Six types of environmental change were identified as plausible causes of violent inter group conflict. Robert jervis, institute for war and peace studies, columbia university. It offers new insights into the relationships between climate change, human security, and violent conflict by integrating three disparate but wellfounded bodies of research on the vulnerability of local places and social groups to climate change, on livelihoods and violent conflict, and the role of the state in development and peacemaking. Since the 1990s, there has been an extensive scientific debate on how the scarcity of natural resources affects violence and armed conflict 29, 30.
Portions of this article have been drawn from thomas homerdixon, jeffrey boutwell, and george rathjens, environmental scarcity and violent conflict, scientific american, february 1993. Environment, scarcity, and violence princeton university. These conflicts may foreshadow a surge of similar violence in coming decades, particularly in poor countries where shortages of water, forests. Link between environmental change and violent conflict.
Climate change and violent conflict in east africa. Environment, scarcity, and violence homerdixon, thomas f. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content thomas f. They also show that non environmental factors outweigh environmental ones in terms of explanatory power. Thomas homerdixon writes here on causality in complex systems. Homer dixon environmental scarcities and violent conflict.
Focusing on renewable resources, homer dixon explained that there are two main sources of environmental scarcity. Root causes of violent conflict in developing countries. Confronting the concept of environmentally induced. Homer dixon is careful to point out that the effects of environmental scarcity are indirect and act in combination with other social, political, and economic stresses. May 18, 2012 although some quantitative empirical studies support a link between climate change and violent conflict, others find no connection or only weak evidence. Environmental change and violent conflict springerlink. Could environmental scarcities cause violent conflict. Scholars predict that climate change will degrade the environment considerably during this century, ceteris paribus ipcc, 2007a, ipcc, 2007b. Thomas homerdixons environment, scarcity and violence offers a scholarly analysis of the role environmental scarcity plays in spawning violent human conflicts. Environmental scarcities are already contributing to violent conflict in the developing world. One approach represented by thomas homerdixon, sees environmental change as raising the risk of conflict. Pastoral sedentarisation, natural resource management and livelihood diversification in marsabit district, northern kenya.
This article from international security reports on the impacts of environmental change, population growth and unequal distribution of resources. This site is like a library, use search box in the widget to get ebook that you want. May 12, 2016 the example provided by homerdixon 1994 of environmental migration triggering violent conflict was that associated with bengali migrants to the assam region of india, which resulted in the assam agitation a popular movement against undocumented migrants. There are early signs of an upsurge in violence in the coming decades that will be induced or. It is important to stress that climate change will not undermine human security or increase the risk of violent conflict in isolation from other. New issues will arise during conflict which perpetuate the conflict. Thomas homerdixon born 1956 is a canadian political scientist and university research chair at the university of waterloo in the faculty of environment, and a professor at the balsillie school of international affairs in waterloo, canada. Thomas homer dixon led a ten year research project that brought together over a hundred experts from fifteen different countries to investigate the role of environmental scarcity in violent conflict.
Project on environmental change and acute conflict. Thomas homerdixon, environmental scarcities and violent conflict. These environmental changes can be thought of as scarcities of vital resources such as soil, water, and a stable climate and may cause widespread social disorder and violence. Pdf download for environmental scarcity and violent conflict. Neomalthusian scholars such as homerdixon and kaplan argue that violence emerges due to scarcity of renewable resource such as forests, lands, water, etc. In conclusion, a range of studies has tried to shed light on the question whether environmental changes can account for the onset of violent conflict. Environmental changes and violent conflict iopscience. The products of this methodcognitiveaffective maps camsrepresent an individuals concepts and beliefs about a particular subject, such as another individual or group or an. Environmental scarcity and violent conflict download ebook. According to the main architect of this theory, canadian political scientist thomas homerdixon, environmentally induced internal conflict, in turn, causes states to fragment or become more authoritarian, seriously disrupting international security.
