulnerable to indoctrination by an intimidating force on account of psychological development. Inasmuch, even if abducted against their will, many children became loyal to the insurgent groups, seeing them as a substitute for family.[14] Notwithstanding, children are more easy to forcibly control and kidnap owing to the simple fact that adult rebels are stronger and bigger. Therefore, the youth bulge provided more ‘boots on the ground’ for insurgent groups and created a wider and more accessible recruitment pool.
The youth bulge in African countries has been reasonably even in terms of sex. Despite this, in countries where polygamy is still practiced, there exists a surplus of single males relative to single females. Multiple wives are often taken by the rich elite, owing to a substantial bride-price, leaving the poorest men single and desperate. For example, in South Sudan, the declining availability of women has inflated bride prices to as high as 300 cows, causing worried bachelors to steal cattle from nearby tribes, which often results in frequent and bloody fighting.[15] High levels of these left-over males supposedly raise the risk of conflict because they will more readily participate in ‘status-elevating’ and ‘sex-seeking’ behaviours in order to secure a mate;[16] after all, ‘there are few things more motivating to a young adult male than the threat of complete reproductive failure’.[17] The kidnapping of thousands of girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram exemplifies this behaviour. Many of the abducted girls were forcibly married off to the recruits, a great prize for poor men in a country where polygamy is rife. Moreover, this marital imbalance could explain the pervasiveness of rape in African conflicts. Much like child soldiers, single, poor men with little chance of finding a wife are easy targets for militant groups; linking back to the greed literature, if joining a rebel organisation increases one’s low chance of marrying, it is an appealing option. Hence, Africa’s population boom exacerbated the problems yielded by polygamy by producing more wives for the older elites and leaving more resentful men to be radicalised.
Polygamy’s effect in Africa can also be seen in local-scale and tribal conflict. The status gained from joining the RUF/SL gave previously submissive men power over the local elites they were in debt to for adultery crimes, and inverting the oppressive social order.[18] The methods of violence used in the war could, therefore, be explained as acts of revenge. The amputation of hands in particular can be seen as a stripping of status, removing the victims ability to farm and vote. Therefore, changing demography placed a local meaning on conflict in Africa. Linking back to the grievance argument, the youth bulge interacted with polygamous culture in Africa to produce social class inequality which propelled the socially excluded youth to engage in violence.
Moreover, polygamy in Islamic societies has been cited as a motivator to join fundamentalist groups and engage in terrorism, specifically suicide bombing, on account of the bombers being venerated in heaven with the promise of 72 virgins.[19] Consistent with the theory, suicide terrorists are typically young, single and male;[20] one can see why the guarantee of reproductive success in the afterlife is seen as a solution to the lack of marriage partners in polygamous societies. Whilst this issue is more widely noted in the Middle East, suicide bombings are an unfortunate occurrence in Islamic Africa. For example, a suicide attack killed 12 in Nigeria in January 2018 and another in Somalia in late 2017 was the worst attack to date in the Horn of Africa, killing 189 people.[21] Whilst an oversimplification to explain terrorism solely through demographic change, the youth bulge can be seen as contributing to terrorist related conflict in Africa by providing jihadists with recruits.
Another consequence of demographic change in Africa is the strain it has put on natural resources. Rooted in the Malthusian theory of population, rapidly growing populations diminish and degrade resources as resources reproduce at a slower rate than the population. This results in environmental scarcity, which has been linked to conflict, especially over resources needed for personal survival such as water and land. For example, Green cites Africa’s increasing population density as limiting farmland and resulting in rural-rural migration which produced ‘sons of the soil’ conflict.[22] In the case of the DRC, the Kivu areas experienced disproportionately high population growth as good quality land and its location on the border of Rwanda drew both internal migrants and refugees from Rwanda.[23] Debates over land rights and citizenship status between the ‘indigenous’ communities and Congolese of Rwandan descent led to local conflicts expressed over ethnic lines throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, overflow from the Rwandan genocide brought two million refugees which increased the strain on land resources and intensified ethnic differences.[24] This escalated the regional armed conflict which then fed into the First Congo War of 1996-97. Thus, demographic change on the local scale – from migration in particular – can put a strain on environmental resources, leading to conflict which can proliferate into national war. However, the DRC demonstrates that for demographic change to be an explanation of conflict, it must be considered alongside other factors which together produce an environment disposed to war. For example, although the population growth caused disputes over land ownership, weak state judicial institutions did not mitigate the ongoing tensions, instead, adversaries were left to resolve the issues themselves, through armed force.
