Conflicting securities: contributions to a critical research agenda on climate security
Open accessAbstract
Climate change is increasingly presented as a security issue; this ‘climate security’ discourse arguably imparts an even greater sense of urgency to the already alarming climate crisis. This article argues that the grounding for this narrative is thin, while its adoption in powerful avenues and thus its implications are substantial. Budgets for climate mitigation and adaptation measures, which often seek to control natural resources by assigning a monetary value to them, rise steadily. Ironically, climate policies themselves frequently contribute to socio-environmental conflicts, further marginalizing the users of land, water and forests. It is therefore important to disentangle whether and how climate security discourses further shape climate investments, to identify the key actors involved and to examine the part they play in socio-environmental conflicts. The article argues that a critical research agenda, based on but going beyond political ecology, is needed for more socially and environmentally just climate interventions.
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Water stress showed a significant inverse link to state capacity, especially in fiscal and service-delivery areas.
“The statistical results demonstrated that climate-induced water stress was significantly and negatively associated with state capacity, particularly within fiscal and service delivery domains (Lamain, 2022).”
From Climate Security, Water Governance, and Resilience How Climate-Induced Water Stress and Migration Challenge State Capacity (2026) · cites this paper as Lamain, 2022
The Introduction discusses climate-security framing and resource scarcity, but does not report a statistical relationship between water stress and state capacity. Searches for the claimed negative association, fiscal and service-delivery domains, and state capacity found no passage addressing that result in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.75)
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Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases
Homer-Dixon, T. F. (1994) · International Security · doi:10.2307/2539147 · Cited by 1,701 · cited 1× · see citing works
“This aligns with pre-existing notions around links between the environment and conflict, in which ‘scarcity’ is presented as a key causal factor of conflict (e.g. Homer-Dixon, 1994).”
BackgroundWhy do pastoralists in Mali join jihadist groups? A political ecological explanation
Benjaminsen, T. A., & Ba, B. (2019) · The Journal of Peasant Studies · doi:10.1080/03066150.2018.1474457 · Cited by 233 · see citing works
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Cardinal Masters in Public Administration, L. U. T., & Zulqarnain, F. (2026) · International Journal of Scientific Interdisciplinary Research · doi:10.63125/28gejw48 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lamain, C.
- Affiliations
- International Institute of Social Studies (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Lamain, Corinne
- ORCID
- Lamain, Corinne
- Venue
- Globalizations
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2022-04-12
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1257-1272
- ISSN
- 1474-7731 (ISSN-L)
- 1474-774X
- OpenAlex
- W4223504947
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4
- FWCI
- 7.63
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Globalizations (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- EUR Research Repository (Erasmus University Rotterdam) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Social Sciences and Humanities
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Global Security and Public Health
- Keywords
- climate security, socio-environmental conflicts, climate investment, political ecology, climate justice
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