186
8
State for Global Affairs, faxed the article to all the US ambassadors in the world
(Richards 1996).
Later, a range of journalists and popular-science writers have played a significant
role in spreading a Malthusian message to politicians and the general public about
conflicts in Africa (e.g. Diamond 2005). The scarcity perspective was also promulgated
in a special edition of National Geographic Magazine focusing on Africa in
September 2005 (see Moseley 2005 for a critical commentary). Currently, this
perspective continues to be repeated in international media and blog posts, which
seems to have led to a general strengthening of the climate-desertification-conflict
narrative.
In this chapter, we will first present a critical assessment of the literature focusing on
scarcity as a main causal factor behind conflicts, which is often referred to as ‘the
scarcity school’ or ‘the environmental security school’. Thereafter, we will
demonstrate, through a discussion of conflicts in Mali, how the narrative about a
climate change-desertification- conflict nexus in the Sahel is misleading and apolitical,
since it neglects the context of significant historical and political causes of conflicts.
8.1 Critical Assessment of the Environmental Security School
A major criticism of the environmental security school is that the term ‘resource
scarcity’ is defined so vaguely and broadly that it loses its meaning (Gleditsch 1998;
Fairhead 2001; Richards 2005). Since armed conflicts are almost without exception
about control over land, such conflicts will necessarily have a resource dimension.
However, it does not follow that this dimension explains the conflicts. It is also
misleading when such differing processes as environmental degradation, increased
population pressure and inequitable access to resources are forced together into a
single concept of resource scarcity. In this way, the concept loses its analytical
power.
Concepts such as ‘needs’ and ‘scarcity’ are not as innocent and neutral as some
people would have us believe. For example, on the basis of controversial plans to
build a hydropower plant in Sardar Sarovar Narmada in India, Mehta (2007) demonstrates how ‘needs’ and ‘scarcity’ are relative and socially constructed concepts
that are used purposely to achieve political objectives—in this case modernization
through construction of a large hydropower project with enormous social and ecological consequences. In a similar vein, Scoones et al. (2019) point out that scarcity
narratives are not merely descriptive storylines, but are constructed, proliferated
and adopted with a purpose. They are used actively to legitimize certain policy
interventions.
This critique is associated with a general critical assessment within political
ecology of the environmental security school. A message from political ecology is
that conflicts cannot be understood on the basis of a simple chain of events triggered by resource scarcity, via reduced economic activity and migration, to violent
Chapter 8 · Climate Change, Scarcity and Conflicts in the Sahel
8
State for Global Affairs, faxed the article to all the US ambassadors in the world
(Richards 1996).
Later, a range of journalists and popular-science writers have played a significant
role in spreading a Malthusian message to politicians and the general public about
conflicts in Africa (e.g. Diamond 2005). The scarcity perspective was also promulgated
in a special edition of National Geographic Magazine focusing on Africa in
September 2005 (see Moseley 2005 for a critical commentary). Currently, this
perspective continues to be repeated in international media and blog posts, which
seems to have led to a general strengthening of the climate-desertification-conflict
narrative.
In this chapter, we will first present a critical assessment of the literature focusing on
scarcity as a main causal factor behind conflicts, which is often referred to as ‘the
scarcity school’ or ‘the environmental security school’. Thereafter, we will
demonstrate, through a discussion of conflicts in Mali, how the narrative about a
climate change-desertification- conflict nexus in the Sahel is misleading and apolitical,
since it neglects the context of significant historical and political causes of conflicts.
8.1 Critical Assessment of the Environmental Security School
A major criticism of the environmental security school is that the term ‘resource
scarcity’ is defined so vaguely and broadly that it loses its meaning (Gleditsch 1998;
Fairhead 2001; Richards 2005). Since armed conflicts are almost without exception
about control over land, such conflicts will necessarily have a resource dimension.
However, it does not follow that this dimension explains the conflicts. It is also
misleading when such differing processes as environmental degradation, increased
population pressure and inequitable access to resources are forced together into a
single concept of resource scarcity. In this way, the concept loses its analytical
power.
Concepts such as ‘needs’ and ‘scarcity’ are not as innocent and neutral as some
people would have us believe. For example, on the basis of controversial plans to
build a hydropower plant in Sardar Sarovar Narmada in India, Mehta (2007) demonstrates how ‘needs’ and ‘scarcity’ are relative and socially constructed concepts
that are used purposely to achieve political objectives—in this case modernization
through construction of a large hydropower project with enormous social and ecological consequences. In a similar vein, Scoones et al. (2019) point out that scarcity
narratives are not merely descriptive storylines, but are constructed, proliferated
and adopted with a purpose. They are used actively to legitimize certain policy
interventions.
This critique is associated with a general critical assessment within political
ecology of the environmental security school. A message from political ecology is
that conflicts cannot be understood on the basis of a simple chain of events triggered by resource scarcity, via reduced economic activity and migration, to violent
Chapter 8 · Climate Change, Scarcity and Conflicts in the Sahel