For decades, discussions about the conflict in Papua have been framed primarily through the lens of historical grievance: disputed political integration, marginalization of indigenous Papuans, and distrust toward the Indonesian state (e.g., Chauvel, 2005). These grievances are real and politically consequential. Focusing almost exclusively on grievance, however, has produced an analytical blind spot. It explains why dissatisfaction exists, but not why the conflict has persisted for decades in a fragmented, low-intensity form, rather than escalating into either resolution or full-scale civil war.

A growing body of literature in the political economy of civil conflict suggests that grievances alone rarely sustain armed rebellion. They focused on the conditions that enable insurgency to survive rather than on grievances alone. For example, some argued that many societies experience deep grievances, but only some descend into protracted conflict.These differences arise from economic incentives, weak institutions, difficult geography, and fragmented political power that allow grievances to grow into lasting conflict.

Papua illustrates this dynamic with unusual clarity. It possesses several of these enabling conditions simultaneously. The outcome is not a full civil war but a low-level insurgency, similar to those in peripheral areas where state authority remains inadequate. To understand why the conflict has endured for decades, it is necessary to move beyond the conventional grievance narrative. It needs to examine three interrelated dimensions emphasized in the literature on civil conflict: the political economy of violence, the state's capacity, and the dynamics of local political elites. These structural factors help explain not only why grievances exist, but why they continue to translate into persistent instability