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REPORTPopulation and Conflict: Exploring the Links

Nepal: Environmental Stress, Demographic Change, and the Maoists

Population-Environment Funding: A Place for theDemographic Case

U.S. Military: Environmental Security in the Gulf

Preview: Parks for Peace or Peace for Parks?

Reviews: New Publications

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NWWashington, DC 20004Tel. (202) 691-4185 Fax (202) [email protected]/ecsp

ISBN: 0-9745919-2-0

ISSUE 11 2005

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND SECURITY PROGRAM

This publication is made possible through support provided by the Office of Population,

U.S. Agency for International Development, and the University of Michigan, under the

terms of Grant No. HRN-A-00-00-00001. The opinions expressed herein are those of

the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International

Development, the University of Michigan, or the Woodrow Wilson Center.

ECSP

REPORT

ISSUE

112005

The University of MichiganPopulation Fellows Programs

Editor

Geoffrey D. Dabelko

Managing Editor

Meaghan E. Parker

Production Editor

Lianne Hepler

Assistant Editor

Alison Williams

Contributing Editors

Nelia Forest

Jennifer Wisnewski

Kaczor

Jennifer L. Turner

Charlotte Youngblood

Research Staff

Katherine Carrus

Crystal Chase

Alicia Hope Herron

Zachariah Zanek

Advisory Committee

Co-Chairs

Thomas E. Lovejoy, The Heinz

Center for Science,

Economics and the

Environment

P.J. Simmons, Rockefeller

Brothers Fund

WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARSLee H. Hamilton, President and Director

Board of TrusteesJoseph B. Gildenhorn, ChairDavid A. Metzner, Vice Chair Public Members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States; BruceCole, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities; Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary, U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services; Tamala L. Longaberger, designated appointee within the Federal Government; CondoleezzaRice, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; MargaretSpellings, Secretary, U.S. Department of EducationPrivate Citizen Members: Carol Cartwright, Robert B. Cook, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Charles L. Glazer,Sander Gerber, Ignacio E. Sanchez

About the CenterThe Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president,Woodrow Wilson. Congress established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute foradvanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relationship between the world of learning and theworld of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees.

In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, supported financially byannual appropriations from Congress, and by the contributions of foundations, corporations, and individuals.Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and donot necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organiza-tions that provide financial support to the Center.

Cover Photos: An army soldier keeps vigil at the Indo-Pakistan border, Siachen © AFP/AFP/Getty Images;Cloudy sky in Myanmar, © 2005 Kyaw Winn, Courtesy of Photoshare; Sprawling Spruce Forest, © Royalty-Free/Corbis

REPORTEnvironmental Change and Security Program

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

One Woodrow Wilson Plaza • 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20004-3027

Tel: (202) 691-4185 • Fax: (202) 691-4001

[email protected]

www.wilsoncenter.org/ecsp

ISSUE 11 2005



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S ince 1994, the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) has promoted dialogueon the connections among environmental, health, and population dynamics and their linksto conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy. ECSP brings international policymakers,

practitioners, and scholars to Washington, D.C., to address the public and fellow experts.The program distributes two annual journals, the Environmental Change and Security Program

Report and the China Environment Series, to more than 7,000 people around the world. ECSPNews, a monthly e-mail newsletter, links 3,000 subscribers to news, meeting summaries, and eventannouncements on the program’s comprehensive website, www.wilsoncenter.org/ecsp. ECSP alsopublishes Focus, a series of papers on population, environment, and security (previously namedPECS News), as well as original research and occasional reports.

ECSP’s core activities are made possible by the generous support of the U.S. Agency forInternational Development’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health through a cooperativeagreement with the University of Michigan’s Population Fellows Programs.

ECSP and its China Environment Forum also receive support from the Blue Moon Fund,Carnegie Corporation of New York, Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership, Shell(China) Limited, Tamaki Foundation, the United Nations Environment Programme, the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and private individuals.ECSP is directed by Geoffrey D. Dabelko and is housed in the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Divisionof International Security Studies, headed by Robert S. Litwak.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars is the living, national memorial toPresident Wilson established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is anonpartisan institution, supported by public and private funds, engaged in the study of nationaland world affairs. The Wilson Center establishes and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, andinformed dialogue. The Center commemorates the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by:providing a link between the world of ideas and the world of policy; and fostering research, study,discussion, and collaboration among a full spectrum of individuals concerned with policy andscholarship in national and world affairs. The Center is directed by the Honorable Lee H.Hamilton, and its Board of Directors is chaired by the Honorable Joseph B. Gildenhorn.

Submissions and Correspondence

The Environmental Change and Security Program Report is sent annually free of charge throughoutthe world. Contact ECSP at the address below to subscribe:Environmental Change and Security ProgramThe Woodrow Wilson CenterOne Woodrow Wilson Plaza • 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20004-3027Tel: (202) 691-4185 • Fax: (202) [email protected]/ecsp


ECSP REPORT • ISSUE 11 • 2005

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Foreword 1 Geoffrey D. Dabelko

Population and Conflict: Exploring the Links

3 IntroductionGeoffrey D. Dabelko

5 Defusing the Population Bomb: Is Security a Rationale for ReducingGlobal Population Growth?Henrik Urdal

12 The Young and the Restless: Population Age Structure and Civil WarSarah Staveteig

20 Missing Women and Bare Branches: Gender Balance and ConflictValerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer

25 The State of the Field: Demography and WarMonica Duffy Toft

Special Reports

29 Environmental Stress and Demographic Change in Nepal:Underlying Conditions Contributing to a Decade of InsurgencyRichard Matthew and Bishnu Raj Upreti

40 Speaking Truth to Silence: There’s Still a Place for the Demographic Case Robert Engelman

51 U.S. Military and Environmental Security in the Gulf RegionRear Admiral John F. Sigler, USN (Ret.)

Parks for Peace or Peace for Parks? Issues in Practice and Policy A Forthcoming Publication From ECSP

58 Introduction

59 Conservation and Conflict Resolution: Crossing the Policy FrontierSaleem H. Ali

CONTENTS

61 Trade-offs Among Multiple Goals for Transboundary ConservationTrevor Sandwith and Charles Besançon

63 Peace Parks in the Cordillera del Cóndor Mountain Range andBiodiversity Conservation CorridorMartín Alcalde, Carlos F. Ponce, and Yanitza Curonisy

65 Peace Parks in Southern AfricaLarry A. Swatuk

67 Global Politics and Peace ParksRosaleen Duffy

Reviews of New Publications

70 Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus MalePopulation By Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer Reviewed by Richard Cincotta

74 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or SucceedBy Jared DiamondReviewed by Kenneth C. Brill

77 From Conflict to Sustainable Development: Assessment and Clean-up in Serbia and Montenegro (Final Report) and Desk Study on the Environment in LiberiaBy the United Nations Environment ProgrammeReviewed by Gregory D. Foster

81 Global Crises, Global SolutionsBy Bjørn Lomborg (Ed.)Reviewed by Robert Costanza

84 Global Population Policy: From Population Control to Reproductive Rights By Paige Whaley EagerReviewed by Duff Gillespie

86 Governing Water: Contentious Transnational Politics and GlobalInstitution BuildingBy Ken ConcaReviewed by Anthony Turton

91 HIV and National Security: Where Are the Links?By Laurie GarrettReviewed by Jennifer Wisnewski Kaczor

92 Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power By Sanjeev KhagramIdentity, Conflict and Cooperation in International River Systems By Jack KalpakianReviewed by Anton Earle

CONTENTS

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96 Journal of Peace Research: Special Issue on the Demography ofConflict and ViolenceBy Henrik Urdal and Helge Brunborg (Eds.)Reviewed by Christian Leuprecht

98 The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial SocietiesBy Richard HeinbergReviewed by Michael Renner

101 The Return of Malthus: Environmentalism and Post-war Population-Resource Crises By Björn-Ola Linnér Reviewed by Ted Gaulin

104 Scarcity and Surfeit: The Ecology of Africa’s ConflictsBy Jeremy Lind and Kathryn Sturman (Eds.)Reviewed by Bidisha Biswas

106 Twenty-First Century India: Population, Economy, HumanDevelopment, and the EnvironmentTim Dyson, Robert Cassen, and Leela Visaria (Eds.)Reviewed by Toufiq A. Siddiqi

dotPOP

110 Jennifer Wisnewski Kaczor

Environmental pathways to peace canemerge at the unlikeliest of times—even during conflict, when managing

shared environmental resources can be animportant lifeline connecting combatants cutoff from other avenues for dialogue. In May, Iattended a conference in Tehran designed toconnect Iran to the world’s environmentalcommunity. “Environment, Peace, and theDialogue Among Civilizations and Cultures,”sponsored by the UN EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP) and Iran’s Departmentof Environment, built on then-PresidentMohammed Khatami’s initiative to engage indialogue across borders and civilizations.

Seven hundred guests from around theworld listened to President Khatami’s energeticopening speech, which called for new dialoguesthat would help build international trust andunderstanding. He tied environmental declineto growing poverty and injustice, while stress-ing that environmental cooperation canincrease peace and stability.

Approximately 70 politicians and expertsfrom more than 30 countries, joined by atleast as many Iranian attendees, debated topicssuch as environmental damage in wartime,scarcity’s contributions to conflict, and coop-eration as a peacebuilding tool. Using theenvironment as a pathway to peace was dis-sected in panel discussions—and practiced inthe hallways among the international crowd ofscholars and policymakers.

At its most fundamental level, environmentalpeacemaking uses cooperative efforts to manageenvironmental resources as a way to transforminsecurities and create more peaceful relation-ships between parties in dispute. Environmentalmanagement may help overcome political ten-

sions by promoting interaction, confidencebuilding, and technical cooperation.

Even as we seek to turn the environment andsecurity thesis on its head, ECSP continues itsdecade-long focus on conflict. The 11th issue ofthe Environmental Change and Security ProgramReport leads with a set of commentaries thatexplores links between population factors andconflict uncovered by recent research. We askedfive scholars in the rapidly developing field ofdemographic security to distill their findingsinto brief articles on the role played by four keypopulation dynamics: density, age structure, sexratio, and ethnicity.

Nepal—the subject of this year’s case studyon environment, population, and conflict—might be a candidate for future environmentalpeacemaking efforts. Frequent contributorRichard Matthew and his collaborator BishnuRaj Upreti analyze the underlying and oftenignored forces contributing to Nepal’s deadlyMaoist insurgency. As in previous issues ofECSP Report—which examined key statesincluding Brazil, Nigeria, and Ethiopia—theauthors demonstrate that even though environ-mental and population factors are not the pri-mary causes of instability, they are essentialpieces of the puzzle.

Despite the important connections betweenpopulation and environment, integrated pro-grams addressing this linkage are facing a criti-cal juncture: foundations are moving theirfunds to other priorities. Robert Engelman ofPopulation Action International argues thatthere is still a place for the demographic case. Ina sweeping overview, he surveys the field fromNGOs to academics to policymakers, and con-cludes, “We can improve lives by promotingwith one strategy reproductive health, the

FOREWORD

1

GEOFFREY D.DABELKO

Editor

FOREWORD


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demographic transition, and environmentalsustainability”—if donors step up to support it.

