Can land title reduce low-intensity interhousehold conﬂict incidences and associated damages in eastern DRC? Naureen Fatema 1 Department of Economics, McGill University, Canada article info Article history: Keywords: Low-intensity interhousehold conﬂict Land title Propensity score matching North Kivu DRC Africa abstract The broad aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of land reform policy as a sustainable tool for averting low-intensity local conﬂict and protecting vulnerable households in conﬂict and post-conﬂict societies from adverse consequences of conﬂict. Empirical studies on micro-level conﬂict have been lim- ited on two fronts - the difﬁculty of collecting survey data from conﬂict prone societies, and a general lack of attention to the consequences of low-intensity local conﬂict. This paper attempts to address both these limitations. Using a survey on violent and non-violent conﬂict experiences of 1582 farming households from the postwar society of North Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), I explore whether land title can i) lower the probability of low-intensity conﬂict between households; and ii) lower the damages for households in the event of a conﬂict. To address concerns of potential selection bias, I employ the quasi-experimental estimation technique of propensity score matching (PSM). A rigorous set of tests and sensitivity analyses ensures both the quality of matching and reliability of estimates. These ﬁndings show that land title reduces a household’s probability of experiencing low-intensity inter- household conﬂict roughly between 10 and 18 percentage points. However, I ﬁnd no evidence that house- holds with land title are subject to lower damages in the event of a conﬂict. These ﬁndings suggest that in vulnerable societies with high exposure to conﬂict, land reform programs that just grant title to house- holds may reduce conﬂict to some extent but will not necessarily reduce the adverse consequences asso- ciated with conﬂict. Thus, land title is not a panacea for all conﬂict related adversities and cannot serve as a stand-alone tool for reducing adversities associated with conﬂict. Further research is required on whether supplementing land reform programs with policies such as promoting good governance and strengthening local institutions can sustainably promote peaceful societies. Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Conﬂict between households and communities, government, and rebel forces have been widely documented to result in adverse consequences in fragile societies. Such adverse consequences include household members being injured, killed, or made refu- gees, houses being burnt down, theft, ambush, forced displace- ment, destruction of infrastructure, assets and livelihoods; and leading to fear, distrust, and eventual break down of social cohe- sion, institutions and norms (Autesserre, 2014; Bellows & Miguel, 2009; Justino, 2009, 2011; Voors et al., 2012). The existing litera- ture on conﬂict is mostly limited to country-level analyses (see Blattman & Miguel, 2010, for a comprehensive review) where the state or state institutions are the main actors (Justino, 2011) and consequences include large scale violence and massacre. Though scholars agree that civil war violence is often shaped by local con- ﬂict, rooted in the behavior of individuals or households and their interactions within social norms (Autesserre, 2010, 2014; Blair, Blattman, & Hartman, 2017; Kalyvas, 2006), the difﬁculty of col- lecting data from conﬂict and post-conﬂict societies poses a chal- lenge to micro-empirical research. As a result, little is known of social conﬂicts at the individual or household level. Using a house- hold survey gives me a unique opportunity to investigate the role of land title on the incidence and adverse consequences of social conﬂict in a fragile society, with a focus on micro-level conﬂict experiences that are usually neglected from mainstream reports and analyses. The survey I use documents both violent and non-violent con- ﬂict experienced by 1,582 farming households from the postwar society of North Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). All forms of disagreements, disputes, protests and violence between households and other members of society (e.g. neighbors, landowners, government and rebel forces) that may lead to adverse consequences, such as loss of livelihood and assets, disrup- tion of services, physical injury, death, etc., are recorded in the sur- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.104612 0305-750X/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1 Address: 8722 Bent Tree Drive, College Station, TX 77845, USA. E-mail address: naureen.fatema@mail.mcgill.ca World Development 123 (2019) 104612 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect World Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev