A volatile interaction between peacebuilding priorities: road infrastructure (re)construction and land rights in Afghanistan

Unruh, John A.; Shalaby, Mourad

doi:10.1177/146499341101200103

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Yet, building new roads and drilling new boreholes in politically volatile regions might come with their own challenges. For example, Unruh & Shalaby (2012) demonstrate that road construction in conflict-ridden areas with weakened institutions can facilitate land grabbing by powerful individuals, exacerbate local grievances and open up avenues for rebel groups to extort money from construction companies. Similarly, Krätli & Swift (1999) explain that the drilling of new boreholes in rangelands can generate disputes between pastoralists, as new grazing areas become accessible, for which there are no established use rights.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local conditions of drought-related violence in sub-Saharan Africa

Detges

2016

Journal of Peace Research

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Despite growing concerns about the possible security implications of extreme precipitation shortfalls in vulnerable and politically fragile regions, the particular conditions that make armed violence more or less likely in times of drought remain poorly understood. Using a spatially disaggregated research design and focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, the present analysis assesses how far violent and nonviolent outcomes in the wake of drought can be accounted for by regional differences in the provision of key infrastructures that help coping with drought and preventing violence. The results indicate that civil conflict events in connection with drought are more likely in administrative areas with poorly developed road infrastructures. Drought-related communal violence, on the other hand, is more likely in regions where an important part of the population lacks access to an improved water source. Thus, while the provision of key infrastructures seems to moderate local conflict risks in connection with drought, there are nevertheless important distinctions with regard to different types of infrastructures and forms of armed violence. However, the importance of precipitation shortfalls as a conflict-facilitating factor in sub-Saharan Africa should not be overstated, as the overall contribution of drought measures to predicting violent events is modest in all calculated models.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local conditions of drought-related violence in sub-Saharan Africa

Detges

2016

Journal of Peace Research

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“…For instance, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS) forced landowners to continue agricultural production because agriculture was an important source of income (Jaafar and Woertz, 2016). Military operations destroying transportation infrastructure can reduce access to markets, which disrupts agriculture (FAO, 2000;Unruh and Shalaby, 2012). Armed conflicts also limit the incentives in investments in technologies, making agricultural production primitive and costly (Brück, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural abandonment and re-cultivation during and after the Chechen Wars in the northern Caucasus

Yin

Butsic

Buchner

et al. 2019

Global Environmental Change

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Armed conflicts are globally widespread and can strongly influence societies and the environment. However, where and how armed conflicts affect agricultural land-use is not well-understood. The Caucasus is a multi-ethnic region that experienced several conflicts shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, most notably the two Chechen Wars, raising the question how agricultural lands were changed. Here, we investigated how the distance to conflicts and conflict intensity, measured as the number of conflicts and the number of casualties, affected agricultural land abandonment and subsequent re-cultivation, by combining social, environmental and economic variables with remotely-sensed maps of agricultural change. We applied logistic and panel regression analyses for both the First Chechen War (1994-1996) and the Second Chechen War (1999-2009) and interacted conflict distance with conflict intensity measures. We found that agricultural lands closer to conflicts were more likely to be abandoned and less likely to be re-cultivated, with stronger effects for the First Chechen War. Conflict intensity was positively correlated with agricultural land abandonment, but the effects differed based on distance to conflicts and the intensity measure. We found little re-cultivation after the wars, despite abundant subsidies, indicating the potentially long-lasting effects of armed conflicts on land-use. Overall, we found a clear relationship between the Chechen Wars and agricultural land abandonment and re-cultivation, illustrating the strong effects of armed conflicts on agriculture.

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“…Anand (2006) shows how world class roads built in Mumbai disconnect millions of people in the city, people with vehicles deemed not fast or modern enough, pedestrians and populations on foot, because of the privileged position occupied by those who envision and operationalize these developments. Similarly, Unruh and Shalaby (2012), in their research on road development in Afghanistan, concludes that the road construction process should be more effective so that benefits do not accrue solely to a set of well-placed actors at the expense of a larger population, who are unable to legally, institutionally and physically defend themselves.…”

Section: Roads and Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roads and development = environment and energy?

Menezes

Ruwanpura

2017

Progress in Development Studies

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Investment in large-scale infrastructure, after a lull, has accelerated in the last decade, where roads in particular feature predominantly in development initiatives globally. While conventionally academic interventions have primarily focused on infrastructure in relation to economic development processes and its promises of modernity, more recently these arguments extended to diverse processes of environmental, economic, political and social change. Scepticism surrounding road infrastructure development interrogates whether this form of infrastructure development is justifiable. In particular, the faith placed on roads to catalyze trade, create profitability, enhance economic opportunities of local communities living adjacent to new road infrastructure projects and its ability to mitigate environmental concerns are noted concerns. Our review draws together and extends these arguments, claiming that while social, political and economic processes, and consequences of road development have undergone recurrent assessment, gaps in addressing environmental and energy aspects prevail. Given the central import of climate and environmental change at the current juncture, thus, there is also a pressing need to articulate and examine this in future work.

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A volatile interaction between peacebuilding priorities: road infrastructure (re)construction and land rights in Afghanistan

Cited by 14 publications

References 12 publications

Local conditions of drought-related violence in sub-Saharan Africa

Local conditions of drought-related violence in sub-Saharan Africa

Agricultural abandonment and re-cultivation during and after the Chechen Wars in the northern Caucasus

Roads and development = environment and energy?

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