First comes the river, then comes the conflict? A qualitative comparative analysis of flood-related political unrest
| Date | 01 January 2021 |
| Author | Henrikas Bartusevičius,Anders Kristensen,Tobias Ide |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343320966783 |
| Published date | 01 January 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
First comes the river, then comes
the conflict? A qualitative comparative
analysis of flood-related political unrest
Tobias Ide
School of Geography, University of Melbourne
Anders Kristensen
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
Henrikas Bartusevic
ˇius
Department of Political Science, Aarhus University & Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
Abstract
Disasters triggered by natural hazards will increase in the future due to climate change, population growth, and more
valuable assets located in vulnerable areas. The impacts of disasters on political conflict have been the subject of broad
academic and public debates. Existing research has paid little attention to the links between climate change, disasters,
and small-scale conflicts, such as protests or riots. Floods are particularly relevant in this context as they are the most
frequent and most costly contemporary disasters. However, they remain understudied compared to other disasters,
specifically, droughts and storms. We address these gaps by focusing on flood-related political unrest between 2015
and 2018 in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Drawing on data from the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) and
Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset (ACLED), we find that flood-related political unrest occurs within two
months after 24% of the 92 large flooding events recorded in our sample. Subsequently, a qualitative comparative
analysis (QCA) shows that the simultaneous presence of a large population, a democratic regime, and either the
exclusion of ethnic groups from political power or a heavy impact of the flood is an important scope condition for the
onset of flood-related political unrest. This indicates that disaster–conflict links are by no means deterministic.
Rather, they are contingent on complex interactions between multiple contextual factors.
Keywords
development, environment, peace, protest, security, violence
Introduction
The security implications of climate change have received
public and academic attention for more than a decade
(McDonald, 2013; von Uexkull & Buhaug, 2021), but
high-ranking decisionmakers have become particularly
interested in the topic in the recent years. In 2018, Swe-
den initiated the third United Nations Security Council
debate on climate change and security, and Germany
maintained the momentum by prioritizing this topic for
its two-year membership in the Council (Auswa
¨rtiges
Amt, 2019). In these debates, disasters play a particularly
prominent role (Peters, 2018). Disasters are defined in
this study as complex emergencies that result when
destructive natural hazards strike vulnerable socio-
economic systems (Cohen & Werker, 2008).
The incidence and intensity of disasters have been on
the rise for approximately 30 years (Formetta & Feyen,
2019). On the one hand, this increase reflects the greater
number of natural hazards due to climate change. On the
Corresponding author:
tobias.ide@unimelb.edu.au
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 58(1) 83–97
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343320966783
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