Climate wars? assessing the claim that drought breeds conflict
Abstract
Dominant climate models suggest that large parts of Africa will experience greater climatic variability and increasing rates of drought in coming decades. This could have severe societal consequences, because the economies and food supplies of most African countries depend on rain-fed agriculture. According to leading environmental security scholars, policymakers, and nongovernmental organizations, an increase in scarcity-driven armed conflicts should also be expected. A conditional theory of environmental conflict predicts that drought increases the risk of civil war primarily when it strikes vulnerable and politically marginalized populations in agrarian societies. However, an empirical evaluation of this general proposition through a unique gridded dataset of postcolonial Africa, which combines high-resolution meteorological data with georeferenced data on civil war onset and the local ethnopolitical context, shows little evidence of a drought-conflict connection. Instead, the local risk of civil war can be explained by sociopolitical and geographic factors: a politically marginalized population, high infant mortality, proximity to international borders, and high local population density.
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Other analyses failed to confirm a drought-conflict link.
“Yet, other analyses failed to confirm such a link (Theisen et al 2011, Couttenier and Soubeyran 2014, Wischnath and Buhaug 2014, Yeeles 2015).”
From The impacts of climate change on violent conflict risk: a review of causal pathways (2024) · cites this paper as Theisen et al 2011
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MethodResearch methods for exploring the links between climate change and conflict
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“Finally, a growing number of studies employ interaction effects or analyze different subsets of their samples separately in order to test the hypothesis that climate change is linked to conflict only under very specific circumstances.(31,47,48) Despite these considerable advantages, large-N statistical analysis still…”
BackgroundThe Determinants of Environmental Migrants' Conflict Perception
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“This is the case for efforts to generate risk indices and maps, but also for regression analyses (e.g. Fjelde & von Uexkull, 2012; Hendrix & Salehyan, 2012; Theisen et al., 2012).”
BackgroundMethodClimate security vulnerability in Africa mapping 3.01
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BackgroundTemperature extremes, global warming, and armed conflict: new insights from high resolution data
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“Consistent with previous research, I do not find a significant effect on the likelihood of either form of armed violence (cf. Theisen, Holtermann & Buhaug, 2011/12; von Uexkull, 2014).”
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The Origins of the Syrian Conflict
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Spatial pattern of climate change and farmer–herder conflict vulnerabilities in Nigeria
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A call for peace on climate and conflict
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Negotiating Water across Levels : A Peace and Conflict “Toolbox” for Water Diplomacy
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Water Conflicts: From Ancient to Modern Times and in the Future
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Temperature seasonality and violent conflict
Landis, S. T. (2014) · Journal of Peace Research · doi:10.1177/0022343314538275 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
“Finally, even the most recent work on these relationships has produced results that vary widely (Bai & Kai-sing Kung, 2011; O’Loughlin et al., 2012; Theisen, Holtermann & Buhaug, 2011).”
BackgroundTrends and triggers redux: Climate change, rainfall, and interstate conflict
Devlin, C., & Hendrix, C. S. (2014) · Political Geography · doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.07.001 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
Three-dimensional-based global drought projection under global warming tendency
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Reframing Climate-Induced Socio-Environmental Conflicts: A Systematic Review
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Understanding Society and Natural Resources
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Natural Disasters, Forced Migration, and Conflict: The Importance of Government Policy Responses
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Climatic Stress, Internal Migration, and Syrian Civil War Onset
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International Water Law and the Quest for Common Security
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Hydro-climatic change, conflict and security
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Reconciling climate-conflict meta-analyses: reply to Buhaug et al.
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“reclassify two results that use a standardized precipitation index (SPI) as drought studies (Theisen et al. 2011; O’Loughlin et al. 2012); in neither case does the employed SPI measure include any information about Fig.”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialCollective violence caused by climate change and how it threatens health and human rights.
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A Visual Analytics Framework for Identifying Topic Drivers in Media Events
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“Violent conflict, where it is present, is about many things, but not about available water (Theisen, Holtermann, and Buhaug 2011; Bernauer et al. 2012).”
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Conditional Relationships Between Drought and Civil Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
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Increasing temperature exacerbated Classic Maya conflict over the long term
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“…levels has been supported by several studies (Hsiang et al., 2013; Hsiang and Burke, 2014), but this work has been heavily criticized (e.g., Buhaug et al., 2014; Hsiang et al., 2014; Hsiang and Meng, 2014; Meierding, 2013; Salehyan, 2008, 2014; Scheffran et al., 2012; Theisen et al., 2011, 2013).”
MethodThe human dimensions of the climate risk and armed conflict nexus: a review article
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“Instead, research must consider the mechanisms through which a climate phenomenon might translate into further conflict, which include a region’s socioeconomic development, ethnic composition, ecological diversity, and state involvement (Buhaug et al. 2015; Fjelde and von Uexkull 2012; Gilmore et al. 2018; Mach et al.…”
Background
- Authors
- Theisen, O. M., Holtermann, H., & Buhaug, H.
- Affiliations
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NO)
- Peace Research Institute Oslo (NO)
- Venue
- International Security
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2012-01
- Volume
- 36
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 79-106
- ISSN
- 0162-2889 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4804
- OpenAlex
- W2159177743
- Cited by
- 234
- References
- 84
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 54.59
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Security (publishedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Transboundary Water Resource Management
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental and Biological Research in Conflict Zones
- Keywords
- drought, armed conflict, civil war onset, environmental security, climate variability, rainfed agriculture, agrarian society, political exclusion, infant mortality, border proximity, population density, postcolonial Africa, climate change and conflict
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