the bottom billion or a logical argument against rebellions

8/4/2019 The Bottom Billion or a Logical Argument Against Rebellions

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The bottom billion or a logical argument against rebellions

A review of:Collier, P. (2007). The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and WhatCan Be Done About It. Oxford: Oxford University Press, $35.00, Hardback, 224 pp.ISBN: 978-0-19-531145-7

By:

Saed Kakei, Ph.D. Student,

CARD 5000 DL1/Book Review Assignment

Professor Cheryl Duckworth, Ph.D.

Nova Southeastern Universitys Department of Conflict Analysis & Resolution PhD Program

September 18, 2011


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The bottom billion or a logical argument against rebellions

When a notable scholar writes a book, he or she usually uses a holistic approach for the

topic of his or her book. Paul Collier,1 a celebrated scholar whose work rarely covers a

thorough understanding of the multidimensional conflict, has written a controversial book

in 2007 on the failing states with the title of The Bottom Billion.

In this book, Collier intuitively argues that the proper attention for todays poorest

countries should be on development efforts. This is because citizens of these countries

have not been empowered to show some economic growth. According to Collier, these

sovereign countries are forming fifty-eight states and are home to fewer than one billion

of the six billion population of our world in 2007. Collier provides that seventy percent of

the bottom billion live in Africa. Therefore, for proper referencing, he developed the term

Africa + for the poorest countries of the world that happen to develop far less

governing experience (2007, p.7). Collier goes on to brand leaders of the bottom billion

as villains, crooked politicians, and rebels who are starving children (P. 7). With

such haughtiness, Collier attempts to hide faults of the past colonialist powers and greed

of current neocolonialists which left permanent damages on the lives of people residing

in the worlds poorest countries.

In Part 2 of his book, made of five parts comprising eleven chapters, Collier

argues that the poorest countries are failing because of one or more of the four traps. He

identifies these traps as civil war, the natural resources trap, landlocked with bad

neighbors, and bad governance in a small country (Pp. 17-75). Throughout his book,

1Paul Collier is a British Professor of Economics at Oxford University. He was the head of research at the

World Bank. Collier is an expert on the underdeveloped countries of Sub-Saharan Africa.


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Collier mentions statistical data from research studies without providing a single figure,

continuum or chart to help explain his claims. This is not to discount the twenty-two

references provided under the rubric of Research on Which This Book Is Based (Pp.

193-95).

Collier states that countries of the bottom billion did miss the boat because they

didnt show economic growth. Besides, when it comes to international trade

competitions, these failing states are in no position to compete with fast developing

countries like China and India. Collier provides that China and India have been actively

supplying western markets with competitive yet cheap labour intensive goods and

services (Pp. 79-96). He furthers that, except for exploiting natural resources, private

capital from developed countries will not easily flow to these troubling countries.

Consequently, the only viable option to keep residents of the Worlds poorest countries

from sinking into further miseries is to keep the flow of international aid (Pp. 46-8).

Collier suggests that for international aid to make a difference, checks and

balances must be put in place (P. 100). Otherwise, foreign aid will end up in the wrong

hands funding the wrong causes. To manage aid for turnaround purposes, Collier

suggests economic incentives should follow strict reforms (P. 103). He elaborates that

with governance conditionality and careful capacity building measures, more aid could

achieve turnarounds (P. 110; p. 184). Else, fragile turnarounds could tip backward and

become liabilities for aid providing developed countries. For example, trained with

western aid, skilled but unemployed citizens of the bottom billion will end-up migrating

to the west (Pp. 93-6). Then, these migrants not only will sympathize with rebellions


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back in their home countries, but also may involve in terrorist activities against their host

states!

Collier concludes his aid argument by stating that aid alone will not save the

failing states from the four traps that he identified. Therefore, he suggests a few other

options. Most strikingly, by committing a small size mandated military intervention to

last no less than ten years (P. 124). In concert with this, Collier recommends introducing

changes to laws and charters to fight corruption, strengthen codes of accountability and

transparency, and introduce charters on democracy (Pp. 135-56). Finally, he asks for

diversifying failing states export capacities and broadening their access to the markets of

the developed countries with trade preferences (P. 167).

Although much of Colliers argument about the economic causes of conflict is

noteworthy, it is equally important to identify some of the pitfalls which the thesis of his

book holds. For example, Colliers four traps are all based on a single yet important cause

of conflict. That cause undoubtedly is economic. However, without meeting the

psychological needs of humans, the economyas a tangible needmay not be part of

the core values of any society. Collier not only ridicules this, but also he sacks it. To

augment economics as the most critical cause of conflict, Collier sarcastically says: I

hear the phrase root causes a lot. It is bandied about at many of the conferences on

conflict to which I am invited. Surprisingly frequently, a hypothesized root cause turns

out to be predictable if you already know the hobbyhorse of the speaker (P. 22). With

this statement, Collier indirectly tells his readers that he takes everything at face value. In

other words, Collier uses economic statistics based on quantitative research methods to

assert what he perceives as the only cause for conflict.


