Sacred Values and Violence:Explaining Land Dispute Escalation∗

Alexandra C. Hartman†

October 2014

Abstract

Disputes over land are a serious and common form of local-level conflict in developingcountries. Why do some land disputes escalate into violence and conflict, while othersnever do? I argue that the sacred non-material stakes of land disputes shape bargainingduring dispute resolution. Parties involved in a dispute over sacred land tend to framethe narrative of their dispute in moral terms, to identify positions as opposed to interestsduring the dispute resolution process, and to make decisions influenced by other mem-bers of their social group, leading to intractable outcomes. Using data collected duringeighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Liberia, including participant-observationin land dispute resolution and an original database of over 850 land disputes in fiveLiberian counties from 2006-2011, I find a significant relationship between the sacredvalue of land and intractable disputes. I use two practices to causally identify land’ssacred value: burying umbilical cords and entombing ancestors on the property in dis-pute. These practices create a sacred bond between individuals and their land that isfixed prior to the Liberian civil war. Detailed information about each dispute, includingdyadic data on the ethnic, religious and socioeconomic background of the disputantsallow me to test the relative explanatory power of competing hypotheses. My analysisshows that controlling for a proxy for local property rights institutions, my findingsare stable and robust. I find support for the theory that local property rights regimesand the non-material stakes shape bargaining with implications for understanding localorder and the escalation of disputes into conflict and violence.

∗Acknowledgements: I thank Christopher Blattman, Gregory Kitt, Michael McGovern, Benjamin Morse,Rebecca Nielsen, Ato Onoma, Frances Rosenbluth, Jason Stearns, Dawn Teele, Beth Wellman, ElisabethWood, and participants at the World Bank’s Land and Poverty conference for excellent feedback. I gratefullyacknowledge the support of the UN Peacebuilding Fund in Liberia, Humanity United, the World Bank’sItalian Children and Youth Trust Fund, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the National Science Foundation,and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale.†Yale University, New Haven, CT. alexandra.hartman@yale.edu

1 Introduction

Land conflict poses a threat to post-conflict and weak states the world over. Land disputes

are a common and serious form of local-level conflict in developing states. Conflict over land

is identified as both an underlying cause of civil wars (e.g. Autesserre 2010; Uvin 1996)

and as a consequence of protracted violence (e.g. Isser and Van der Auweraert 2009). Land

disputes also lead to instability and loss of productivity in peaceful developing states (e.g.

Udry and Goldstein 2008). What causes some small-scale disputes to escalate into land

conflict and violence?

Theories of non-cooperative bargaining in international relations emphasize several fac-

tors that lengthen disputes and increase the risk of breakdown into conflict: a lack of institu-

tions to enforce agreements, poor coordination on agreement-making mechanisms, persistent

information asymmetries, and indivisible stakes (Kennan and Wilson 1993; Fearon 1998;

Powell 2006). I investigate how this model maps on to local disputes over land and how

sacred values affect the latter two problems: indivisibilities and information asymmetry.

Weak property rights create the conditions for bargaining failures through a lack of

enforcement mechanisms and the inability of institutions to get disputing parties to the

bargaining table, whether in a court room or a chief’s hut. This is especially true in countries

that have recently experienced or that are undergoing property rights reform. Property

rights reforms that aim in include previously excluded groups may create more claims,

but if reforms are coherent and create predictable dispute resolution mechanisms, disputes

are tractable. When reforms increase claims and create dispute resolution forums with

overlapping jurisdictions, disputes remain challenging to resolve. Institutional factors alone,

however, are not sufficient to explain escalation and this paper focuses on the role of the

dispute’s stakes.

Socially embedded relationships between an individual and her land increase a property’s

non-material sacred value. Individuals consider their land or property to be sacred when

their relationship to it is rooted in a set of systems, practices and interactions that create

an identity in particular geographic place. This paper will show that such land has a moral

1

value that is personal and cannot be assessed in material terms, exchanged for comparable

property, or divided (e.g. Tetlock et al. 2000). The more indivisible the stakes of such a

dispute, the less parties to a dispute value that land if it is divided such that the future

payoff increases more than proportionally with the share of the good received. This finding

is consistent with the research that shows that the stakes of civil conflict shape the durability

of its settlement (Wood 2003) and the theory that conflicts over sacred values are difficult

to resolve (e.g. Hassner 2009). Fearon (1995) theorizes that the stakes of conflict may not

be truly indivisible because of side-payments and issue linkages. While this may be true for

civil and international war, the root causes of civil conflict may lie in small-scale disputes

over stakes that cannot be easily divided.

Research shows that disputes involving “taboo tradeoffs” occurring when sacred values

are at stake create strong emotions that influence the way individuals make decisions (Ginges

and Atran 2013). These reactions can lead to context dependent decision-making that can

be highly influenced by others or the group (Kahneman 2001). Individuals making decisions

or bargaining over sacred values tend to frame the narrative of their issue or their dispute

in moral terms, to identify positions as opposed to interests, and to value their goods or

properties well above the market rate (Kahneman 2003). These factors make it difficult

for people to correctly assess the other party’s interests, creating information asymmetries

during the bargaining process.

I use both qualitative and quantitative research to study land disputes, including an orig-

inal dataset of 885 land disputes from Liberia. Disputes include disagreements over bound-

aries, quarrels over access to property, confusion over ownership following displacement, and

inheritance disputes. Participant-observation in land dispute resolution and interviews with

over 200 disputants, community-based and national-level authorities, and other stakeholders

demonstrate that the value of land in Liberia is rooted in socially embedded relationships

that shape identity.

Qualitative data also identifies an innovative way to systematically measure one dimen-

sion of the sacred relationship between an individual and his property. My causal identi-

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fication of the non-material sacred value of land relies on two common Liberian practices

that can create sacred ties between an individual and her property: the burial of umbilical

cords and the entombment of ancestors on land. It is unlikely that disputants could engage

in these practices as a direct response to disputes. For most cases included in my original

dyadic dataset of 885 Liberian land disputes, these practices created a sacred relationship

between the disputant and the land prior to the Liberian civil war. As a result, the inclu-

sion of this measure in my models provides a strong test of the relationship between the

non-material value of land and dispute outcomes in the post-conflict period. This makes it

possible to use survey data to to provide evidence of a bargaining theory of land dispute

dynamics.

16% of disputes in my dataset involve serious violence (including the destruction of

property or a physical assault) and 29% last longer than four years (the length of an average

dispute). When disputants do not perceive their land to be sacred, 22% of disputes last

longer than average, and this is 17 percentage points higher when land is sacred. 11%

of disputes over non-sacred land are seriously violent, and this is 12 percentage points

higher when land is sacred. Using a simple linear model, I find that disputes over sacred

land are 10 percentage points more likely to be intractable, defined as lasting longer than

average or involving an incidence of serious violence, a 26% increase relative to the sample

mean. Disputes over sacred land are seven percentage points more likely to involve serious

violence than disputes over non-sacred land (a 44% increase relative to the sample mean).

This finding is significantly stronger when limited to rural disputes where property rights

institutions are weaker: in urban areas disputes over sacred land are two percentage points (a

20% increase relative to the sample mean) more likely to involve serious violence, compared

with 13 percentage points in rural areas (a 54% increase relative to the sample mean).

The analysis suggests that while other aspects of the relationship between land disputants

and the property in dispute can affect disputes, property rights and the non-material stakes

are consistently and robustly linked to dispute escalation. It is possible that individuals

make choices about their land use, such as what crops to grow, based on its sacred value,

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and this unobserved material aspect of the land influences dispute dynamics, confounding

my analysis. Another possibility is that individuals tend to engage in rituals or practices that

create a sacred bond with land that also has a higher material value. I control for as many

aspects of the material value of land as possible in my models and the discussion section

explores the feasibility of unobserved factors driving the results. The results are large and

robust to including measures of other variables that could explain the variation in dispute

outcomes. To explore the possibility that an unobserved variable correlated with both the

explanatory variable of interest and the outcome is driving the results, I use the proportional

selection assumption (Oster 2014) to assess the robustness of the estimates. This analysis

suggests it is unlikely that an omitted variable is driving the relationship between sacredness

and dispute tractability.

Previous studies of land conflict support the finding that the non-material sacred stakes

of land disputes is a factor that should be taken into account when explaining dispute

outcomes. The research on land conflict emphasizes the socially embedded relationships

between communities and their land (e.g. Berry 2009) and the politics of property rights

regimes (e.g. Boone 2014). Although not specifically focused on small-scale land disputes,

this literature nevertheless indicates that material values alone should not be sufficient to

explain how disputes evolve into higher-level conflict between groups, in part because access

to and use of land is related to political issues such as citizenship (e.g. Mamdani 1996).

Previous work (Blattman, Hartman and Blair 2014) provides evidence that a bargaining

model of conflict can explain variation in local dispute resolution and that institutions

shape dispute outcomes. Improving informal institutions (norms) and skills can reduce the

problems of enforcement, information asymmetries and coordination. This paper explores

the causes, rather than solutions, of the most difficult to resolve disputes, with a focus

on the substance of the dispute. The findings presented here demonstrate that the non-

material sacred stakes of disputes should be taken into account. Understanding why and

when individuals resort to force in local-level disputes can help us understand the roots

causes of conflict and violence and how best individuals, communities and states can begin

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to address this problem.

