Disasters and the dynamics of interstate rivalry
| Author | Sara McLaughlin Mitchell,Bomi K Lee,Yufan Yang,Cody J Schmidt |
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00223433211063333 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Regular Articles
Disasters and the dynamics
of interstate rivalry
Bomi K Lee , Sara McLaughlin Mitchell ,
Cody J Schmidt & Yufan Yang
Department of Political Science, University of Iowa
Abstract
This article examines how disasters influence conflict dynamics in interstate rivalries. Building on insights from the
disaster, rivalry, and diversionary conflict literatures, the authors argue that disasters act as political shocks that
disrupt a rivalry relationship. Hostility levels in rivalries are stable over time and shift only through major shocks.
While the rivalry literature suggests that some shocks may lead to peace, the authors argue that disaster shocks are
more likely to be associated with increased conflict. Disasters often strain the state’s capacity to provide security for its
people, while leaders who fail to prepare or respond can face domestic costs. To avoid potential removal from office,
leaders have incentives to divert the public’s attention away from poor disaster response by adopting a more aggressive
foreign policy. The authors hypothesize that the time between militarized disputes is shortened when pairs of states
experience rapid onset disasters. However, the conditions for diversionary conflict depend on the degree of intrastate
turmoil and the number of interstate rivalries, with disaster diversionary conflict happening most frequently in rivalry
dyads with significant internal strife and multiple rivalries. Duration model analyses from 1900 to 2010 provide
strong support for the theory and highlight the limits of disaster diplomacy in rivalry contexts. Given the increased
frequency and severity of disasters globally, the findings suggest that environmental shocks are likely to increase
interstate hostilities in conflict-prone regions.
Keywords
climate, conflict, disasters, diversionary
After the Eritrean war of independence ended in 1991,
Eritrea and Ethiopia’s attempt to demarcate their
shared border failed and Eritrean forces entered Badme
on 6 May 1998. A week later, Ethiopia declared war
against Eritrea and the fighting began in a border war
that would claim over 98,000 lives (Haile, 1987). As
the conflict raged, drought and famine ravaged the
Horn of Africa. ‘By April 2000, eight million people
in Ethiopia faced severe food shortages and Eritrea
required assistance for 211,000 people affected by the
lack of rain’ (Kelman, 2006: 225). Acknowledging the
dire situation, Eritrea offered to unload food and other
aid in their ports to assist landlocked Ethiopia, but the
offer was rejected, and war continued until 2002. In
contrast, Greece and Turkey engaged in greater diplo-
macy after earthquakes occurred in 1999. When
an earthquake in northwestern Turkey killed over
17,000, the Greek government responded with dona-
tions of aid, money, and rescue teams. Three weeks
later, an earthquake hit Greece and even though Turkey
was still recovering from its own earthquake, it recipro-
cated Greece’s earlier disaster-relief efforts (Kelman,
2012: 32). This chain of events eventually led to the
de-escalation of an intense interstate rivalry (Akcinar-
oglu, DiCicco & Radziszewski, 2011).
These cases describe how disasters create opportuni-
ties for rapprochement between rival states. The growing
literature on disaster diplomacy suggests that under
Corresponding author:
sara-mitchell@uiowa.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2022, Vol. 59(1) 12–27
ªThe Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00223433211063333
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certain conditions, rivals like Greece and Turkey can
improve interstate cooperation levels after disasters. Yet
under other conditions, states may use disaster-related
shocks as opportunities for diversionary uses of force.
For example, Kelman (2012: 35) suggests disaster diplo-
macy failed in the Eritrea–Ethiopia case because both
countries used the disaster as propaganda to justify their
war positions.
Our study identifies the conditions under which
disasters promote interstate conflict rather than
cooperation.