Environment, scarcity, and violence princeton university press. Thomas homer dixon 1956 university of toronto environmental change and acute conflict project ecacp, toronoto group environment, scarcity, and violence princeton 1999 neomalthusian approaches hypothesis. The scarcity induces marginalization and heightens competition. Responding to the security challenge peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Environmental stress and conflict thomas homerdixon. Homer dixon on the threshold 1 environmental changes as causes of acute conflict i a number of scholars have recently asserted that largescale humaninduced environmental pressures may seriously affect national and international security. Table 1 summarises some our key hypothesised mechanisms by which climate change may undermine human security and may, in conjunction with an array of nonclimate specific factors, increase the risk of violent conflict. In the first article, leading figure thomas homerdixon and his colleagues from the university. Cambridge, ma, international security programme, american academy for arts and sciences.
Rathjens are codirectors of the project on environmental change and acute conflict, which is jointly sponsored by the university of toronto and the american academy of arts and sciences. Homerdixon environmental changes as causes of acute conflict a number of scholars have recently asserted that largescale humaninduced environmental pressures may seriously affect national and international security. The author uses social science research methodology to isolate the independent variable of environmental scarcity in order to study the ways it may or may not contribute to violence. However, it has not been shown that environmental factors are the only, or even important factors leading conflict homer dixon and blitt, 1998. Evidence from cases, international security 19 summer 1994. For instance, homerdixon suggests that environmental scarcity is at least in part responsible for some recent conflicts e. Rathjens are codirectors of the project on environmental change and acute con. Specifically this article addresses the nature of communal civil violent conflicts in the northeast area of nigeria, the extent to which continuous climate change has contributed to the scenario, the patterns of the climatically induced violent conflicts, the major actors. Hence, even though climaterelated environmental change can affect the dynamics of violent conflict by providing the opportunities to engage in violence, researchers must carefully distinguish this argument from the broader climate conflict proposition about the causes of conflict and consider the implications for their empirical investigations. Population, environment and security intrastate conflict in the south. Still, if environmental change were truly a major and pervasive cause of violent conflicts, it seems likely that some large crossnational studies of recent political violence would show more positive findings. Project on environment, population, and security links, university of toronto.
Environment, scarcity, and violence by thomas homerdixon. Homerdixons main argument was that climate environmental change will affect conflict indirectly, by interacting with other stresses, institutional weaknesses, and existing resourceuse practices. Neomalthusian scholars such as homer dixon and kaplan argue that violence emerges due to scarcity of renewable resource such as forests, lands, water, etc. South africa, the insurgency in assam, the zapatista rebellion in chiapas homerdixon.
The termenvironmental degradat ion understood as a humanmade environmental change having a negative impact on human society expresses rather precisely what we mean by an environmental cause of conflict. Vulnerability can be broken down into three factors. He argued that its influence on violent conflict would always be obscure and difficult for social scientists to prove, using traditional. In the first article, leading figure thomas homerdixon and his colleagues from the university of. We describe and illustrate a new method of graphically diagramming disputants points of view called cognitiveaffective mapping. Download citation environmental change and violent conflict within the next 50 years, the human population is likely to exceed nine billion, and. As environmental change become more extreme in the future, we can expect to see a rise in environmentally related conflict such as water wars gleditsch, 2004. Environmental changes as causes of acute conflict, international security, 16 1991, pp. More recently, conflict studies pay attention to the vulnerability of natural and social systems to climate impacts.
I doubt if much will be written about the subjects in the next ten years that does not build on it, follow out some of its leads, or try to refute it. Homerdixon moves the arguments about environmental scarcity and violent conflict forward a big step. Violent environment in principle rejects the neomalthusian way of looking at environmental conflict. Climate change, economic growth, armed conflict, conflict. Demographic pressure on environment resources is increasingly considered a security challenge around the world, especially after the end of cold war. Environmental conflict and environmental determinism. Levy refers here to the null hypothesis, which guided our initial research, that environmental scarcity does not cause violent conflict. Environment, scarcity, and violence foreign affairs. Environmental change and violent conflict researchgate. Feb 09, 2002 for example, the conflict in the sudan is an example of both horizontal inequality with people in the south being heavily deprived and powerful private gains that perpetuate the struggle. Between april and august of 1994, as many as 1 million people were killed and more than 2 million people became refugees. This is due to rising competition over dwindling resources. Climate change is becoming a focal point for security and conflict research and a challenge for. He identified two patterns of environmentally driven conflict.
