1. |
- Buhaug, Halvard, et al.
(author)
-
A conditional model of local income shock and civil conflict
- 2021
-
In: Journal of Politics. - : University of Chicago Press. - 0022-3816 .- 1468-2508. ; 83:1, s. 354-366
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Common political economy models point to rationalist motives for engaging in conflict but say little about how income shocks translate into collective violence in some cases but not in others. Grievance models, in contrast, focus on structural origins of shared frustration but offer less insight into when the deprived decide to challenge the status quo. Addressing these lacunae, we develop a theoretical model of civil conflict that predicts income loss to trigger violent mobilization primarily when the shock can be linked to pre-existing collective grievances. The conditional argument is supported by results of a comprehensive global statistical analysis of conflict involvement among ethnic groups. Consistent with theory, we find that this relationship is most powerful among recently downgraded groups, especially in the context of agricultural dependence and low local level of development, whereas political downgrading in the absence of adverse economic changes exerts less influence on ethnic conflict risk.
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2. |
- Buhaug, H., et al.
(author)
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One effect to rule them all? : A comment on climate and conflict
- 2014
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In: Climatic Change. - Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands. - 0165-0009 .- 1573-1480. ; 127:3-4, s. 391-397
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A recent Climatic Change review article reports a remarkable convergence of scientific evidence for a link between climatic events and violent intergroup conflict, thus departing markedly from other contemporary assessments of the empirical literature. This commentary revisits the review in order to understand the discrepancy. We believe the origins of the disagreement can be traced back to the review article's underlying quantitative meta-analysis, which suffers from shortcomings with respect to sample selection and analytical coherence. A modified assessment that addresses some of these problems suggests that scientific research on climate and conflict to date has produced mixed and inconclusive results.
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3. |
- Buhaug, Halvard, et al.
(author)
-
Vicious Circles : Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change
- 2021
-
In: Annual Review Environment and Resources. - : Annual Reviews. - 1543-5938 .- 1545-2050. ; 46, s. 545-568
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Climate change threatens core dimensions of human security, including economic prosperity, food availability, and societal stability. In recent years, war-torn regions such as Afghanistan and Yemen have harbored severe humanitarian crises, compounded by climate-related hazards. These cases epitomize the powerful but presently incompletely appreciated links between vulnerability, conflict, and climate-related impacts. In this article, we develop a unified conceptual model of these phenomena by connecting three fields of research that traditionally have had little interaction: (a) determinants of social vulnerability to climate change, (b) climatic drivers of armed conflict risk, and (c) societal impacts of armed conflict. In doing so, we demonstrate how many of the conditions that shape vulnerability to climate change also increase the likelihood of climate?conflict interactions and, furthermore, that impacts from armed conflict aggravate these conditions. The end result may be a vicious circle locking affected societies in a trap of violence, vulnerability, and climate change impacts.
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4. |
- de Bruin, Sophie P., et al.
(author)
-
Projecting long-term armed conflict risk : An underappreciated field of inquiry?
- 2022
-
In: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 72
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Little research has been done on projecting long-term conflict risks. Such projections are currently neither included in the development of socioeconomic scenarios or climate change impact assessments nor part of global agenda-setting policy processes. In contrast, in other fields of inquiry, long-term projections and scenario studies are established and relevant for both strategical agenda-setting and applied policies. Although making projections of armed conflict risk in response to climate change is surrounded by uncertainty, there are good reasons to further develop such scenario-based projections. In this perspective article we discuss why quantifying implications of climate change for future armed conflict risk is inherently uncertain, but necessary for shaping sustainable future policy agendas. We argue that both quantitative and qualitative projections can have a purpose in future climate change impact assessments and put out the challenges this poses for future research.
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5. |
- Dellmuth, Lisa Maria, 1981-, et al.
