Environment and Conflict

INR456 Political Geography

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Change in the perceptions of security

• How perceptions/understanding of security has changed since the end of the Cold War?– Widening:• The range of potential actors of conflict has expanded

significantly to include a number of non-state entities.

– Deepening: • The potential causes of insecurity have also increased

and diversified considerably.

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The role of natural resources in conflict

Source: UNEP, “From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment”, 2009, p.11.

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The relationship between the environment and the conflict

1) Natural resources can contribute to the outbreak of conflict2) Natural resources can finance and sustain conflict3) Natural resources can undermine peacemaking

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Natural Resources: Curse or Blessing?

• Resource Curse: Countries whose economies are dependent on the export of a high-value natural resources face with problems of revenue management, corruption, unemployment and conflict over the distribution of wealth acquired from natural resources.– Resource rich countries

• Either lack capacity for good governance which creates weak states

• or they turn into dictatorships

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Impacts of conflict on natural resources

• Direct impacts: • Indirect impacts • Institutional impacts:

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Natural Resources and Peacebuilding

• How do natural resources contribute to peacebuilding? – 1) Supporting economic recovery – 2) Developing sustainable livelihoods– 3) Contributing to dialogue and cooperation

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Neoliberal Geopolitics

• A certain globalist and economistic view of the world, one associated with neoliberalism, does service in legitimating the war.

• Traditional geopolitics suggests the control and protection of natural resources (oil reserves) through military operations.

• Neoliberal geopolitics suggests the development of an open and interdependent resource markets which can be penetrated by multinational companies. (Forced openness of national economy and integration to global system)

• According to neoliberal geopolitics, disconnection and closed markets generate states that are authoritarian, militaristic, undemocratic and rogue or weak states.

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• “the military and financial markets are in the same business: the effective processing of risk. As such, it is essential that these two worlds—military and financial—come to better understand their interrelationships across the global economy” (Barnett quoted in Holzer 2000).

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Map of Non-Integrated Zones in the World

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