Arming Opposition: the effect of weapon imports on conflict [General Public]

What is the effect of weapons imports on conflict in the recipient country?

A wide majority of those weapons are produced in developed countries. However, most of the suffering, of the people who die are from developing countries. Countries who lack the production capacity and technology to produce locally their weapons and hence rely on the global market to obtain them.

Surprisingly the effect of weapons on war is still debated. On one hand, NGOs argue that weapons are a threat to peace. On the other hand, arms suppliers and lobbyists argue that arms are the solution to violence. Using the famous words from Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the NRA (National Rifle Association): « The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is with a good guy with a gun. ».

Partly, this debate hasn’t been settled because there is so far no measure of the causal effect of weapons on war. The main difficulty when trying to measure this effect comes from the fact that war affects weapons imports as well. This issue, called reverse causality, bias the estimate and prevent the proper quantification of this effect.

By addressing this issue of reverse causality, this paper provides the first quantification of the effect of weapons on wars for a global set of countries.

It shows that an increase in arms imports increases the probability of internal conflict, the number of internal conflicts and the number of battle-related deaths.

This video explains how do I address the issue of reverse causality.


Read and download the pdf of the article here:

Weapons,war,internal conflicts,causality,Quentin Gallea,statistics,inferential statistics,scientific research,scientific literature,economic research,education,