2 Theory

My theory draws on non-cooperative bargaining, existing research on land conflict, and the

political psychology of decision-making. I apply these literatures to small-scale land disputes

to develop set of testable hypotheses about the factors that shape dispute dynamics.

2.1 Non-cooperative bargaining

2.1.1 Non-cooperative bargaining and civil war settlement

Non-cooperative bargaining is most often used to explain the dynamics of labor relations

(Jun 1989; Kennan and Wilson 1993); court cases (Priest and Klein 1984); international

relations (Powell 2006; Fearon 1998); and local disputes (Blattman, Hartman, and Blair

2014). Bargaining is modeled as a two-player game where individuals or parties to a dispute

seek to reach an agreement. The parties prefer a coordinated deal to no agreement, but

they prefer different deals. The process of offers and counter-offers creates differential costs

for each side (creating the conditions for a “war of attrition”). Over time the party with the

higher cost of delay concedes. Once the bargaining stage is complete, the enforcement stage

begins. The absence of agreements is largely the result of 1) incomplete information about

each party’s interests and their relative costs of delay; and 2) commitment problems; and 3)

delays between rounds of bargaining. Meanwhile, enforcement fails when 1) the short-run

benefits of defection increase; 2) the costs of breaking the deal fall; and 3) the value of future

payoffs decreases.

The study of international relations draws on bargaining theory to explain relationships

between nation-states and the durability of the settlement of intra-state and civil wars. The

empirical literature on civil war settlements tests this theory and concludes that a range

of variables affect conflict outcomes. These include institutions that promote power and

resource sharing; third-party enforcement of agreements, including peacekeepers; a lack of

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lootable natural resources; and the absence of intra-disputant disagreements (Walter 1997;

Hartzell, Hoddie, and Rothschild 2001; Hartzell and Hoddie 2003; Fortna 2004; Pearson et

al. 2006; Walter 2004; Doyle and Sambanis 2000).

2.1.2 The role of the stakes in non-cooperative bargaining

There is some debate about how the issues or stakes of a civil war or inter-state conflict affect

bargaining. On the one hand, Wood (2003b) shows that perceptions of the other party’s

willingness to compromise are shaped by the degree of indivisibility of the issue involved in

the conflict. The higher the indivisibility, the less parties value the land if it is divided. The

result is that the payoff to resolving the dispute is not proportional, but rather increases

faster than the amount of the goods or property received (Wood 2003b).Conflict over re-

ligious sites in particular may have indivisible stakes, leading to prolonged or particularly

violent conflict (Hassner 2003; Hassner 2009).

On the other hand, Fearon (1995) argues that while indivisible stakes exist, mechanisms

including side payments and issue linkages should resolve bargaining breakdowns. Powell

(2006) argues that the indivisibility does not explain war. There are always outcomes with

higher expected payoffs than fighting, although whether states may be more unwilling to

make compromises and bargain harder over specific issues is an “interesting theoretical and

empirical problem” (Powell 2006, 178).

2.1.3 Non-cooperative bargaining and land conflict

The idea that the stakes of a land disputes shape bargaining outcomes resonates with the

literature on land conflict. Case studies of land conflict find that property rights are em-

bedded in power structures at the community level, and that these rights shape citizenship

and identity (Boone 2014; Autesserre 2010; Berry 2009; Mamdani 1996). Especially in so-

cieties where agriculture remains a central mode of production and source of livelihood, the

relationship between people and their property is embedded in history, social interactions,

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and political processes. Boone (2014) shows that the political order which links small land

holders to their property and to the state plays an essential role in shaping conflict out-

comes. This research suggests that the nature of the relationship between an individual and

his property is influence by more than the market value of the land with implications for

behavior during the bargaining process.

2.2 Sacred values and decision-making

2.2.1 Morally-framed issues and decision-making

How does the presence of non-material sacred values effect decision-making during bargain-

ing at the micro-level? In addition to the perception that land is indivisible, one strain of

literature from behavioral economics suggests that heightened emotions created by sacred

values might lead individuals to make decisions they otherwise might not make. For exam-

ple, evidence from laboratory experiments shows that in addition to predicted probability,

preferences over different outcomes depend on the level of emotion or “affect” associated with

a particular outcome. Hsee and Rottenstreich (2001) use a series of experiments to show

first that individuals perceive high-affective outcomes (such as a $500 coupon for a European

vacation) differently than low-affective outcomes (such as a $500 coupon for school tuition)

and that under conditions closer to certainty, individuals prefer low-affective outcomes, but

as probability decreases (when contracts are not consistently enforced, for example), they

prefer high-affective outcomes. Hermalin and Isen (2008) use a formal model to incorporate

the idea that the mood of a decision-maker influences his or her preferences while making a

risky choice.

Research on civil wars suggests that decisions over issues with moral significance or

situations that involve a high level of emotion reflect different preferences than other kinds

of decisions (Petersen 2011). The decision to engage in high-risk behavior is not necessarily

a bad or irrational decision as some of the micro-level evidence implies. Instead, research on

the motivations behind risky actions, for example, identifies the moral and affective benefits

of participation (‘pleasure in agency’) as a key reason why individuals choose to engage in

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costly and dangerous collective action (Wood 2003a).

Overall, the literature suggests that when the stakes of a dispute include moral values

or have an affective benefit, individuals may be prone to either making high-risk choices or

engage in actions that appear to be costly, at least from an economic rationalist perspec-

tive. Research in psychology clarifies how morally-framed issues change thought-processes

and decision-making in two ways. First, decisions over moral issues may become context

dependent and influenced by others or the group, especially in the short-term, rather than

reference-independent as utility theory assumes (this is known as prospect theory) (Kahne-

man and Tversky 1979). Second, the value of a good or property may be determined not

only by its cost in the market, but also by the experience of “giving it up” which can be

higher for goods with non-material sacred value, creating a reluctance to sell a good for its

market-based price (known as the endowment affect) (Kahneman et al. 1991).

2.2.2 Information asymmetries and non-material sacred value

In addition to the ways that morally-framed issues affect decision-making during bargain-

ing, the degree of publicness of a property’s non-material sacred value also plays a role.

Non-cooperative bargaining theory assumes that knowledge of the other party’s interests

(their cost of delay) reduces the bargaining phase and that the absence of this information

(information asymmetries) complicate bargaining. Individual-level variance in the salience

of a sacred practice potentially create uncertainty around party interests during a dispute.

Two factors create this variation. First, some relationships and practices that make land

sacred may be public and send a strong signal that land is sacred, but others are more

private. Second, regardless of whether the relationships or practices that create sacredness

are public, disputants often present the extent and salience of non-material sacred values

in terms of an absolute moral position as opposed to one discreet interest of many that the

may wish to protect during the dispute resolution process. Together these factors can create

information asymmetries and obstacles during the bargaining process. This is the case even

if both sides have incentives to be transparent.

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2.3 Testable hypotheses

Overall, this research suggests that in addition to the institutional factors predicted by

non-cooperative bargaining models, the stakes of a dispute shape decision-making in ways

not predicted by instrumentalist models of rational behavior. Following Wood (2003a and

2003b), Kahneman (2003), Hsee and Rottenstreich (2001), I argue that in the presence of

sacred values disputants are 1) more likely to be influenced by the thoughts and opinions

of those in their social group (reference dependence); 2) more likely to refuse to value the

property in question in material terms, or to value the property well above the market

rate (indivisibility/endowment effect); and 3) more likely to underestimate the non-material

sacred value due to positional as opposed to interested-based bargaining (information asym-

metry). Together, the testable hypothesis is that disputes over land with a higher sacred

(non-material) value to the disputants are more likely to result in violence or last longer

than average disputes.

Other theories also have testable implications for land dispute outcomes. Rationalist

economic arguments hold that the higher the material stakes of a dispute, the harder parties

will bargain. According to this logic, disputes over land with a higher material value to the

disputants are more likely to result in violence or last longer than average disputes.

Evidence from micro-level empirical work demonstrates that trust and cooperation are

less likely across greater social and cultural distance due to norms of reciprocity and the

instrumental use of identities (Habyarimana et al. 2007; Habyarimana et al. 2009; Posner

2005). This could be especially true in post-conflict settings, following theories of elite

manipulation of ethnic identity and parochial altruism that suggest that conflict increases

the salience of ingroup identities and increases hostility towards an outgroup (e.g. Tajfel

1982; Horowitz 1985; Fearon and Laitin 2000; Choi and Bowels 2007; Petersen 2011). The

consequence is that disputes that involve members of different ethnic groups (interethnic

disputes) are more likely to result in violence or last longer than average disputes.

The emphasis on enforcement in the bargaining literature as well as the literature on

property rights regimes in general points to importance of the institutional environment

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for disputes over land. Previous research has linked institutions to conflict dynamics (e.g.

Deininger and Castagnini 2006). Local and national property rights regimes and political

order shape land conflict (Boone 2014). In the case of small-scale land disputes, I argue

that strong property rights, especially at the community level, should have an impact on

disputes. I expect that disputes over land that take place in areas with weaker property

rights institutions are more likely to result in violence or last longer than average disputes.