(author)
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Humanitarian need drives multilateral disaster aid
- 2021
-
In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 118:4
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- As the climate changes, human livelihoods will increasingly be threatened by extreme weather events. To provide adequate disaster relief, states extensively rely on multilateral institutions, in particular the United Nations (UN). However, the determinants of this multilateral disaster aid channeled through the UN are poorly understood. To fill this gap, we examine the determinants of UN disaster aid using a dataset on UN aid covering almost 2,000 climate-related disasters occurring between 2006 and 2017. We make two principal contributions. First, we add to research on disaster impacts by linking existing disaster data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) to a meteorological reanalysis. We generate a uniquely global hazard severity measure that is comparable across different climate-related disaster types, and assess and bolster measurement validity of EM-DAT climate-related disasters. Second, by combining these data with social data on aid and its correlates, we contribute to the literature on aid disbursements. We show that UN disaster aid is primarily shaped by humanitarian considerations, rather than by strategic donor interests. These results are supported by a series of regression and out-of-sample prediction analyses and appear consistent with the view that multilateral institutions are able to shield aid allocation decisions from particular state interests to ensure that aid is motivated by need.
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6. |
- Fjelde, Hanne, et al.
(author)
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Climate triggers : Rainfall anomalies, vulnerability and communal conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 2012
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In: Political Geography. - : Elsevier BV. - 0962-6298 .- 1873-5096. ; 31:7, s. 444-453
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The mounting evidence for climate change has put the security implications of increased climate variability high on the agenda of policymakers. However, several years of research have produced no consensus regarding whether climate variability increases the risk of armed conflict. Many have suggested that instead of outright civil war, climate variability is likely to heighten the risk of communal conflict. In particular, erratic rainfall, which reduces the availability of water and arable land, could create incentives for violent attacks against other communities to secure access to scarce resources. Yet, whether groups resort to violence in the face of environmentally induced hardship is likely to depend on the availability of alternative coping mechanisms, for example through market transfers or state accommodation. This suggests that the effect of rainfall anomalies on communal conflict will be stronger in the presence of economic and political marginalization. We evaluate these arguments statistically, utilizing a disaggregated dataset combining rainfall data with geo-referenced events data on the occurrence of communal conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1990 and 2008. Our results suggest that large negative deviations in rainfall from the historical norm are associated with a higher risk of communal conflict. There is some evidence that the effect of rainfall shortages on the risk of communal conflict is amplified in regions inhabited by politically excluded ethno-political groups.
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7. |
- Hegre, Håvard, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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Synergies and Trade-Offs in Reaching the Sustainable Development Goals
- 2020
-
In: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 12:20
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015 integrate diverse issues such as addressing hunger, gender equality and clean energy and set a common agenda for all United Nations member states until 2030. The 17 SDGs interact and by working towards achieving one goal countries may further—or jeopardise—progress on others. However, the direction and strength of these interactions are still poorly understood and it remains an analytical challenge to capture the relationships between the multi-dimensional goals, comprising 169 targets and over 200 indicators. Here, we use principal component analysis (PCA), an in this context novel approach, to summarise each goal and interactions in the global SDG agenda. Applying PCA allows us to map trends, synergies and trade-offs at the level of goals for all SDGs while using all available information on indicators. While our approach does not allow us to investigate causal relationships, it provides important evidence of the degree of compatibility of goal attainment over time. Based on global data 2000–2016, our results indicate that synergies between and within the SDGs prevail, both in terms of levels and over time change. An exception is SDG 10 ‘Reducing inequalities’ which has not progressed in tandem with other goals.
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8. |
- Hegre, Håvard, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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ViEWS : A political violence early-warning system
- 2019
-
In: Journal of Peace Research. - : SAGE Publications. - 0022-3433 .- 1460-3578. ; 56:2, s. 155-174
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article presents ViEWS – a political violence early-warning system that seeks to be maximally transparent, publicly available, and have uniform coverage, and sketches the methodological innovations required to achieve these objectives. ViEWS produces monthly forecasts at the country and subnational level for 36 months into the future and all three UCDP types of organized violence: state-based conflict, non-state conflict, and one-sided violence in Africa. The article presents the methodology and data behind these forecasts, evaluates their predictive performance, provides selected forecasts for October 2018 through October 2021, and indicates future extensions. ViEWS is built as an ensemble of constituent models designed to optimize its predictions. Each of these represents a theme that the conflict research literature suggests is relevant, or implements a specific statistical/machine-learning approach. Current forecasts indicate a persistence of conflict in regions in Africa with a recent history of political violence but also alert to new conflicts such as in Southern Cameroon and Northern Mozambique. The subsequent evaluation additionally shows that ViEWS is able to accurately capture the long-term behavior of established political violence, as well as diffusion processes such as the spread of violence in Cameroon. The performance demonstrated here indicates that ViEWS can be a useful complement to non-public conflict-warning systems, and also serves as a reference against which future improvements can be evaluated.
