2021 Theses Bachelor's

Can financial and economic indicators explain conflict intensity?

Gostelow, Bernadette Paulyn

How does money laundering affect civil wars? In the thesis, the author argues that there are considerable synergies between the two. Within money laundering, there are precise indicators but little data on the true scale of money laundering because of the sensitivity of the data. Within political violence, there is data on conflict intensity but few precise indicators that explain variation. By considering how civil war organizations use money laundering, this thesis demonstrates that money laundering indicators are more consistent predictors of political violence than those traditionally used in political violence studies. This thesis surveys civil war violence in Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia from 1997 to 2019.