Environmental changes and violent conflict

Abstract

This letter reviews the scientific literature on whether and how environmental changes affect the risk of violent conflict. The available evidence from qualitative case studies indicates that environmental stress can contribute to violent conflict in some specific cases. Results from quantitative large-N studies, however, strongly suggest that we should be careful in drawing general conclusions. Those large-N studies that we regard as the most sophisticated ones obtain results that are not robust to alternative model specifications and, thus, have been debated. This suggests that environmental changes may, under specific circumstances, increase the risk of violent conflict, but not necessarily in a systematic way and unconditionally. Hence there is, to date, no scientific consensus on the impact of environmental changes on violent conflict. This letter also highlights the most important challenges for further research on the subject. One of the key issues is that the effects of environmental changes on violent conflict are likely to be contingent on a set of economic and political conditions that determine adaptation capacity. In the authors' view, the most important indirect effects are likely to lead from environmental changes via economic performance and migration to violent conflict.

Quantitative Assessment of Political Fragility Indices and Food Prices as Indicators of Food Riots in Countries

“…However, research to date is partial in that it has been mainly qualitative, and the quantitative approaches that have been implemented (i.e., statistical and econometrical models) have proven to be reliable only when analysing specific case studies [71]. Previous studies, like those of Berazneva and Lee [70] and Bellemare [61], have found a clear connection between the increase in food prices and the increase in food riots, with the second author being able to prove a causality relationship.…”

Climate, conflict, and social stability: what does the evidence say?

“…While this result weakens the finding of Burke et al in a specific way, it was widely overinterpreted as disproof of the Burke et al finding (Bernauer et al 2012;Scheffran et al 2012). The uncertainty in Buhaug's estimates are large, causing them to not be statistically distinguishable from the original estimate of Burke et al and preventing the study from ruling out large effects of climate on conflict.…”

“…In recent articles, Bernauer et al (2012), Gleditsch (2012) and Scheffran et al (2012) describe some recent progress in this literature and arrive at largely different conclusions than those presented here. We maintain this discrepancy is primarily due to (1) our use of different and more stringent methodological standards, and (2) we examine more data.…”

Climate Change and Violence: Insights from Political Science

“…Review studies until 2013 concluded with that there are limited links between climate anomalies and collective violence [30][31][32][33][34]. A meta-study and accompanying literature reviews by Hsiang, Burke and Miguel found a substantial and significant link [35][36][37].…”