First comes the river, then comes the conflict? A qualitative comparative analysis of flood-related political unrest

The displacement of people due to climatic changes (environmental migration) presents major societal and governance challenges. This article examines whether and how climate-induced rural-to-urban migration contributes to social-movement participation. We argue that the mainly forceful nature of relocation makes environmental migrants more likely to join and participate in social movements that promote migrant rights in urban areas. Using original survey data from Kenya, we find that individuals who had experienced several different types of severe climatic events at their previous location are more likely to join and participate in social movements. This finding has important policy implications. National and local authorities should not only provide immediate assistance and basic social services to environmental migrants in urban settings, but also facilitate permanent solutions by fostering their socio-economic and political integration in order to prevent urban conflict.

mentioning

confidence: 87%

Environmental migrants and social-movement participation

Koubi

Nguyễn

Spilker

et al. 2020

“…Studies by Petrova (2021) and Koubi et al (2021), which are described in more detail below, also focus on migrants’ likelihood of participation in (urban) social unrest. Moreover, Ide, Kristensen & Bartusevičius (2021) study social unrest events in flood-affected areas of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Using qualitative comparative analysis, they find that flood-related political unrest is much more likely where large (if not explicitly urban) populations are directly affected by the flood.…”

Section: Contributions Of This Special Issue: Beyond the State Of The Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Security implications of climate change: A decade of scientific progress

Uexküll

Buhaug

2021

142

The study of security implications of climate change has developed rapidly from a nascent area of academic inquiry into an important and thriving research field that traverses epistemological and disciplinary boundaries. Here, we take stock of scientific progress by benchmarking the latest decade of empirical research against seven core research priorities collectively emphasized in 35 recent literature reviews. On the basis of this evaluation, we discuss key contributions of this special issue. Overall, we find that the research community has made important strides in specifying and evaluating plausible indirect causal pathways between climatic conditions and a wide set of conflict-related outcomes and the scope conditions that shape this relationship. Contributions to this special issue push the research frontier further along these lines. Jointly, they demonstrate significant climate impacts on social unrest in urban settings; they point to the complexity of the climate–migration–unrest link; they identify how agricultural production patterns shape conflict risk; they investigate understudied outcomes in relation to climate change, such as interstate claims and individual trust; and they discuss the relevance of this research for user groups across academia and beyond. We find that the long-term implications of gradual climate change and conflict potential of policy responses are important remaining research gaps that should guide future research.

“…Factors like development, state failure, and previous overload on ecosystems continue to play an important role in that they interact with climate change to produce conflict and other social outcomes. For instance, Ide, Kristensen & Bartuseviĉius (2021) conclude that the impact of floods on political conflict are contingent on other factors such as population size and regime type. Moreover, most of the articles do not assume that scarcities are likely to arise at the global level.…”

Section: The Optimists’ Responses To Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

This time is different! Or is it? NeoMalthusians and environmental optimists in the age of climate change

Gleditsch

2020

Warning about dire effects of climate change on armed conflict is a recent variation of a scenario that has been promoted by environmental pessimists for over two centuries. The essence is that human activities lead to resource scarcities that in turn will generate famine, pestilence, and war. This essay reviews three stages of the argument: first, the original Malthusian thesis that focused on food production. Second, the broader neoMalthusian concern from the 1970s about limits to growth and developing scarcities in a range of necessities. And recently, the specter of climate change. In each phase, the Malthusians have met firm opposition from environmental optimists, who argue that emerging scarcities can be countered by human ingenuity, technological progress, and national and international economic and political institutions and that environmental change is not in itself a major driver of human violence. In the third phase, the Malthusian case appears to be stronger because human activities have reached a level where they have a truly global impact. Environmental optimists still insist that these problems can be overcome by human ingenuity and that the long-term trend towards less violence in human affairs is unlikely to be reversed by climate change. The stakes seem higher, but the structure of the debate remains largely the same.