Development - Scarcity and conflict

first wave of environmental security

• (Dabelko and Dabelko, 1995)

• cold war - future of US security in the environment of USSR collapse

• key scholar - Homer Dixon (1991:4)

• focus - abstracted environmental issues (water scarcity) and social dynamics associated (mass migration) would lead to violent conflict

  • First wave picks up an environmental issue and looks at the resultant social consequences and how these (could) lead to conflict

Homer Dixon nuance

Aware that it isn’t the environment but the social impacts which cause the conflict (Homer-Dixon, 1994)

it is important to see the nuance within the first wave of this thinking

Post cold war era

• nature of security threats had changed (Dalby, 1992)

• environmental debate became more significant due to the geopolitical context of reduced deaths and threat from state based violent

• and more focus on insecurity deriving from non-state based violence and poverty

new debates through the 1990s

• context - first human development report - 1990

  • new way of measuring development

  • all encompassing idea of development

  • required a wider remit of security to include the protection from internal violence, protection from hunger and thirst

• marks a shift from state centred security (McCormack, 2011)

parallels between 1990 security and development focuses

• the shift from state centred security to people centred security (Chandler, 2013)

• parallels shift in wider development

• from growth focus to human development

• individual becoming the “end” rather than the “means” to achieve growth

Malthusian approach

• basic Malthusian argument (1798)

  • pop growth - exponential - the urge to procreate is a universal tendency

  • food (not writing about the environment - that’s neoM) - his idea can be encapsulated by the law of diminishing returns (Brue, 1993)

    • initially more effort = more output, this eventually tails of and there is less increase per increase of effort, and eventually more effort leads to decrease

    • there is an eventual point where population outstrips its ability to feed itself

    • can be seen in ecological science narratives with the idea of carrying capacity

  • Population growth is thus privileged as the primary cause of poverty and scarcity with conflict presented as a natural and necessary consequence of these conditions (Hartmann, 2014).

Hardin

Tragedy of the commons (1968)

• firstly conflates open access and common pool (common pool isnt fully free access)

• thought experiment

• imagine land anyone can access, each person will want to maximise their own benefit

• benefit to individual but cost on all users

• everyone chasing own benefit - large cost felt on everyone

Why tragedy of the commons isn’t right

• it is a thought experiment and doesnt adequately describe reality

• Ostrom (2007)

  • commons in the real world didnt lead to tragic ruin

  • conflated open access with commons

  • and conflated scarcity with governance

  • rules out communication and cooperation

NeoMalthusian thought

• Broadens Malthusian thinking from food to the environment in general

• key difference

  • Malthus thought this was due to forces of nature and has theological roots in the problem and value of suffering

  • NMs advocate for strong intervention (Kelly, 2021)

• Influential in 60s and 70s with limits to growth (Meadows et al., 1972)

• and CC bringing these arguments back - CC will affect scarcity

critique of Neomathusian

• rendering technical

  • no acknowledgement of the people experiencing scarcity, their ability to adapt

• apolitical

  • obstructs political causes of scarcity (Verhoeven, 2011)

• legitimise intervention

• environmentally determinist (unidirectional relationship)

Scarcity - conceptualisations

• biophysical phenomenon

• economic

• socially constructed

Scarcity as economic

• (De Brujin and Antonides, 2022)

• roots in Neoclassical NL economics

  • limited resources infinite wants

  • assumptions of rational choice and individualism - greed based choices with individuals maximising their own utility

  • scarcity creates value

    • and thus insecurity - conflict over valued resources

• environmental resources are fixed in supply

  • scarcity as the opposite of security

  • societies with environmental scarcity are at greater risk of conflict

• the construction of scarcity from a demand supply framework

Scarcity and political ecology

• the construction of scarcity is a highly political problem

• defining scarcity of x resource as a problem

• and then defining the plan for resolving the problem

  • political act (Bryant, 1988)

Social construction of scarcity

Manufacturing scarcity (Mehta, 2001)

• critical examination of narratives of water scarcity in Kutch India - semiarid region

• wrt Sardar Sarovar dam

constructed narrative of scarcity

• reduced rainfall

• need to build dams to best manage this water scarcity

• narrative has shaped local perceptions

• and legitimise the controversial dam building project

• consent manufactured through the construction of scarcity narratives

this narrative serves certain socio-political agendas rather than reflecting the biophysical reality

• meteorological data suggests no significant change

Real vs manufactured scarcity (Mehta, 2001)

