Horizontal inequalities and conflict
The argument that conflict is driven by inequalities between groups rather than by poverty alone, and what the distinction means for organisations working in countries where the conflict is organised along group lines.
The argument
Poverty on its own does not predict conflict. Several of the poorest countries in the world are peaceful, and several conflicts have occurred in countries with middling incomes. The pattern that does predict conflict, according to this line of work, is inequality between groups that are identifiable: ethnic, religious, regional or linguistic. Where one group is systematically poorer, less represented in the state, less able to access services or less likely to hold public office, and where the boundary between groups is politically salient, the conditions for organised violence exist.
Two mechanisms carry the argument. The first is grievance: a group that is excluded has a shared reason to mobilise, and the shared identity makes mobilisation possible. The second is elite incentive: the leaders of an excluded group have something to gain from a conflict that changes the distribution, and the leaders of an included group have something to lose from one.
Why it mattered to aid agencies
Three practical consequences followed, and they are still the reason the paper is worth keeping.
Programming is not neutral with respect to group inequality. Assistance delivered through the state, through a particular region, or through partners aligned with one group will affect the distribution between groups whether or not that was intended. An organisation that does not consider the distribution will discover that its programme has been read as taking a side.
Staffing is part of the same question. Who an organisation employs, at which levels and in which locations, is visible to the communities it works with and is read as a statement about who the organisation is aligned with. It also determines which groups have access to the jobs and the income the programme creates.
Conflict analysis has to include the horizontal dimension. An assessment that describes poverty, displacement and humanitarian need without describing the relationship between groups will misjudge the risk to staff. The trigger for violence is frequently a specific event, an election, a census, a land decision or an appointment, and the assessment has to be able to see it coming.
For security management the conclusion is that the organisation's own footprint is part of the context it is assessing, and that a programme which is perceived as benefiting one group has changed the risk to everyone working on it.
Practical guidance and research on the security of humanitarian staff, for the organisations that send them.