Master of Arts / Department of Political Science / Emizet N. Kisangani / This study is an effort to shed some light on the causes of civil war. The literature on civil war onset has been framed under three main perspectives: cultural, political and economic approaches. Recent studies, however, tend to narrow the debate and posit explanations for civil war as either greed-motivated or grievance-motivated. This study replicates one of the most prominent econometric models on civil war, the Collier and Hoeffler model (CH), and further validated their economic interpretation of civil war as greed-motivated. Their argument is that greed-led behavior is motivated by an abundance of valuable resources. However, Collier and Hoeffler overlooked one critical element: scarce resources also contribute to discontent and violent protests. This study suggests that the CH model should include resource scarcity to avoid omitting variable bias.