Environmental peacemaking can take myri-ad forms, two of which we present in this issueof ECSP Report. A preview of a forthcomingECSP publication, “Parks for Peace or Peace forParks,” offers five perspectives on these intrigu-ing transboundary programs that seek to buildpeace and meet conservation goals—at thesame time. Using examples from South Asia,southern Africa, and South America, theexcerpts are drawn from papers that delve deepinto the debate and offer recommendations forthose considering these appealing yet complexmechanisms.

The military may seem an unlikely venue forenvironmental peacemaking, but as RearAdmiral John Sigler USN (Ret.) explains, envi-ronmental security engagement—particularlydisaster response—is a part of U.S. CentralCommand’s efforts to promote regional stabili-ty and contribute to the ongoing process ofconflict resolution. While the goals may swingfrom conservation to security, looking at theseefforts side-by-side helps develop our under-standing of environmental peacemaking—which we are continuing to do, as Ken Concaand I (with others) follow up on our 2002 bookon the topic.

To learn more about ECSP’s current andupcoming projects, visit our ever-expandingwebsite, www.wilsoncenter.org/ecsp, where newfeatures include video of many of our past

meetings and a topical navigation tool, whichsorts news, research, videos, and links accordingto your interests. Our redesigned monthly e-newsletter, ECSP News, delivers meeting sum-maries, program news, and event announce-ments straight to your inbox, as we continue touse new media to streamline our publicationsand improve our dissemination.

While environmental peacemaking effortslike the Iranian conference or the U.S. mili-tary’s programs will never single-handedlyresolve conflicts in the Middle East, they maybe, according to Iran’s former vice president forthe environment, Massoumeh Ebtekar, “theend of the beginning.” In many places, theenvironment and natural resources are con-tributing to conflict and insecurity, whetherfrom scarcity or abundance. But practitionersand policymakers should try to utilize environ-mental pathways to peace rather than ignorethis tool. For example, the recently signedSenator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act rec-ommends expanding U.S. programs that sup-port and encourage cooperative water manage-ment mechanisms around the world, as theyare “critical components of long-term UnitedStates national security.” Without such system-atic efforts to capitalize on these peacemakingopportunities (and better analysis of existingprograms), states and societies may deny them-selves a valuable tactic—and a lasting peace.

References

Carrell, Rachel, & Hugh Wilkins. (2005, May 13). “Asummary report of the international conference onEnvironment, Peace, and the Dialogue AmongCivilizations and Cultures.” Dialogue AmongCivilizations Bulletin 108(1). International Institutefor Sustainable Development. Available online athttp://www.iisd.ca/sd/sdter/9may.html

Conca, Ken, & Geoffrey D. Dabelko (Eds.). (2002).Environmental peacemaking. Washington, DC &Baltimore, MD: The Woodrow Wilson CenterPress & Johns Hopkins University Press.

H.R. 1973. (Senator Paul Simon Water for the PoorAct of 2005). 109th Congress, CongressionalRecord H9705 (2005) (enacted).

While environmental peacemaking efforts willnever single-handedly resolve conflicts in theMiddle East, they may be, according to Iran’sformer vice president for the environment, “theend of the beginning.”

COMMENTARY • POPULATION AND CONFLICT: EXPLORING THE LINKS

3

S cholars and policymakers alike focusmost of their attention on proximatesources of violent conflict, giving short

shrift to underlying, obscured, or complex caus-es. The Environmental Change and SecurityProgram has historically offered a place fordebating less prominent explanations and forexamining conflict’s causal roots. We continuethat tradition with these commentaries on linksbetween population dynamics and conflict.

Those seeking to understand war or popula-tion need to know: what role do populationdynamics play in spurring, supporting, orexplaining conflicts? The connection is not sim-ple, however; a wide range of demographic rela-tionships work in concert with a host of otherfactors, including the economy, the environ-ment, and governance. But if we understandthese relationships better, we may be able todefuse some population issues before theyinflict more collateral damage in the world’sconflicts.

ECSP Report asked five scholars to con-tribute commentaries summarizing their cur-rent research on the links between conflict andfour key factors: density, age structure, sex ratio,and differential population growth. These com-mentaries, which seek to help non-experts navi-gate this complex territory, offer recommenda-tions for policymakers and programmers work-ing to prevent conflict and stabilize populationgrowth.

Henrik Urdal, who co-edited the July 2005Journal of Peace Research issue devoted to thedemography of conflict, presents his research’ssurprising conclusion: at the national level,

population growth, land scarcity, and urbaniza-tion do not have a great influence on patterns ofwar and peace, with a few exceptions.1 Heencourages further research to explore theexceptions he found and suggests that sub-national data might reveal the effects of localpopulation pressure on conflict.

The CIA’s National Intelligence Council(NIC) recently cited “youth bulge”—a largepercentage of youth in a population—as oneingredient in a “perfect storm for internal con-flict in certain regions.” While the connectionbetween youth and conflict is commonlyaccepted, Sarah Staveteig finds a more subtlemeasure of age structure can effectively predictinsurgent-based civil wars. By studying thefuture relative cohort size—the difference in thenumber of young adults versus the number ofolder working adults—policymakers coulddevelop policies to reduce the chances of suchconflicts.

The NIC’s report also expressed concernabout the destabilizing effects of the pervasive“son preference” in Asian countries—notablyChina and India—that has produced a shortfallof an estimated 90 million women. ValerieHudson and Andrea den Boer summarizetheir groundbreaking research into this trou-bling phenomenon and its impact on the likeli-hood of conflict. They warn policymakers that

COMMENTARY

GEOFFREY D.DABELKO

Population and Conflict: Exploring the Links

Geoffrey D. Dabelko is director of the

Environmental Change and Security

Program at the Woodrow Wilson

International Center for Scholars.


4

gender imbalances will affect the democraticpotential of these countries: “In many ways, asociety’s prospects for democracy and peace arediminished in step with the devaluation ofdaughters.”

Ethnicity carries much of the popular blamefor recent conflicts, a point echoed by the NIC.But little sustained research has explored howdemographic shifts contribute to violence.Monica Duffy Toft explores why differentialpopulation growth has not garnered the scholar-ly attention it deserves, and warns that withoutgovernment and academic efforts to improve thereliability and availability of data on these shifts,aid and intervention strategies may continue tobe counterproductive or destructive.

Notes

1. In 2005, two special issues of academic jour-nals—the Journal of Peace Research (JPR) and the

European Journal of Population—focused on thedemography of conflict and violence (see ChristianLeuprecht’s review of the JPR issue in this Report).Emerging from a workshop organized by the WorkingGroup on the Demography of Conflict and Violenceunder the International Union for the Scientific Studyof Population (IUSSP), these journal issues reflect thewidth and breadth of the demographic causes and con-sequences of violence—genocide, economic inequality,war mortality, and migration, among others. In addi-tion to editing the JPR issue, Henrik Urdal contributedan article to JPR, “People vs. Malthus: PopulationPressure, Environmental Degradation, and ArmedConflict Revisited,” on which he based his commen-tary in this Report.

References

National Intelligence Council. (2004). Mapping theglobal future: Report of the National IntelligenceCouncil’s 2020 Project. Washington, DC:Government Printing Office. Available online athttp://www.foia.cia.gov/2020/2020.pdf


HENRIKURDAL

COMMENTARY • Population and Conflict:Exploring the Links

Defusing the Population Bomb: IsSecurity a Rationale for ReducingGlobal Population Growth?Introduction

Demographic and environmental factors haveclaimed a dominant position in post-Cold Warsecurity discourse. According to neo-Malthusians,1 rapid population growth willlead to per capita scarcity of natural resourcessuch as cropland, freshwater, forests, and fish-eries, increasing the risk of violent conflict overscarce resources. In contrast, resource-optimists2 claim that scarcity of agriculturalland, caused by high population density, maydrive technological innovation, which couldlead to economic development and thus buildpeace over the long term. Although world pop-ulation growth is projected to eventually levelout, some areas and countries will experiencerelatively high growth rates for decades to come(Lutz et al., 2004). If these areas are seriouslythreatened by instability and violent conflict,reducing population growth could be an impor-tant concern for the international community.

Building on my recently published empiri-cal analysis of the relationships between popu-lation pressure on natural renewable resourcesand the outbreak of domestic armed conflict,3

this policy brief examines whether high popu-lation pressure is a general, persistent threat todomestic peace over time, and thus deservesthe attention of security policymakers. Whilemany empirical studies examine single caseswith limited potential for generalization andprediction, this global, cross-country statisticalmodel, which covers a 50-year period, assessesthe relationships among several different indi-cators of population pressure and domesticarmed conflict (involving at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year). Prior to this study, lit-tle empirical research has systematically exam-

ined the role of population pressure in causingdomestic armed conflict.4

My analysis found that population growth,land scarcity, and urbanization do not greatlyinfluence patterns of war and peace (see Table 1for a summary). The national-level relationshipbetween population-induced scarcity and con-flict identified by several case studies does notseem to represent a strong general trend amongcountries over time. However, there were a fewexceptions: countries experiencing high popula-tion growth and density in the 1970s wereindeed more likely to suffer an outbreak ofdomestic armed conflict. In addition, furtherresearch may moderate these findings: forexample, using local level data—rather thannational—might reveal a stronger relationshipbetween population pressure and conflict.

Moderate Neo-Malthusians

Few scholars would argue that resource scarci-ties never occur or that they are irrelevant toconflict. Natural resources essential to humanlife and welfare are unevenly distributedbetween and within states, and local scarcitiesof certain natural resources may arise and per-sist, at least temporarily. According to ThomasHomer-Dixon and his Project on Environment,Population, and Security at the University ofToronto—the most influential neo-Malthusianschool—population growth is an important

Henrik Urdal is a doctoral candidate and

research fellow at the Centre for the

Study of Civil War at the International

Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) in

Norway. 5


6

source of demand-induced scarcity: if a resourcebase is constant, the availability of resources perperson will diminish as an increasing number ofpersons share it, or as demand per capita rises(Homer-Dixon, 1999, page 48).5

Neo-Malthusians are primarily concernedwith resources that are essential to food produc-tion. Homer-Dixon and Blitt (1998) argue thatlarge populations in many developing countriesare highly dependent on four key resources:freshwater, cropland, forests, and fisheries. Theavailability of these resources determines peo-ple’s day-to-day well-being, and scarcity of suchresources can, under certain conditions, causeviolent conflict. Some propose that the resourcescarcity and conflict scenario is more pertinentto developing countries due to their lowercapacity to address environmental issues and tocope with scarcity (Homer-Dixon, 1999, pages4–5; Kahl, 2002, page 258). Unlike some strictMalthusians, Homer-Dixon claims that popu-lation pressures do not increase the risk of con-flict in isolation, but they could in combinationwith environmental degradation and unevenwealth distribution.

