Greed versus grievance

The phrase "greed versus grievance" or "greed and grievance" refer to the two baseline arguments put forward by scholars of armed conflict on the causes of civil war, though the argument has been extended to other forms of war.

"Greed" is shorthand for the argument that combatants in armed conflicts are motivated by a desire to better their situation, and perform an informal cost-benefit analysis in examining if the rewards of joining a rebellion are greater than not joining. "Grievance" stands for the argument that people rebel over issues of identity, e.g. ethnicity, religion, social class, etc., rather than over economics. In practice, even proponents of strong versions of these arguments admit that the opposing argument has some influence in the development of a conflict.

The "greed versus grievance" theory provides opposing arguments on the cause of civil war. Proponents of the greed argument posit that armed conflicts are caused by a combatants' desire for self-enrichment. These motivations are manifested in multiple ways, including economic gain through control of goods and resources or by increased power within a given state. Conflicts started through greed are often seen in states with negative economic growth and/or systemic poverty, as this implies limited state capacity to provide opposition groups with economic concessions as well as the likelihood of the absence of an effective military or police apparatus to contend with those seeking power or resources.

Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler wrote one of the seminal pieces defending greed over grievance. They found that factors that increase the military or financial viability of rebellion correlated with more instances of conflict than factors leading to grievances. Lootable natural resources such as diamonds, drugs, and timber were specifically cited as sources of financial wealth that cause conflict; thus confirming that countries with abundant natural resources have a higher risk of conflict. Collier and Hoeffler also make an important distinction between preferences and constraints in terms of circumstances that favor rebellions. Societies can be more prone to conflict because preferences for rebellion are unusually strong or because constraints on rebellion are unusually weak – the former being aligned with grievance and the latter with greed. These variables are important to establish because a potential rebel group might have grievances that align with rebellion, but if they are in a state with excessive constraints on rebellion there is little chance at success.

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