Environmental Conflict Between Refugee and Host …

1 329 For all that has been said and written, little hasbeen done to investigate potentially importantlinkages Between Environmental conflict andenvironmental cooperation.(Conca, 2002: 4)The next breakthrough in environmentalsecurity research will be achieved by seeking anddeveloping linkages Between research onenvironmental causes of violent conflict andresearch on the emergence of cooperativesolutions.(Page, 2002: 40)IntroductionSince the mid-1950s, the majority of violentconflicts have been intrastate, relatively smallin scale and located in developing countries(Gleditsch et al., 2002). The 1990s saw agrowing concern that at least some of theseconflicts may be linked to environmentalissues. The evidence for this linkage is heavilycontested. Much of the evidence comes fromcase studies ( Homer-Dixon, 1999), andthis has been criticized for sample bias: caseswere selected because they were characterizedby both armed conflict and environmentaldegradation (Baechler, 1999; Stalley, 2003).

2 Large-N statistical testing for relationshipsbetween Environmental variables and conflict 2005 Journal of Peace Research,vol. 42, no. 3, 2005, pp. 329 346 Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) Conflict Between Refugee andHost Communities*ADRIAN MARTINS chool of Development Studies, University of East AngliaMuch of the existing Environmental security literature examines the causal linkages Between environ-mental scarcity and violent conflict. Such research is clearly useful for exploring the causes of violencebut less useful for exploring the causes of peace. This article adopts a theoretical approach to theenvironment conflict nexus that considers a range of local variables that shape the ways in which actorssocially construct resource use competition. The basic approach is to accept that any resource use com-petition can be constructed in ways that engender either cooperative solutions or unproductive formsof conflict, including violence.

3 The local variables that shape actors constructions of conflicts are, there-fore, viewed as the determinants of the kind of outcomes that result from a resource use conflict. Thistheoretical approach is developed with reference to Environmental conflicts in areas hosting variable of resource management regimes is explored in more detail, illustrated by a case studyfrom an Ethiopian Refugee camp. The article finds theoretical and empirical evidence to support theview that participatory and inclusive resource management regimes may enable communities to con-struct resource use conflicts in ways that help to prevent unproductive conflict. Such forms of govern-ance can potentially be initiated in places where the state is failing to mitigate conflict through its owninstitutional resources. Thus, there may be an opportunity to respond to the ingenuity gap thatHomer-Dixon identifies as a key linkage Between scarcity and conflict.

4 * E-mail address for correspondence: I am grateful to many who helped in Ethiopia,especially Amare Gebre Egziabher (UNHCR) and PritiBiswas (Overseas Development Group, UEA).05 052015 Martin (to/d) 22/3/05 10:54 am Page 329has sought to avoid such bias. However, thesetests have tended to produce contradictoryfindings (Esty et al., 1999; Hauge &Ellingsen, 2001). Stalley (2003) has found forinterstate conflict what Hauge & Ellingsen(2001) found for intrastate conflict: landdegradation renders a country more prone toconflict. However, both these studies use theGlobal Assessment of Soil Degradation(GLASOD), a data source that is highlyproblematic, for example because it extrapo-lates small plot studies to present large areaclassifications (see Keeley & Scoones,2003).Despite the methodological difficultiesfaced by those seeking evidence of anenvironment conflict nexus, we should notignore the fact that there are at least fortycase studies in which Environmental resourcescarcity has been cited as a factor contribut-ing to violent conflict.

5 Worryingly, some ofthe basic characteristics of these cases matchthe very type of violent conflict that nowoccurs most frequently: they are mainlyintrastate, small scale and with a context ofpoverty (Baechler, 1999; Homer-Dixon,1994, 1999; Esty et al., 1999). Thedominant narrative explaining this possibleassociation is that issues of resource scarcityinterplay with social processes, stimulatingwell-known triggers of violence (Goldstone,2001; Baechler, 1999). In other words, Environmental scarcity acts as an indirectcause of conflict by amplifying/triggeringtraditional causes of conflict such as ethnicdifference. Such amplification of existingsocial fault-lines is associated with insti-tutional failure that is linked to scarcity andpoverty (Homer-Dixon, 1999). Scarcity canlead to institutional dysfunction and over-whelm attempts by states to undertake con-structive reform; scarcity fosters an ingenuity gap (Homer-Dixon, 1999).

