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The geography of conflict diamonds: The case of Sierra Leone

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Sierra Leone entered into nearly 10 years of civil war. The ease of accessibility to the country’s diamonds is said to have provided the funding needed to sustain the insurgency over the years. According to Le Billon, the spatial dispersion of a resource is a major defining feature of a war. Using geographic information systems to create a realistic landscape and theory to ground agent behavior, an agent-based model is developed to explore Le Billon’s claim. Different scenarios are explored as the diamond mines are made secure and the mining areas are moved from rural areas to the capital. It is found that unexpected consequences can come from minimally increasing security when the mining sites are in rural regions, potentially displacing conflict rather than removing it. On the other hand, minimal security may be sufficient to prevent conflict when resources are found in the city.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSocial, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling - 9th International Conference, SBP-BRiMS 2016, Proceedings
EditorsNathaniel Osgood, Kevin S. Xu, David Reitter, Dongwon Lee
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages335-345
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)9783319399300
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016
Event9th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation, SBP-BRiMS 2016 - Washington, United States
Duration: Jun 28 2016Jul 1 2016

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9708 LNCS

Conference

Conference9th International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction and Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation, SBP-BRiMS 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington
Period06/28/1607/1/16

Keywords

  • Agent-based modeling
  • Civil war
  • Conflict
  • Geographic information systems

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