<p>Many less-developed African and Asian countries have experienced a prolonged civil armed conflict while sharing common traits, such as a colonial past and abundant natural resources. This study examines the determinants of armed conflict by combining the institutional path dependence framework with the natural resource curse hypothesis. By combining these two concepts, the analysis investigates how institutions mediate and moderate the relationship between natural resource dependence and armed conflict, thereby explaining cross-country heterogeneity in conflict incidence. We utilise dyadic conflict data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Project (UCDP) for 138 countries from 1984 to 2021. We estimate a generalised structural equation model (GSEM) that explicitly accounts for institutional endogeneity, mediation, and moderation effects. The empirical results suggest that countries dependent on natural resources are more likely to experience armed conflict. Institutions have a dual role, serving both as a positive mediating factor and a conflict-mitigating moderating factor (except in the case of forest rent) in determining the probability of conflict. While resource dependence undermines institutions, thereby increasing the risk of conflict, higher-quality institutions simultaneously reduce the extent to which resource rents translate into armed conflict. Furthermore, the findings provide strong evidence of institutional path dependence, indicating that contemporary institutional quality remains strongly shaped by historical factors. Our results have direct implications for policies concerning stakeholders.</p>