The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security

Deudney, Daniel

doi:10.1177/03058298900190031001

Cited by 356 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Opponents were quick to warn that the term 'security' evokes a set of confrontational practices associated with the state and the military which should be kept apart from the environmental debate (Deudney 1990). Concerns included the possibilities of creating new competencies for the military-militarizing the environment rather than greening security (Käkö nen 1994)-or the rise of nationalistic attitudes in order to protect the national environment (Deudney 1999, 466-468).…”

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confidence: 99%

Environmental security and climate change: analysing the discourse

Trombetta

2008

Cambridge Review of International Affairs

247

121

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This article analyses the emerging discourse on 'climate security' and investigates whether and how attempts to consider environmental problems as security issues are transforming security practices. Attempts to broaden the security agenda have been deemed as spreading the confrontational logic of security-which, within international relations, is traditionally associated with the exceptional decision that brings into existence the logic of war-into sectors from which it had been excluded. This problematic development has been described as 'securitization'. This article argues that this perspective does not consider whether and how by securitizing nontraditional sectors, alternative security logics are evoked and practices associated with securitization are challenged and transformed. The securitization of the environment, it is argued, is transforming existing security practices and provisions. This process is part of broader re-articulation of the spaces in which a logic of security based on emergency and contingency is legitimated and those in which a logic of prevention and management prevails. It implies new roles for security actors and different means to provide security.

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confidence: 99%

Environmental security and climate change: analysing the discourse

Trombetta

2008

Cambridge Review of International Affairs

247

121

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“…Most studies here either establish "no link" (Gartzke, 2012;Koubi et al, 2012), demonstrate "little evidence" (Wischnath and or view climate conflict predictions with scepticism (see Mason and Zeitoun, 2013). This discourse draws mostly upon a philosophical and/or traditional security type of thinking that presents conflict as a social construct, a somewhat "militarised framing" or "heterodox idea" that is critical to claims about relations between environment/climate and conflict (Deudney, 1990). By constructing realities based on a combination of historical antecedence and current economic, political and cultural contexts, the discourse argues for a need to explore conflict in more complex ways than simply pointing to climate change, and suggests tackling more pressing challenges such as terrorism, HIV and poverty that plague Third World countries (Selby, 2014;Floyd, 2015).…”

Section: Discourse 3: Denial Claimsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Perspectives on contextual vulnerability in discourses of climate conflict

2016

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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.

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“…On this point, the critical literature (Deudney 1990;Levy 1993) does not take us much further. In part, this literature engages in similar definitional exercises in order to prove the futility of the concept of environmental security.…”

Section: Definitions and Polemicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Armed Conflict and the Environment

Gleditsch

2015

SpringerBriefs on Pioneers in Science and Practice

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Conflict over scarce resources, such as minerals, fish, water, and particularly territory, is a traditional source of armed struggle. Recently, wide-ranging claims have been made to the effect that environmental degradation will increase resource scarcity and therefore contribute to an increase in armed conflict. So far, there has been much controversy and little relevant systematic study of this phenomenon. Most scholarship on the relationship between resources, the environment, and armed conflict suffers from one or more of the following problems: (1) there is a lack of clarity over what is meant by 'environmental conflict'; (2) researchers engage in definitional and polemical exercises rather than analysis; (3) important variables are neglected, notably political and economic factors which have a strong influence on conflict and mediate the influence of resource and environmental factors; (4) some models become so large and complex that they are virtually untestable; (5) cases are selected on values of the dependent variable; (6) the causality of the relationship is reversed; (7) postulated events in the future are cited as empirical evidence; (8) studies fail to distinguish between foreign and domestic conflict; and (9) confusion reigns about the appropriate level of analysis. While no publications are characterized by all of these problems, many have several of them. This article identifies a few lights in the wilderness and briefly outlines a program of research.6.1 War, Resources, and the Environment 'Nations have often fought to assert or resist control over war materials, energy supplies, land, river basins, sea passages and other key environmental resources.'

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The Case Against Linking Environmental Degradation and National Security

Cited by 356 publications

References 5 publications

Environmental security and climate change: analysing the discourse

Environmental security and climate change: analysing the discourse

Perspectives on contextual vulnerability in discourses of climate conflict

Armed Conflict and the Environment

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