BEYOND ENVIRONMENTAL SCARCITY - CAUSAL PATHWAYS TO CONFLICT

A great deal of recent writing has indicated that growing scarcities o f renewable resources can contribute to conflict. Most of this researc h, however, suffers from two major methodological weaknesses: lack of variation in the independent and dependent variables, and the absence of control for other conflict-generating factors. As one of the first large-N studies of the relationship between environmental degradation and domestic armed conflict, this article rakes on these challenges. O n the basis of a multivariate analysis for all countries in the period 1980-92 we test and confirm the hypotheses (as indicated from various case-studies) that factors like deforestation, land degradation, and scarce supply of freshwater, alone and in combination with high popula tion density, increase the risk of domestic armed conflict, especially low-level conflict. This holds true also when we control for economic and political factors, such as level of economic development: and typ e of political regime. The latter variables, however, prove more decis ive than environmental scarcity in predicting the incidence of domesti c armed conflict. The severity of such conflicts is better accounted f or by military expenditure than by environmental degradation, poverty or non-democratic rule.