More recent contributions further moderatethe neo-Malthusian position. Colin Kahl(2002) criticizes much neo-Malthusian writingfor failing to identify the most important inter-vening variables. While state weakness is oftencited as a necessary condition for environment-related conflict, Kahl argues that conflict may

also arise under conditions of “state exploita-tion,” when powerful elites exploit risingscarcities and corresponding grievances inorder to consolidate power (page 265). RichardMatthew (2002, page 243) criticizes the simpleneo-Malthusian thesis for understating theadaptive capacity of many societies and for notadequately addressing the historical and struc-tural dimensions of violence, such as globaliza-tion and colonial influence.

An Empirical Analysis of Neo-Malthusian Claims

If the basic neo-Malthusian scheme is correct,the risk of armed conflict for countries experi-encing high levels of population pressureshould be greater, all other factors being equal.This article investigates the likelihood that thefollowing forms of population pressure affectthe risk of armed conflict:

• Population growth;• Population density relative to productive

land area;• Continued population growth when pro-

ductive land is already scarce; and • Urbanization.

My study encompasses statistical surveys ofall sovereign states in the international systemand all politically dependent areas (colonies,occupied territories, and dependencies) for the1950–2000 period, including data on domesticarmed conflict6 drawn from the PRIO–Uppsaladataset (Gleditsch et al., 2002), and data onpopulation growth and size, urbanization, andscarcity of productive land from the UnitedNations and other sources.7 Since economicand political conditions may influence bothdemography and conflict, potentially con-founding the relationships of interest, I usedmultivariate modeling. The study controls forpoverty, governance, size of the country, eco-nomic growth, and length of time since the endof a previous conflict.8 The population data Iused are assumed to be among the most reliableand comparable available. However, data on

According to my results, high populationgrowth—by itself—is not associated with armedconflict. In addition, scarcity of productive landis associated with less conflict, contrary to neo-Malthusian expectations.


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international migration flows are generallyinadequate, and for many less developed coun-tries and regions where population data areinferior or less available, the UN PopulationDivision employs demographic techniques toarrive at reasonable estimates (UN, 2000).9

Since the data are aggregated at the nationallevel, the results do not reflect differencesbetween regions of individual countries.

According to my results (see Table 2), highpopulation growth—by itself—is not associatedwith armed conflict. In addition, scarcity ofproductive land is associated with less conflict,contrary to neo-Malthusian expectations. Thisis not a strong and robust statistical relation-ship, suggesting that population density is notan important predictor of peace or of war.10

Land scarcity combined with continued highpopulation growth is positively associated withconflict, but for the most part this relationshipis neither strong nor robust, indicating thatconflict is not more likely to break out in coun-tries presumably experiencing “Malthusiantraps.” Under certain specifications, however,the relationship turns significant.11

Furthermore, poor countries experiencinghigh levels of population pressure are not moresusceptible to armed conflict, which countersthe proposition that developing countries are

more vulnerable to violence generated by popu-lation pressure and resource scarcity.Urbanization does not appear to be a risk factor,and the interaction between urbanization andeconomic growth was not statistically signifi-cant, failing to lend empirical support to thetheory that high urban growth rates may lead toviolence when combined with economic crises.

Interestingly, the neo-Malthusian conflictscenario was supported when I considered thepost-World War II decades separately. In the1970s, countries experiencing high populationgrowth and density were indeed more likely tosee the outbreak of a domestic armed conflict.(This relationship is quite robust, but it disap-pears when the sample is restricted to sovereignstates.) The rise of environmental security liter-ature in this decade could reflect the greater sig-nificance of neo-Malthusian factors in this peri-od. From 1965–80, less developed regionsexperienced their highest levels of populationgrowth since World War II, particularly in partsof Asia where population density was alreadyhigh. During this time, the superpowers wereheavily involved in armed conflicts around theglobe (Harbom & Wallensteen, 2005). Theattention garnered by demographic and envi-ronmental changes may have influenced thesuperpowers’ choice of military engagements.

Table 1: Population and Risk of Conflict Summary

Basic Model

ExpandedModel

1970s Post-Cold War

Population growth Not significant Not significant Not significant Not significant

Population density Lower risk (weak) Not significant Not significant Not significant

Growth*density Not significant Not significantHigher risk (medium)

Not significant

Urban growth Not significantLower risk (medium)

Note: This chart summarizes the direction and statistical significance (in parentheses) of the association betweenthe main explanatory variables and the risk of conflict. For the actual values, please see Table 2.


8

In the post-Cold War era, by contrast, there isno support for neo-Malthusian claims; instead,high rates of urbanization correlate with lessconflict.

Policy Recommendations andFuture Research

According to basic neo-Malthusian theory, soci-eties experiencing scarcity related to populationgrowth should have a greater risk of domesticarmed conflict. My empirical test does not ren-der much support for this scenario, nor for theoptimistic perspective. Factors like populationgrowth, land scarcity, and urbanization simplydo not appear to greatly influence patterns ofwar and peace.

Claims that the world has entered a “new ageof insecurity” since the end of the Cold Warappear to be unfounded (see de Soysa, 2002a,page 3). Rather, the post-Cold War era isnotable for the strong statistical significance ofconventional explanations of conflict, such aslevel of development and regime type.Although often portrayed as an emerging chal-lenge to security, countries with high levels ofurban growth were significantly less prone toarmed conflict during this period. WhilePopulation Action International’s report, TheSecurity Demographic (Cincotta et al., 2003),finds a bivariate relationship between high lev-els of urbanization and conflict, I find that this

relationship disappears when controlling forimportant and relevant variables such as thelevel of development.12

According to my results, using security as arationale for reducing global population growthis unwarranted. It may even be counterproduc-tive, potentially overshadowing more importantrationales for reducing population growth.These may include human—rather than con-ventional—security issues like sustainabledevelopment; economic performance; andfemale education, empowerment, and repro-ductive health.

But the potential for further research is sub-stantial, especially for exploring the relation-ships between population and other factors. Forexample, in related analyses, de Soysa (2002a,2002b) finds that population density is posi-tively associated with armed conflict when con-trolling for the level of international trade.Potentially, when a country trades fewer goods,land scarcity is more pertinent and may insti-gate armed conflict. Thus, a bad macroeconom-ic environment may exacerbate the relationshipbetween armed conflict and scarcity of produc-tive land.

The aggregated, national-level data I used totest the population pressure hypotheses may failto reflect the effects of local population pres-sure, which presents important challenges forfuture research.13 My study indicates that thenational-level relationship between population-induced scarcity and conflict identified by sev-eral case studies does not seem to represent astrong general trend among countries overtime. Geographically organized data and statis-tical tools could assess whether scale mayaccount for the absence of empirical support forthe neo-Malthusian paradigm. Studying sub-national data from arguably vulnerable coun-tries might reveal the possibly conflict-con-ducive effects of local population pressures.

Finally, researchers should more thoroughlyassess the often-neglected relationship betweenmigration—both international and domestic—and conflict. This study, which incorporated avery crude measure of large refugee popula-tions, did not support the claim that such pop-

The national-level relationship between popula-tion-induced scarcity and conflict identified byseveral case studies does not seem to repre-sent a strong general trend among countriesover time.


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Table 2: Population and Risk of Armed Conflict

Note: Not all results are displayed in this table; for all results, see Urdal (2005).

Model 1Basic ßst. error

Model 2Expandedßst. error

Model 31970s ßst. error

Model 4Post-Cold War ßst. error

MAIN EXPLANATORY VARIABLES

Population growth-0.009(0.062)

-0.013(0.071)

-0.024(0.099)

-0.126(0.086)

Population density-0.088*(0.053)

-0.068(0.060)

-0.080(0.115)

0.064(0.106)

Growth*density0.042(0.039)

0.014(0.045)

0.129**(0.057)

0.040(0.075)

Urban growth-0.025(0.041)

-0.112**(0.046)

CONTROL VARIABLES

Country size (totalpopulation)

0.269***(0.047)

0.289***(0.055)

0.344***(0.103)

0.228**(0.106)

Development (infantmortality rate)

0.006***(0.001)

0.010***(0.002)

0.011***(0.003)

0.021***(0.005)

Democracy0.006(0.014)

0.015(0.015)

0.028(0.029)

0.0001(0.027)

Democracy, squared-0.014***(0.003)

-0.014***(0.003)

-0.005(0.007)

0.022***(0.006)

Economic growth-0.054**(0.024)

Time since last con-flict

1.819***(0.275)

1.691***(0.304)

1.101(0.714)

1.716***(0.467)

Constant-6.078***(0.488)

-6.302***(0.599)

-7.433***(1.143)

-5.691***(1.087)

NLog likelihoodPseudo R2

7,752-793.330.107

5,851-631.850.113

1,519-165.940.103

1,680-194.430.197

Asterisks signify the level of statistical significance: * p < 0.10, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01.


10

ulations represent a security threat. However,more empirical work in this area may shedimportant light on this central aspect of neo-Malthusian theory.

Notes

1. Thomas Malthus (1803/1992) asserted that foodproduction would grow arithmetically, while humanpopulation would grow exponentially—which, at somepoint, would cause serious food shortages and humanmisery. At the end of the 1960s and the beginning ofthe 1970s, a wave of neo-Malthusian literature predict-ed that the rapidly growing world population wouldsoon exceed the resource base and lead to serious envi-ronmental destruction, widespread hunger, and violentconflicts. Neo-Malthusian concern over securitybecame even more pronounced in the 1990s.

2. Also known as “cornucopians,” resource-opti-mists believe that the world is continuously improvingby both human and environmental standards. Theyoffer three main challenges to the neo-Malthusian par-adigm: first, they claim that most natural resources arenot really scarce in a global context. Second, even ifsome resources are getting scarcer, humankind is ableto adapt to these challenges. Third, they argue thatabundance of valuable natural resources leads to violentconflict, not scarcity.

3. This policy brief is based on my article “Peoplevs. Malthus: Population Pressure, EnvironmentalDegradation, and Armed Conflict Revisited,” pub-lished in the Journal of Peace Research in July 2005.

4. Studying shorter time series, Hauge andEllingsen (2001) and de Soysa (2002b) find that highpopulation density slightly increases the risk of domes-tic armed conflict and civil war. Collier and Hoeffler(1998) find no significant effects of population growthor density on civil war (defined as producing morethan 1,000 battle-related deaths in a year). In bivariatemodels, Cincotta et al. (2003) find a relationshipbetween high urbanization rates and the risk of civilarmed conflict onset.

5. Gleditsch and Urdal (2002) provide a review ofHomer-Dixon’s work on population, environment, andconflict.

6. A domestic armed conflict is defined as a conflictconfined to one country, fought between at least twoorganized parties of which at least one has to be a gov-ernment, resulting in at least 25 battle-related deathswithin a calendar year. Here, civil wars are defined asdomestic armed conflicts with at least 1,000 battle-related deaths per calendar year.

