Greed and Civil War in Post-Cold War Africa: Revisiting the Greed Theory of Civil War

This article revisits the so-called "greed theory" (or "greed hypothesis") of civil war, which is one of the most influential theories of civil war, adopted in recent years by many scholars and policymakers around the world. Applying the greed theory to the sixteen cases of African countries involved in civil wars during the post-ColdWar period (1989-2006), the article assesses how well these cases fit into the theory's argument and policy recommendations. As a result, the article argues that the greed theory does not provide a good explanation of the outbreak of civil wars in these countries, nor does it provide good policy recommendations that would help resolve and prevent most of these civil wars. Ultimately, recognizing the deficiencies of the quantitative and deductive research methods used by the authors of the greed theory, the article makes the argument that the alternatives to this theory should be based on qualitative and inductive research methods that would take into consideration not only the existence of different levels of analysis of civil wars but also their dynamic nature.