3 Context

Liberia, a nation of 4.3 million people on the West Coast of Africa, presents a particularly

useful case for studying land dispute dynamics due to the numerous and varied disputes

that take place on its territory. Prior to the arrival of the American colonists in the early

19th century, a range of community-based institutions controlled property rights, reflecting

the diverse social, political and economic configurations of the population (Sawyer 1992).

Tensions over land, as well as over the human trade, varied over time and across the territory

that would become Liberia (Levitt 2005). Landlords (Liberian English for guardian or

administrator) and elders, often deriving their traditional authority from their links to the

first settlers or the ancestors of the community, played key roles in community-based property

rights regimes. The historical role of ancestors remains important for these local property

rights institutions, and for land disputes in Liberia today.

The history of land disputes in the Republic of Liberia began with a land deal that

quickly went sour. Following a series of land-related disputes, settlers and their Americo-

Liberian descendants living along the coast gained possession of the land by purchasing it

from the coastal population under the private ownership institution of fee simple.1 It was not

until the early twentieth century that the Liberian state began to implement what would1‘Fee simple’ is a strong property right under Anglo-American property law that is synonymous with the

non-legal term of private ownership. A person who owns a property in fee simple has the right to possessthe property in perpetuity; the right to exclude other people from the land; the right to use the land andreap the benefits of use; the right o designate and pass the land onto heirs; and the right to alienate (sell,mortgage or lease the land temporarily or permanently) (Bruce 2008).

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be its first property rights reform that sought to consolidate power and control property

rights in “hinterland” or inland Liberia. In 1923 the government-sponsored Suehn Con-

ference created parallel property rights systems. In the hinterland, instead of fee-simple,

government-appointed chiefs controlled community-based property rights; the central gov-

ernment paid chiefs a fixed percentage of the taxes they collected for this service (Konneh

1996).

Throughout the 20th century, exploitation and conflict characterized the relationship

between Americo-Liberians and the ethnic groups living in Liberia. Only settlers or citizens

of other African nations were eligible for citizenship, not individuals from the ethnic groups

on the Liberian territory (Johnson 1987). Only citizens, in turn, could own property under

the fee-simple rights system (although the government later extended rights to “civilized”

aborigines, its term for qualified indigenous Liberians). Conflict over these structural in-

equalities erupted into violence with a coup d’état in 1980 (Ellis 2001). Civil war began

in 1989, continuing until 2003 and killing an estimated quarter of a million people and

displacing hundreds of thousands more.

Years of displacement and the destruction of human and physical infrastructure during

the war created massive tensions over land in the post-conflict period. The uneven imple-

mentation of the statutory property rights regime prior to the war, the slow start of post-war

reforms, and the death of many leaders and authorities with knowledge of community-based

property rights during the conflict created an impressive amount of subnational variation

in the strength of property rights regimes. In a 2011 survey, one in four adult Liberians

reported that they were or had been involved in a land dispute that started during or after

the Liberian civil war (Vinck, Pham, and Kreutzer 2011). Encouragingly, the incidence of

land disputes in villages in the border regions has decreased in recent years: 24% of commu-

nity residents included in the sample reported a land dispute in 2008, compared with 21% of

residents in 2010 and only 9% in 2012 (Blattman, Hartman, and Blair 2014). Nevertheless,

land disputes present a challenge to Liberia’s post-conflict stability and development as well

as an opportunity to grapple with micro-dynamics of land disputes and to test different

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theories of dispute escalation.

4 Survey data

To further understand the dynamics of land disputes in post-conflict Liberia, I collected

original dyadic data on 885 land disputes in five regions, ranging from peri-urban areas

around Monrovia, the capital, to remote counties on the border with Guinea, Sierra Leone,

and Côte d’Ivoire. Two logistical issues affected the sampling of disputes included in the

data collection. The first was identifying the population of land disputes in the research

area. The second was finding the disputants given their remote location and the lack of

infrastructure, including the complete lack of paved roads where the data collection took

place. This section discusses the data collection, sampling process, strategies for dealing

with non-response, and summary statistics.

4.1 The Land Dispute Resolution Durability Survey (LDRDS)

No records of land disputes exist in Liberia, either within the court system, land and prop-

erty administration, or community-based property rights institutions. To overcome this

challenge and build a dataset of land disputes, I worked with an international humanitar-

ian NGO engaged in dispute resolution. Between 2006 and 2014, the Norwegian Refugee

Council’s (NRC) legal assistance program worked with international land experts to un-

derstand Liberia’s property governance system and to train negotiators and mediators to

resolve these numerous disputes over housing, land, and property. The NRC land dispute

resolution database recorded land disputes that individuals and groups brought to NRC

mediators for advice. NRC welcomed any person with a land dispute to use their services,

regardless of when the dispute started or who was involved.

Using a random sample of cases from 2006-2011 from the database, I worked in collabora-

tion with project staff to follow-up and collect detailed information on these disputes using

a tool I developed called the Land Dispute Resolution Durability Survey (LDRDS). The

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Figure 1: Map of Liberian counties included in the LDRDS survey

Source: NRC/UN DPK/Adrienne Ottenberg

LDRDS data was collected in three rounds, starting in March 2010 and ending in Novem-

ber 2012. The data collection effort aimed to achieve three main goals: First, to provide

an assessment of the durability of NRC-mediated resolutions to land disputes and clues to

why certain disputes remain unsolved after years of intervention; second, to collect a rich

database of information on the types of disputes people face, how people attempt to solve

them, and the hurdles they face to accessing justice; and third, to permit a quantitative test

of the different factors that could to lead to intractable land disputes.

4.2 Selection into the sample

I randomly selected cases to be included in the LDRDS sample from the 6,000 cases registered

in the NRC database through a stratified random sampling process that took into account

the location in Liberia where a party initially registered a dispute, the date of registration,

and whether mediators had successfully helped the parties to the case reach an agreement

(specifically, “closed” the case, in NRC terminology).2 Once a case was selected for follow-

up in a round of LDRDS data collection, it could not be selected again for follow-up in a2At the time of follow-up, 65% of the cases were recorded as resolved and 35% remained unresolved. In

9% of the cases, disputants preferred to designate someone else to speak for them.

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subsequent round.

The NRC database includes the population of disputes brought to outside authorities

in the geographic areas where NRC worked, with some degree of incompleteness that is

unobserved. In order to address the issue of selection into the NRC database and therefore

the LDRDS sample, I use representative community-level data that I collected as part of

the collaborative Peace Education and Community Empowerment (PEACE)3 survey project

that overlaps with the LDRDS data collection area. Although the overlap is not complete

and the PEACE data is not nationally representative, comparing the two datasets helps to

identify how disputes included in the LDRDS dataset differ from disputes in general.

Overall, the dispute profiles are similar, but a higher proportion of the disputes in the

LDRDS dataset are serious compared with all reported land disputes in a given community.

For example, in the 2012 PEACE survey, 13% of respondents in communities included in the

survey in Nimba county reported violence as a result of their land dispute compared with

27% of disputants from Nimba county in the LDRDS dataset. Certain types of disputes are

also more common in the LDRDS dataset. Interethnic disputes represented only 1% of the

disputes in the PEACE data for Nimba, compared with 28% in the LDRDS (see Appendix

A for a table comparing dispute characteristic in both datasets). Given that disputes only

made it into the NRC database, and thus the LDRDS dataset, if the disputants sought

outside assistance with their dispute, it makes sense that these cases are more serious on

average than other land disputes. I further discuss external validity and its implications for

the LDRDS sample in the discussion section.

4.3 Missing data

The LDRDS employed several strategies to deal with missing data. First, since some dis-

putants were being contacted years after that had initially sought help with their dispute,

enumerators separately sought to survey both parties to the dispute and a third key infor-

mant (either a community leader, traditional landlord, neighbor or individual who had good3See Blattman, Hartman, Blair (2014) for a description of the PEACE dataset.

14

knowledge of the land dispute). The goal was to collect dyadic information on as many

disputes included in the sample as possible. Second, enumerators used an “absentee” record

to collect information about parties to disputes that they could not locate.4

The extended timeframe given the enumerators meant that they were able to find at least

one disputant or disputant representative for 958 cases out of 1000 selected for inclusion in

the LDRDS dataset (95.8%). This included both parties to 885 disputes (n=1770) and one

party to 73 disputes (n=73).5 Death and relocation without forwarding address were the

two reasons both disputants could not be located for a particular case.6

5 Land disputes in Liberia

5.1 Land disputants and land disputes

Over eighteen months between 2009 and 2012, I conducted over 200 interviews with land

disputants, community-based authorities and government officials, as well as other stake-

holders involved in land disputes in Liberia. In the latter stage of fieldwork, I lived in

rural Liberia for 12 months and observed all stages of the dispute resolution process (or

lack thereof) of numerous land disputes through a collaboration with a civil society dispute

resolution project described in the next section. Qualitative data and summary statistics

from the LDRDS dataset together provide a portrait of the people involved and types of

land disputes where disputants seek help in post-conflict Liberia and the relationship that

they have with their land.4In some cases, a party preferred to designate someone to speak for them. In these cases, enumerators

noted the original party was an absentee, but collected relevant information from the respondent’s represen-tative. For example, an elderly person might designate an adult child to speak for them because that personhad been involved in the case and may have more information even though the first person registered asthe disputant in the database. In other cases, when a disputant did not provide information about the landdispute or enumerators could not locate them, the absentee survey recorded the reasons why an individualcould not speak with an enumerator.

