The environment has now become firmly established as an item on the agenda of peace research. However, perceptions of the interrelationship between peace and environmental issues differ widely. In order to prepare the way for systematic analysis of this interrelationship, four linkages are identified here: causal, instrumental, definitional and normative. Since environmental issues are not only to be treated as non-military threats to the security of societies, but can also work to promote cooperation and peace-building, the causal, instrumental and definitional linkages are sub-categorized as having positive and negative aspects. Environmental security is identified as a normative linkage designed to cope with the negative aspects of the other linkages. Whether this will lead to a militarization of environmental politics, or rather help to demilitarize security thinking remains an open question. The answer will depend very much on the positive aspects of the causal and instrumental linkages. Up to now, ecological cooperation has to be seen as a dependent variable reflecting the state of overall international relations. However, there are some indications that environmental cooperation may develop an Eigendynamik of its own and become an independent variable with influence of its own on world politics.

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