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9. |
- Hendrix, Cullen S., et al.
(author)
-
Climate change and conflict
- 2023
-
In: Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. - : Springer Nature. - 2662-138X. ; 4:3, s. 144-148
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Connections between climate and conflict have been the centre of critical debate and discussion. In this Viewpoint, five researchers provide their thoughts and opinions on the topic, outlining the types of conflict that can be linked to climate variability, and how these relationships might evolve with ongoing climate change.
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10. |
- Hoch, Jannis M, et al.
(author)
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Projecting armed conflict risk in Africa towards 2050 along the SSP-RCP scenarios : a machine learning approach
- 2021
-
In: Environmental Research Letters. - : Institute of Physics Publishing (IOPP). - 1748-9326. ; 16:12
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In the past decade, several efforts have been made to project armed conflict risk into the future. This study broadens current approaches by presenting a first-of-its-kind application of machine learning (ML) methods to project sub-national armed conflict risk over the African continent along three Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios and three Representative Concentration Pathways towards 2050. Results of the open-source ML framework CoPro are consistent with the underlying socioeconomic storylines of the SSPs, and the resulting out-of-sample armed conflict projections obtained with Random Forest classifiers agree with the patterns observed in comparable studies. In SSP1-RCP2.6, conflict risk is low in most regions although the Horn of Africa and parts of East Africa continue to be conflict-prone. Conflict risk increases in the more adverse SSP3-RCP6.0 scenario, especially in Central Africa and large parts of Western Africa. We specifically assessed the role of hydro-climatic indicators as drivers of armed conflict. Overall, their importance is limited compared to main conflict predictors but results suggest that changing climatic conditions may both increase and decrease conflict risk, depending on the location: in Northern Africa and large parts of Eastern Africa climate change increases projected conflict risk whereas for areas in the West and northern part of the Sahel shifting climatic conditions may reduce conflict risk. With our study being at the forefront of ML applications for conflict risk projections, we identify various challenges for this arising scientific field. A major concern is the limited selection of relevant quantified indicators for the SSPs at present. Nevertheless, ML models such as the one presented here are a viable and scalable way forward in the field of armed conflict risk projections, and can help to inform the policy-making process with respect to climate security.
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11. |
- Ide, Tobias, et al.
(author)
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The Future of Environmental Peace and Conflict Research
- 2023
-
In: Environmental Politics. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 0964-4016 .- 1743-8934. ; 32:6, s. 1077-1103
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Interest in the intersections of environmental issues, peace and conflict has surged in recent years. Research on the topic has developed along separate research streams, which broadened the knowledge base considerably, but hardly interact across disciplinary, methodological, epistemological and ontological silos. Our forum addresses this gap by bringing into conversation six research streams on the environment, peace and conflict: environmental change and human security, climate change and armed conflict, environmental peacebuilding, political ecology, securitisation of the environment, and decolonizing environmental security. For each research stream, we outline core findings, potentials for mutual enrichment with other streams, and prospects for future research.
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12. |
- Lindberg Bromley, Sara, et al.
(author)
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UN peacekeeping presence and local food security outcomes
- 2024
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In: Conflict Management and Peace Science. - 0738-8942 .- 1549-9219.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A now extensive literature examines effects of international peacekeeping on conflict-affected countries’ war-to-peace transitions. Still, we know little about how impactful peacekeeping is in stemming a wider set of hardships affecting host communities, such as hunger. Addressing this gap, we theorize and empirically examine the relationship between local UN peacekeeping deployment and food security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, and Liberia. The results suggest an overall positive but substantively modest association between peacekeeping presence and more food secure communities—proxied by stunting rates in children—and point to context-specific variation. We conclude by discussing implications for future research.
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13. |
- Mach, Katharine J., et al.
(author)
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Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict
- 2019
-
In: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0028-0836 .- 1476-4687. ; 571:7764, s. 193-197
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Research findings on the relationship between climate and conflict are diverse and contested. Here we assess the current understanding of the relationship between climate and conflict, based on the structured judgments of experts from diverse disciplines. These experts agree that climate has affected organized armed conflict within countries. However, other drivers, such as low socioeconomic development and low capabilities of the state, are judged to be substantially more influential, and the mechanisms of climate–conflict linkages remain a key uncertainty. Intensifying climate change is estimated to increase future risks of conflict.
