Conclusion

Abstract

The central message to emerge from the collection of essays that constitute this volume is that ethnic, political, strategic, environmental, economic and other factors — each vital to understanding the causes and trajectories of the myriad forms of conflict that exist in South Asia — cannot on their own provide a compelling descriptive or explanatory account. Rather, at individual, district, national and regional levels of analysis, economic factors intersect with other determinants of conflict to form a multifaceted, seamless mosaic. Rational self-interest — the pillar of economic theory — is, therefore, a necessary, but not sufficient, factor in the analysis of these conflicts. Rather, there exists a dynamic interplay between economic and other factors to foment and sustain conflict from the very micro level of individual participants to that of the most macro level of nation states with populations in the hundreds of millions.