In developing effective climate change adaptation measures, two important, yet often overlooked, factors need to be incorporated into the framework. Environmental change and violent conflict thomas homerdixon. Although many wars have been fought over natural resources, the author resists the simple notion that environmental pressures inexorably lead to violent conflict. The uninterrupted supply of resources such as oil and certain strategic minerals has been traditionally identifiedas a national security interest. There are early signs of an upsurge in violence in the coming decades that will be. Severe droughts, damaging floods and mass migration. Climate change, human security and violent conflict. Percival v and homerdixon t 1998 environmental scarcity and violent conflict. Climate change, population drift and violent conflict over.
Professor thomas homerdixon, director of the waterloo institute for complexity and innovation of balsillie school, identifies us with what we should know about the relationship between climate. Environmental scarcity, mass violence, and the limits to ingenuity. Some scholars claim that the competition over the resources can lead to conflict ehrlich, 1968, kahl, 2008 and homerdixon, 1999. Evidence from cases, international security 19 1994. Along the same lines, thomas homerdixon 2007 perhaps the most widelypublicized scholar in the area of environmental conflict argues that climate change will help produce insurgencies, genocide, guerrilla attacks, gang warfare, and global terrorism. Click download or read online button to get environmental scarcity and violent conflict book now. Homer dixon holds the centre for international governance innovation chair of global systems at the balsillie school of international affairs in waterloo, ontario. The threeyear project on environmental change and acute conflict brought together a team of thirty researchers from ten countries. Somewhere, someone is writing a magnum opus on resource scarcity and its social effects. Environment, scarcity, and violence kindle edition by. A major challenge for all studies is to find adequate data.
Despite the ambiguity of past environment conflict research, there is common agreement that there are links if vague between environmental change and violent conflict. He also acknowledges that human ingenuity can reduce the likelihood of conflict, particularly in countries with efficient markets, capable states, and an educated populace. Keywords climate change, kenyas drylands, local institutions, resource curse, resource scarcity, violent conflict references adano, wario r, witsenburg, karen 2004 surviving pastoral decline. What are the implications of this prediction for human migration and violent conflict, defined as a range of activities, including, for example, threats, beating, appropriation, insurgency, skirmishes, and interstate or intrastate wars. This book examines how the environmental degradation of renewable resources such as fresh water, productive soils, forests, and fisheries influences relations between and within poor societies. Climate change, violent conflict and local institutions in. Two exceptions are thomas homer dixon, environmental and demographic threats to canadian security, canadian foreign policy, vol. Environmental stress alone does not neces sarily trigger violent conflict. Homerdixon, jeffrey boutwell, and george rathjens, environmental change and violent conflict, scientific american, vol. One approach represented by thomas homer dixon, sees environmental change as raising the risk of conflict. Modeling environmental abstract security in subsaharan. Document resume ed 384 561 author homerdixon, thomas f.
Environmental changes and violent conflict request pdf. Environmental change social vulnerability and conflict. Under the category of social effects, homer dixon highlights the role of decreased regional agricultural production, population. The case of rwanda val percival thomas homerdixon on april 6,1994, president juvenal habyarimanas plane exploded in the skies above the kigali region of rwanda. Climate change and violent conflict article pdf available in science 3366083. Contemporary examples of conflict are featured to highlight what those changes could. He is a founding director of the waterloo institute for complexity and innovation, at the university of waterloo. Systematic scientific assessment of this claim is rather recent, however. Thomas homerdixon 1994 explored the potential for violence at a local level as a result of environmental degradation and resource scarcity.
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