Leave none to claim the land

A Malthusian catastrophe in Rwanda

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3916941
AutoresMarijke Verpoorten (0000-0003-1619-3030, University of Antwerp & University of Leuven, autor de correspondencia)
Año2012
Volumen49
Número4
Páginas547-563
Fecha de publicación2012-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Peace Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022343312437773
OpenAlexW2216615568
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas27
Referencias citadas26

More than 200 years after its first publication, the Malthusian thesis is still much debated, albeit in a modified form. Rather than predicting a global catastrophe, most neo-Malthusians stress the local character of the relationship between population pressure, natural resource scarcity, and conflict as well as its dependency on the socio-political and economic context. This softened version of Malthus's thesis has received little empirical support in cross-country studies. In contrast, a number of subnational analyses have provided some evidence for local conditional Malthusian catastrophes, although 'catastrophe' is a big word since these studies have largely focused on low-intensity violence. This article adds to the small body of subnational studies, but focuses on a high-intensity conflict - the Rwandan genocide. In particular, it provides a meso-level analysis of the relation between population pressure and the intensity of violence measured by the death toll among the Tutsi across 1,294 small administrative units. The results indicate that the death toll was significantly higher in localities with both high population density and little opportunity for young men to acquire land. This finding can be interpreted as support for the neo-Malthusian thesis. On the other hand, it is possible that another mechanism operated - in densely populated areas, it may have been relatively easy for the elite to mobilize the population, because of dependency relations through the land and labor market. Alternatively, in densely populated areas, there may have been more lootable assets, and the violence may have been opportunistic rather than driven by need or by fear

Context (archaeology) · Development economics · Economics · Elite · Geography · Market economy · Natural resource · Political science · Politics · Population · Population growth · Scarcity · Sociology · Demography · Health and Conflict Studies · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Transboundary Water Resource Management