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14. |
- Mach, Katharine J., et al.
(author)
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Directions for Research on Climate and Conflict
- 2020
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In: Earth's Future. - 2328-4277. ; 8:7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The potential links between climate and conflict are well studied, yet disagreement about the specific mechanisms and their significance for societies persists. Here, we build on assessment of the relationship between climate and organized armed conflict to define crosscutting priorities for future directions of research. They include (1) deepening insight into climate?conflict linkages and conditions under which they manifest, (2) ambitiously integrating research designs, (3) systematically exploring future risks and response options, responsive to ongoing decision-making, and (4) evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to manage climate?conflict links. The implications of this expanding scientific domain unfold in real time.
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15. |
- Nohrstedt, Daniel, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Disaster risk reduction and the limits of truisms : Improving the knowledge and practice interface
- 2022
-
In: International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. - : Elsevier. - 2212-4209. ; 67
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Action toward strengthened disaster risk reduction (DRR) ideally builds from evidence-based policymaking to inform decisions and priorities. This is a guiding principle for the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), which outlines priorities for action to reduce disaster risk. However, some of these practical guidelines conceal oversimplified or unsubstantiated claims and assumptions, what we refer to as 'truisms', which, if not properly addressed, may jeopardize the long-term goal to reduce disaster risks. Thus far, much DRR research has focused on ways to bridge the gap between science and practice while devoting less attention to the premises that shape the understanding of DRR issues. In this article, written in the spirit of a perspective piece on the state of the DRR field, we utilize the SFDRR as an illustrative case to identify and interrogate ten selected truisms, from across the social and natural sciences, that have been prevalent in shaping DRR research and practice. The ten truisms concern forecasting, loss, conflict, migration, the local level, collaboration, social capital, prevention, policy change, and risk awareness. We discuss central claims associated with each truism, relate those claims to insights in recent DRR scholarship, and end with suggestions for developing the field through advances in conceptualization, measurement, and causal inference.
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16. |
- Petrova, Kristina
(author)
-
Caught in the Maelstrom, Catching the Tide : Micro-level Responses to Climate-Related Hazards and Conflict
- 2023
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation contributes to the literature on the nexus between climate-related disaster and conflict. One of the main sources of uncertainty regarding the effects of climate change on conflict stems from limited understanding of the driving mechanisms and the political contexts under which these effects materialize. People respond to climate variability through a variety of coping mechanisms that, in turn, determine social outcomes. Yet, these remain little understood. Addressing this overarching issue, the first part of the dissertation (Paper I and II) studies the conditions and possible pathways through which climate events shape conflict-related outcomes. Paper I studies the role of local state institutions in mitigating adverse effects of flooding on communal conflict risk in Sub-Saharan Africa. Statistical evidence shows that areas experiencing flood disaster are more likely to experience communal violence in a context where citizens distrust the local state institutions. Paper II examines the mediating effect of migration as a transitional pathway, connecting natural hazards and social unrest in urban areas of Bangladesh. It finds that although natural hazards shape migratory decisions, this climate-related mobility does not affect the likelihood of protests in host communities. The last two essays of the dissertation study responses to climate-related disasters taking place in contexts of ongoing armed conflicts, and focus on household-level compound effects of these two calamities. Using interpretative machine learning methods, Paper III explores distress-related mobility as an outcome of interest. We show that compound effects can manifest differently in the same communities, since a significant amount of variation exists in the mobility patterns of people affected by the same event. Paper IV focuses on how state response to natural-hazard-related disasters and conflicts jointly affect levels of political trust in Pakistan. The evidence suggests that state responses to disasters can mitigate negative political consequences of conflict exposure in the context of non-state conflict, but not when communities have been exposed to violence with the involvement of the state itself. In sum, this dissertation makes both theoretical and empirical contributions to the research on climate and conflict research, as well as to the scholarship on disaster risk reduction more broadly.
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17. |
- Scaini, Anna, et al.
