From Tremors to Talks: Do Natural Disasters Produce Ripe Moments for Resolving Separatist Conflicts?
Abstract
This article suggests that natural disasters can produce a ripe moment for conflict resolution because governments faced with the demand for effective disaster relief have incentives to offer concessions to separatist challengers. An analysis of the prevalence of new negotiations, ceasefires, and peace agreements during 12-month periods before and after natural disasters for separatist dyads 1990–2004 reveal some support for this proposition. Natural disasters increase the likelihood that parties will initiate talks or agree to ceasefires but have less effect on the signing of peace agreements. In line with the proposed mechanism, these results are particularly strong in democracies and following more severe disasters where the need to provide relief is most acute.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Democracies seem also more likely to agree to ceasefires and negotiations in the wake of major natural disasters.
“Democracies seem also more likely to agree to ceasefires and negotiations in the wake of major natural disasters, which may again be testimony of greater public accountability (109).”
From Vicious Circles: Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change (2021) · cites this paper as [109]
Cites
Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset
GLEDITSCH, N. P., WALLENSTEEN, P., ERIKSSON, M., SOLLENBERG, M., & STRAND, H. (2002) · Journal of Peace Research · doi:10.1177/0022343302039005007 · Cited by 3,846 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Separatist intra-state armed conflicts are identified from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset (v1, 2010), using the dyadic format (Gleditsch et al. 2002; Harbom, Melander, and Wallensteen 2008).”
MethodDon’t blame the weather! Climate-related natural disasters and civil conflict
Slettebak, R. T. (2012) · Journal of Peace Research · doi:10.1177/0022343311425693 · Cited by 212 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Security implications of climate change: A decade of scientific progress
von Uexkull, N., & Buhaug, H. (2021) · Journal of Peace Research · doi:10.1177/0022343320984210 · Cited by 247 · see citing works
Vicious Circles: Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change
Buhaug, H., & von Uexkull, N. (2021) · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-014708 · Cited by 187 · see citing works
Ide, T. (2019) · International Studies Review · doi:10.1093/isr/viy014 · Cited by 108 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kreutz, J.
- Affiliations
- Uppsala University (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Kreutz, Joakim
- ORCID
- Kreutz, Joakim
- Venue
- International Interactions
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2012-09
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 482-502
- ISSN
- 0305-0629 (ISSN-L)
- 1547-7444
- OpenAlex
- W1986106312
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 4 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 9.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Interactions (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Peacebuilding and International Security
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
- Keywords
- natural disasters, separatist conflict, conflict resolution, peace agreements, ceasefire, negotiation, disaster relief, democratization, disaster severity
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