7. Sources include the United Nations’ WorldPopulation Prospects (1999), the UN’s annualDemographic Yearbook, the Statistical Abstract of the

World (Reddy, 1994), the CIA World Factbook (CIA,2001), and the World Bank’s World DevelopmentIndicators (2003). The data in the UN’s WorldPopulation Prospects cover all states and politicaldependencies with more than 150,000 inhabitants.

8. For full references and data descriptions, seeUrdal (2005).

9. The UN’s population division uses a number ofdifferent sources to assess consistency. For someextreme cases, where information is outdated or non-existent, the UN derives estimates by inferring levelsand trends from those experienced by countries in thesame region with similar socio-economic profiles (UN,2000).

10. These results are virtually unchanged whenusing a conventional density measure.

11. The relationship is statistically significant whenthe model requires a longer period of peace (five yearsor more) between hostilities to determine whether aconflict is “new.” However, it becomes insignificantwhen the sample is restricted to sovereign states.

12. Since the level of development—which isassumed to capture aspects of poverty and state weak-ness—is also a strong predictor of conflict, we have tocontrol for development to assess the effect of urban-ization. Cincotta et al. (2003) are thus rightfully cau-tious not to draw strong conclusions from the statisti-cal relationships they find. In my own model, I find asimilar statistically significant bivariate relationshipbetween urbanization and conflict outbreak, but thisrelationship disappears when controlling for level ofdevelopment.

13. Similar criticism could also be directed at previ-ous case study literature in the field, including Homer-Dixon and Blitt (1998).

References

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (2001). The worldfactbook. Washington, DC: CIA. Available online athttp://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2001

Cincotta, Richard P., Robert Engelman, & DanieleAnastasion. (2003). The security demographic:Population and civil conflict after the Cold War.Washington, DC: Population Action International.

Collier, Paul, & Anke Hoeffler. (1998). “On economiccauses of civil war.” Oxford Economic Papers 50(4),563–573.

de Soysa, Indra. (2002a). “Paradise is a bazaar? Greed,creed, and governance in civil war, 1989–99.”Journal of Peace Research 39(4), 395–416.

de Soysa, Indra. (2002b). “Ecoviolence: Shrinking pieor honey pot?” Global Environmental Politics 2(4),1–36.

Gleditsch, Nils Petter, & Henrik Urdal. (2002).“Ecoviolence? Links between population growth,

In the 1970s,countries experi-encing high pop-

ulation growthand density were

indeed morelikely to see the

outbreak of adomestic armed

conflict.


11

environmental scarcity and violent conflict inThomas Homer-Dixon’s work.” Journal ofInternational Affairs 56(1), 283–302.

Gleditsch, Nils Petter, Peter Wallensteen, MikaelEriksson, Margareta Sollenberg, & Håvard Strand(2002). “Armed conflict 1946–2001: A newdataset.” Journal of Peace Research 39(5), 615–637.

Harbom, Lotta, & Peter Wallensteen. (2005). “Armedconflict and its international dimensions, 1946-2004.” Journal of Peace Research 42(5), 623–635.

Hauge, Wenche, & Tanja Ellingsen. (2001). “Causalpathways to conflict.” In Paul F. Diehl & NilsPetter Gleditsch (Eds.), Environmental conflict(pages 36-57). Boulder, CO: Westview.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. (1999). Environment, scarci-ty, and violence. Princeton, NJ & Oxford: PrincetonUniversity Press.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas F., & Jessica Blitt (Eds.).(1998). Ecoviolence: Links among environment, pop-ulation and security. Lanham, MD: Rowman &Littlefield.

Kahl, Colin H. (2002). “Demographic change, naturalresources and violence.” Journal of InternationalAffairs 56(1), 257–282.

Lutz, Wolfgang, Warren C. Sanderson, & Sergei

Scherbov (Eds.). (2004). The end of world popula-tion growth in the 21st century: New challenges forhuman capital formation & sustainable development.London & Sterling, VA: Earthscan.

Malthus, Thomas Robert. (1803/1992). An essay on theprinciple of population. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Matthew, Richard A. (2002). “Environment, popula-tion and conflict.” Journal of International Affairs56(1), 235–254.

Reddy, Marlita A. (Ed.). (1994). Statistical abstract ofthe world. Detroit, MI: Gale Research.

United Nations. (1999). World population prospects:The 1998 revision. New York: United Nations.

United Nations. (2000). World population prospects:The 1998 revision (Volume III: Analytical Report).New York: United Nations.

United Nations. (annual). Demographic yearbook. NewYork: United Nations.

Urdal, Henrik. (2005). “People vs. Malthus:Population pressure, environmental degradation,and armed conflict revisited.” Journal of PeaceResearch 42(4), 417–434.

World Bank. (2003). World development indicators onCD-ROM. Washington, DC: World Bank.


12

SARAHSTAVETEIG


The Young and the Restless: PopulationAge Structure and Civil War

T hree months after the attacks ofSeptember 11, 2001, the New YorkTimes asked, “Is the Devil in the

Demographics?” (Sciolino, 2001). The articleexamined the vulnerability of large cohorts ofunemployed youth to extremist ideology andpolitical recruitment, and speculated about thehazards created by future youth cohorts in theMiddle East. In the post-9/11 era, however,there has been very little academic research onthe relationship between youthful age structureand warfare (three notable exceptions: Urdal,2002; Hammel & Smith, 2002; Cincotta et al.,2003). Literature on civil war and insurgencyhas instead highlighted the role of other causalfactors such as the presence of valuableresources, the degree of ethnic fractionalization,and type of political regime, while downplayingthe importance of population age structure (see,e.g., Collier & Hoeffler, 2001; Fearon & Laitin,2003; Elbadawi & Sambanis, 2002).

While these factors likely play an importantrole in the onset of civil war,1 the importance ofyouthful age structure—particularly in insur-gency-based civil wars2—should not be

ignored. The relationship between large youthcohorts and civil war appears to have heldthroughout history. For example, HerbertMoller (1968) suggests that wars in pre-modernand present-day Europe, including the rise ofthe Nazi party in Germany, corresponded withsurges in the proportion of young men in thepopulation. Yale historian Paul Kennedy (1993)argues that revolutions occur more often incountries with large populations of “energetic,frustrated, young men.”3 Even after controllingfor the fact that more youthful countries are lessdeveloped and have more vulnerable politicalregimes, my research finds that a large differ-ence in the number of young adults comparedto the number of older adults—“relative cohortsize”—can help predict civil war, particularlyinsurgent-based civil wars.

“Excess Youth”: A Perfect Storm?

Some recent conflicts appear to lend credence tothe “excess youth” hypothesis. For example,Philip Gourevitch (1998) describes howRwandan génocidaires were recruited fromamong the jobless young men who were “wastingin idleness and attendant resentments…Most ofthe men were motivated by the opportunity todrink, loot, murder, and enjoy higher living stan-dards than they were previously accustomed to”(page 93). In Sierra Leone, where young peoplecomprised 95 percent of the fighting forces in arecent civil war, an NGO official explained thatthe youth are “a long-neglected cohort; they lackjobs and training, and it is easy to convince themto join the fight” (Mastny, 2004, page 19). Whilerecent conflicts in Palestine and the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo are mostly influenced byother factors, both areas have among the highest

Sarah Staveteig is a doctoral candidate

in sociology and demography at the

University of California, Berkeley. The

research described in this paper was

conducted with the support of a

National Science Foundation Graduate

Research Fellowship. She completed the

initial work during the 2004 Young

Scientists Summer Program at the

International Institute for Applied

Systems Analysis (Austria).


13

ratios of young adults (15-29) to older working-age adults (30-54) anywhere in the world.

Even though population growth has slowedworldwide and will likely end within the nextcentury (Lutz et al., 2004), high fertility rates inAfrica and the Middle East will continue tobring increasingly larger cohorts of youngadults for the next few decades. As Chart 1illustrates, the ratio of young people to adults inthe developing world will continue to remainwell above the 1980 world peak for decades tocome. The National Intelligence Council(2004) refers to these increasing youth cohortsas part of a “perfect storm”—including failedstates, poor economies, and religious extrem-ism—that will likely fuel conflict in certainparts of the world for decades to come.

“Youth Bulge” Is a Misnomer

I believe that the mixed evidence on youthfulage structure and the risk of conflict is largelydue to the poor measurement of age structurein most research. The term “youth bulge” is amisnomer: although few authors use the samedefinition of youth bulge, nearly all researchers4

measure it as the number of young people (gen-erally between ages 15 and 24) as a percentageof the adult population. A bulge, literallydefined as an “irregular swelling” (Abate,1998), should be visible in the young adult sec-tion of the age pyramid. Yet some so-calledyouth bulges, such as that in contemporary Iraq(Panel A of Chart 2), do not produce the bulgeshape characteristic of baby booms followed by“baby busts” (Panel B of Chart 2).

Relative Cohort Size: A BetterMeasure of Age Structure

If not the bulge shape in and of itself, then whydo youthful populations influence the risk ofinsurgency? I argue that the presence of youngadults is not as important as the degree of alien-ation, frustration, and marginalization theyexperience. These factors are subjective and dif-ficult to measure; one way might be to examinehow much schools and the labor market must

expand to accommodate the incoming cohortof teenagers. We can obtain a rough estimate bymeasuring the current group of young adults(ages 15 to 29) as a proportion of the numberof older working adults (ages 30 to 54) to find a“relative cohort size,” after a similar measureproposed by Richard Easterlin (1968, 1978,1987).5

Relative cohort size can provide the missinglink between the population of young men andthe risk of civil war, especially if we consideronly insurgency-based civil wars (Staveteig,2004a, 2004b, 2005). Easterlin’s relative cohortsize hypothesis delineates the relationshipbetween youthful populations and the econom-ic and psychological frustrations that enablepolitical instability and, ultimately, civil war. Asa large relative cohort comes of age, the tensionproduced by lack of success in the job and mar-riage markets may, in the presence of other fac-tors, render armed conflict a more appealingoption. While relative cohort size is unlikely tobe an immediate cause of civil war, large birthcohorts often strain the schooling system andlabor market of a country, particularly a devel-oping one, which can result in massive frustra-tion, unemployment, reduced wages, and dis-satisfaction—and arguably create a potentialarmy of young men who could be easily recruit-ed in a rebellion.6 If economic opportunitiesexist and expand in tandem with the youthfulpopulation, as they did in most parts of EastAsia, enormous economic growth can resultfrom relatively large cohorts (Bloom &Williamson, 1997; Bloom, Canning, &Malaney, 1999). Yet in most developing coun-tries, where economic opportunities are noteven sufficient for current youth cohorts, a risein the population entering the labor force islikely to increase joblessness.

In the United States, a large relative cohortsize—such as that created by teenage babyboomers—is thought to have been one cause ofthe social upheaval of the late 1960s and early1970s (Macunovich, 2002; Easterlin, 1987). Incountries with less economic opportunity andfewer channels for enacting social change, largecohorts of young adults may choose more


14

violent means of protest and social change.Historical case studies have documented that ayouthful age structure in Cyprus, Palestine,Algeria, and Laos increased the size of the pop-ulation that could be mobilized, which in turninfluenced the intensity of the conflicts(Choucri, 1974, page 191).