(author)
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Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience
- 2024
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In: AMBIO. - : SPRINGER. - 0044-7447 .- 1654-7209. ; 53
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge in time when research projects are short-term and potential impacts are long-term; and (iii) scaling up knowledge across space, from local research sites to larger-scale or even global impact. Some potential pathways for funding agencies to overcome these challenges include providing targeted prolonged funding for dissemination and outreach, and facilitating collaboration and coordination across different sites, research teams, and partner organizations. By systematically documenting these challenges, we hope to pave the way for further innovations in the research cycle.
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18. |
- Vestby, Jonas, et al.
(author)
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Why do some poor countries see armed conflict while others do not? : A dual sector approach
- 2021
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In: World Development. - : Elsevier. - 0305-750X .- 1873-5991. ; 138
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Low level of GDP per capita is a robust and widely applied predictor of civil war. Yet, GDP is a crude macro-level indicator that masks considerable heterogeneity in economic structures, and it is less well able to explain variation in conflict risk among low-income countries. Here, we consider the merit of classic dual sector theory in improving common economic models of civil war. Two basic expectations are derived: the relative size of the traditional sector increases conflict risk via low opportunity cost and high share of immobile wealth, whereas high relative labor productivity (RLP) in the modern sector compared to the traditional sector facilitates labor mobility and wage growth, thus reducing the viability of rebellion. We evaluate these expectations via out-of-sample prediction analysis of civil conflict involvement, drawing on a unique 10-sector dataset of economic activity among 40 countries across the world since 1969. The analysis provides robust evidence that poor countries with a comparatively productive modern sector are less conflict prone than countries at similar income levels with lower RLP ratios. However, further probing into potential mechanisms producing this relationship does not provide decisive evidence in favor of any potential mechanism. We conclude that replacing GDP per capita with indicators of sector size and relative productivity improves the predictive performance of common civil war models, although more research is needed to assess the generalizability of these findings and to gain further insight into the underlying causal pathways linking relative labor productivity with reduced conflict risk.
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19. |
- von Uexkull, Nina, et al.
(author)
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Civil conflict sensitivity to growing-season drought
- 2016
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In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 113:44, s. 12391-12396
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To date, the research community has failed to reach a consensus on the nature and significance of the relationship between climate variability and armed conflict. We argue that progress has been hampered by insufficient attention paid to the context in which droughts and other climatic extremes may increase the risk of violent mobilization. Addressing this shortcoming, this study presents an actor-oriented analysis of the drought-conflict relationship, focusing specifically on politically relevant ethnic groups and their sensitivity to growing-season drought under various political and socioeconomic contexts. To this end, we draw on new conflict event data that cover Asia and Africa, 1989-2014, updated spatial ethnic settlement data, and remote sensing data on agricultural land use. Our procedure allows quantifying, for each ethnic group, drought conditions during the growing season of the locally dominant crop. A comprehensive set of multilevel mixed effects models that account for the groups' livelihood, economic, and political vulnerabilities reveals that a drought under most conditions has little effect on the short-term risk that a group challenges the state by military means. However, for agriculturally dependent groups as well as politically excluded groups in very poor countries, a local drought is found to increase the likelihood of sustained violence. We interpret this as evidence of the reciprocal relationship between drought and conflict, whereby each phenomenon makes a group more vulnerable to the other.
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20. |
- von Uexkull, Nina, 1982-
(author)
-
Climate, Conflict and Coping Capacity : The Impact of Climate Variability on Organized Violence
- 2016
-
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Understanding the conflict potential of climate variability is critical for assessing and dealing with the societal implications of climate change. Yet, it remains poorly understood under what circumstances – and how – extreme weather events and variation in precipitation patterns affect organized violence. This dissertation suggests that the impacts of climate variability on organized violence are conditional on specific climate patterns, the sensitivity of livelihoods, and state governance. These theoretical conjectures are subjected to novel empirical tests in four individual essays. Three essays investigate the relationship between climate variability and communal and civil conflict through sub-national quantitative analysis focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa. The fourth essay sheds light on causal mechanisms leading to participation in land-related conflict based on interview material on 75 ex-participants in violence from Mt. Elgon, Kenya. Essay I suggests that the exposure of vulnerable agricultural livelihoods to sustained drought increases the risk of civil conflict violence. Essay II indicates that rainfall anomalies increase the risk of communal violence, an effect which is amplified by political marginalization. Essay III finds support for the proposition that volatility in resource supply increases the risk of communal conflict over land and water in remote regions, which tend to have limited state presence. Essay IV proposes that individuals depending on agriculture are prone to participate in land-related conflict as they face impediments to leaving a conflict zone, and additionally have high incentives to partake in fighting for land. Taken together, the dissertation furthers our understanding of the specific economic and political context under which climate variability impacts armed conflict. This knowledge is important for conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change and conflict prevention efforts.