Real - biophysical phenomenon

• ecological and social dimensions

• longer treks for women to collect water

• often accompanied by adaption due to the cyclical nature of scarcity and abundance

manufactured

• essentialised and universalised scarcity

• seen as permanent and natural

• needs permanent and technical solution - dam

• serves the interests of those in power

manufactured obscured key aspects of real

• inequalities shaping access to and control over water

• water scarcity is not natural - e.g. due to mismanagement

• and the solutions are inappropriate which can marginalise and exacerbate real water requirements

Syria and water conflict - context

• (de Chatel, 2014)

• 2011 Syrian uprising, started peaceful then turned violence resulting in the deaths of hundred of thousands of people

• Uprising triggered by a series of social, economic and political factors including growing poverty caused by economic liberalization and the effects of a severe drought

• dominant narrative - drought caused scarcity caused conflict, pop growth as a drive to develop irrigated agriculture to better manage water and the threat

de Chatel, 2014

• not the drought which caused the conflict

• but the govt failure to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis of which one aspect was drought

  • main cause was simmering discontent towards the economic reforms of the Assad regime and long term mismanagement of NRs

• but drought is not unusual in Syria and may be worsened by CC

  • but overstating important shift attention from root cause - of political mismanagement of resources, and the social aspect of the conflict linked to discontent with political regime

• need to question narrative

• drought data used to legitimise ideas of scarcity

• ignored historical coping mechanisms

• Syria did experience drought but it didn’t contribute to the civil war

• and using the drought as the starting point is problematic

  • rendering technical

• rather than looking at the politics

  • Assad regime liberalising economy, damaging agricultural sector - conflict has roots in the politicss

MARA

Malthusian Anticipatory Regime for Africa (Hartmann, 2014) - demonstration of NeoMalthusian thinking

• Malthusian ideas in Africa dominating ideas of climate security

• convergence of international intervention in Africa wrt long acting female contraception and CC conflict narratives which cite pop growth as cause of degradation

• anticipatory action in Africa to preemptively deal with threat from high population growth

• Speculative pre-emptive action is justified in response to environmental threats with Africa represented as the ideal terrain to focus this action on due to its role as the locus of climate change (Verhoeven, 2014).

• future orientation of impending climate conflict

• explicitly links cc and pop growth to scarcity and conflict - CC as a threat multiplier

Collier and Hoeffler’s model, 1996;98

• utility of going to war

  • variables like cost, probability of success, gains if won

• opportunity

  • rebel financing, low opportunity cost

• thus poor countries with large percentage of primary product exports are more likely to go to war

• Opportunities cost for unemployed young men is low and so they are more likely to go to war because they don’t have a regular income stream to give up

  • these essentialised elements feed into the narrative

  • Constructing an idea of what kind of countries will be susceptible to these wars

Climate security

• climate security has replaced environmental security as the focus of most mainstream academic and policy analysis

Environmental conflict as a misnomer

Atkins, 2016

• CC increasing conflict over scarce resources and environmental refugees fleeing degraded environments (Hsiang et a., 2013)

• AA that conflicts are never environmentally caused they interact with other factors to escalate into conflict

• important to highlight the conflation of ecological issues like degradation with non-renewable resources with quantifiable value (such as oil or gas) (Barnett, 2000)

• thus it is conflict over socially constructed value linked to their abundance/scarcity than the biophysical conditions which prompt the conflict

• environmental conflict is often inter-state, internationally scarcity of resources often results in enhanced cooperation

  • example of water

  • for example the costs outweigh the benefits (Wolf, 1998)

  • Wolf uses the example of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 between India and Pakistan to highlight the role management of scarce resources has in peacebuilding at an international level

De Bruijn and van Dijk, 2005

• conflict in Cote d’Ivoire

• between Fulbe herders and Senoufo farmers

• competition for space and resources

• farmers threatened by pastoralists who occupy land around their villages and whose herds destroy their fields

• pastoralists primarily migrants from surrounding countries

complexity

• influence of government policies

• promoted the settlement of pastoralists, the use of dams to retain water in dry season and promote the growth of livestock populations

• huge growth in livestock - increased destruction of farmland

• instances of violent conflict

• and the manipulation of ethnic tensions by politicians for electoral gain

SCS

• Paracel Islands clash in 1974

• Conflict over possession of islands

• Paracel islands previous to the conflict partially controlled by China and partially by South Vietnam (Westing, 1986)

