DEMOGRAPHIC PRESSURE AND INTERSTATE CONFLICT - LINKING POPULATION-GROWTH AND DENSITY TO MILITARIZED DISPUTES AND WARS, 1930-89

This study offers some empirical evidence on the relationship between population pressure and international conflict. Most of the work on po pulation or in the area of environmental security focuses on internal conflict: and does not include longitudinal and cross-national evidenc e to support its arguments. Here, we looked at the impact of populatio n growth and density on international conflict involvement, initiation , and escalation for all states in the international system over the p eriod 1930-89. Generally, population growth pressures had a significan t impact on the likelihood chat a stare would become involved in milit ary conflict. The relationship was modest, as expected, but seems to c onfirm the more pessimistic of the views of population and conflict. S ignificant military capability might be necessary for population press ures to lead to conflict, and low technology countries are more subjec t to population pressures and conflict involvement than their more adv anced peers. In part, our results also suggest that some portion of th e optimist argument may be correct - advanced technology may mitigate some of the deleterious effects of high population growth. Although th ere was a positive relationship between population growth and conflict , there was little or no evidence that such growth made states more li kely to be the initiator of that conflict or make chat conflict more l ikely to escalate to war. Similar to earlier studies, we were unable t o link population density to conflict at the nation-state level. There was scant evidence in all three analyses (involvement, initiation, an d escalation) that overcrowding exercised any significant impact on st ate decision-making. It appears that states do not: engage in conflict in order to acquire new land to support a burgeoning population Thus, there are substantial limits to the validity of extending overcrowdin g arguments to the context of interstate relations.