Climate Change and Violence: Insights from Political Science

Abstract

Purpose of Review The aim of this review is to understand the state of the art of research related to climate change and collectively organized violence from a broad political science perspective. Recent Findings An increasing share of quantitative studies find a link between weather anomalies and violence for some forms of violence, but the directions are not always consistent and the mechanisms are not satisfactorily understood. Nonnaturalist scholars note important reservations. Summary Important improvements have been made during the last few years, but much remains to conclude that climate change will increase the risk of violence. An increased focus on the political consequences of adaptation and mitigation is needed.

Exploring Connections—Environmental Change, Food Security and Violence as Drivers of Migration—A Critical Review of Research

“…Despite its long history, migration research still lacks an understanding of the mechanisms and scope conditions under which different migration drivers interact. A deeper understanding of the mechanisms of interaction would likely help to understand the migration phenomena as a process [35,36] where many drivers interact. This implies that the leading strand of migration research shifts toward understanding how, where, and when drivers interact to shape migration.…”

Understanding the Disaster–Migration–Violent Conflict Nexus in a Warming World: The Importance of International Policy Interventions

“…With few exceptions, studies focus on the local and the national context. Indicators of state capacity or state fragility, for instance, are often incorporated into quantitative models and are also discussed in qualitative work (Theisen 2017;Sakaguchi et al 2017). One good example is the sophisticated analysis by Nardulli et al (2015).…”

“…This is true both for the researchers who find climate change to be a major driver of these phenomena and for those who remain cautious. On both sides of the debate, there is only limited recognition of the importance of international policy interventions addressing disasters, violent conflict and migration, contrary to the more frequent consideration of relevant national and local practices and policies (Theisen 2017;Sakaguchi et al 2017). Much of the quantitative research only uses local or national structural variables, while qualitative research tends to be biased towards local and national social and political dynamics.…”

Introduction to Special Issue: Disciplinary Perspectives on Climate Change and Conflict

“…Theisen (2017) takes on the challenge of synthesizing the work from political science focusing on collective violence, namely, armed conflict [21]. Political science draws on a particularly rich set of theories on opportunity costs and grievance, especially in the presence of politically relevant identities that have their roots in the literature on environmental factors and violence [e.g.…”

“…This need to better define and disaggregate the conflict and violent outcomes and pathways is reflected across the manuscripts. Both Koubi (2017) and Theisen (2017) Synthesizing across the literature may also allow for better identification of the different pathways. For example, the recent research focusing on specific contexts, such as the case studies that are discussed by Abrahams and Carr (2017), can help refine the variables and mechanisms for the large-N quantitative effects in political science and economics.…”