ABSTRACT
Over the last two decades, various political initiatives and scholarly works have developed a nuanced understanding of the role of natural resources in armed conflicts. Issues such as conflict diamonds and the complicity of companies in conflict economies were at the heart of the UNSC discussions, and the Kimberley Process made natural resources a central element of conflict management (Bannon and Collier 2003; Ballentine and Nitzschke 2005; Humphreys et al. 2007b; Williams 2008). In academia, natural resources occupied a central place in research on the political economy of conflict, especially with regards to explaining conflict dynamics and understanding economic agendas in conflict zones (Berdal and Malone 2000; Ballentine and Sherman 2003; Collier and Hoeffler 2004a; Fearon 2005; Collier and Sambanis 2005).
