The Earth's human population is expected to pass eight billion by the year 2025, while rapid growth in the global economy will spur ever increasing demands for natural resources. The world will consequently face growing scarcities of such vital renewable resources as cropland, fresh water, and forests. Thomas Homer-Dixon argues in this sobering book that these environmental scarcities will have profound social consequences--contributing to insurrections, ethnic clashes, urban unrest, and other forms of civil violence, especially in the developing world. Homer-Dixon synthesizes work from a wide range of international research projects to develop a detailed model of the sources of environmental scarcity. He refers to water shortages in China, population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, and land distribution in Mexico, for example, to show that scarcities stem from the degradation and depletion of renewable resources, the increased demand for these resources, and/or their unequal distribution. He shows that these scarcities can lead to deepened poverty, large-scale migrations, sharpened social cleavages, and weakened institutions. And he describes the kinds of violence that can result from these social effects, arguing that conflicts in Chiapas, Mexico and ongoing turmoil in many African and Asian countries, for instance, are already partly a consequence of scarcity. 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. He also acknowledges that human ingenuity can reduce the likelihood of conflict, particularly in countries with efficient markets, capable states, and an educated populace. But he argues that the violent consequences of scarcity should not be underestimated--especially when about half the world's population depends directly on local renewables for their day-to-day well-being. In the next decades, he writes, growing scarcities will affect billions of people with unprecedented severity and at an unparalleled scale and pace. Clearly written and forcefully argued, this book will become the standard work on the complex relationship between environmental scarcities and human violence.

Ecoviolence explores links between environmental scarcities of key renewable resources_such as cropland, fresh water, and forests_and violent rebellions, insurgencies, and ethnic clashes in developing countries. Detailed contemporary studies of civil violence in Chiapas, Gaza, South Africa, Pakistan, and Rwanda show how environmental scarcity has played a limited to significant role in causing social instability in each of these contexts. Drawing upon theory and key findings from the case studies, the authors suggest that environmental scarcity will worsen in many poor countries in coming decades and will become an increasingly important cause of major civil violence.

This book examines the links between climate change and resource scarcity to violent conflict. Does climate change cause conflicts? This book analyses the economic, political and social conditions under which countries with low levels of freshwater or arable land experience armed conflict. There are strong theoretic arguments linking climate change and scarcity of livelihood resources to conflict. However, empirical accounts are contradictory. Using qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this book compares 22 political, economic and social conditions across 30 countries experiencing scarcity of available freshwater or arable land. The results show that there are three types of resource-scarce countries that experience conflicts: (neo)patrimonial states, oil-rich states that are poorly integrated into the global economy and least developed states. In addition, the results reveal that there are two types of resource scarce countries that remain peaceful: non-agrarian countries with either even development between groups or high integration into the global economy with high levels of adaptive capacities. This explains the contradictory results of previous empirical studies and suggests that resource scarcity might contribute to conflict in least developed countries. This book will be of much interest to students of climate change, critical security, peace and conflict studies, and IR in general.

Severe droughts, damaging floods and mass migration: Climate change is becoming a focal point for security and conflict research and a challenge for the world’s governance structures. But how severe are the security risks and conflict potentials of climate change? Could global warming trigger a sequence of events leading to economic decline, social unrest and political instability? What are the causal relationships between resource scarcity and violent conflict? This book brings together international experts to explore these questions using in-depth case studies from around the world. Furthermore, the authors discuss strategies, institutions and cooperative approaches to stabilize the climate-society interaction.

Do environmental problems and processes produce violence? Current U.S. policy about environmental conflict and scholarly work on environmental security assume direct causal links between population growth, resource scarcity, and violence. This belief, a staple of governmental decision-making during both Clinton administrations and widely held in the environmental security field, depends on particular assumptions about the nature of the state, the role of population growth, and the causes of environmental degradation.The conventional understanding of environmental security, and its assumptions about the relation between violence and the environment, are challenged and refuted in Violent Environments. Chapters by geographers, historians, anthropologists, and sociologists include accounts of ethnic war in Indonesia, petro-violence in Nigeria and Ecuador, wildlife conservation in Tanzania, and "friendly fire" at Russia's nuclear weapons sites. Violent Environments portrays violence as a site-specific phenomenon rooted in local histories and societies, yet connected to larger processes of material transformation and power relations. The authors argue that specific resource environments, including tropical forests and oil reserves, and environmental processes (such as deforestation, conservation, or resource abundance) are constituted by and in part constitute the political economy of access to and control over resources. Violent Environments demands new approaches to an international set of complex problems, powerfully arguing for deeper, more ethnographically informed analyses of the circumstances and processes that cause violence.

Over the past several decades, civil and ethnic wars have undermined prospects for economic and political development, destabilized entire regions of the globe, and left millions dead. States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World argues that demographic and environmental stress--the interactions among rapid population growth, environmental degradation, inequality, and emerging scarcities of vital natural resources--represents one important source of turmoil in today's world. Kahl contends that this type of stress places enormous strains on both societies and governments in poor countries, increasing their vulnerability to armed conflict. He identifies two pathways whereby this process unfolds: state failure and state exploitation. State failure conflicts occur when population growth, environmental degradation, and resource inequality weaken the capacity, legitimacy, and cohesion of governments, thereby expanding the opportunities and incentives for rebellion and intergroup violence. State exploitation conflicts, in contrast, occur when political leaders themselves capitalize on the opportunities arising from population pressures, natural resource scarcities, and related social grievances to instigate violence that serves their parochial interests. Drawing on a wide array of social science theory, this book argues that demographically and environmentally induced conflicts are most likely to occur in countries that are deeply split along ethnic, religious, regional, or class lines, and which have highly exclusive and discriminatory political systems. The empirical portion of the book evaluates the theoretical argument through in-depth case studies of civil strife in the Philippines, Kenya, and numerous other countries. The book concludes with an analysis of the challenges demographic and environmental change will pose to international security in the decades ahead.

As environmental security gains increasing attention, there is a pressing need for rigorous examinations of environmental causes of conflict and the potential for conflict resolution. Environmental Conflict explores the role of environmental degradation or scarcity in intrastate or interstate violent conflict and how cooperative efforts might forestall such undesirable consequences. By presenting cutting-edge conceptual and empirical research examining how environmental factors may influence group and state decisions to employ violence, this book enhances understanding of the possibilities for future conflict and how to prevent it.

An argument that resource scarcity and environmental degradation can provide an impetus for cooperation among countries.

Eight contributions written by professors of political science, government, and politics as well as researchers and program directors for environmental change, energy, and security projects provide insight into the process of environmental peacemaking, based on their experiences in a variety of international regions. An initial chapter makes a case for the process; successive chapters address the Baltic, South Asia, the Aral Sea basin, southern Africa, the Caspian Sea, and the US-Mexican border. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).