Perspectives on contextual vulnerability in discourses of climate conflict

Abstract

Abstract. The science of climate security and conflict is replete with controversies. Yet the increasing vulnerability of politically fragile countries to the security consequences of climate change is widely acknowledged. Although climate conflict reflects a continuum of conditional forces that coalesce around the notion of vulnerability, how different portrayals of vulnerability influence the discursive formation of climate conflict relations remains an exceptional but under-researched issue. This paper combines a systematic discourse analysis with a vulnerability interpretation diagnostic tool to explore (i) how discourses of climate conflict are constructed and represented, (ii) how vulnerability is communicated across discourse lines, and (iii) the strength of contextual vulnerability against a deterministic narrative of scarcity-induced conflict, such as that pertaining to land. Systematically characterising climate conflict discourses based on the central issues constructed, assumptions about mechanistic relationships, implicit normative judgements and vulnerability portrayals, provides a useful way of understanding where discourses differ. While discourses show a wide range of opinions "for" and "against" climate conflict relations, engagement with vulnerability has been less pronounced -except for the dominant context centrism discourse concerned about human security (particularly in Africa). In exploring this discourse, we observe an increasing sense of contextual vulnerability that is oriented towards a concern for complexity rather than predictability. The article concludes by illustrating that a turn towards contextual vulnerability thinking will help advance a constructivist theory-informed climate conflict scholarship that recognises historicity, specificity, and variability as crucial elements of contextual totalities of any area affected by climate conflict.

Pathways to water conflict during drought in the MENA region

“…The presence of pre-existing grievances or cleavages is part of both pathways to nonviolent, water-related conflict onset under droughts. As hydro-meteorological hazards are predicted to get more frequent and/or intense with ongoing climate change, this echoes claims that climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’ (Okpara, Stringer & Dougill, 2016: 90), but is hardly the main driver of conflicts (Brzoska, 2018). But pre-existing cleavages alone are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition.…”

Research methods for exploring the links between climate change and conflict

“…Consequentially, QCA is well suited to uncover causal links between a condition and an outcome that are strongly dependent on the presence or absence of several (combinations of) context factors. This makes the method very suitable for the research field, as potential climate–conflict links are hypothesized to manifest themselves only under very specific circumstances . Furthermore, QCA is able to distinguish among several causal pathways and among necessary, sufficient and irrelevant conditions for a certain outcome, which increases its potential to disentangle complex links in climate–conflict research.…”

Multi-Stakeholder and Multi-Level Interventions to Tackle Climate Change and Land Degradation: The Case of Iran

“…Therefore, the discretion of policies to manage land degradation appears as a key feature of investigation. Such complications include food insecurity [2], conflict and vulnerability [3], poverty [4], and the loss of ecosystem service values [5]. At the same time, climate change presents further challenges, particularly in dryland countries where water is already scarce, rainfall is variable and livelihood options are limited.…”

“…(2) What sort of policies, laws, and interventions have been employed to tackle land degradation and climate change from the 1950s to date? And (3) what are the main obstacles to anti-desertification and climate change interventions in Iran ? Iran ratified the UNCCD in 1996 and has been involved in many land restoration and rehabilitation activities to date. Cross-sectoral cooperation and public participation in land management have evolved gradually over the last two decades, beginning much earlier than in neighboring countries.…”