In conclusion, demographic change does contribute to the explanation of conflict in Africa, however, this is only when the demographic change interacts with other causal factors. Demography influences conflict indirectly, through low unemployment, providing a large recruitment pool, resource scarcity and migration. The nature of conflict has been shaped by the youthful structure of African societies, especially the brutality of methods as well as the treatment of women. Structural changes to the economy and politics of a country can mitigate the repercussions of the demographic shift in Africa. For example, if a country were able to develop economically, there would be less youth unemployment which would decrease the attractiveness of joining a rebel group. Therefore, demography is not destiny and conflict is not wholly defined by population change.
[1] Herschel Grossman and Murat Iyigun. 1996. “Population Increase and the End of Colonialism”, Economica, 64(255), p. 491.
[2] United Nations Population Division. N.D. The UN Population Database [online]. https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Henrik Urdal. 2006. “A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence”, International Studies Quarterly, 50(3), p. 607.
[5] Sanders Korenman and David Neumark. 2000. “Cohort Crowding and Youth Labor Markets” in National Bureau of Economic research (ed.) Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries, (Massachusetts: NBER) pp. 57-106.
[6] Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler. 2004. “Greed and grievance in civil war”, Oxford Economic Papers, 56(4), p. 569.
[7] Paul Collier. 2000. “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy”, World Bank Paper, p. 17.
[8] Jack A. Goldstone. 2002. “Population and Security: How Demographic Change Can Lead to Violent Conflict”, Journal of International Affairs, 56(1), p. 4.
[9] Ted Robert Gurr. 1970. Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
[10] Jan Goodwin. 1999. “Sierra Leone is No Place to be Young”, The New York Times Magazine [online]. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/14/magazine/sierra-leone-is-no-place-to-be-young.html.
[11] John Amman and James O’Donnell. 2011.“The Sierra Leone Teachers Union: Labor in a Post‐Conflict Society”, The Journal of Labor and Society, 14(1), p. 59.
[12] Krijn Peters and Paul Richards. 1998. “’Why We Fight’: Voices of Youth Combatants in Sierra Leone”, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 68(2), p. 187.
[13] Ibid., p. 186.
[14] Ibid., p. 210.
[15] The Economist. 2017. “The link between polygamy and war”, The Economist [online]
https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732695-plural-marriage-bred-inequality-begets-violence-link-between-polygamy-and-war.
[16] Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson. 2012. “The puzzle of monogamous marriage”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1589), p. 660.
[17] Bradley A. Thayer. 2009. “Considering Population and War: a Critical and Neglected Aspect of Conflict Studies”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1532), p. 3084.
[18] Esther Mokuwa, Maarten Voors, Erwin Bulte and Paul Richards. 2011. “Peasant Grievance and Insurgency in Sierra Leone: Judicial Serfdom as a Driver of Conflict”, African Affairs, 110(440), p. 361.
[19] Thayer, “Considering Population”, p. 3090.
[20] Alan Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa. 2007. “Ten politically incorrect truths about human nature” Psychology Today, 40 (4), p. 93.
[21] Abdi Guled. 2017. “Massive suicide bombing kills, injures hundreds in Somali capital of Mogadishu”, The Sydney Morning Herald [online]. https://www.smh.com.au/world/massive-suicide-bombing-kills-injures-hundreds-in-somali-capital-of-mogadishu-20171015-gz1ftp.html.
[22] Elliott Green. 2012. “The Political Demography of Conflict in Modern Africa”, Civil Wars, 14(4), p. 477.
[23] Severine Autesserre. 2008.“The Trouble with Congo: How Local Disputes Fuel Regional Conflict”, Foreign Affairs, 87(3), pp. 101.
[24] Green, “Political Demography”, p. 489.
P.S - Please don't plagiarise this essay... Turnitin will flag it if you do!
Does demographic change explain African conflicts?
