The Environment-Conflict Nexus

Abstract

In the spring of 1994-only weeks following the debacle in Mogadishu and only months before a similar event would take place in Haiti-Robert D. Kaplan wrote a stirring article in Atlantic Monthly that seemed to explain the prevalence of such warfare, predicting its continuation in international affairs. Indeed, Kaplan's article, The coming anarchy, captured Washington's attention and became so popular that President William J. Clinton reported to have penciled notes on his copy for use during cabinet meetings. Receiving perhaps the most public attention was Kaplan's focus on the environmental and ecological causations of conflict and war. The environment, explained Kaplan, is the national-security issue of the early twenty-first century, where developmental-induced environmental scarcity will emerge as the central cause of intra- and inter-state conflict.'While Kaplan's article, later republished as the principal chapter of his best-selling book, Coming Anarchy, indeed a pleasurable and savvy journalistic read, it nonetheless political science light. That is, the article did much to elevate the and debate within governmental circles, civil society, the media, and academia, but achieved very little in terms of academic or theoretical advancement. Indeed, Kaplaris most important contribution to the enviro-conflict field was the influence he had on the popularization of the study in western society and the further infusion of its lexicon into everyday political and social parlance. His work, however, had very little influence on furthering knowledge within the subfield, in particular, or within political science/international relations in general. It did not postulate any novel hypotheses, rigorously verify or falsify existing ones, or advance any set of guidelines that could stimulate further research. It was simply a good read.What was perhaps most overlooked by the excited throngs who flocked to it was the fact that the enviro-conflict debate had not been invented by Kaplan, nor was it a novel area of investigation in general, and nor was the issue quite as simple as it had been presented. In fact, Kaplan took little notice of the nuance that accompanies the enviro-conflict debate or of the complicated nature that exemplifies its academic development. He does not mention, for instance, that the enviro-security approach had been developed in the mid-1980s, already had a rich theoretical history that pitted erudite proponents against equally well-versed critics, and had-perhaps most importantly-evolved into two major oppositional debates: theoretical debate and methodological/practical.Both areas of research have their advocates and opponents, arguments and counterarguments, rationales, examinations, and testimonies. Put together, these debates form the existential core of the enviro-conflict subfield. Evaluating the arguments set forth by both research agendas and analyzing their specific advancements and shortfalls therefore central to understanding how the field has evolved within IR, to appraising what scholarly progression has taken place, and to appreciating what measures need to be taken in order to advance analytic development.To this end, this article will review the enviro-conflict field and evaluate the central tenets of the research subject as they have been forwarded and explored by various academics since the late 19805. argument presented in three sections. Part one will focus on the first of the two debates, the theoretical dilemma, exploring its overarching question: are environmental concerns equivalent to concerns, or do they fall into a separate subcategory altogether? Advocates of enlarging the definition of security to include the natural environment pit themselves against those who espouse the traditional and much more limited Cold War definition. Part two will explore the second debate-the practical/methodological dilemma-and will explore its overarching question: are there causal links between the two variables (the natural environment and international conflict), and if so, how are we to accurately operationalize their occurrence, measure their strengths, and identify their causal mechanisms? …