5No key informant data is currently included in the analysis.6To test for the effect of non-response through the inability of enumerators to locate disputants because

of death or relocation, I run the analysis on both the sample of disputes where two respondents providedinformation (n=885) and the sample of all cases, including cases where disputants died or relocated (n=958)(excluding dyadic variables that cannot be coded in the absence of information from both disputants). Thereis no significant effect on the results (see Appendix B).

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The area covered by the survey is, by most definitions, a remote low population-density

rural area.7 Since the end of the civil war in 2003, there have been important efforts to re-

build and increase access to basic services and institutions. Nevertheless, there is important

variation in access to property rights administration and dispute resolution forums through-

out Liberia and within the study area. More densely populated areas generally provide

better access to courts, offices of the local land administration (such as the representative

of the Ministry of Lands and Mines), as well as contact with chiefs and other “big” indi-

viduals who frequently engage in informal dispute resolution. Disputes that take place in

areas near towns or villages have relatively better access to forums for resolving disputes.

In contrast, disputes in rural areas further from community centers and basic infrastructure

face challenges in accessing authorities that can successfully intervene in disputes. During

the research, it was often unclear which authority had jurisdiction when disputes occurred in

remote areas (in many cases multiple authorities claimed jurisdiction). Disputants in these

cases generally have to engage either with competing, weaker, or absent property rights

institutions compared with disputants in cases over land in more densely populated areas.

About three-quarters of disputants in the dataset were displaced either inside or outside

Liberia during the civil war and often have only returned to their land in the past decade.

The majority of the disputes started since the war ended. Often, when faced with a dispute

that they cannot resolve after multiple attempts, it is the male head of the family brought

the case forward to the legal assistance program.8 In about half the cases, the parties report

that they derived their livelihood directly from their land. Other common sources of income,

including small businesses, and trading goods in the market, are also linked to agricultural

production. Most of the land disputants identify themselves as Christian, although a small

but important minority (about 10%) do not.9 Aside from gender, demographic information7For example, according to United Nations data from 2012 the population density in neighboring Sierra

Leone is double that of Liberia at 82.7 persons per square kilometer.8For all full list of summary statistics, see Appendix A.9Survey questions about religious affiliation tend to under-capture the proportion of individuals who

practice traditional Liberian religious beliefs, since most survey questions (including those in the LDRDS)ask respondents to select one religion. Many Liberians identify as Muslims or with a Christian denominationwhile also engaging in other spiritual beliefs and practices. The two systems are not mutually exclusive.

16

indicates that land disputants are neither the wealthiest, nor the poorest, in Liberia and not

very different from the general population (Vinck, Pham, and Kreutzer 2011).

A unique aspect of the LDRDS is that it surveyed at least two different parties to each

dispute, creating the opportunity to measure the dyadic relationship and power dynamics

between the two disputants. In many cases (37%), disputants come from different ethnic

backgrounds and have had unequal access to education. Disputes between men and women

are also common (about 35% of disputes). Despite these differences, disputants quite often

knew each other to some degree prior to the beginning of the dispute.

During interviews, disputants described their disputes in many different ways that could

roughly be broken into four general categories. Many parties disagreed over boundaries

between their properties (often features of the natural landscape such as Soap trees or

streams). Part of the narrative of boundary disputes involved either one or both parties

“forgetting” the boundary that had been known prior to the war or the claim that the

physical market had been destroyed so that it was impossible to identify. Quarrels also

involved access to property, which often occurred when one party refused to allow another

party to take up residence or use a piece of land because they did not recognize their

claim to it. Inheritance disputes were also common. The relatively new 2003 Inheritance

Law, which gave women formal inheritance rights as well, as well as the important affect of

displacement on family structure in study area, were often factors in disputes. A smaller

category of disputes involved issues around written contracts such as renting.

Both interviews and survey data found that parties often disagreed about the cate-

gorization of their dispute.10 In 21% of cases, the disputants do not agree on the basic

classification, highlighting the subjective nature of the typology. In particular, for 48%

of the cases involving inheritance, one disputant describes the case differently (compared10Like all conflicts, land disputes are multidimensional, involving different issues, changing positions, and

singular understandings of history. As a result, it is difficult to create an objective and mutually exclusiveclassification or typology of disputes, especially using survey data from involved individuals (as opposed towhat might be considered a more objective source, such as court records). The LDRDS includes questionsthat classify cases into different categories in order to provide a coherent structure to the universe of disputes.The responses to these questions describe the how people understand the issues involved in a dispute whenfaced with a finite list of descriptions, and they serve, in very general terms, as a way of exploring thepatterns in property disputes across a high number of disputes.

17

with 24% of access cases and 13% of boundary cases where disputants disagreed about the

classification of the case).

5.2 Sacred values and land disputes

Interviews suggest that people in Liberia have varied and multi-dimensional relationships

with their land. Liberians I spoke with describe this relationship in the context of their

livelihoods, their family, their political relationship with their community, and their inner

spiritual life.

Common Liberian livelihoods, such as farming, hunting, gathering, selling in the market,

and mining are all dependent on an intimate physical relationship with land and property.11

Often, when asked to describe their relationship to their land, respondents would talk about

the role their property played in their livelihood and in sustaining themselves and their

family. They would reference the physical labor that living from the land required and the

time they spent working the land, “eating from it,” and putting their “sweat in it.”

When asked about why their land was important to them, Liberians sometimes also

explained that their relationship to their community is defined by whether their ancestors

were the ones who “discovered” or first used the place. In cases where a persons’ ancestors

were among the founders of a community, interviewees stated that that they were “from

here” (often indicated with a pointed finger gesturing at the ground). These individuals

described the special rights they enjoyed in that community and the tie they felt to that

space that they did not feel in other locations. Claims of political leadership and legitimacy

at the group level were also shaped by the ability to trace a relationship to the physical

space through the ancestors (Interview, O.M. Zorzor, 7/1/2011)

When asked about the reasons that a specific piece of land was important to them as

opposed to another similar area, respondents often explained that they or their ancestors

had engaged in the practice of umbilical cord (also known as the ancestors cord) burial. The11Almost half of survey respondents reported that they derived their livelihood from farming while a

further 20% engaged in livelihoods directly linked to agricultural production.

18

survey asked whether the disputants’ umbilical cord, known in Liberian English as the naval

string, or ancestors’ cord, were buried on the property. Many Liberian ethnic groups practice

the ritual of burying the umbilical cord on family land. The significance of this ritual varies

based on individual belief and practice; some Liberians explained that it signifies a spiritual

and physical tie to a specific piece of land that should not be broken at any cost. While a

few Liberian key informants stated that this practice was outdated and not important “any

more,” many others described a strong attachment to land where umbilical cords are buried.

This arrangement reflects “sons of the soil” narratives that are common in other countries.

Similarly, it is historically the tradition amongst the Liberian ethnic groups that live in

the surveyed area to bury their family members on their land when they die. The role of

the ancestors in Liberian culture, while evolving over time, remains important. Decoration

day, celebrated on the second Wednesday of March, is a national holiday for commemorat-

ing ancestors. Many Liberians celebrate and honor their ancestors on Decoration Day by

visiting and cleaning their graves. Visitors to Liberian villages observe few, if any, sepa-

rate cemeteries or burial grounds. Instead, between the houses, sometimes directly in the

middle of what appear to be village paths, large grave markers show the resting places of

family members and ancestors. Interviews with Liberians across ethnic groups indicate that

the presence of ancestors buried on a particular plot of land increases their emotional and

physical attachment to the land. This practice created a bond that mediated the spiritual

relationship between a person and his ancestors. The act of entering loved ones or having

ones parents bury the umbilical cord led Liberians to describe their land as “part of me,” or

“special.”

In some instances, Liberians explained that land was sacred because a specific physical

feature such as a rock, a, streams, a cluster of trees or “bush”, or a mountain marked a

physical place as holy. In some cases these sites were the meeting places for a community’s

secret society, a parallel governance structure that enforces civic practices and norms around

interpersonal relations at the community level.12 In other cases, these areas may be sacred12For further information about Liberia’s secret societies see Sawyer (2002) and Ellis (1995).

19

because they used in rituals or are special burial sites. One land disputant, when describ-

ing why a dispute over the boundary between two communities remained unresolved after

decades, stated: “Let me make something clear: the reason why the case is stuck on the Flat

Rock, which is the boundary from the Red Hill, where the bananas trees are in the valley,

it is because that is where the traditional waters are, the place where the ancestors live”

(Interview, FG, Selega, 5/28/2010).

When asked about their land, Liberians did not always invoke language of sacredness

or spirituality. Some interviewees stated that the “liked” or “enjoyed” their property, but

made no mention of their ancestors or a holy place. While acknowledging that their land

involved in the dispute was “important” in their lives and perhaps their most valuable asset,

their relationship their relationship was not particular special. When responding to further

questions about they acquired land, respondents stated that sometimes they purchased it

on the market and sometimes they accessed the land through community-level governance

structures. However, these narratives stood out in that they were not characterized by the

links to ancestors or the integral role that their land played in spiritual life.

