Resource Cursed or Policy Cursed? the Violent Consequences of Conflict Mineral Legislation in the Drc
Abstract: There is widespread perception that international consumption of “conflict minerals” is a leading cause of brutal violence and armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Policy responses include the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, which regulates companies whose products contain conflict minerals, and the DRC’s ban on mining in three of its provinces during 2010-2011. We develop a theory to explain why the policies could backfire, causing violence to increase rather than fall. Our reasoning is inspired by Mancur Olson’s (2000) stationary bandit metaphor, research on conflict and natural resources, and a literature on the citizen ‘protection’ functions served (and coerced) by organized criminals. We test for the short-term policy effects by merging geo-referenced datasets on armed conflict, militarized mining sites, and mineral prices from 2008-2011. The evidence suggests the policies increased the incidence of violent conflict shortly after their enactment. The increased violence was targeted at civilians (rather than militias), but militia battles shifted from regulated tin, tungsten, and tantalum mining territories towards unregulated gold territories.
