273 Miguel García Guindo Insurgencies: competition for resources as an explanatory variable hand, the insurgents usually take refuge in facilitating a climate of the intensification of violence, with the sole aim of retaining its position in the monopolised management of resources. The acceptance of the theories that are focused on resources, which establish a nexus between capturing and utilising them and the degree of coercion used by many armed groups, implies a recognition that it is these resources that drive the conduct of the parties involved. To put this another way: where availability is seen to be high there, we can ask ourselves whether there are also sufficient grounds for the insurgency to establish a contractual relationship with the population. In stating this, we would like to propose the argument that insurgencies strategically change their time horizons (from the short term to one that is further way in time and vice-versa), regardless of the difficulty or the ease that they have when it comes to claiming those resources as their own. However, as we have sought to show over the course of these pages, the insurgencies may modify their perspective in some cases, based upon one fundamental criterion: whether or not they have a political space to maintain the monopoly that they exercise with relative ease. A vision of the new wars in which emphasis is placed on the role played by individuals that lack any ideological justification in the development of contemporaneous conflicts has reached a certain degree of standing. The presence of this militia is very often highlighted, based upon the links that they maintain with organised crime networks on an international scale. While this analysis may be useful when it comes to explain some of the violent forms of conduct that have been targeted against the civilian population, this is nonetheless not so pertinent when we analyse certain events that these groups have played a major role in. As we have stated, the coercive form of conduct that the SPLM carried out against the population of south Sudan during the 1980’s and 1990’s is in no way related to the almost complete lack of resources at their disposal. Neither in this case is there a significant connection with the networks of organised crime, or the undertaking of unlawful activities, such as drug trafficking or smuggling. Nonetheless, at the time at which the competition for resources began to become re-established, and funds from external donors began arriving, the population’s interaction with the movement took elements that are characteristic to contractual relationships. However, this evidence runs contrary to the arguments concerning the abundance of resources and the greed of the parties involved to appropriate it for themselves. These support the argument that violence against non-combatants is more likely in boom times and scenarios. This circumstance has meant that neo-classical economic theories, focused on the maximisation of the (economic) benefits as the main variable explaining the dynamics of the conflicts, is highly criticised by other trends in research. The latter place greater emphasis on the empirical application that can be attributed to neo-classical logic, as the prime example of the behavioural approach that guides Homo economicus, as well as his traditional clumsiness when it comes to administering the inevitable neces
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