ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that cooperation around natural resources is likely to occur when rebel groups and the government see the common sharing of the natural resources as mutually beneficial. It explains three main factors that relate to the changing nature of the relationship between the government and the rebel group. First, a decreasing level of hostility between the rebel group and the state opens up for more cooperation around natural resources. Second, cooperation around natural resources is likely to occur when the rebel group has established a strong social contract with the local population. Third, the group's goals and ideology regarding the economy in general and the management of natural resources in particular represent the factor that helps to explain cooperation around natural resources. The case study of the Philippines is chosen because it provides an interesting variation in how natural resources fuel conflict, or, on the contrary, build peace.
