187
8
outcomes (Peluso and Watts 2001). Instead, violence is context-specific, at the
same time as it is a result of overarching power and relations of production.
Some critics also claim that population growth can also serve to increase the
resource base and lead to sustainable agricultural intensification in keeping with
the Danish agricultural economist Ester Boserup’s theory (Boserup 1965). There
are examples from Africa of increases in population combined with favourable
government policies that have led to increased investments per unit area in the form
of work and capital and thus an improved resource base (e.g. Tiffen et al. 1994;
Mortimore 1998; Benjaminsen 2001, see also 7 Chap. 9).
The scarcity argument also resonates with predominant Western and Malthusian
perceptions of development problems in the Global South. The argument is therefore more a result of Western images of ‘the other’ than of empirical facts. This
‘orientalism’ has long Western traditions (Said 1978). In an African context, it
entails regarding smallholder farmers and herders as helpless victims and at the
same time pathological abusers of landscapes and natural resources. This kind of
thinking helps establish external actors such as government bodies and international organizations like the United Nations, in the role of problem solvers (Peluso
and Watts 2001).
► Example
Tom Bassett’s classic study of the political ecology of farmer-herder conflicts in Côte
d’Ivoire presents an example of the complex political and economic causes often found
behind such conflicts (Bassett 1988). His main argument is that in order to understand
why such conflicts emerge, one needs to study the political economic context behind
changes in land-use in individual conflicts, because these conflicts are ‘responses in context’. In this particular case, an increased number of Fulani pastoralists from the Sahel
came to Côte d’Ivoire after the drought in the mid-1980s, which led to increased crop
damage caused by livestock. Farmers responded by confiscating livestock from the herders, which again led to a number of local conflicts —many of which were violent.
These conflicts were interpreted by outside observers as either ethnic clashes or as
resource conflicts driven by the combination of a growing population and diminishing
resources. While the drought led herders to move south, Bassett shows how the conflicts
primarily had external political causes. In order to pay back foreign debt, the Ivorian
state established several parastatal companies within the agricultural sector in cooperation with international capital. These companies should, through export, provide foreign
exchange to the state. SODEPRA was one such company. Through distributing grazing
rights to herders from the Sahel (Mali and Burkina Faso), the aim of increased meat
production and meat export should be reached. The influx of pastoralists and livestock
to Côte d’Ivoire in the 1980s was therefore a result of an explicit strategy from government to increase the country’s meat production to pay its foreign debt. The drought in the
Sahel may, however, have made it easier to attract Sahelian pastoralists to Côte d’Ivoire,
which indicates that scarcity may potentially play a secondary role in some cases. ◄
The general narrative about scarcity and climate change leading to more violent
conflicts has also been extensively criticized in the quantitative literature by for
instance Barnett (2003), Nordås and Gleditsch (2007), Salehyan (2008), Buhaug
8.1 · Critical Assessment of the Environmental Security School
8
outcomes (Peluso and Watts 2001). Instead, violence is context-specific, at the
same time as it is a result of overarching power and relations of production.
Some critics also claim that population growth can also serve to increase the
resource base and lead to sustainable agricultural intensification in keeping with
the Danish agricultural economist Ester Boserup’s theory (Boserup 1965). There
are examples from Africa of increases in population combined with favourable
government policies that have led to increased investments per unit area in the form
of work and capital and thus an improved resource base (e.g. Tiffen et al. 1994;
Mortimore 1998; Benjaminsen 2001, see also 7 Chap. 9).
The scarcity argument also resonates with predominant Western and Malthusian
perceptions of development problems in the Global South. The argument is therefore more a result of Western images of ‘the other’ than of empirical facts. This
‘orientalism’ has long Western traditions (Said 1978). In an African context, it
entails regarding smallholder farmers and herders as helpless victims and at the
same time pathological abusers of landscapes and natural resources. This kind of
thinking helps establish external actors such as government bodies and international organizations like the United Nations, in the role of problem solvers (Peluso
and Watts 2001).
► Example
Tom Bassett’s classic study of the political ecology of farmer-herder conflicts in Côte
d’Ivoire presents an example of the complex political and economic causes often found
behind such conflicts (Bassett 1988). His main argument is that in order to understand
why such conflicts emerge, one needs to study the political economic context behind
changes in land-use in individual conflicts, because these conflicts are ‘responses in context’. In this particular case, an increased number of Fulani pastoralists from the Sahel
came to Côte d’Ivoire after the drought in the mid-1980s, which led to increased crop
damage caused by livestock. Farmers responded by confiscating livestock from the herders, which again led to a number of local conflicts —many of which were violent.
These conflicts were interpreted by outside observers as either ethnic clashes or as
resource conflicts driven by the combination of a growing population and diminishing
resources. While the drought led herders to move south, Bassett shows how the conflicts
primarily had external political causes. In order to pay back foreign debt, the Ivorian
state established several parastatal companies within the agricultural sector in cooperation with international capital. These companies should, through export, provide foreign
exchange to the state. SODEPRA was one such company. Through distributing grazing
rights to herders from the Sahel (Mali and Burkina Faso), the aim of increased meat
production and meat export should be reached. The influx of pastoralists and livestock
to Côte d’Ivoire in the 1980s was therefore a result of an explicit strategy from government to increase the country’s meat production to pay its foreign debt. The drought in the
Sahel may, however, have made it easier to attract Sahelian pastoralists to Côte d’Ivoire,
which indicates that scarcity may potentially play a secondary role in some cases. ◄
The general narrative about scarcity and climate change leading to more violent
conflicts has also been extensively criticized in the quantitative literature by for
instance Barnett (2003), Nordås and Gleditsch (2007), Salehyan (2008), Buhaug
8.1 · Critical Assessment of the Environmental Security School