One of the most important explanations ofthe importance of relative cohort size is whatEasterlin (1978, 1987) calls “relative maleincome,” which is the standard of living a man’sincome can buy relative to his father’s standard ofliving. Relative male income is inversely relatedto relative cohort size, other things being equal.In the United States, the baby boomers were amuch larger birth cohort than their parents’cohort, so people born later in the boom experi-enced a much tighter entry-level job market thanthose born early or before the boom. In this way,one’s birth and fortune were interlinked: mem-bers of smaller cohorts generally had an easiertime finding jobs and education, while equallyqualified members of larger cohorts struggled toachieve the same standard of living.

Not every society may respond the same wayto low relative male income, but large birthcohorts in any country—particularly males—must be accommodated by the school system

and eventually by the labor market. In popula-tions with many women of child-bearing age,population momentum will cause overall popu-lation size to increase even decades after fertilitydeclines. The government will be required toincrease expenditures on services (such as roads,schools, and hospitals) to accommodate eachnew cohort. When the large birth cohort reach-es adulthood, they will require more jobs thanvacated by previous cohorts. In deeply religiouscontexts where pre-marital sex is forbidden andmen are expected to financially establish them-selves prior to marriage, such a shortage of eco-nomic opportunities can be particularly frus-trating, as the shortage can prevent even educat-ed adults from entering into marriage andachieving cultural notions of adulthood.Research on suicide bombers, for example, hasshown that many are well-educated and highlycapable, yet lack the economic opportunitiesnecessary to establish themselves (Sprinzak,2000; Pape, 2005)

Measuring the Importance ofRelative Cohort Size

To test the importance of relative cohort sizein the probability of civil war, I built a datasetthat combined information on civil wars(Strand et al., 2004), insurgency-based civilwars (Heidelberg Institute for InternationalConflict Research, 1999), national per capitaincome (Heston et al., 2004), demographic fac-tors (United Nations, 2003), political regime(Marshall et al., 2004), and other relevant tradeand economic variables (World Bank, 2002).The data span 10 five-year periods from1950–2000 in 174 countries.

In accordance with previous research, mybaseline model found that countries with uncon-solidated political regimes,7 high infant mortalityrates, lower per capita incomes, and larger popu-lation sizes consistently had a higher risk of civilwar onset (Staveteig, 2005). Infant mortality rate(which is often used as a proxy to measure devel-opment) and per capita income were nearlyequally strong predictors of civil war onset, andboth measures were highly correlated to one

Even after controlling for the fact that moreyouthful countries are less developed and havemore vulnerable political regimes, my researchfinds that a large difference in the number ofyoung adults compared to the number of olderadults—“relative cohort size”—can help predictcivil war, particularly insurgent-based civil wars.


15

another. I ultimately chose to useonly the infant mortality rate in mymodels because the data over timeand country were more complete.None of the other factors thatresearchers suggested are impor-tant—urbanization, per capitaincome growth, secondary schoolenrollment, and population densi-ty—measurably improved the base-line model.

Calculating youth as a percent-age of the entire population (“non-relative cohort size”) did not deter-mine the onset of civil wars (insur-gency-based or otherwise). On theother hand, comparing a specificpopulation of youth to a specificpopulation of adults (relativecohort size) and comparing a specif-ic population of youth to all adults(“quasi-relative cohort size”) bothstrongly predicted the risk of civilwar. While the average country inthe dataset experienced a 12 percent chance ofany kind of civil war erupting in any givenfive-year period, differences in relative cohortsize could swing that risk as low as 6 percentand as high as 28 percent, holding all otherfactors equal.8 For insurgency-based civil warsthe results were even stronger. While the aver-age country faced a 9 percent chance of aninsurgency-based civil war starting in anygiven five-year period, relative cohort sizecould make this risk as low as 2 percent or ashigh as 38 percent. Higher levels of infantmortality and an unconsolidated politicalregime could greatly increase this risk.

Could these results be influenced by thecountries’ different levels of development?Using the United Nations’ classification schemefor more-developed and least-developed coun-tries,9 I found that even within these broaddevelopment categories, differences in agestructure were significant and measurable pre-dictors of conflict.

Interestingly, it appears that future relativecohort size could also be used to predict con-

flict. Relative cohort size can be measured up to10 years in advance using current data on pop-ulation age structure. For example, the ratio offuture young adults (e.g., the current 5- to 19-year-olds) to future older adults (the current20- to 44-year-olds)—combined with currentinformation about infant mortality, populationsize, and governance—can predict whetherconflict will occur 10 to 15 years from nowalmost as well as waiting 10 years to measurethe actual relative cohort size. This findingcould help develop conflict-prevention policies;by identifying large relative cohorts up to 10years before they reach young adulthood, poli-cymakers and funders might devise betterstrategies for easing the transition, and thusreduce the chances of conflict.

Conclusion

Just as developed countries now face futurepension shortfalls and other challenges associat-ed with aging populations, less developed coun-tries face the opposite problem: excess youth. In

Chart 1: Relative Cohort Size Wordwide 1950–2050

Note: “Relative Cohort Size” is defined as the ratio of population aged 15-29 to populationaged 30-54. Source: Author's calculations from United Nations' World Prospects Data: The 2002 Revision[CD-ROM].

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050Year

Rat

ioo

fP

op

ulat

ion

Ag

e15

-29

toP

op

ulat

ion

Ag

e30

-54

Projections

Most Developed Countries

World

Least Developed Countries


16

2005, 1.9 billion people—nearly one-third ofthe world’s population—are under the age of15. Ninety percent of these youth live in less-developed countries.10 Even if fertility decreas-es, large birth cohorts in developing countriesare unlikely to wane for a few decades. As theselarge birth cohorts enter adulthood, the risk ofinsurgent civil wars increases. When relativecohort size peaked in the United States (as babyboomers entered young adulthood) in 1975,there was nearly a one-to-one ratio between thenumber of 15- to 29-year-olds and the numberof 30- to 54-year-olds. In the average least-developed country, that ratio is expected to stayabove one until 2035. The strain on school sys-tems and labor markets in these countries willbe profound. In absolute numbers, the increasein youth cohorts will be enormous.

Of course, it is not likely that a high relativecohort size will be the inciting cause of conflictin least-developed countries. A very youthfulpopulation is an important factor, among oth-

ers, that flares up only under certain conditionsor “sparks.” But at the same time, sparks canonly trigger violent conflicts when contextualfactors enable them. If alternative means ofsocial change are available, violence will be lessappealing. A large relative cohort is not in andof itself a sufficient cause for civil war, but asmaller relative cohort size makes it more diffi-cult for conflicts to erupt.11 Even after control-ling for the fact that more youthful countriesare less developed and have more vulnerablepolitical regimes, my research finds that relativecohort size is an important predictive factor forcivil war, particularly insurgent-based civil wars.

The link I found between relative cohort sizeand civil war would have been even stronger if Ihad looked at the sub-national level, as insur-gent groups often come from sub-populationswith high relative cohort size (for exampleChechens in Russia, Northern Irish in theUnited Kingdom, and Palestinians in Israel).12

Recent suicide bombings in London and riots

Chart 2: Age Structure in Iraq 2005 and the United States 1980

Note: The term “youth bulge” is a misnomer: all contemporary definitions of the term would rank contemporary Iraq (Panel A) ashaving a larger youth bulge than the United States did in 1980 (Panel B), despite the fact that Panel B shows a more characteristic“bulge” shape. Source: United Nations’ World Prospects Data: The 2002 Revision [CD-Rom]. The 2005 estimate for Iraq is based on the medium-range projections from 2002.

Equals 55% of adults age 30+

80+75-7970-7465-6960-6455-5950-5445-4940-4435-3930-3425-2920-2415-1910-14

5-90-4

80+75-7970-7465-6960-6455-5950-5445-4940-4435-3930-3425-2920-2415-1910-14

5-90-4

MALES FEMALES MALES FEMALES

Equals 91% of adults age 30+

PANEL A: Iraq, 2005 PANEL B: United States, 1980

Percent of Population Percent of Population

10% 5% 0% 0%5% 5% 5%10% 10% 10%


17

in France are important reminders that devel-oped countries are not immune to violent rebel-lions from youthful sub-populations. But theseevents alone do not justify restricting immigra-tion; instead, I believe that they signal theurgent need to improve integration and equali-ty. Industrialized countries facing major pen-sion shortfalls due to a high ratio of retirees toworkers could mitigate the problem by hiringyoung workers from the developing world.Even though immigration and integration arepolitically sensitive topics, developed countriesshould consider projected pension shortfallsand the cascading security risk of large youthcohorts in the developing world when debatingimmigration and integration policies.

Easing the transition of large birth cohortsinto adulthood and developing viable nonvio-lent means of political change could help pre-vent civil war in countries where relative cohortsize is expected to be high. Methods mightinclude increasing the number of opportunitiesavailable for young people (perhaps by offeringemployers credits for hiring entry-level workers,expanding regional security forces, or usinginternational aid to create an internal volunteercorps), expanding tertiary schooling options (ifappropriate jobs will later be available), ensur-ing universal suffrage for young adults, andmaintaining a fair and open political system.

A better understanding of contextual factorsleading to civil war may improve our ability toprevent it in the future. Research on the causesof civil war should incorporate measures of rela-tive cohort size. Unraveling the background fac-tors that put a country at risk for conflict isarguably more important than finding theimmediate “spark” of conflict, as policy is muchbetter equipped to address structural problemsthan immediate factors. In many countriesaround the world, we cannot prevent large rela-tive youth cohorts over the next two decades,but understanding the role of relative cohortsize and planning wisely could help reduce therisk of future insurgency-based13 civil wars.

Notes

1. I define a civil war as an “internal armed con-flict” according to the Armed Conflict Dataset fromthe International Peace Research Institute in Oslo(Strand et al., 2003; Gleditsch et al., 2002).

2. For the purposes of this paper, insurgency-basedcivil wars are defined as violent crises or wars involvinga non-state group as a primary actor in the conflict,using the KOSIMO dataset (Heidelberg Institute forInternational Conflict Research, 1999).

3. Other authors have found a connection between“excess young men” and the outbreak of violence(Cincotta et al., 2003; Goldstone, 1991, 2001;Hammel & Smith, 2002; Mesquida & Wiener, 1999;Urdal, 2002).

4. See, for example, Cincotta et al. (2003); Choucri(1974); Goldstone (2002); O’Brien (2002); Mesquidaand Wiener (1999); and Urdal (2002).

5. As youth unemployment rates are difficult tomeasure, particularly in the developing world, a rela-tively large youth cohort is a good proxy for the oppor-tunity structure in a country. Hammel and Smith(2002) call the difference between adjacent cohorts the“demographically-induced unemployment rate.”