Africa has experienced vast demographic change since the start of the twentieth century which has increased the overall population and changed the age structure. When considered in isolation, the extent to which changing demography can explain post-colonial conflict is limited. However, assessing demography in tandem with the myriad of other factors which explain contemporary conflicts in Africa – weak states, resource wealth and economic inequality – demographic change does contribute to the narrative. Importantly, population change helps to understand why African conflicts took the shape they did, especially in terms of the brutality of methods used. To investigate the interrelationship between demography and conflict, the influence of youth bulges on conflict will be assessed in the context of the greed-grievance literature. Next, the surge in the number of surplus males as a result of polygamy and the exacerbating effect this had on localised conflict and Islamic terrorism will be considered. Lastly, resource scarcity, as a result of accelerated population growth, and the consequence of migration are analysed in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Before the effect of demographic change on conflict can be explored, the actual shift of the size, structure and composition of the African population must be summarised. Pre-colonial Africa’s population density and growth-rate was low relative to other regions, but, the end of the 19th century saw substantial population growth, mainly from increased employment and lower mortality as a result of European technologies.[1] In the post-colonial period, Africa’s population has continued to swell as it moves through the stages of the classic demographic-transition model. Declining death rates – resulting from the introduction of new medicines and better sanitation – paired with a sustained high birth rate produced this population explosion. To demonstrate, in 1970, the population of the continent was 366 500, by 2015 it was just under 1.2 million and is projected to more than double by 2050.[2] A consequence of this demographic shift has been the skewing of Africa’s age structure towards large youth cohorts. For example, the median age in Africa currently stands at 19 years old, an increase from 17 in 1990, compared to Europe’s 41 years.[3] The relationship between this rapid demographic shift and conflict in Africa will now be analysed.
Termed a ‘youth bulge’, the exceptionally large cohort of 15 to 24 year olds in Africa has been presented as an explanation for the region’s susceptibility to conflict, as it increases both the motivation for and opportunity of political violence.[4] Most simply, the mere increase in the number of young people, especially males, is seen as raising the risk of conflict as they present a large and attractive pool for recruitment by rebel organisations. Youth bulges speak to the ‘greed’ literature on conflict, on the basis that a sudden influx of people into the working age population leads to high levels of unemployment and puts a strain on education resources.[5] This lowers the opportunity-cost of joining a rebellion, as there are few alternative-income opportunities, making it easier for a rebel organisation to build a labour force.[6] For example, the rebel group the AFL in Uganda used to pay US$150 per month to its recruits, a substantial incentive in the poverty-stricken country.[7] Alternatively, in line with the grievance argument, high youth unemployment also acts as a motivator to join rebel groups. Contrary to Collier’s hypothesis that higher levels of education will decrease the risk of conflict, Goldstone argues that slow economic growth leaves educated youth dissatisfied in jobs they are overqualified for.[8] Moreover, the accelerated growth of the African population has produced grievances through urban crowding and degradation of resources. This is linked to the relative-deprivation theory, whereby people feel they deserve more than they are currently getting producing popular discontent and culminating in violence.[9]
Whether the ‘greed’ or ‘grievance’ argument is the most convincing, both indicate that youth bulges should increase conflict. The civil war in Sierra Leone is one demonstration of a conflict with a decidedly youthful composition; child soldiers, many younger than 15 years old, made up 50 percent of the RUF/SL (Revolutionary United Front) and one-fifth of the government army.[10] Rebel groups quickly discovered that children were easy recruits when social conditions were poor. Perhaps this was one reason the RUF/SL targeted the already inadequate educational institutions, with just 13% of schools left operational at the end of the war.[11] With little to no opportunity to meet educational aspirations and not enough jobs to go around, joining an organisation that offered an alternative to poverty was an attractive option. To demonstrate, many of the young soldiers that partook in the Sierra Leone civil war did so voluntarily because “[j]oining a militia group is both meal ticket and substitute education”.[12] Therefore, both sides were able to recruit – willingly and unwillingly – a great number of young people which the high fertility rate in Sierra Leone provided in abundance.
