Below is an outline of this two-volume work, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2000. The work includes chapters by 25 scholars under the auspices of the United Nations University/World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki, and Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, and edited by E. Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart, and Raimo Väyrynen.

Since the end of the Cold War, major civil wars in developing countries have increased in number and in the magnitude of their effects. They are the most important source of human suffering in the world today. While there are many political analyses of these emergencies, this is the first extensive analysis of the economic and political roots of humanitarian emergencies. As a result of the analysis of these roots, the volumes are able to identify early economic and political measures to prevent such disasters. The study uses general economic and political analysis and case studies (including, among others, Bosnia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Afghanistan).

The first volume provides a general overview of the nature and causes of the emergencies, including economic, political and environmental factors. The second volume presents detailed case studies of different types of conflicts - including those whose main origin lies in the weakness of the state, and those where economic or environmental causes predominate.

A complex humanitarian emergency is a man-made crisis, in which large numbers of people die and suffer from war, physical violence (often by the state), disease, hunger, or displacement. The evidence indicates that during the last ten to twenty years, the number of humanitarian crises has escalated, while the number of people affected has increased even faster. The volume shows that emergencies have numerous sources. Important economic elements appear to be protracted economic stagnation and decline (especially in food output), high income inequality and rapid inflation. Political elements include government exclusion of distinct social groups, rule by entrenched minorities, weak state legitimacy and a tradition of violent conflict. Only a portion of violence results from insurgent action. In fact, the policies of governing elites are at the root of most humanitarian emergencies.

The volume shows that slow or negative growth puts pressure on ruling elites, reducing the number of allies and clients they can support and tending to undermine the legitimacy of the regime. Political elites often use repression to forestall threats to the regime. The discussion of political and economic factors contributing to emergencies is reinforced by an econometric analysis of the extent and direction of causation.

The volume also discusses the environmental sources of conflict, showing that it is more often environmental riches rather than poverty which leads to violence, as groups fight to control these resources. Other elements, commonly believed to be a major source of such crises - including water scarcity and economic adjustment programmes - in fact appear to play a minor or even negligible role. In poor societies, once conflict has commenced, certain groups gain economically from the fighting and this tends to perpetuate it or lead to renewed fighting after a 'resolution' appears to have been reached.

The overall finding of the volume is that interaction between economic and political factors account for humanitarian emergencies. Ethnic factors - which apparently are so important - are created and then used for political purposes.

This volume illustrates the variety of sources of conflict by presenting thirteen case studies. In general they show the vulnerability of weak states with predatory economic policies, stagnant and unstable economies, and ethnic and regional divisions. The evidence comes primarily from case studies of Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, Kenya, Haiti, Azerbaijan-Armenia, Georgia, and the former Yugoslavia. Many humanitarian disasters have become protracted, as new political elites benefit from the crises and acquire vested interests in prolonging them. Indeed, conflicts are rarely episodic and humanitarian emergencies tend to be the culmination of longer-term political and economic decay, where negative growth interacts with political predation in a downward spiral, as seen especially in several African countries in the 1990s.

The studies also show how economic factors - slow growth, communal inequality, and regional economic imbalances - help shape the ethnic and regional partisanship that contributes to humanitarian emergencies. In most cases, ethnic identity is less a primordial phenomenon than an awareness formed in the process of modern social competition and political mobilization. Ruling elites utilized sentiment associated with ethnic and regional identities to transfer potential hostilities from inequalities within their own communities to differences with and antagonisms toward other ethnic groups and regions. Political leaders pursued and implemented economic policies that served their, their allies', and their clients' interests. These policies had the effect of increasing animosities between ethnic communities. Though patterns of perceived deprivation differed, major ethnic communities in these countries viewed their economic position in the state as threatened, and used violence or repression often on a massive scale.

Chapter 1 'The Root Causes of Conflict: A Framework and Overview', Frances Stewart

Chapter 2 'Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Concepts and Issues', Raimo Väyrynen

Chapter 3 'Economic Causes: The Political Economy of War, Hunger, and Flight', E. Wayne Nafziger and Juha Auvinen

Chapter 4 'The Conflict Over Natural and Environmental Resources', James Fairhead

Chapter 5 'Water Scarcity as a Source of Crises', Ashok Swain

Chapter 6 'Stabilisation Programmes, Social Costs, Violence and Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Recent Experience', Christian Morrisson

Chapter 7 'Political Causes of Humanitarian Emergencies', Kalevi J. Holsti

Chapter 8 'War, Crime, and Access to Resources', David Keen

Chapter 9 'Ethnicity and the Politics of Conflict: The Case of Matabeland', Jocelyn Alexander, Jo Ann McGregor and Terence Ranger

Chapter 1 'Case Studies of Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: An Introduction', E. Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart and Raimo Väyrynen

Chapter 2 'Afghanistan: The Last Cold-War Conflict, The First Post-Cold War Conflict', Barnett Rubin

Chapter 3 'Cambodia: Three Phases of a Humanitarian Emergency in an Overpoliticised State', Philippe LeBillon and Karen Bakker

Chapter 4 'Iraq: Economic Embargo and Predatory Rule', Abbas Alnasrawi

Chapter 5 'Burundi: The Long Sombre Shadow of Ethnic Instability', Patrick Gaffney

Chapter 6 'Rwanda: The Social Roots of Genocide', Peter Uvin

Chapter 7 'Somalia: The Struggle for Resources', Juha Auvinen and Timo Kivimaki

Chapter 8 'Liberia and Sierra Leone: The Competition for Patronage in Resource-Rich Economies', William Reno

Chapter 9 'Congo (Zaire): Corruption, Disintegration, and State Failure', Kisangani Emizet

Chapter 10 'Kenya: Economic Decline and Ethnic Politics', Jeni Klugman

Chapter 11 'Haiti: Poverty, Dependence, and Resource Depletion', Mats Lundahl

Chapter 12 'El Salvador: Economic Disparities, External Intervention, and Civil Conflict', Manuel Pastor and James Boyce

Chapter 13 'Humanitarian Emergency in the South Caucasus', Raimo Väyrynen and Leila Alieva

Chapter 14 'The Former Yugoslavia: Stagnation, Debt, and Failed Adjustment Programmes', Susan Woodward

Chapter 15 'Weak States and Humanitarian Emergencies: Failure, Predation, and Rent-seeking', Raimo Väyrynen