6. Youthful populations in and of themselves areunlikely to be a sufficient condition for civil war:insurgent groups must be able to form a coherent col-lective identity with which to challenge state authority,and they must also find opportunities for collectiveaction (Diehl & Gleditsch, 2001). As Walter (2004)asserts, enlistment in a rebel group is only likely to beattractive “when two conditions hold. The first is a sit-uation of individual hardship or severe dissatisfactionwith one’s current situation. The second is the absenceof any nonviolent means for change” (page 371).

7. As measured by the square of the political regimescore assigned by the Polity IV dataset (Marshall,Jaggers, & Gurr, 2004).

8. Based on the observed range of relative cohortsizes from the dataset.

9. According to the United Nations, highly devel-oped countries include those in Europe, NorthAmerica, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The leastdeveloped countries include most of sub-SaharanAfrica and parts of Asia and the Middle East. I put theremaining countries in a third category entitled “mod-erately developed.”

10. Author’s calculations based on figures fromPopulation Reference Bureau (2005).

11. The main exceptions are conflicts in the for-mer Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, where relativecohort size was small but other factors enabled pro-tracted conflict.

12. Based on information about fertility rates from“Chechnya has highest birth rates in Russia” (2005),


18

Ruddock et al. (1998), and Population ReferenceBureau (2005).

13. Insurgent groups cannot always be deemedmorally wrong (consider, for example, anti-colonialmovements in many countries), but when groups feelthey have no other means besides violence to enactsocial change, the costs for society can be enormous.

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Gourevitch, Philip. (1998). We wish to inform you thattomorrow we will be killed with our families: Storiesfrom Rwanda. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Hammel, Eugene, & Erik Smith. (2002). “Populationdynamics and political stability.” In Neil J. Smelser& Faith Mitchell (Eds.), Discouraging terrorism:Some implications of 9/11. Washington, DC:National Academies Press.

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Heston, Alan, Robert Summers, & Bettina Aten. Pennworld table (Version 6.1) [Data file]. Center forInternational Comparisons at the University ofPennsylvania. Retrieved July 8, 2004, fromhttp://pwt.econ.upenn.edu 2004

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Marshall, Monty, Keith Jaggers, & Ted Robert Gurr.(2004). Polity IV dataset 2004. Retrieved December12, 2004, fromhttp://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/polity/

Mastny, Lisa. (2004, September/October). “The haz-ards of youth.” World Watch Magazine, 18-21.

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By identifyinglarge relative

cohorts up to 10years before they

reach youngadulthood,

policymakers andfunders mightdevise betterstrategies for

easing the transi-tion, and thus

reduce thechances of

conflict.


19

Council’s 2020 Project. Washington, DC:Government Printing Office. Available online athttp://www.foia.cia.gov/2020/2020.pdf

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VALERIE M.HUDSON and

ANDREA M.DEN BOER


Missing Women and Bare Branches:Gender Balance and Conflict

20

T he emerging subfield of “securitydemographics” examines the linkagesbetween population dynamics and the

security trajectories of nation-states. For the last5 to 10 years, researchers have examined thesecurity aspects of such topics as the demo-graphic transition, the sub-replacement birthrates of developed economies, the proportion ofyoung men as compared to older men in thepopulation, the effects of legal and illegal immi-gration, and the effects of pandemics such asAIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis. We hopeto add the variable of gender balance to the dis-cussion: are societies with an abnormal ratiobetween men and women less secure?

Missing Women

In two areas of the world such imbalances havebecome fairly significant in the last half-centu-ry: 1) Russia and several former Warsaw Pactnations, where we find a deficit of adult males;1

and 2) Asia—particularly India, China, andPakistan—where we find a deficit of women,including female infants and children. We willlet other scholars research the link between adeficit of males and national security. Ourresearch, as explained in Bare Branches: TheSecurity Implications of Asia’s Surplus MalePopulation (MIT Press, 2004), focuses on thedeficit of females in Asia. Standard demograph-

ic analysis readily confirms this abnormaldeficit.2 If we compare overall population sexratios, the ratio for, say, Latin America is 98males per 100 females (using 2000 U.S. CensusBureau figures), but the corresponding figurefor Asia is 104.4 males per 100 females. But onemust also keep in mind the sheer size of Asia’spopulation: India and China alone compriseapproximately 38 percent of the world’s popu-lation. Thus, the overall sex ratio of the world is101.3, despite the fact that the ratios for the restof the world (excluding Oceania) range from93.1 (Europe) to 98.9 (Africa).

Birth sex ratios in several Asian countries areoutside of the established norm of 105-107 boybabies born for every 100 girl babies. TheIndian government’s estimate of its birth sexratio is approximately 113 boy babies born forevery 100 girl babies, with some locales record-ing ratios of 156 and higher (India RegistrarGeneral, 2001). The Chinese government statesthat its birth sex ratio is approximately 119,though some Chinese scholars have gone onrecord that the birth sex ratio is at least 121(China State Statistical Bureau, 2001).3 Again,in some locations, the ratio is higher; for exam-ple, the island of Hainan’s birth sex ratio is 135.Other countries of concern include Pakistan,Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Taiwan,Afghanistan, and South Korea.4

Another indicator of gender imbalance isearly childhood mortality. Boys typically have ahigher early childhood mortality rate, whichvirtually cancels out their numerical advantageby age five. Boys’ higher mortality is tied to sex-linked genetic mutations, such as hemophilia,as well as higher death rates from commonchildhood diseases, such as dysentery. However,in some of the Asian nations mentioned above,

Valerie M. Hudson is a professor of polit-

ical science at Brigham Young University.

Andrea M. den Boer is a lecturer in polit-

ical science at the University of Kent at

Canterbury.


21

early childhood mortality rates for girls areactually higher than boys’ (United NationsPopulation Division, 1998). Furthermore,orphanages house more girls than boys in thesenations.5

What forces drive the deficit of females inAsian nations such as India and China? Whyare their birth sex ratios so abnormal? Why areearly childhood mortality rates for girls higherthan those for boys? Why are most children inorphanages girls? How do we account for thedisappearance of so many women—estimatedconservatively at over 90 million missingwomen in seven Asian countries alone (seeTable 1)?

Some scholars assert that there may be aphysical cause at work preventing female births,such as the disease hepatitis B, antigens ofwhich have been associated with higher birthsex ratios (Oster, 2005). While this may well bea contributing factor, it is worth considering theexperience of the municipality of Shenzhen insouthern China. Alarmed at the rising birth sexratio, which reached 118 in 2002, local officialsinstituted a strict crackdown on black marketultrasound clinics. Offering up to 2,000 yuanfor tips, officials then vigorously prosecuted andimprisoned the owners and technicians. By2004, the birth sex ratio had dropped to 108(“Shenzhen’s newborn sex ratio more bal-anced,” 2005).

Accounts such as this support the thesis thatthe modern gender imbalance in Asia, as withhistorical gender imbalances in Asia and else-where, is largely a man-made phenomenon.6

Girls are being culled from the population,whether through prenatal sex identification andfemale sex-selective abortion, or through rela-tive neglect compared to male offspring in earlychildhood (including abandonment), orthrough desperate life circumstances that mightlead to suicide.

The gender imbalance in Asia is primarilythe result of son preference and the profounddevaluation of female life. This value ordering isnot confined to Asia; why, then, is the deficit ofwomen found there almost exclusively?Historically, of course, the culling of girls was

not confined to Asia; evidence for this practicecan be found on every continent. And practicesare changing in some Asian nations: Japan nor-malized its sex ratios in the 20th century, and inSouth Korea, the deficit has been decreasingover time (Dickemann, 1975; South KoreaNational Statistics Office, 2001).

But this excellent question can only beanswered through a multifactorial culturalanalysis that examines variables such as religiousprohibitions or sanctions; patrilocality (couplesliving with the husband’s family); the duty ofmale offspring to support aged parents; dowry,hypergyny, and caste purity in India; the effectof interventions such as China’s one-child poli-cy; and the web of incentives and disincentivessurrounding the issue of prenatal sex determi-nation technology.7

Bare Branches

What effect will this deficit of females have onthe security trajectory of nations?Anthropologist Barbara D. Miller (2001) hastermed the preservation of a balanced sex ratio a“public good” that governments overlook attheir peril. Will it matter to India and Chinathat by the year 2020, 12-15 percent of theiryoung adult males will not be able to “settledown” because the girls that would have grownup to be their wives were disposed of by theirsocieties instead? With each passing yearbetween now and 2020 (or even further), boththe proportion and the number of young adultmales that exceed the number of young adultfemales in China and India will increase(Hudson & den Boer, 2004). The Chinese havea special term for such young men: guang gun-er, or “bare branches”—branches of the familytree that will never bear fruit, but which may beuseful as “bare sticks,” or clubs.

The Chinese elision between bare branchesand truncheons echoes our argument: men whoare not provided the opportunity to develop avested interest in a system of law and order willgravitate toward a system based on physicalforce, in which they hold an advantage overother members of society. Furthermore, in a

Will it matter toIndia and Chinathat by the year2020, 12-15 per-cent of theiryoung adultmales will not beable to “settledown” becausethe girls thatwould havegrown up to betheir wives weredisposed of bytheir societiesinstead?


22

system with too few women, the men whomarry are those with higher socio-economicstatus. The men unable to marry are poorer, lesseducated, less skilled, and less likely to beemployed. These men are already at risk forestablishing a system based on physical force inorder to obtain by force what they cannotobtain legitimately. Without the opportunity toestablish a household, they may not transitionfrom potential threats to potential protectors ofsociety. The rate of criminal behavior of unmar-ried men is many times higher than that of mar-ried men; marriage is a reliable predictor of adownturn in reckless, antisocial, illegal, andviolent behavior by young adult males (Mazur& Michalek, 1998). If this transition cannot beeffected for a sizeable proportion of a society’syoung men, the society is likely to become lessstable.8

Statistical evidence for the linkage betweengender imbalance and conflict includes severalexcellent studies that have demonstrated astrong correlation between state-level sex ratiosand state-level rates of violent crime in India(Oldenburg, 1992; Dreze & Khera, 2000).States with high sex ratios, such as UttarPradesh, have much higher violent crime ratesthan states with more normal sex ratios, such asKerala. Historical case studies abound, sinceabnormal sex ratios are not a new phenomena.The 19th century Nien rebels came from a very

poor region in China with a sex ratio of at least129 men per 100 women. At first, relativelysmaller groups of men coalesced to form smug-gling and extortion gangs. Eventually, thesegangs banded together to form larger armies,wresting territory from imperial control. It tookthe emperor years to subdue this rebellion.

We must not overlook sociological theoryand experimental evidence, as well. For exam-ple, scholars have studied the behavior of unat-tached young males, noting their propensity tocongregate with others like them and to engagein dominance displays in such groups.Sociologists have found that the “risky shift” ingroup behavior, where a group is willing to takegreater risks and engage in more reckless behav-ior than an individual member of the group, ismuch more pronounced in groups comprisedsolely of unattached young adult males(Johnson, Stemler, & Hunter, 1977).