These differences in the relationship between a person and his land mapped on to dif-

ferent experiences that disputants had during the dispute resolution process. First, I ob-

served that when disputes involved sacred land the resolution processes often started off in

a straightforward way but grew increasingly challenging. Disputants often were unwilling

to compromise. They refused proposals by local leaders, such as chiefs, and rejected de-

cisions by government administrators (or judges), that involved dividing land or property

with which they had a sacred relationship. Sometimes the rejection was transparent and

straightforward; in other cases the disputants would appear to agree but engage in various

behaviors that undermined the agreement or demonstrated that they were not willing to

comply despite stating otherwise. In some cases, disputants demanded compromises that

the other party considered highly unreasonable given their own perception of their claim and

the market value of the land. This was even true when the competing claim had some level

of credibility, and also in cases where a division would have resolved a time-consuming and

20

economically costly problem. Weak property rights institutions enabled additional delays

and disputants’ refusals to take compromise seriously. In these cases I observed that parties

often engaged multiple authorities simultaneously.

Second, disputes over sacred property escalated more quickly from problems between

single individuals to disputes between groups and communities. Individuals initially involved

in the dispute often stopped the dispute resolution process to consult community leaders and

other locally-powerful individuals, or members of the sizable Liberian diaspora in the United

States. This occurred throughout the bargaining process. In one example, I observed both

parties with a local official about to agree on a division of the property when the telephone

of one party rang. Relatives in the United States who had been alerted to the dispute had

conferred and determined that the compromise could not go forward and as a result, the

deal was off (Observation, GG, Voinjama, 2/15/10).

Third, disputants also framed their choices in terms of right and wrong or referenced

contested historical narratives (what had happened “yesterday”) when evaluating the options

during the resolution process, as opposed to identifying what would best serve their present

interests. One disputant explained: “If they acknowledge our rights and give us our rights,

we can solve this problem, but if they do not give us our rightful place, where we have always

been, we will not agree; they know the place was for us historically and they cannot deny

it” (Interview, MS, Samodu, 5/10/2010). As a result, dispute resolution processes based on

material compromises were often unable to meet the specific needs of disputants who had a

sacred relationship to their property.

Just as some disputants were more open to finding a resolution, other disputants also

used violence and other coercive actions during the dispute resolution process. In almost

half of the cases included in the dataset at least one disputant reported an act of violence as

a result of the dispute, including destruction of property, verbal abuse, or a physical assault

or act of violence with a weapon. 9% of respondents reported that either their property

or the property of the other party involved was destroyed. Such incidents included burned

crops, destroyed buildings, and cut down trees. However, these incidents of destruction were

21

relatively rare compared to reports of verbal abuse or insults exchanged as a result of the

dispute. 39% of cases involved at least one incident of verbal abuse; 32% of cases involved

specific threats to commit acts of violence as a result of the dispute. In 16% of cases the

first disputant to report the case reported that a serious incident of violence took place as a

result of the dispute, including the destruction of property, physical assault with a weapon,

or death.

6 Empirical strategy

The focus of my analysis is the identification of the factors that explain variation in dispute

dynamics and in particular why some disputes grow intractable and others do not. In this

section, I discuss my measures for dispute intractability, the explanatory variables of interest,

and the main challenges to causal identification. I discuss several strategies for overcoming

these obstacles and the assumptions they require.

6.1 Dependent variables

I use a parsimonious definition of intractable land disputes to explore what factors shape

dispute dynamics. First, Long conflict is a binary variable for whether a dispute lasts more

than the average length in the dataset (4 years). Second, Serious violence is a binary variable

for whether a dispute involves an incident of serious violence, including the destruction of

property or a violent physical assault. Third, Any intractable dispute is a dummy variable

for whether a dispute is either long or seriously violent. I also include Log of dispute length,

which is the log of the length of dispute (years).

22

6.2 Explanatory variables

6.2.1 Non-material sacred value

The non-material sacred value of land is multidimensional and challenging to capture with

survey data. As discussed in the previous section, with a sacred value might confer legitimacy

on an individual to exist in a certain place, or it might identify a person’s position within

their family as the breadwinner or leader. In some cases, sacred land contains a physical

attribute that has religious or holy meaning. Qualitative research has already established

a rich and nuanced picture of the relationship between an individual and their land. Given

the lack of systematic data on the subject, an important contribution of the LDRDS is to

capture a quantitative measurement of this variable.

Months of pre-survey qualitative fieldwork led me to select the burial of disputants’

umbilical cords and ancestors on their land as a proxy for a sacred relationship between

the disputant and the property because these measures are in most cases fixed prior to

the Liberian civil war. As a result, it is largely orthogonal to disputes taking place in the

post-war period. It is also almost impossible for disputants to opportunistically bury their

ancestors or their own umbilical cord in response to a dispute. Finally, inquiries about

these practices are non-controversial and easy to discuss during the course of a brief survey.

Together, Ancestors or navel string buried is a binary variable for whether a disputant’s

ancestors or navel string are buried on the land in dispute.

In order to capture a second dimension of the non-material value of the land in dispute, I

also asked disputants if the land involved had a special value in their community. Specifically,

the survey asked if the land had a religious value (for example, if it included a religious space,

such as a church or a mosque), a cultural value (if it included a cultural space such as a

sacred bush), or a local “citizenship” value (it specifically determined the identity of a specific

ethnic group). An expanded version of scared values is a binary variable that includes either

if a disputant reported that their ancestors or umbilical cord are buried on the property or if

they reported the land in dispute has a special value in their community (Any sacred value).

23

6.2.2 Other explanatory variables

In addition to the sacred value of land, the other factor that I hypothesize influences land

dispute dynamics is the strength of property rights institutions. Property rights institutions

in rural versus urban (more densely populated) areas differ significantly. Urban areas outside

of Monrovia are quite remote, and in many places agricultural activities still take place on

small farm and garden plots inside towns. Nevertheless, these areas contrast with isolated

villages with low population densities and few urban attributes.

Urban centers in rural areas, while still remote themselves, were more directly affected

by Liberian statutory land law. As a result these areas possess relatively stronger property

governance systems. My qualitative data shows that certain rural areas, where the land

reform process never even began, also possess relatively stronger community-based property

governance institutions. It is the areas in between the two extremes that tend to have the

weakest institutional structure. For the purposes of this analysis, however, I use disputes

over Urban land as a dummy for stronger land governance institutions.

Finally, in addition to property rights institutions and the sacred value of land, the

LDRDS measures two other aspects of the dispute and characteristics of disputants’ rela-

tionship hypothesized to influence dispute dynamics: the economic value of the property and

the cultural distance between disputants. I use several measures to proxy for the material

value of the land in the dispute. First, I include the size of the land in the case (Land size)

as well as whether the size of the land in dispute is above the 50th percentile (Land size in

50th percentile). Second, I have a dummy variable for whether the disputant reports that

there are cash crops including rubber, cocoa, coffee, or palm (for oil) on the land (Cash

crops). As additional measure, I also include a binary variable indicating whether the dis-

putant possesses any other property besides the land in dispute (Disputant possesses other

property). The assumption is that if the land in dispute is the only property a disputant has,

it is more valuable to him than otherwise, regardless of the market value of the property or

the crops planted on it. My primary measure of the cultural difference between disputants

is whether the dispute occurs between disputants from different ethnic groups (Interethnic

24

dispute). As additional measures I also include indicators of whether the dispute takes

place between disputants of the opposite sex (Dispute with member of opposite sex ), or in-

volves disputants with different levels of education (Both disputants have only elementary

education) or socioeconomic status (Both disputants live in houses without zinc roofs).

6.3 Identification strategy and challenges

I use OLS to model the relationship between sacred values and dispute dynamics,

Yij = θSij + β1Dij + β2Pij + αi + εij

Where Y is the outcome (tractable/intractable) for dispute i, S is a dummy variable for

whether a disputant reports that the land in the dispute is sacred, D is a set of disputant-

level demographic covariates, P is a set of property-level covariates, α is a county-level fixed

effect and ε is the error term. The effect of the non-material sacred value of land is θ.

Identifying the non-material impact of sacred values is a difficult task. Having sacred val-

ues does not randomly occur across the population of disputants, nor on properties involved

in disputes. As a result, the sacred value of land could be associated with other factors,

such as the economic value of the land, which might also influence dispute dynamics.

A counterfactual approach that estimates the effect of a particular explanatory variable

by comparing the differences in outcomes between a group where this variable is present

and a comparison group where it is not is only valid in this case when a sacred relationship

between a disputant and her property is “conditionally unconfounded.” That is, conditional

on observed covariates it is not correlated with ε, the error term. Given the likelihood that

there may be some unobservable sources of omitted variable bias that effect my analysis, I

investigate the sensitivity of my findings to violations of conditional unconfoundedness.

A first strategy to address concerns about whether the assumption of conditional un-

confoundedness is met is to assess the disputant level correlates of sacred land (S ). First,

however, it is important to take into consideration a mechanical relationship between hold-

ing sacred values over land and urban versus rural property. Two of the measures of sacred

25

values involve the burying of objects (the umbilical cord and the remains of family mem-

bers). As a result, it is less likely, although not out of the question, that disputes over urban

properties including buildings alone, can be counted as disputes over sacred land by this def-

inition (as mentioned above, a fair amount of agriculture goes on in urban areas and there

are graves in some more urban villages, so this is a relative, not an absolute, rule). Other

measures of sacred values, in particular, whether the land in dispute has a cultural, religious,

or “citizenship” value in the community are not as tied to the location of the property.

