Contempormy Conflict Amlysis in PerxpeCnecnve 11independent variable in its own right. Collier found that the "presence of
primary commodity exports massively increases the risks of civil conflict"?
In addition, the cost of attracting recruits to rebellion are measured in terms
of both the "proportion of young men in the society" as well as the 'endow-
ment of educati~n"'~~ In this regard, while a high proportion of young men
increases the risk of conflict, "if we double the proportion of young men its
effect can be offset by increasing the average educational endowment by
around two months': In fact, "each year of education reduces the risk of con-
flict by around 20%".55 This leads to the conclusion that,
"... the greed-based approach to conflict would argue that it is the
underlying economic conditions which create the risk of conflict. Some
societies will have repeated conflicts, not because of the cumulative
legacy of the desire for vengeance, but because war is profitable for
some groups."56In fact, although the costs of civil wars on an economy are particularly high
(on average as much as a 2.2% decline in growth per annum), there are a
number of possibilities for enrichment and profit allowing "various identifi-
able groups [to] do well out of war'ts7 There are several cases where this may
happen: war enhances the opportunistic character in business affecting busi-
ness practices; it increases criminality, affecting 'asset-holding' and forcing
people to send their assets abroad; finally, because in civil wars markets
become disrupted, information is unreliable and costly and as a result com-
petition breaks down, leaving only a small number of economic agents to
monopolise entire sectors of the economy usually in a predatory fashion.
There is also the problem of increased rent-seeking predation on made both
from rebels and government officials.
Expected-utility theory as applied to this particular focus of research stems
from the proposition that rebels will conduct a civil war if the perceived ben-
efits outweigh the costs of rebellion as was previously mentioned. First, it
should be emphasised that this is not the first time that expected-utility has
been used in the field of conflict research.58 The extensive literature on the
evaluation of expected-utility theory as regards armed conflict and war pm-
vides powerful arguments against over reliance on this theory.jg A strong
argument against it is that at the root of expected-utility theory is the ration-
al-choice model of decision making. As was demonstrated by Thomas
Schelling in his seminal book Strategy of Conflict, rationality is a very
ambiguous concept, something which can easily be attested in such game
theory exercises as 'chicken' or the 'prisoners dilemma', where conditions of
uncertainty and incomplete information abo~nd.~ Recognising the limits of
the rationality assumption, the majority of empirical research in the study of
conflict has adopted a 'modified rational actor model'. According to Vivienne
Jabri,