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Collier drew his description of the proneness to war based on variables of

intrastate wars. To his surmise, abstract data taken from the Correlates of War (COW) led

him to conclude that [a]s an approximation, a typical low-income country faces a risk of

civil war of about 14 percent in any five-year period (P. 20). Collier draws his

conclusion from this description assuming that because low income means poverty, and

low growth means hopelessness, young unemployed men in pursuit of easy money

become recruits for rebel armies (P. 20).

As a former Kurdish rebel myself, I find such a conclusion not only faulty, but

also distastefully offensive. Just as not all economists think and work for a symmetric

motive, not all rebels fight for a similar cause. If only Collier be fair in his conflict

studies, he will surely see a conflict as a multidimensional event occurring between two

or more interacting yet incompatible parties while trying to achieve their intended goals.

In other words, not all conflicts have economic causes. Also, not all rebels and their

rebellions are economically motivated. I am sure that Collier knows the various

differences of human needs and interests. If not, he could read them from the work of

Abraham Maslow (1970).

It is a common knowledge that governments, as well as rebellion organizations,

around the worldbe them democratic, autocratic or otherwise; do not release true

figures regarding their intrastate civil war casualties. This is because casualties have

political, social and economic consequences. Therefore, data collected by the COW

project on combat casualties of wars occurred from 1816 to 2007 is highly questionable.

It is either based on statistical assumptions or represents abstracts taken from the warring

parties. For instance, Version4.1 of the Intrastate War Data (Sarkees & Wayman, 2010)


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provides inaccurate data on Kurdish rebellions in Iraq.2 When I compared the COWs

data on other Iraqi intrastate wars as Kurds being a party to, I discovered deliberate data

manipulation as well as critical data exclusion. Against all historical records on Iraq, the

authors of the COW project are accusing the Kurds for massacring 1,000 Assyrians in

1933. Additionally, their collected data holds the Kurds responsible for initiating two

intrastate wars. More strikingly, however, the data does not show any records for Saddam

Husseins usage of chemical gas against Kurdish civilians and their Peshmarga forces

(freedom fighters) in 1987, 1988, and 1989.3

As widely reported, the fall of Halabjathen had a population of 65,000 Kurds

into the hands of the Peshmarga forces, had driving Saddam to his insanity. On March 16,

1988, the deposed Iraqi tyrant permitted his cousin, Ali Hassan Al-Majeed (a.k.a.

Chemical Ali), to bomb the town by deadly combinations of chemical gas. The instant

outcome of the massacre was at least 5,000 innocent civilians and approximately 350

Peshmargas. Therefore, if the COW statistics represent a body of comprehensive data,

as hailed by Collier, then why critical data had been manipulated and omitted? One

wonders that if the quality of the data on Kurdish rebellions is problematic as such, what

2Version 4.1 of the Intrastate War Data released by the COW in 2010 does not show any records on two

Kurdish rebellions occurred during the first half of the twentieth century. The first rebellion is known as the1919-21 Sheikh Mahmoud Hafidh rebellion against the British Colonial occupation of Iraq. The secondrebellion is known as the 1934-35 Barzan rebellion. Mullah Mustafa Barzani led this rebellion againstGreat Britains backed Iraqi monarchy. Data collected by the British Foreign Office on these two intrastatewars show annual combat casualties exceeding the threshold of 1,000 combat casualties in a given year set

by the authors of the COW.3Celebrated students concede that unless a warring party is guilty of a crime, sustains heavy casualties, and

feels desperate to survive, weapons of mass killings may never be a conventional choice for such a party.The main reason why Saddams regime decided to gas the Kurds from late 1986 until early 1989 wasbecause the Peshmarga forces, or Kurdish rebels as Collier wishes to call them, had changed their hit andrun tactics to embrace a front-line war kinetics. With such a manoeuvre, Kurdish rebels were able to kill atleast 10,000 Iraqi soldiers during the said period. Additionally, they were able to liberate seven Kurdishtowns each with a population of at least 20,000. As for the rebels themselves, they lost fewer than 1,000armed Peshmargas. For more on this subject, see David McDowalls 3rd edition book titled: A ModernHistory of the Kurds, P.p. 352-63.


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about the quality of data in relation to so many other non-state actors involved in

intrastate wars.

Collier wholeheartedly believes that with semi-autocratic reforms enforced by

governance conditionality and intended aid packages, the failing states could be saved.

If not, he is of the opinion that these failing states could be bombed and occupied with

limited yet long lasting military interventions. Ironically, however, as Collier has

identified the economic traps of the bottom billion, he also has showing the reader some

of his own communication traps. The communication traps of Collier include: name-

calling (e.g., villains and crooked politicians), inapt questioning (e.g., Ask each third-

world army where it got its money? (P. xii)), and logical argument (e.g., Each rich, resource

hungry country is locked into a prisoners dilemma of inaction (P. 52)).

Bibliography

Collier, P. (2007). The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and WhatCan Be Done About It. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Maslow, A. (1970).Motivation and personality (2nd ed.).New York: Harper & Row.McDowall, D. (2007).A Modern History of the Kurds. London: I.B. Tauris.Sarkees, M. R., & Wayman, F. (2010).Resort to War: 1816 - 2007. CQ Press.

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