This analysis suggests that few demographic characteristics are highly correlated with

reporting a sacred relationship to land. Table 2 shows the results for an OLS regression of

sacredness on demographic covariates. For urban land, older disputants and those with a

roof made of a material other than zinc (a general indicator for lower socio-economic status)

are more likely to report land with a sacred value. However, other than ethnic identity, there

are no other individual characteristics correlated with scared values. For ethnic identity the

picture is mixed, with no strong patterns emerging. Some ethnic groups are more likely to

report sacred values, but the relationships vary between different types of sacred values and

for different types of land. Overall, this analysis demonstrates that individual characteristics

do not determine an individual’s description of the property in dispute as sacred.

Second, it may also be possible that land with a high non-material sacred value is

also materially more important to a disputant and her family. The presence of omitted

material characteristics of the land in dispute (D) in the error term could bias my analysis.

Qualitative research suggests, however, that the disruption caused by the Liberian civil war

helps to alleviate this concern about the hidden role of material characteristics. The Liberian

civil war led to the massive disruption of livelihoods, property (including the destruction of

structures, buildings and other goods), and agricultural production. Much of the land where

ritual burials took place had a different material value prior to the war. Patterns of land

use, changes to infrastructure, changing agricultural techniques, an increase in trade, and

the discovery of natural resources since the moment when ancestors and umbilical burial

occurred reduce the chances that sacred land has a systematically unobserved high material

26

value. This rupture caused by the Liberian civil war also implies that even if individuals

instrumentally created bonds on their most valuable land, changes in the post-war period

mean that material values are not alone driving dispute outcomes in the present.

In addition to the qualitative evidence, to ward against this confounding factor it is

necessary to control for the economic value of the land in the dispute. In the next section,

the analysis of dispute outcomes includes measures of the size of the land in dispute, whether

cash crops are planted on the land, and whether the land is the only property owned by

the disputant. Despite these efforts, it is possible that the research up until this point has

overlooked a key explanatory variable, and, as a result, this factor is omitted. Alternatively,

it is possible that my measures of the existing explanatory factors are insufficient. If this is

true, the assumption of conditional unconfoundedness is violated and it is possible that my

estimates of the effects of the key explanatory variables would be biased upwards. I address

this concern with a sensitivity analysis discussed in the next section.

7 Analysis

7.1 Comprehensive model

Column (1) of Table 3 shows the results of a naïve model of the relationship between the

key explanatory variables and intractable disputes, including the general measure for the

non-material value of the land, two measures of the material value of the land (including

whether land in question is above the 50th percentile in size13 or whether there are cash

crops), and well as a dummy variable for an interethnic dispute. Column (2) adds additional

key covariates including basic demographic characteristics of the disputant and county level

fixed effects; column (3) adds expanded demographic characteristics, including the ethnic

group and main of income for the disputant. The non-material value of land has a large

and significant effect on dispute dynamics across all models. Disputes involving land with

a sacred value are 10 percentage points more likely to involve either a serious incident of

violence or to last longer than four years (a 26% increase relative to the sample mean)13The results are also robust to the inclusion of a binary variable for land whose size is in the 75th

percentile (Appendix C) as well as for a continuous measure in land size (not shown).

27

Table 1: Correlates of non-material sacred value

Urban Rural(1) (2)

Correlates of sacred land Land has some sacred valueAge of disputant 0.00 (0.00) 0.01*** (0.00)Sex: Female -0.02 (0.07) -0.02 (0.04)Unmarried 0.01 (0.11) 0.02 (0.06)Literate 0.00 (0.09) -0.04 (0.07)Elementary school education only 0.07 (0.09) -0.02 (0.07)Non-zinc roof 0.06 (0.06) 0.12*** (0.04)Source of income: None 0.06 (0.15) -0.08 (0.10)Source of income: Other small business -0.02 (0.14) -0.00 (0.07)Source of income: Trader -0.22 (0.15) -0.08 (0.08)Source of income: Mining 0.29 (0.23) 0.04 (0.19)Source of income: Rubber tapping 0.21* (0.12) -0.08 (0.12)Source of income: Daily laborer 0.03 (0.28) 0.04 (0.12)Source of income: Farming 0.03 (0.09) 0.07 (0.07)Source of income: Skilled Trade -0.04 (0.25) -0.02 (0.11)Source of income: Office work -0.06 (0.10) -0.05 (0.08)Source of income: Hustling 0.07 (0.23) -0.13 (0.13)Source of Income: Other -0.13 (0.11) -0.07 (0.07)Bassa 0.03 (0.10) 0.21** (0.10)Gbandi -0.60** (0.28) -0.01 (0.16)Gio -0.02 (0.15) -0.08 (0.07)Gola -0.24** (0.12) 0.03 (0.07)Kissi 0.14 (0.18) 0.02 (0.08)Kpelle 0.21*** (0.07) 0.13** (0.06)Kru 0.39 (0.46) 0.13 (0.15)Lorma -0.32** (0.14) 0.01 (0.07)Mandingo 0.03 (0.12) 0.08 (0.08)Mano -0.03 (0.10) 0.02 (0.07)Observations 364 521R-squared .16 .13

Standard errors in parentheses.*** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1Notes: Regression using ordinary least squares (OLS).

28

(column (3)).

Columns (4) through (6) of Table 3 give the results for the same analysis using a de-

pendent variable restricted to incidents of serious violence. In the most comprehensive

model, column (6), a dispute over land with some sacred value is seven percentage points

more likely to involve an incident of serious violence (a 44% increase relative to the sam-

ple mean). Columns (7) through (12) use the same models with two additional dependent

variables: an indicator for whether the dispute is longer than four years and the log of the

dispute’s length. The results are large and robust; a dispute over sacred land is eight per-

centage points (a 28% increase relative to the sample mean) more likely to last longer than

four years.

7.2 Alternative specifications

Table 4 provides the results of the first robustness checks. Columns (1)-(4) show the results

for urban land alone; columns (5)-(8) show the results for rural land; and columns (9)-(12)

show the results for a measure of sacred values restricted to the presence of ancestors or

the disputant’s umbilical cord on the land (all with the most comprehensive model). The

results show the impact of urban land on the relationship between sacredness and intractable

disputes: although positive, the coefficients are not consistently significant. Disputes over

sacred land in rural areas, however, are 13 percentage points more likely to involve an incident

of serious violence (a 54% increase relative to the sample mean). I discuss these findings in

the next section. Disputes over land with either a disputant’s ancestors or umbilical cord

alone, as opposed to the more general measure of sacred values, are seven percentage points

(a 44% increase relative to the sample mean) more likely than the average dispute to involve

violence.

7.3 Sensitivity analysis

There is a possibility that an unobserved variable correlated with both my explanatory vari-

able of interest, sacred values, and my dependent variable, intractable disputes, is biasing

29

Tab

le2:

Sacred

land

andintractabledisputes,inc

lusion

ofcovariates,n

=88

5(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12)

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Lan

ddisputeis

long

andviolent

Incide

ntof

seriou

sviolen

ceDispu

telong

erthan

4years

Dispu

teleng

th(log)

Lan

dha

ssomesacred

value

0.09**

0.09**

0.10**

0.08***

0.07**

0.07**

0.07**

0.08**

0.08**

0.23***

0.26***

0.26***

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.08)

(0.08)

(0.08)

Interethnicdisputes

0.07**

0.06*

0.04

0.01

0.01

0.00

0.06*

0.04

0.02

0.14*

0.07

0.04

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.07)

(0.07)

(0.08)

Size

ofprop

erty,5

0th

percentile

0.17***

0.05

0.05

0.04

-0.02

-0.04

0.18***

0.10*

0.10*

0.40***

0.13

0.13

(0.04)

(0.06)

(0.06)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.05)

(0.09)

(0.12)

(0.12)

Cashcrop

(cocoa,

rubb

er,c

offee,p

alm)

0.07

0.02

0.05

0.10***

0.08**

0.09**

0.04

0.01

0.02

0.17*

0.05

0.08

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.05)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.09)

(0.10)

(0.10)

Observation

s885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

Cou

ntyFE

NY

YN

YY

NY

YN

YY

BaselineCon

trols

NY

YN

YY

NY

YN

YY

Exten

dedsetof

Con

trols

NN

YN

NY

NN

YN

NY

R-squ

ared

0.07

0.09

0.11

0.04

0.05

0.08

0.07

0.08

0.09

0.09

0.12

0.15

Samplemean

38%

38%

38%

16%

16%

16%

29%

29%

29%

0.72

0.72

0.72

Effe

ctof

sacred

as%

ofsamplemean

24%

24%

26%

50%

44%

44%

24%

28%

28%

0.32

0.36

0.36

Stan

dard

errors

inpa

renthe

ses

***p<

0.01,*

*p<

0.05,*

p<0.1

Not

es:Allregression

susingordina

ryleastsqua

res(O

LS).Colum

ns(1),

(4),

(7),

and(10)

includ

ekeyexplan

atoryvariab

les(sho

wn).Colum

ns(2),

(5),

(8),

and(11)

includ

ecoun

tyfix

edeff

ects,an

dkeycontrols,includ

ingthelocation

oftheland

,an

dsex,

age,

marital

status,socioecono

mic

status

and

educationlevels

forthedisputan

t.Colum

ns(3),

(6),

(9),

ad(12)

includ

ecoun

tyfix

edeff

ects,keycontrols,an

dexpa

nded

controls,includ

ingdisputan

tsmainsource

ofincomean

dtheirethn

icgrou

p.

