Environmental Scarcity and International Conflict

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, scholars have increasingly tumed their attention to examining the link between depletion of renewable resources and conflict. Within this environmental security literature, academic opinion varies across a wide spectrum with some predicting a dark future of environmental "resource wars" both between and within nations, while others question the extent to which environmental variables play any role in inducing conflict. This paper builds on the findings of previous case and statistical studies and presents a cross-national, time-series multivariate analysis of the relationship between militarized international disputes and the environmental variables most commonly cited in the qualitative literature-freshwater, soil, fish, and population. These environmental variables are tested individually and in combination, while controlling for other conflict-generating factors. The general finding is that states suffering from greater levels of environmental scarcity are more likely to be involved in a militarized international dispute.

How good is GLASOD?

“…It has been an important source of information for policy makers and a basis for international conventions (UNCCD, Kyoto protocol, UN-CPB, IGBP), national (e.g. Laker, 1993;Lilly et al, 2002) and international (EU, 2002) land and soil management programs, and many studies of relations between soil degradation and conflicts (Stalley, 2003) and food security at national (e.g. Heilig, 1999) and global scale (Pimentel et al, 1995;Crosson, 1995aCrosson, ,b, 1997.…”

Conflict management of riparian disputes

“…More recently, a number of edited volumes, such as Environmental Conflict (Diehl & Gleditsch, 2001) and Conflict and the Environment (Gleditsch, 1997a(Gleditsch, , 1997b, and special journal issues (Journal of Peace Research, 35(3)) have been dedicated to exploring the connection between conflict and the environment. While the empirical findings in this literature are varied, they show that the likelihood of militarized conflict is significantly increased by a number of environmental factors, including increased population growth (Choucri & North, 1975;Stalley, 2003;Tir & Diehl, 1998), contention over territory (Hensel, 2001;Huth, 1996;Vasquez, 1993), increased degradation of soil (Stalley, 2003) and land (Hauge & Ellingsen, 1998), and low freshwater availability (Hauge & Ellingsen, 1998).…”

“…6 Stalley (2003) identifies another distinction in the literature on environmental scarcity and conflict, conflict arising when the state experiencing scarcity initiates it (''state-A-as-the-initiator'' logic; Galtung, 1982), and conflict arising when scarcity in A creates problems (such as refugees) that flow across international boundaries. In our analyses below, we examine only those interstate militarized disputes that are directly related to a contentious claim over a cross-border river; in this regard we cannot make inferences about any indirect effects scarcity may have on intrastate or interstate conflict more generally.…”

Ex Oleo Bellare? The Impact of Oil on the Outbreak of Militarized Interstate Disputes

“…militarized interstate disputes with at least one battle death, are included as the dependent variable (de Soysa et al 2009: 14, 17). 4 Besides, Stalley (2003) finds that different measures of resource scarcity are associated with interstate conflict.…”