After examining the evidence, some predic-tions can be made for societies with rising sexratios: crime rates will increase; the proportionof violent crime will increase; rates of drug use,drug smuggling, weapons smuggling, traffick-ing, and prostitution will increase (see Hudson& den Boer, 2004). The society might developdomestic and international chattel markets thatkidnap and traffic women within the countryand across borders. For example, the shortage ofmarriage-age women in China is fueling a brisk

Table 1: Number of Missing Women for Selected Asian Countries Using Census Data

Country Year

ActualNumber ofMales

ActualNumber ofFemales

ActualSexRatio

ExpectedSexRatio

ExpectedNumber of Women

MissingWomen

Afghanistan

Bangladesh

China

India

Pakistan

South Korea

Taiwan

Total

2000

2001

2000

2001

1998

2000

2000

11,227,000

65,841,419

653,550,000

531,277,078

68,873,686

23,068,181

11,386,084

10,538,000

63,405,814

612,280,000

495,738,169

63,445,593

22,917,108

10,914,845

106.5

103.8

106.7

107.2

108.6

100.7

104.3

96.4

99.6

100.1

99.3

99.2

100.0

100.2

11,646,266

66,105,842

652,897,103

535,022,234

69,429,119

23,068,181

11,363,357

1,108,266

2,700,028

40,617,103

39,284,065

5,983,526

151,073

448,512

90,292,573

Sources: Afghanistan—United NationsPopulation Division, World PopulationProspects: The 2002 Revision,http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2000/annex-tables.pdf;Bangladesh—Bangladesh Bureau ofStatistics, Population Census, 2001:Preliminary Report, http://www.bbsgov.org; China—National Bureau ofStatistics of the People’s Republic ofChina, “Communiqué on Major Figuresof the 2000 Population Census,” No. 1,April 23, 2002, http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/newrelease/statisticalreports/200204230084.htm; India—Office of the Registrar General, Censusof India, 2001, Series 1: India, Paper 1 of2001: Provisional Population Totals (NewDelhi: India, 2001), http://www.censusindia.net/results; Pakistan—Population Census Organization,Statistics Division, Government ofPakistan, “1998 Census of Pakistan,”http://www.pap.org.pk/population/sec2.htm; South Korea—National Statistical Office, Republic ofKorea Census Population, 2000,http://www.nso.go.kr; and Taiwan—Statistical Bureau of Taiwan, HistoricalComparison of the Census Results, 2000,http://www.stat.gov.tw

Note: From Bare Branches: The SecurityImplications of Asia’s Surplus MalePopulation (page 62), by Valerie M.Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, 2004,Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Copyright2004 by Belfer Center for Science andInternational Affairs. Reprinted withpermission.


23

business in trafficked brides from North Korea(Demick, 2003).

We must also examine the reaction of thegovernment. Historically, we have found that asgovernments become aware of the negative con-sequences of a growing number of bare branch-es, most governments are motivated to dosomething. In the past, “doing something”meant thinning the numbers of bare branches,whether through fighting, sponsoring the con-struction of large public works necessitatingdangerous manual labor, exporting them to lesspopulated areas, or co-opting them into themilitary or police. One 16th centuryPortuguese monarch sent his army, composedprimarily of noble and non-noble bare branch-es, on one of the later crusades to avoid a crisisof governance; more than 25 percent of thatarmy never returned, and many others wereseriously wounded (Boone, 1983, 1986).

We find that the need to control the risinginstability created by the increasing numbers ofbare branches has led governments to favormore authoritarian approaches to internal gov-ernance and less benign international presences.In many ways, a society’s prospects for democ-racy and peace are diminished in step with thedevaluation of daughters.

How will this play out in 21st century Asia?Gender imbalance does not cause war or con-flict per se, but it can aggravate it. Will theinternal instability caused by substantial num-bers of bare branches (by 2020, 28 million inIndia—the same or more in China) overshadowexternal security concerns for the governmentsof these nations? Some potentially unstable sit-uations spring to mind: the feuding countries ofPakistan and India have gender imbalances, asdo China and Taiwan; and the resource-richRussian Far East faces an influx of Chineseworkers while Russia continues to lose men(Radyuhin, 2003).

How will gender imbalances affect thepotential for democracy in China and the evo-lution of democracy in India? The genderimbalances of these two countries will notremain solely their problem, as alone they com-prise more than one-third of the world’s popu-

lation. The status of women in these nationscould become an important factor in bothdomestic and international security in Asia,with possible implications for the entire inter-national system.

The Chinese government is acting on thislinkage. In July 2004, they announced theirdesire to normalize the birth sex ratio by theyear 2010, and in January 2005, theyannounced programs to provide old-age pen-sions to parents of girls. Only time will tell ifthese and other interventions will achieve theirdesired ends. In the meantime, the horse hasleft the barn for at least the next 20 years, forthere is no way to undo the birth sex ratios ofprevious years. Have these Asian nations discov-ered the value of female life too late? The wholeworld is waiting to see whether bare brancheswill be given the opportunity to grow again.

Notes

1. In Russia and its former satellites, drug and alcoholabuse, as well as tuberculosis and AIDS, have dramatical-ly increased the mortality rate for adult males—recentU.S. Census Bureau (2005) figures estimate that thereare 10 million fewer men than women in Russia alone.This, in turn, has fueled female emigration, supportingnot only to a vigorous “mail-order bride” business, butalso increasingly sophisticated and far-flung transnationalprostitution and human trafficking networks.

2. There are established ranges of normal variation inoverall population sex ratios, as well as early childhoodand birth sex ratios. These ratios are adjusted for coun-try-specific circumstances such as, for example, maternalmortality rates and infant mortality rates. Using officialcensus data, we can determine if there are fewer womenthan could reasonably be expected. Of course, there areperturbing variables: for example, many of the Gulfstates have very abnormal sex ratios favoring males dueto the high number of guest workers, predominantlymale, that labor in the oil economies of these states.Once we take these types of factors into account, wefind that the deficit of females in Asia is a real phenome-non (Hudson & den Boer, 2004).

3. Additional information provided by the directorof the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences via e-mail,concerning the Nando Times article, “ChinaReportedly Has 20 Percent More Males ThanFemales,” dated January 7, 1999.

4. No data are available for North Korea.5. Other statistics also factor into the observed gen-

der imbalance. In the West, for example, male suicides


24

far outnumber female suicides. But in countries withdeficits of women, female suicides outnumber malesuicides. In fact, approximately 55 percent of all femalesuicides in the world are Chinese women of childbear-ing age (Murray & Lopez, 1996).

6. For more examples, please see Hudson and denBoer (2004).

7. For a more complete cultural analysis of thesepractices in Asia, please see Hudson and den Boer(2004), Bossen (2000), Miller (2001), and Sen (1990).

8. Note that this transition is also less likely in soci-eties with a deficit of males; in such societies, menneed not marry or form permanent attachments toobtain food, shelter, sexual services, domestic services,and so forth. In that respect, societies with too fewmen and societies with too many men share somecharacteristics. Furthermore, societies in which mar-riage age is generally delayed for men can also produceinstability; for example, the average age at first mar-riage for men in Egypt is now 32 (Diane Singerman,personal communication, July 19, 2004).

References

Boone, James L. (1983). “Noble family structure andexpansionist warfare in the Late Middle Ages.” InRada Dyson-Hudson & Michael A. Little (Eds.),Rethinking human adaptation: Biological and cultur-al models (pages 79-86). Boulder, CO: Westview.

Boone, James L. (1986). “Parental investment and elitefamily structure in preindustrial states: A case studyof late medieval-early modern Portuguese genealo-gies.” American Anthropologist 88(4), 859-878.

Bossen, Laurel. (2000). “Women and development.”In Robert Gamer (Ed.), Understanding contempo-rary China (pages 309-330). Boulder, CO: LynneRienner Publishers.

China State Statistical Bureau. (2001). Major figures ofthe 2000 population census. Beijing: China StatisticsPress.

Demick, Barbara. (2003, August 18). “N. Korea’sbrides of despair.” Los Angeles Times. RetrievedNovember 10, 2005, fromhttp://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/n_koreas_brides_of_despair.htm

Dickemann, Mildred. (1975). “Demographic conse-quences of infanticide of man.” Annual Review ofEcology and Systematics 6, 107-137.

Dreze, Jean, & Reetika Khera. (2000). “Crime, gen-der, and society in India: Insights from homicidedata.” Population and Development Review 26(2),335-352.

Hudson, Valerie M., & Andrea M. den Boer. (2004).

Bare branches: The security implications of Asia’s sur-plus male population. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

India Registrar General. (2001). Census of India, 2001,Series 1: India, Paper of 2001: Provisional populationtotals. New Delhi, India: Office of the RegistrarGeneral.

Johnson, Norris R., James G. Stemler, & DeborahHunter. (1977). “Crowd behavior as ‘risky shift’: Alaboratory experiment.” Sociometry 40(2), 183-187.

Mazur, Allan, & Joel Michalek. (1998). “Marriage,divorce, and male testosterone.” Social Forces,77(1), 315-330.

McDonald, Hamish. (1991, December 26).“Unwelcome sex.” Far Eastern Economic Review154(52), 18-19.

Miller, Barbara D. (2001). “Female-selective abortionin Asia: Patterns, policies, and debates.” AmericanAnthropologist 103(4), 1083-1095.

Murray, Christopher J.L., & Alan D. Lopez (Eds.).(1996). The global burden of disease: A comprehensiveassessment of mortality and disability from diseases,injuries, and risk factors in 1990 and projected to 2020.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Oldenburg, Philip. (1992). “Sex ratio, son preference,and violence in India: A research note.” Economicand Political Weekly 27(49-50), 2657-2662.

Oster, Emily. (2005, December). “Hepatitis B and thecase of the missing women.” Journal of PoliticalEconomy 113(6), 1163-1216. Retrieved November4, 2005, from http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~eoster/hepb.pdf

Radyuhin, Vladamir. (2003, September 23). “AChinese ‘invasion.’” The Hindu. RetrievedNovember 7, 2005, from http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/1651.cfm#down

“Shenzhen’s newborn sex ratio more balanced.” (2005,April 15). Shenzhen Daily. Retrieved November 10,2005, from english.people.com.cn/200504/15/eng20050415_181218.html

Sen, Amartya. (1990, December 20). “More than 100million women are missing.” New York Review ofBooks 37(20), 61-66.

South Korea National Statistics Office. (2001). 2001report of the National Statistical Office of SouthKorea. Seoul: National Statistics Office.

United Nations Population Division. (1998). Tooyoung to die: Genes or gender. New York: UnitedNations.

United States Census Bureau. (2005). Internationaldatabase summary demographic data for Russia.Retrieved November 4, 2005, fromhttp://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbsum.pl?cty=RS

25

MONICADUFFY TOFT


The State of the Field: Demography and War

The Rise and Fall—and Rise—ofInterest in Demography and War

At its root, the importance of the link betweendemography and war is the relative capacity of agiven political unit’s population to aid in itsdefense or to threaten other political units. Forthis reason, population increase and decreasehave always been identified as vital securityissues; however, the importance of raw popula-tion as an increment of state power has waxedand waned across time in response to techno-logical innovations and broad normative socialchanges (de Bliokh, 1977; Mearsheimer, 2001).