• China won the conflict and so established full de facto control over the Paracels

• Westing, 1986 highlights this conflicts as environmental – their cause is related to the environment as considered to be the non-renewable resources

• But this conflict is due to the socially constructed value which these resources hold which is a social factor (Atkins, 2016)

  • Value is a social construct linked to supply and demand – scarcity and abundance

resource curse

• Obi, 2010

• Oil in Nigeria

• AA - explaining conflict on the basis of natural resources as incentive for conflict ignore complex socio-historical factors linked to conflict (in Nigeria)

• resource curse - link between resource abundance, conflict and poor economic growth

• oil conflict in Nigeria

• linked to international constructions of threat as weak/failing states harbour threat to development and security (Pham, 2007)

Nigeria

• Obi, 2010

• the resource conflict thesis feeds discourse about the nature of conflict and African states

• oil is a key element of global power it is the most widely used energy source

• oil is strategically and economically valuable

• not a simple model that having abundant resources leads to conflict over access to them

• but centres around institutional weakness owing to the corrupt elites which privatise and personalise state power thus subverting the developmental process (Fearon, 2005)

Critique of abundance

• Obi, 2010

• a simple nexus between oil (or other resource) and abundance ignored the roots on conflict in wider social and historical processes

• such as in the Niger Delta where conflicts roots predate the discovery of oil and link to global and local forces of extraction and resistance

• the thesis thrive on a determinate relationship between oil abundance and conflict which simplified the complexities of conflict which are not inevitable nor natural

• within Nigeria the resource curse concludes that oil impedes democracy and development and promotes corruption and conflict

• without considering the unequal power relations within society and between Nigeria and other states which were present before oil became a significant factor in the Nigerian economy

Roots of violent conflict in Nigeria

• Obi, 2007, 2008, 2009

• don’t lie in oil but in unequal power relations embedded in the production of oil and therefore the uneven distribution of benefits and liabilities

• this is linked to oil in that it provided an avenue for political misgivings to manifest

• for example the repression of protests against the pollution of the oil rich regions by state and international actors’ action which divorced people from their lands and livelihoods, degraded the ecosystem and widened inequalities

• therefore oil is seen to exacerbate existing socio-political factors in conflict rather than being the cause

conclusion of oil curse

• oil curse is premised upon a partial reading of the factors contributing to conflict

• diverting attention from how oil is merely feeding into the politics and inequalities

• oil isn’t the curse, the value places upon it and the inequalities associated with this value within a capitalist system are

• highlight the resource rick countries like Canada which have escaped this curse owing to the mix of historical factors, class relations, political control over resources etc

  • they haven’t had their resources pillaged by interventionist and predatory local and transnational forces

• highlight need to transcend “resource-conflict determinism”

• and a focus on who controls the oil and whose interests are served - oil, when managed well can be a “blessing” rather than a curse

Looking beyond nature

• conflicts have geographies - interaction of economic, political and demographic factors

• to produce specific power dynamics in specific contexts

• thus as environmental/climate changes change the vulnerability of certain population

• environmental shocks serve the exacerbate existing social tensions linked to poverty and exclusion (Levy, 1995)

• climate as the trigger rather than the cause

• “environmental conflict” is contingent on these underlying social factor

Use of large datasets

• use of large datasets to establish statistical correlation between climate and conflict

• e.g. between precipitation as proxy for CC and conflict (Fjelde and von Uexkull, 2012)

• doesnt establish causation

• statistical analysis dominates literature, and so literature only focuses on cases where conflict is taking place (Adams et al., 2018)

• and the overreliance on quantitative data does not look at qualitative data or contexts (Selby, 2014)

• this methodological focus is the result of a particular system of knowledge production

  • not rooted in lived experience

  • without considering the perspective of the subject

Selby, 2014

• review quantitative environmental conflict studies

• found no consensus on the link between the environment and conflict in the studies

• AA that it is the lack of consideration of interacting factors - the social, political and historical factors of conflict

postcolonial critiques of large dataset driven knowledge production on the relationship between climate change and conflict

• the scale of the state ignores the active role the state plays in societal power dynamics (Burke et al., 2009)

• the focus on the state scale erases the subaltern subjects lived experience - focus on the generalisations

  • which result in some places being defined as more naturally violent than others (Adams et al., 2018)

• western bias (Lewis and Lenton, 2015)

  • climate conflicts understood as “out there” affecting us “in here”

  • reproduces security imaginaries and interests of those in power