The youth bulge does not explain the onset of war in Sierra Leone, rather the deterioration of state institutions and resource greed are generally noted for the outbreak in 1991. However, the surplus of youth does elucidate the shape the conflict took, in terms of the brutality of the combatants and the methods used. The civil war is infamous for the violence used: amputation, mass rape and kidnapping were common features. Anthropological research suggests that young people, particularly children, are more reckless with human life which helps to understand the violent character of the 11 year war. In interviews with child soldiers, Peters and Richards found that under-age combatants were sometimes casual about their wartime behaviour, fighting and killing without reserve and, in the absence of other stimulation, some children treated war like play.[13] Moreover, whilst there is debate over child soldiers’ agency, it is accepted that young people are more vulnerable to indoctrination by an intimidating force on account of psychological development. Inasmuch, even if abducted against their will, many children became loyal to the insurgent groups, seeing them as a substitute for family.[14] Notwithstanding, children are more easy to forcibly control and kidnap owing to the simple fact that adult rebels are stronger and bigger. Therefore, the youth bulge provided more ‘boots on the ground’ for insurgent groups and created a wider and more accessible recruitment pool.
The youth bulge in African countries has been reasonably even in terms of sex. Despite this, in countries where polygamy is still practiced, there exists a surplus of single males relative to single females. Multiple wives are often taken by the rich elite, owing to a substantial bride-price, leaving the poorest men single and desperate. For example, in South Sudan, the declining availability of women has inflated bride prices to as high as 300 cows, causing worried bachelors to steal cattle from nearby tribes, which often results in frequent and bloody fighting.[15] High levels of these left-over males supposedly raise the risk of conflict because they will more readily participate in ‘status-elevating’ and ‘sex-seeking’ behaviours in order to secure a mate;[16] after all, ‘there are few things more motivating to a young adult male than the threat of complete reproductive failure’.[17] The kidnapping of thousands of girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram exemplifies this behaviour. Many of the abducted girls were forcibly married off to the recruits, a great prize for poor men in a country where polygamy is rife. Moreover, this marital imbalance could explain the pervasiveness of rape in African conflicts. Much like child soldiers, single, poor men with little chance of finding a wife are easy targets for militant groups; linking back to the greed literature, if joining a rebel organisation increases one’s low chance of marrying, it is an appealing option. Hence, Africa’s population boom exacerbated the problems yielded by polygamy by producing more wives for the older elites and leaving more resentful men to be radicalised.
Polygamy’s effect in Africa can also be seen in local-scale and tribal conflict. The status gained from joining the RUF/SL gave previously submissive men power over the local elites they were in debt to for adultery crimes, and inverting the oppressive social order.[18] The methods of violence used in the war could, therefore, be explained as acts of revenge. The amputation of hands in particular can be seen as a stripping of status, removing the victims ability to farm and vote. Therefore, changing demography placed a local meaning on conflict in Africa. Linking back to the grievance argument, the youth bulge interacted with polygamous culture in Africa to produce social class inequality which propelled the socially excluded youth to engage in violence.
Moreover, polygamy in Islamic societies has been cited as a motivator to join fundamentalist groups and engage in terrorism, specifically suicide bombing, on account of the bombers being venerated in heaven with the promise of 72 virgins.[19] Consistent with the theory, suicide terrorists are typically young, single and male;[20] one can see why the guarantee of reproductive success in the afterlife is seen as a solution to the lack of marriage partners in polygamous societies. Whilst this issue is more widely noted in the Middle East, suicide bombings are an unfortunate occurrence in Islamic Africa. For example, a suicide attack killed 12 in Nigeria in January 2018 and another in Somalia in late 2017 was the worst attack to date in the Horn of Africa, killing 189 people.[21] Whilst an oversimplification to explain terrorism solely through demographic change, the youth bulge can be seen as contributing to terrorist related conflict in Africa by providing jihadists with recruits.
Another consequence of demographic change in Africa is the strain it has put on natural resources. Rooted in the Malthusian theory of population, rapidly growing populations diminish and degrade resources as resources reproduce at a slower rate than the population. This results in environmental scarcity, which has been linked to conflict, especially over resources needed for personal survival such as water and land. For example, Green cites Africa’s increasing population density as limiting farmland and resulting in rural-rural migration which produced ‘sons of the soil’ conflict.[22] In the case of the DRC, the Kivu areas experienced disproportionately high population growth as good quality land and its location on the border of Rwanda drew both internal migrants and refugees from Rwanda.[23] Debates over land rights and citizenship status between the ‘indigenous’ communities and Congolese of Rwandan descent led to local conflicts expressed over ethnic lines throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s, overflow from the Rwandan genocide brought two million refugees which increased the strain on land resources and intensified ethnic differences.[24] This escalated the regional armed conflict which then fed into the First Congo War of 1996-97. Thus, demographic change on the local scale – from migration in particular – can put a strain on environmental resources, leading to conflict which can proliferate into national war. However, the DRC demonstrates that for demographic change to be an explanation of conflict, it must be considered alongside other factors which together produce an environment disposed to war. For example, although the population growth caused disputes over land ownership, weak state judicial institutions did not mitigate the ongoing tensions, instead, adversaries were left to resolve the issues themselves, through armed force.