30

Tab

le3:

Rob

ustnesschecks

Urban

Rural

Alldisputes,a

ncestors/n

avel

string

only

Sample

mean

% sample

mean

Coefficient

Stan

dard

error

Sample

mean

% sample

mean

Coefficient

Stan

dard

error

Sample

mean

% sample

mean

Coefficient

Stan

dard

error

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12)

Lan

ddispute

long

/an

dviolent

27%

22%

0.06

(0.05)

53%

21%

0.11*

(0.06)

38%

26%

0.10**

(0.04)

Incide

ntof

seriou

sviolen

ce10%

20%

0.02

(0.04)

24%

54%

0.13**

(0.05)

16%

44%

0.07**

(0.03)

Dispu

telong

erthan

4years

19%

32%

0.06

(0.05)

33%

15%

0.05

(0.06)

29%

21%

0.06

(0.04)

Dispu

teleng

th(log)

0.35

0.60

0.21**

(0.11)

0.95

0.25

0.24*

(0.13)

0.72

0.31

0.22**

(0.09)

Stan

dard

errors

inpa

renthe

ses

***p<

0.01,*

*p<

0.05,*

p<0.1

Not

es:Allregression

susingordina

ryleastsqua

res(O

LS).Mod

els(1)-(4)runon

urba

ndisputes,n=

521.

Mod

els(5)-(9)runon

ruraldisputes,n=

364.

Mod

els(9)–(12)runon

alldisputes,n=

885.

Regressions

includ

ecoun

tyfix

edeff

ects,an

dba

siccontrols

(including

thelocation

oftheland

,an

dsex,

age,

marital

status,socioecon

omic

status

anded

ucationlevelsforthedisputan

t);e

xpan

dedcontrols,including

disputan

tsmainsource

ofincomean

dtheir

ethn

icgrou

p.

31

the results presented here. To investigate this possibility further, I model the sensitivity

of my explanatory variable to the inclusion of observed variables as a benchmark to assess

the possibility that an unobserved variable is driving my results.14 Following Oster (2014),

I evaluate the robustness of the coefficient of my explanatory variable to the inclusion of

controls taking into account changes in both coefficients and the R-squared. Most previous

analysis of the sensitivity of results to omitted variable bias focuses on movements in co-

efficients only. The related covariance approach formalized by Oster (2014) has the added

benefit of taking into account “noisy” or imprecise control measures. Such coefficients, while

theoretically pertinent, do not fully account for the full range of variation, which, as a result,

ends up in the error term. When such controls are included in a regression, coefficients may

change, but if there is little movement in the R-squared, omitted variables may still bias

regression coefficients.

Following the simple model,

Yi = θSi + β1Di + β2Pi + αi +W2

Where Di, Pi and αi are observed covariates (at the disputant level, property level, and

geographic level, respectively) defined as W1, and W2 is unobserved and the coefficient of

interest is θ, θ is not identified by the regression because of elements omitted from the model.

Using Oster (2014)’s proportional selection assumption Cov(X,W2)V ar(W2)

= δCov(X,W1)V ar(W1)

, δ provides

information about the link between S and observable variables and S and the potential

unobserved variables, W2. Following the proportional selection assumption, it is possible to

recover potential values θ using the coefficient on S from regressions both with and without

controls; the R-squared values from controlled and simple regressions; and a value for δ.

Redefining the model with an error term is represented by the equation

Y = θS +W1 + W̃2 + ε

14This analysis follows the work of Imbens (2003) and Altonji, Elder, and Taber (2000). Recent appliedwork that employs similar analysis includes Blattman (2009).

32

where ε is orthogonal to S, W1,and W̃2, permits a decomposition of δ into two components:

(1) δ̃, the proportional selection between W1 and the unobservables related to S, (W̃2);

and (2) Rmax, the R-squared of the model with controls for S, W1, and W̃2. By assuming

bounding values for Rmax and δ̃, I estimate a set of possible values for the effect of the key

explanatory variable and test whether the set is robust, or does not contain zero.

Following Oster (2014), I fix the bounds of δ̃ between [1, 0]. I set the Rmax = .6. This is

a conservative estimate of the maxim amount of variation we might expect a robust model

(including W̃2) to explain (see for example Verwimp’s (2005) micro-level study on the causes

of genocide in Rwanda, which obtains R-squared in the neighborhood of .17, typical for work

that investigates this kind of phenomenon). The analysis is, however, robust to setting the

Rmax at 1. I compare a “baseline” or simplified regression to a “controlled” regression. Table

5 shows the coefficient, standard error and R-squared for the simple regression, column (1),

and the same for the controlled regression, column (2). The analysis indicates that the

identified set of coefficients, column (3), does not include zero. This result suggests that

there is not an unobserved variable whose omission is driving significant relationship between

sacred values and the escalation of land disputes. The analysis is robust to constraining the

key explanatory variable to the burial of the umbilical cord or ancestors on the property

alone (Table 5).

Table 4: Proportional selection assumption, Rmax =.6(1) (2) (3)

Simple effect Controlled effect Identified set

Explanatory variable Coefficient

Standard

Error

R-

squared Coefficient

Standard

Error

R-

squared

Any sacred value .07** 0.04 0.07 .09** 0.04 0.1 [.09, .33]

Ancestor or navelstring buried on land

.07** 0.04 0.07 .09** 0.04 0.1 [.08, .34]

Notes: The simple regression controls only for the location of the property; Full controls: location ofproperty, land size, cash crops, inter-ethnic conflict, sex, age, martial status, elementary education only andcounty-level fixed effects (Table 3, column 2).

33

8 Discussion

The analysis presented here finds that the non-material sacred value of the land in a dispute

stands out as a powerful factor that shapes dispute tractability and escalation. The result

is robust to the inclusion of a variety of control variables and changes little across model

specifications. This evidence demonstrates that perceptions of sacred land’s indivisibility

make compromise during dispute resolution more difficult. Sacred values can also lead to

morally framed decision-making and a lack of information about a disputant’s interests.

Disputants in these cases may be more susceptible to the outside influence of members of

their social group. Overall, this analysis suggests that bargaining failures due to indivisible

stakes and asymmetrical information help explain land dispute escalation. In other ongoing

work, I explore exactly how these mechanisms shape the bargaining process.

Qualitative fieldwork finds that while the measures of sacredness that captured in the

LDRDS dataset are historically rooted, many land disputes occur because of the general

instability of the post-war period and the rapid changes to property rights institutions. The

average age of a land disputant in the dataset is around 50 years, suggesting that if the

disputant’s family buried her umbilical cord on the property, this took place in the 1950s

and 1960s. As a result, I argue that the sacred value of land is determined prior to disputes

in the post-conflict period and that an omitted variable that drives individuals to create

a sacred relationship with their property and later engage in property disputes on that

property is unlikely.

Micro-level quantitative analysis unaided by experimental variation is usually imperfect.

Despite the argument above, correlation does not imply causation. If there is any omitted

variable, the most likely candidate is that some measure of the economic value of the land

is missing from this analysis and that this measure is strongly correlated with both sacred

values and dispute intractability. Nevertheless, the results presented here are significant and

stable across multiple specifications and robust to a sensitivity analysis. This shows that the

34

models do a reasonable job of controlling for the factors hypothesized to influence dispute

tractability, including disputes between members of different ethnic groups and measures of

the material value of the land in dispute.

This analysis of the LDRDS dataset does two additional things, which I argue are just

as important.

First, this analysis demonstrates that collecting fine-grained data on disputes and dispute

resolution is not only possible, but also useful. Even in inaccessible environments that lack

systematic information it is possible to collect fine-grained data on complex and sensitive

topics.

Second, this analysis indicates that a proxy for local institutions, in particular the forums

available for dispute resolution in urban and rural areas, play a role in dispute dynamics.

This finding fits with the existing literature on property rights: institutions matter for land

conflict (e.g. Boone 2014). As discussed in other ongoing work, property rights regimes also

play an important role in explaining bargaining breakdowns: when property rights are weak,

poor enforcement and ineffective coordination characterize the dispute resolution process,

creating the conditions for intractable disputes.

What is the external validity of this analysis? It is important to be cautious in extending

these results to disputes not included in the NRC database and therefore outside of the

LDRDS survey. Nevertheless, evidence demonstrates that if anything, the coefficients of the

effect of sacred values on dispute dynamics are underestimates. As discussed earlier in this

paper, the disputes included in the LDRDS dataset are more violent and include a higher

proportion of interethnic disputes. In all probability, the excluded disputes are both less

likely to be violent and less likely to involve sacred land, implying that the impact of the

non-material value of the land on dispute dynamics in the general universe of land disputes

is larger than what is estimated here.