6 While much of the environmentalsecurity literature has sought to describe andevaluate the causal connection betweenenvironmental scarcity and violent conflict( Homer-Dixon, 1994, 1999), there hasbeen hardly any attempt to learn about why,in the majority of cases, environmentalscarcity is managed in peaceful ways(Gleditsch, 1998; Conca, 2002; Matthew,Gaulin & McDonald, 2003). One of theobjectives of this article is to address thisneglect. It is proposed that if we can developa better understanding of how a range ofvariables can contribute to the ways in whichresource use conflicts are perceived and actedupon locally, we will be in a better positionto identify responses that might help toprovide the conditions under which com-petition for scarce resources is resolvedpeacefully. At local levels, such responsesmay be possible even where the mechanismsof the state are failing, thus offering ways ofreacting to Homer-Dixon s ingenuity gap.

7 Peaceful responses to resource scarcity arecommonplace. Environmental scarcity andresource use competition are part of theeveryday politics of life. Most of us faceresource use conflict on a daily basis, whetherwe are competing for space in Europe scrowded cities or competing for access tosubsistence resources in rural Ethiopia. Thereare a host of variables that determine thepathways along which such conflictsdevelop. The most usual outcomes arepeaceful ones, where broadly accepted ruleslead to cooperative outcomes of one kind oranother. Thus, theoretically at least, resourceuse conflict can form part of a virtuous circle,in which cooperative responses contribute tosocial capital, thus encouraging robust insti-tutions and future cooperation (Pretty, 2002;Dolsak & Ostrom, 2003; Adger, 2003). Inthe most constructive scenario, materialscarcity actually brings different groupscloser together, encouraging cooperation andbuilding forms of social capital that maythen be drawn upon to deal with other,perhaps more difficult, problems.

8 Forexample, an alternative to the once popularjournal ofPEACERESEARCH volume 42 / number 3 / may 200533005 052015 Martin (to/d) 22/3/05 10:54 am Page 330 water wars discourse ( Bulloch &Darwish, 1993) is the view that the necessityto deal cooperatively with issues of waterscarcity could actually help develop themutual trust required to make progress withbroader security issues. Wolf (1999) finds noincidence of a war fought over waterresources but thousands of incidences ofcooperation over water , it is also true that resource usecompetition is accompanied by governancefailure, leading to what will here be describedas unproductive conflicts . This is whereconflict leads to non-cooperative outcomes,often entailing the kind of aggregate dys-function characterized in the tragedy of thecommons , in which the majority wouldhave wished for a better outcome ( , 1968).

9 The contexts that fosterunproductive conflict are far from may be a factor, but it is certainly nota compelling causal force. For example,many of Ostrom s (1990) examples ofcooperative self-organization to managescarce resources are from developing coun-tries. Indeed, poorer people are often moredependent on natural resources (Cavendish,2000), and such dependence has, in somestudies, been found to be a condition favour-ing cooperative, collective action ( , Saxena & Shah, 1989). In anattempt to clarify the role of poverty, someanalyses have focused on particular dimen-sions of poverty, especially a lack of recent research by Mosse (2003)into the management of shared waterresources in southern India considerablycomplicates this view, suggesting that theability to maintain quite stable forms ofresource management, even in the face ofshortage, can be supported as much byunequal and undemocratic power relation-ships as by conventional notions of socialcapital.

10 A key lesson that Mosse delivers isthat cases are highly specific and generaliza-tion is hard. He finds a different basis forcollective action than Wade (1988). Bothstudied local cooperation to manage waterresources in southern India, but differentecological and social histories determinedvery different , Environment and ConflictRefugee movements are generally the resultof conflict but can also be a cause of January 2003, the number of people ofconcern to the United Nations High Com-missioner for Refugees stood at million,or about 1 in 300 of the world s population(UNHCR, 2003). Incidents of forced migra-tion are likely to present a continued andgrowing challenge, because the causes ofpopulation displacement appear unlikely todiminish in the foreseeable future. Thenumber of armed conflicts2has risen since1950, reaching a peak of 55 in 1992. Thepost-Cold War years have seen a reducednumber of armed conflicts, but even for2003, there were 29 active armed conflicts(Eriksson & Wallensteen, 2004).