Extracting Instability: The Role of Minerals in Intrastate Conflict Onset and Duration in the Least Developed Countries

This thesis investigates the relationship between mineral wealth and intrastate conflict in Least Developed Countries (LDC) from 2000 to 2023, in the context of rapidly rising global demand for non-fuel minerals, which is largely driven by the green energy transition. It builds on the Resource Curse theory and formulates two hypotheses to examine whether mineral rents affect the onset and duration of intrastate conflicts in institutionally fragile states. The thesis also explores the underlying causal mechanisms through which mineral wealth could influence intrastate conflict and identifies two key causal mechanisms: (1) greed and feasibility, and (2) grievance and institutional weakness. The thesis uses a panel dataset of 40 LDCs and applies two logistic regression models. The analysis finds no significant relationship between mineral rents and the onset of intrastate conflict, which challenges the dominant greed-feasibility mechanisms. However, mineral rents are found to be positively and marginally associated with longer conflict duration. Thus, it supports grievance and institutional weakness mechanisms and highlights how mineral wealth may sustain conflict economies and weaken state capacity over time. These findings suggest that while minerals may not directly trigger intrastate conflicts in LDCs, their governance and distribution shape the persistence of violence. The thesis contributes to the resource-conflict literature as it focuses specifically on non-fuel minerals, which, despite their rising importance in the global energy transition, have received comparatively limited empirical attention compared to oil and high-value gemstones.