An unplanned shortage of books in my in-pile has sent me to some older ones that I've had around for a time, and well worth while it's been. States, Scarcity and Civil Strife in the Developing World by Colin Kahl is one of these – it was first published in 2006. It's an assessment of different approaches to understanding to role of environmental issues in explaining civil conflicts, covering economic theories including the 'resource curse' and political science explanations those which emphasise power relations and inequality. The different explanations are assessed in detail against experience in the Philippines and Kenya, and in less detail against several other examples such as Mali and Rwanda.
Even taking the conventional economic approaches by themselves, the relation between environmental strains and conflict isn't simple. The 'resource curse' blames an over-abdundance of a resources such as oil or diamonds for conflict, whereas in other contexts it's the scarcity of a resource such as food or wood for fuel which causes the fighting. Economic Gangsters by Raymond Fisman and Ted Miguel emphasised the latter, while Paul Collier (in The Bottom Billion) has highlighted the former. What's more, the experience differs greatly between countries, with some able to avert conflict, pointing to a key role for institutions and politics.
Kahl tries to synthesise the arguments into a theory that involves demographic and environmental stress as an indicator for conflict, but with an important role for either state failure (weak institutions) or state exploitation (strong but exploitative institutions or groups) as the pathways to conflict. In addition, the degree to which the society is sharply divided between different social, ethnic or religious groups, and the inclusiveness of the institutions, play a part in determining the likelihood of conflict. The case studies presented seem to support the approach – I found the example of Mali, and its emergence from conflict despite continuing extreme environmental stress, particularly interesting.
The book draws on economics and political science. I was a bit surprised not to see any reference to the literature on anthropology and the environment, including Jared Diamond's popular version, Collapse. This might have provided additional supporting evidence alongside the near-contemporary examples. Kahl has made me think more carefully about the econometric evidence on the impact of resources and their interaction with institutional frameworks. Economists have taken great strides in thinking about policies to avert the dangers of environmental strain but no doubt could do even better in thinking about the subtleties of how policies are implemented, what institutions and political framework can help them succeed.