The socially embedded nature of the relationship between disputants and their property

has important implications for both local politics and land politics in an age of increased

scarcity. First, understanding the dynamics of local disputes should help direct resources

35

more effectively towards resolving disputes with the highest potential for disrupting local

order. Dealing with conflict at the root before it has a chance to escalate is the best way

to avoid larger-scale disputes. Second, the context of increasing pressure on agricultural

land and the mounting demand for natural resources may hide the importance of a prop-

erty’s sacred value even when the relationships between individuals and their land shapes

decision-making. As new institutions, new actors, and new modes of production emerge,

incorporating the non-material sacred value of land into the ways that governments, commu-

nities and individuals manage, use and share these resources is key to ensuring a peacefully

and sustainably relationship between people and and between their environment property

in the future.

36

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39

Appendices A-C

Table 5: Descriptive statistics

Variable Mean Intractable disputes Tractable disputes ObsDemographicsAge 50.32 51.6 49.53 885Female 27% 22% 31% 885Unmarried 9% 8% 10% 885Literate 71% 73% 70% 885Elementary education only 35% 34% 36% 885Non-zinc roof 31% 26% 34% 885Source of income: None 4% 4% 3% 885Source of income: Other smallbusiness

12% 9% 14% 885

Source of income: Trader 6% 7% 6% 885Source of income: Mining 1% 1% 1% 885Source of income: Rubber tapping 4% 6% 3% 885Source of income: Daily laborer 2% 3% 1% 885Source of income: Farming 28% 32% 26% 885Source of income: Skilled Trade 3% 1% 4% 885Source of income: Office work 12% 12% 12% 885Source of income: Hustling 2% 1% 2% 885Land in disputeLand in dispute located in urbanarea

59% 43% 69% 885

Authority: Administrative 43% 38% 45% 885Authority: Statutory 4% 4% 3% 885Authority: Chief 32% 35% 30% 885Authority: Traditional landlord 21% 22% 21% 885Authority: I don’t know 0% 0% 1% 885Material value of propertyProperty size 72.25 102.3 53.86 885Possess other property 68% 70% 67% 885Cash crops 24% 34% 18% 885Deed for property 77% 76% 78% 885Boundary marker for property 80% 79% 81% 885Cultural and social distancebetween disputantsDisputants with opposite sex 65% 71% 62% 885Disputants with same literacy 60% 56% 62% 885Dispute with member of household 2% 1% 2% 885Dispute with extended familymember

10% 12% 8% 885

Dispute within ethnic group 45% 43% 46% 885

40

Table 5: Descriptive statistics

Variable Mean Intractable disputes Tractable disputes ObsInterethnic dispute 37% 37% 37% 885Dispute with an institution 7% 6% 7% 885Type of disputeAccess dispute 33% 35% 33% 885Boundary dispute 58% 52% 62% 885Inheritance dispute 7% 10% 4% 885Other dispute 2% 3% 1% 885Sacred valuesAncestors /navel string buried onland

33% 44% 26% 885

Community: Cultural value 11% 18% 7% 885Community: Religious value 4% 3% 4% 885Community: Citizenship value 8% 11% 6% 885Any special value in community 18% 25% 13% 885Any sacred value of land 40% 51% 33% 885Dispute tractabilityDispute length (years) 4.01 885Any act of violence 45% 885Destruction of property 9% 885Verbal threat of violence 32% 885Serious violence 16% 885

41

Table 6: Comparison of summary statistics, PEACE and LDRDS data

PEACE dataset, Nimba county LDRDS dataset, Nimba countyVariable Mean Obs Mean ObsAge 39 149 51 503Sex: Female 46% 149 22% 503Elementary education only 37% 149 32% 503Christian 89% 149 91% 503Muslim 1% 149 3% 503Ethnic group: Mano 52% 149 25% 503Ethnic group: Mandingo 7% 149 2% 503Incident of violence in land dispute 13% 149 26% 503Inter-ethnic conflict 1% 149 27% 503

42

Tab

le7:

Sacred

land

andintractabledisputes,inc

lusion

ofcovariates,n

=95

8(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12)

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Lan

ddisputeis

long

andviolent

Incide

ntof

seriou

sviolen

ceDispu

telong

erthan

4years

Dispu

teleng

th(log)

Lan

dha

ssomesacred

value

0.10***

0.10***

0.11***

0.07***

0.07**

0.07**

0.08**

0.09**

0.09**

0.21***

0.24***

0.25***

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.08)

(0.08)

(0.08)

Inter-ethn

icdisputes

0.08**

0.07**

0.06

0.02

0.02

0.02

0.06**

0.04

0.03

0.15**

0.09

0.06

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.02)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.07)

(0.07)

(0.07)

Size

ofprop

erty,5

0th

percentile

0.16***

0.04

0.03

0.03

-0.02

-0.03

0.17***

0.08

0.07

0.43***

0.13

0.11

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.05)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.05)

(0.08)

(0.11)

(0.11)

Cashcrop

(cocoa,

rubb

er,c

offee,p

alm)

0.07*

0.03

0.05

0.10***

0.08**

0.09***

0.05

0.01

0.02

0.17*

0.06

0.08

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.09)

(0.09)

(0.09)

Observation

s958

958

958

958

958

958

958

958

958

958

958

958

Cou

ntyFE

NY

YN

YY

NY

YN

YY

BaselineCon

trols

NY

YN

YY

NY

YN

YY

Exten

dedsetof

Con

trols

NN

YN

NY

NN

YN

NY

R-squ

ared

0.07

0.09

0.11

0.04

0.04

0.06

0.07

0.08

0.10

0.09

0.13

0.15

Samplemean

38%

38%

38%

16%

16%

16%

29%

29%

29%

0.72

0.72

0.72

Effe

ctof

sacred

as%

ofsamplemean

26%

26%

29%

44%

44%

44%

28%

31%

31%

0.29

0.33

0.35

Stan

dard

errors

inpa

renthe

ses

***p<

0.01,*

*p<

0.05,*

p<0.1

Not

es:Allregression

susingordina

ryleastsqua

res(O

LS).Colum

ns(1),

(4),

(7),

and(10)

includ

ekeyexplan

atoryvariab

les(sho

wn).Colum

ns(2),

(5),

(8),

and(11)

includ

ecoun

tyfix

edeff

ects,an

dkeycontrols,includ

ingthelocation

oftheland

,an

dsex,

age,

marital

status,socioecono

mic

status

and

educationlevels

forthedisputan

t.Colum

ns(3),

(6),

(9),

ad(12)

includ

ecoun

tyfix

edeff

ects,keycontrols,an

dexpa

nded

controls,includ

ingdisputan

tsmainsource

ofincomean

dtheirethn

icgrou

p.

43

Tab

le8:

Sacred

land

andintractabledisputes,inc

lusion

ofcovariates,lan

din

disputein

75th

percentile,n

=88

5(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

(12)

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Dep

ende

ntvariab

le:

Lan

ddisputeis

long

andviolent

Incide

ntof

seriou

sviolen

ceDispu

telong

erthan

4years

Dispu

teleng

th(log)

Lan

dha

ssomesacred

value

0.10***

0.10**

0.10**

0.08***

0.07**

0.07**

0.09***

0.08**

0.09**

0.28***

0.28***

0.28***

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.08)

(0.08)

(0.08)

Inter-ethn

icdisputes

0.06*

0.05

0.04

0.00

0.01

0.00

0.05

0.03

0.02

0.10

0.06

0.03

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.03)

(0.07)

(0.07)

(0.08)

Size

ofprop

erty,7

5th

percentile

0.16***

0.05

0.06

0.04

-0.01

-0.01

0.15***

0.04

0.04

0.31***

0.00

0.00

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.05)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.05)

(0.09)

(0.11)

(0.11)

Cashcrop

(cocoa,

rubb

er,c

offee,p

alm)

0.08*

0.02

0.05

0.10***

0.08**

0.09**

0.06

0.01

0.02

0.23**

0.06

0.09

(0.04)

(0.05)

(0.05)

(0.03)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.04)

(0.09)

(0.10)

(0.10)

Observation

s885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

885

Cou

ntyFE

NY

YN

YY

NY

YN

YY

BaselineCon

trols

NY

YN

YY

NY

YN

YY

Exten

dedsetof

Con

trols

NN

YN

NY

NN

YN

NY

R-squ

ared

0.06

0.09

0.12

0.04

0.05

0.08

0.06

0.07

0.09

0.08

0.12

0.14

Samplemean

38%

38%

38%

16%

16%

16%

29%

29%

29%

0.72

0.72

0.72

Effe

ctof

sacred

as%

ofsamplemean

26%

26%

26%

50%

44%

44%

31%

28%

31%

0.39

0.39

0.39

Stan

dard

errors

inpa

renthe

ses

***p<

0.01,*

*p<

0.05,*

p<0.1

Not

es:Allregression

susingordina

ryleastsqua

res(O

LS).Colum

ns(1),

(4),

(7),

and(10)

includ

ekeyexplan

atoryvariab

les(sho

wn).Colum

ns(2),

(5),

(8),

and(11)

includ

ecoun

tyfix

edeff

ects,an

dkeycontrols,includ

ingthelocation

oftheland

,an

dsex,

age,

marital

status,socioecono

mic

status

and

educationlevels

forthedisputan

t.Colum

ns(3),

(6),

(9),

ad(12)

includ

ecoun

tyfix

edeff

ects,keycontrols,an

dexpa

nded

controls,includ

ingdisputan

tsmainsource

ofincomean

dtheirethn

icgrou

p.

44