Checkpoints, transnational trade and conflict

Drawing on existing literature and case studies, this paper argues that checkpoints along transnational trade routes are central to conflict economies, facilitating the extraction of rents by armed groups without the need for extensive territorial control or bargaining with local populations. By focusing on the broader political economy of conflict that checkpoints interact with, the paper contributes to the emerging field of the ’politics of circulation’, offering a more nuanced understanding of how transnational trade empowers certain groups while marginalizing others in situations of conflict. Specifically, it advances the study of trade-conflict dynamics by emphasizing the importance of rent distribution and external trade dependencies for the political economy of conflict. First, it proposes that many contemporary conflict economies are often ’extraverted’, meaning they rely on extracting rents from external trade flows, shaping conflict dynamics and rebel governance in contested areas. Second, the paper explores the distributional impacts of checkpoint taxation. Because checkpoints are indirect taxes, transporters subjected to checkpoint exactions are able to pass the burden onwards. The available evidence suggests that the burden of checkpoint taxes in conflict disproportionately falls on already vulnerable populations. The findings highlight the developmental implications of checkpoints, revealing how they perpetuate economic marginalization and conflict in war-torn regions.