Conference Paper
The Interplay of Political Turbulence and Investor-State Dispute: Insights from Africa and the MENA Region
No.
ERF30_129
Publisher
ERF
Date
March, 2024
This paper examines the impact of political violence on investment arbitration, exploring two hypotheses: 1) Political violence, controlling for economic factors, does not independently increase arbitration likelihood; 2) Robust institutions mitigate the adverse effects of political violence on arbitration. Utilizing an ordinal logistic regression on 242 investment arbitration claims, documented from 1996 to 2019 in Africa and the MENA region, and data on political conflicts from both the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and the Armed Conflict Location Events Dataset (ACLED), findings reveal that riots and protests significantly heighten arbitration probability. Strong institutions may paradoxically amplify vulnerability to disputes during political unrest. The findings call for a nuanced approach to investment arbitration amid political turmoil.
Research Associates
Dina Kassab
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Economics and Political...