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21. |
- von Uexkull, Nina, et al.
(author)
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Climate, flood, and attitudes toward violence : micro-level evidence from Karamoja, Uganda
- 2023
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In: Regional Environmental Change. - : Springer Nature. - 1436-3798 .- 1436-378X. ; 23:2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Concerns about the security implications of climate change are increasing. The growing academic literature on the topic suggests that linkages between climate change and armed conflict are shaped by structural risk factors, but micro-level variation and mechanisms remain poorly understood and flood responses are hardly studied. In this paper, we strive to contribute to a better understanding of such micro-level patterns and investigate how flood exposure affects the support for violence in the Karamoja region of Uganda, which is characterized by many structural vulnerabilities to climate change and armed conflict. We use unique household-level survey panel data and investigate changes in survey responses following a destructive flood. Our study finds that flood exposure was associated with greater support for the use of violence. However, while we identify some adverse impacts of flood exposure on the perceived and actual socio-economic conditions of households and a decrease in perceptions of government support, these do not seem to mediate the estimated flood impact on support for violence against expectations. Our findings point to the limited explanatory power of natural hazards' economic impacts alone for conflict risk. Further investigation of causal mechanisms between climate hazards and conflict remains an important priority for future research.
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22. |
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23. |
- von Uexkull, Nina, et al.
(author)
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Drought, Resilience, and Support for Violence : Household Survey Evidence from DR Congo
- 2020
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In: Journal of Conflict Resolution. - : SAGE Publications Inc. - 0022-0027 .- 1552-8766. ; 64:10, s. 1994-2021
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The effects of climate variability and change on security are debated. While this topic has received considerable attention in both policy circles and academia, the microlevel pathways and conditions under which climatic shocks increase conflict risks are poorly understood. We suggest that household resilience provides one key to understanding these relationships. Using novel household survey data from two conflict-affected regions in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, we study variation in the support for violence related to reported exposure to drought and resilience metrics. Using comprehensive multifaceted objective and subjective indicators of resilience, we find that less resilient respondents who report having experienced drought and associated losses are more likely to be supportive of the use of political violence. In contrast, our findings suggest that there is no general association between reporting drought exposure and support for violence.
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24. |
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25. |
- von Uexkull, Nina, et al.
(author)
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Fueling protest? : Climate change mitigation, fuel prices and protest onset
- 2024
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In: World Development. - : Elsevier. - 0305-750X .- 1873-5991. ; 177
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Mitigating global warming requires a rapid reduction in the use of fossil fuels which form the foundation of modern economies. Fossil fuel reduction is crucial for minimizing future loss and damage associated with a changing climate, but a challenging task. In diverse contexts, climate-friendly policies that increased fuel prices have sparked massive, at times violent, protests, ultimately leading to a reversal of those policies. However, to what extent and under what conditions fuel prices and policies affect protest more generally is poorly understood. Addressing this gap, we study how fuel prices affect the likelihood of protest onset. We theorize that increases in fuel prices may create economic grievances through their impacts on the cost of living and income. We also suggest that the likelihood of protest following such price increases would be particularly high where attribution of blame to government policies is feasible, such as in fuel subsidizing states, as well as when governments are seen as being able to provide a remedy such as in petroleum producing states. We evaluate our theoretical framework using global country-level monthly statistics 2003–2015, combining protest data with data on the price of gasoline, fuel policies, and country characteristics, and subject our results to placebo and sensitivity tests. Our study finds that gasoline price hikes increase the likelihood of protest onset across the global sample. In line with our theoretical framework, we also find evidence for a clustering of such relationships in the presence of subsidies and oil production, where the attribution of fuel prices to government (in)action tends to be higher. These results highlight the need for policymakers to anticipate public responses to price increases. This study lays the groundwork for more detailed investigations into climate-friendly subsidy and tax reforms.
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