In conclusion, demographic change does contribute to the explanation of conflict in Africa, however, this is only when the demographic change interacts with other causal factors. Demography influences conflict indirectly, through low unemployment, providing a large recruitment pool, resource scarcity and migration. The nature of conflict has been shaped by the youthful structure of African societies, especially the brutality of methods as well as the treatment of women. Structural changes to the economy and politics of a country can mitigate the repercussions of the demographic shift in Africa. For example, if a country were able to develop economically, there would be less youth unemployment which would decrease the attractiveness of joining a rebel group. Therefore, demography is not destiny and conflict is not wholly defined by population change.
[1] Herschel Grossman and Murat Iyigun. 1996. “Population Increase and the End of Colonialism”, Economica, 64(255), p. 491.
[2] United Nations Population Division. N.D. The UN Population Database [online]. https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Henrik Urdal. 2006. “A Clash of Generations? Youth Bulges and Political Violence”, International Studies Quarterly, 50(3), p. 607.
[5] Sanders Korenman and David Neumark. 2000. “Cohort Crowding and Youth Labor Markets” in National Bureau of Economic research (ed.) Youth Employment and Joblessness in Advanced Countries, (Massachusetts: NBER) pp. 57-106.
[6] Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler. 2004. “Greed and grievance in civil war”, Oxford Economic Papers, 56(4), p. 569.
[7] Paul Collier. 2000. “Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and their Implications for Policy”, World Bank Paper, p. 17.
[8] Jack A. Goldstone. 2002. “Population and Security: How Demographic Change Can Lead to Violent Conflict”, Journal of International Affairs, 56(1), p. 4.
[9] Ted Robert Gurr. 1970. Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press)
[10] Jan Goodwin. 1999. “Sierra Leone is No Place to be Young”, The New York Times Magazine [online]. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/14/magazine/sierra-leone-is-no-place-to-be-young.html.
[11] John Amman and James O’Donnell. 2011.“The Sierra Leone Teachers Union: Labor in a Post‐Conflict Society”, The Journal of Labor and Society, 14(1), p. 59.
[12] Krijn Peters and Paul Richards. 1998. “’Why We Fight’: Voices of Youth Combatants in Sierra Leone”, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 68(2), p. 187.
[13] Ibid., p. 186.
[14] Ibid., p. 210.
[15] The Economist. 2017. “The link between polygamy and war”, The Economist [online]
https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732695-plural-marriage-bred-inequality-begets-violence-link-between-polygamy-and-war.
[16] Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd and Peter J. Richerson. 2012. “The puzzle of monogamous marriage”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1589), p. 660.
[17] Bradley A. Thayer. 2009. “Considering Population and War: a Critical and Neglected Aspect of Conflict Studies”, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1532), p. 3084.
[18] Esther Mokuwa, Maarten Voors, Erwin Bulte and Paul Richards. 2011. “Peasant Grievance and Insurgency in Sierra Leone: Judicial Serfdom as a Driver of Conflict”, African Affairs, 110(440), p. 361.
[19] Thayer, “Considering Population”, p. 3090.
[20] Alan Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa. 2007. “Ten politically incorrect truths about human nature” Psychology Today, 40 (4), p. 93.
[21] Abdi Guled. 2017. “Massive suicide bombing kills, injures hundreds in Somali capital of Mogadishu”, The Sydney Morning Herald [online]. https://www.smh.com.au/world/massive-suicide-bombing-kills-injures-hundreds-in-somali-capital-of-mogadishu-20171015-gz1ftp.html.
[22] Elliott Green. 2012. “The Political Demography of Conflict in Modern Africa”, Civil Wars, 14(4), p. 477.
[23] Severine Autesserre. 2008.“The Trouble with Congo: How Local Disputes Fuel Regional Conflict”, Foreign Affairs, 87(3), pp. 101.
[24] Green, “Political Demography”, p. 489.