1
Building on insights from the disaster,
rivalry, and diversionary conflict literatures, we argue
that disasters act as political shocks that disrupt a rivalry
relationship. Hostility levels in rivalries are stable over
time and shift only through major shocks. While the
rivalry literature suggests that some shocks may lead to
peace, we argue that disaster shocks are more likely to
be associated with increased conflict. Disasters often
strain the state’s capacity to provide security for its
people; leaders who fail to prepare or respond can face
domestic costs. To avoid potential removal from office,
leaders have incentives to divert the public’s attention
away from poor disaster response by adopting a more
aggressive foreign policy. Scapegoating may be easier for
leaders in rivalries when an unexpected shock occurs,
such as a rapid-onset disaster. We hypothesize that the
time between militarized disputes is shortened when
pairs of states experience rapid-onset disasters. We also
identify two conditional effects; states experiencing
domestic turmoil and a higher frequency of interstate
rivalries are more likely to initiate force when experien-
cing disasters at home. Duration model analyses from
1900 to 2010 provide strong support for our theory
and highlight the limits of disaster diplomacy in rivalry
contexts.
Literature review
While disasters have been connected to both interstate
(Akcinaroglu, DiCicco & Radziszewski, 2011; Kelman,
2012; Nelson, 2010) and intrastate (Brancati, 2007;
Drury & Olson, 1998; Nel & Righarts, 2008) conflict,
we focus on the interstate conflict side, examining pairs
of states that have experienced at least two militarized
disputes (Colaresi & Thompson, 2002). Our literature
review discusses how external shocks influence rivalry
dynamics and connects this idea to the disaster con-
flict/diplomacy literature.
Rivalry
A focus on who fights whom in the international system
leads to a small number of rival dyads, since most inter-
state wars are fought between fewer than 20% of all
states (Bremer, 2000). These dangerous dyads often
involve contiguous neighbors that fight repeatedly over
competing territorial claims (Senese & Vasquez, 2008).
Conflict dynamics between rivals such as Egypt–Israel,
India–Pakistan, and the United States–USSR are driven
by contested spatial (territory) and positional (great
power competition) foreign policies that escalate as states
fail to resolve issues and see their competitors through
enemy lenses. Most wars in history are fought in the
rivalry context, with 50% (Diehl & Goertz, 2000) to
75% (Colaresi, Rasler & Thompson, 2007) of interstate
wars fought between rivals. Dynamic patterns of hostility
also vary considerably across space and time. Diehl &
Goertz (2000: 171) identify six distinct dynamic pat-
terns of hostility over time in enduring rivalries.
2
The path by which isolated conflicts evolve into pro-
tracted ones varies. Some perspectives see conflict follow-
ing an evolutionary trend towards increased conflict
(Hensel, 1994), with past losses fueling additional uses
of force. The volcano model of rivalry predicts that two
states begin with a contested issue, such as a border
dispute, and then experience increasing levels of hostility
until the clash erupts into one or more wars. The steps to
war model views repeated militarized disputes as part of a
broader set of realpolitik steps that leaders take to man-
age territorial or other disputes. Escalation to war relates
to past militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) in a curvi-
linear pattern, with prior conflict increasing war risks up
to the 28th dispute in the dyad’s history, and then
decreasing thereafter (Senese & Vasquez, 2003). Analy-
ses of interstate crises show similar patterns, with the
probability of war increasing as the number of past crises
grows (Colaresi & Thompson, 2002). Yet war occurs
very early in many competitive dyads, with 50% of wars
taking place by the third MID and 90% occurring by the
sixth dispute (Klein, Goertz & Diehl, 2006: 342). Some
1
Natural hazards may be geophysical (earthquakes and volcanic
activity), meteorological (storms and extreme temperatures),
hydrological (floods and landslides), climatological (droughts and
wildfires), biological (epidemic s or pandemics) and extraterrestri al
(asteroid impacts and solar storms) (McLean & Bas, 2021). These
hazards interact with social vulnerabilities to produce disasters which
involve functional disruptions of the affected communities.
2
This includes flat, increasing, decreasing, convex, wavy, and
concave patterns for rivalry hostility. The most frequent dynamic
pattern is flat, constituting 74.6% of all rivalries.
Lee et al. 13
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