Contemporary interest in population as asource of state military power has its origins inthe French Revolution, which unleashed thepower of the mass army on what was then aEurope ruled by monarchs in possession ofhighly specialized and relatively small profes-sional armies (Posen, 1993). Thus beyond itsnormative implications regarding the properbasis of legitimate government, the FrenchRevolution established demographics—includ-ing its emphasis on comparative birth rates—asan enduring interest of states, whether motivat-ed by greed, insecurity, or aggression.

The Industrial Revolution threatened tochange this relationship, as the railroad and thesteamship made it possible to field and main-tain mass armies, but the technology of auto-matic weapons and heavy artillery made itequally possible to destroy masses of soldierswith alarming alacrity. World War II confirmedthe importance of machine over man, becausethe armored vehicle and—in particular—thestrategic bomber appeared to make populationsmore vulnerable and at the same time less rele-vant to fighting power, except as logistical sup-port in the form of factory workers and farmers.

Since the end of World War II, the impor-tance of population as a key component ofnational security again began to rise after aseries of colonial wars in which high-tech, capi-tal-intensive militaries lost bitter contests to rel-atively low-tech, labor-intensive militaries inAsia and Africa, such as the United States inVietnam or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.Moreover, interstate wars between major pow-ers—the type of conflict that had appeared torelegate population to insignificance from the1880s to the 1940s—ceased to exist, while civilwars—in which population becomes a muchmore direct representative of a political unit’smilitary capacity—became the norm for large-scale political violence.

Today, interstate wars seem poised to make aslow comeback, but the combination of cheaptransportation technology, high birth rates inthe so-called developing world, and pride innational identity have combined to makerefugee and emigration flows a significant newfactor in the security calculations of major statesand indeed entire regions (Nichiporuk, 2000;Weiner & Teitelbaum, 2001).

Demography Matters

In short, demography matters, especiallybecause of another long-term, post-World WarII trend: the increasing democratization ofstates, including major states such as theRussian Federation. Because the foundation of

Monica Duffy Toft is an associate professor

of public policy at the John F. Kennedy

School of Government and the assistant

director of the John M. Olin Institute for

Strategic Studies, Harvard University.


25


26

democracy is the principle of majority rule,states adopting democratic forms of govern-ment find themselves keenly interested in theproportions of politically active groups thatinhabit their territories (Toft, 2003).

On the other hand, despite the conventionalwisdom that changes in the demographic com-position of states correlate with political instabil-ity and war, surprisingly little sustained scholar-ly research has addressed the issue. A search ofthe major journals devoted to war and conflictreveals that in the last 15 years only a handful ofarticles have sought to understand how demo-graphic shifts contribute to large-scale violenceboth within states and beyond them.1

There are different ways to examine theimpact of demography on war. Of the majorstudies in existence, two factors have receivedthe most attention: age and sex ratios.2 Ageratio studies examine whether a higher propor-tion of youth is associated with a higher likeli-hood of revolt and war (see, e.g., Huntington,1996). The sex ratio hypothesis holds that thegreater the imbalance in favor of men, thegreater the likelihood of instability and war(Hudson & den Boer, 2004). Although thesehypotheses have been examined, the underlyinglogic and empirical support for them remainspeculative. Despite dire warnings aboutseething populations of too many young males,neither factor has yet been shown either neces-sary or sufficient for violence to erupt.

Differential population growth among iden-tity groups has been less systematically studiedthan other demographic factors associated withconflict and war (Weiner, 1971; Toft, 2002,2005; Strand & Urdal, 2005). However, histor-ical wisdom holds that identity-group balancesare key to the stability of multi-ethnic states.The civil war in Lebanon, for example, haslargely (and accurately) been attributed to ashift in the delicate ethnic balance in that state(O’Ballance, 1998). Similar population pres-sure has been used to explain Israel’s pulloutfrom Gaza and parts of the West Bank, anddemographic balances are key to stabilizingIraq’s government. Given that demographic bal-ances and shifts are vital to the stability of

multi-ethnic states, and the vast majority ofstates on the globe are multi-ethnic, the lack ofattention is surprising.

What Causes Shifts?

The relative proportions of ethnic populationsin states might shift for a variety of reasons; dif-ferential birth/fertility rates and economicimmigration are just two explanations. Otherreasons include deliberate state manipulation(usually in the form of monetary incentives to“desired” groups to bear more children), man-made disasters such as warfare (e.g., genocide inRwanda and Burundi), and natural disasterssuch as drought (e.g., famine in Sudan andSomalia). Mass migration and resettlement,both spontaneous and forced (e.g., ethniccleansing in the former Yugoslavia), may alsocause a shift in the size of the population orshifts among key factors (e.g. sex, age, identity-group ratios).

Consider the United States: the 2000 censusrevealed that Latinos are growing at a far fasterpace than other ethnic groups. Latinos tend tohave larger families (i.e., higher fertility rates)and many immigrants—largely economic—come to the United States from Latin Americancountries with Hispanic populations. Accordingto U.S. census projections, if current trends con-tinue, Hispanics—who in 2000 constituted 13percent of the American population—will com-prise 25 percent by 2050. In his most recentbook, Samuel Huntington (2004) claims thatthe shift from a predominately white, Protestantculture to a majority Hispanic one could poten-tially lead to serious discord within theAmerican polity. Whether this discord results inconflict or violence depends on a host of factors,including whether Hispanics assimilate andAmerican political institutions adapt to thedemands of this increasing population.

Why So Little Sustained Research?

Little research has been devoted to this impor-tant issue for two reasons. First, citizens ofadvanced industrial countries popularly believe


27

that technology trumps people. This prejudice,in most cases unfounded and in some cases pos-itively dangerous, underpins a general lack ofattention to everything from demographics andwar, to the strategy and tactics of labor-inten-sive military organizations. Faith in technologyextends across a wide array of social, economic,and political problems. Second, to put it blunt-ly, the study of demography and war is incredi-bly tough: data are often not available or reli-able, and it is hard to separate out demographicdeterminants of conflict and war from moretraditional factors.

Data Availability and Reliability

In order to secure reliable demographic data, acountry must conduct and publish regular cen-suses. Censuses are not only expensive, but con-ducting them adequately also requires propertraining of field agents and analysts. Many coun-tries simply lack the resources and knowledge toconduct censuses properly. In addition, theprocess of counting a state’s population requires arelatively stable environment. Countries under-going civil strife are precisely those for which weneed data, but also those in which census-takingis hampered by conflict and violence.

Population figures are easy prey for politicalmachinations. Although censuses are vital fordetermining how to allocate goods and servicesequitably among a country’s population, theycan also be used as the basis for restrictingopportunities to members of preferred identitygroups. Data on identity groups can be manip-ulated in at least three ways: (1) the size of iden-tity groups might be increased or decreased; (2)groups themselves might be excluded altogetheror added to the figures of other groups; or (3)entire censuses could be withheld from publica-tion and public debate.

Under Josef Stalin, the Soviet Union used allthree methods: as part of the “Sovietization”project, officials were pressured to reduce thenumber of groups enumerated by the census(Clem, 1986). After the 1930s, the Migrelians,Svans, Laz, and Batsbiitsky—once identified asseparate nationalities—were merged with the

Georgians. In addition, when censuses in the1930s revealed that the size of the populationwas not what Stalin thought it should be, thestate classified the results, fearing widespreadoutrage had they revealed the true extent of thefamine caused by the Soviet regime’s collec-tivization efforts.

Some blame a contested census for the civilwar in Lebanon, which has not conducted anofficial census since 1932. The “estimated” cen-sus of 1956 was largely seen as rigged, as itexcluded a large number of Muslims, whose pop-ulation had grown at a far faster rate thanChristians (Deeb, 1980). Since political power inLebanon is distributed among the different sec-tarian groups on a proportional basis, if the cen-sus revealed that the ethnic composition of thepopulation had changed, then the distribution ofpower should change, too. But the MaroniteChristians, who controlled the census processand data, did not want to cede any power, and asa consequence they fudged the results of the cen-sus—or at least accepted a less-than-accuratecount as fact. Most outside observers agree thatChristian numbers were inflated, while Muslimnumbers were deflated. Although the census wasdiscredited, it nevertheless provided the seeds ofprotest and grievance that subsequently led tocivil war in Lebanon.

Another prominent example of how knowl-edge of shifts in the demographic balance canlead to instability and perhaps war is Israel,which has to adjust to demographic shiftsamong its Palestinian and Arab populations, aswell as population differentials among Jewsthemselves, with Orthodox and ultra-Orthodoxhaving population growth rates far greater thanthe secular Jewish population (see Fargues,2000; Berman, 2000). Israel has pulled out ofthe Gaza Strip and some of the West Bank, thusameliorating the notion of a greater Israel witha growing Palestinian population. However,Israel will still have to deal with increasing Araband Jewish-religious populations. As inLebanon, the nature of the Israeli political sys-tem affords these different groups politicalpower, so as their numbers grow, so will theirdemands from the political system. Will Israel’s

Despite the con-ventional wisdomthat changes inthe demographiccomposition ofstates correlatewith politicalinstability andwar, surprisinglylittle sustainedscholarly researchhas addressedthe issue.


28

political system be resilient enough to handlethese future demographic challenges withoutreverting to a form of apartheid, in order tohang on to large portions of the West Bank andmaintain the particularly Jewish character ofthe state of Israel?

Conclusions

In summary, demographics and war will contin-ue to be an important and policy-relevant topic.Shifts in facilitating technologies—along with, insome cases, deliberate demographic strategies forattaining power and resources—continue to beunder-researched and poorly understood, whichleads in many cases to counterproductive ordestructive aid and intervention strategies.Progress on the independent causal impact ofdemography on war will therefore demand care-ful research designs and may not be susceptibleto the kind of parsimony currently so popularamong social scientists in general, and politicalscientists in particular. Only by building a com-munity dedicated to sustained and qualityresearch can we redress this situation.

Notes

1. Exceptions include Goldstone (1991), Toft(2002, 2005), and Hudson and den Boer (2004).Excellent surveys include Levy and Krebs (2001) andCincotta, Engelman, and Anastasion (2003).

2. See commentaries in this Report by Sarah Staveteigon age ratio and conflict, and by Valerie Hudson andAndrea den Boer on sex ratio and conflict.

References

Berman, Eli. (2000). “Sect, subsidy and sacrifice: Aneconomist’s view of ultra-Orthodox Jews.”Quarterly Journal of Economics 115(3), 905–953.


Clem, Ralph S. (Ed). (1986). Research guide to theRussian and Soviet censuses. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

de Bliokh, Ivan Stanislavovich. (1977). “Populationpressure as a cause of war.” Population andDevelopment Review 3(1/2), 129-139. (Reprinted

excerpts from Volume 5 of The future of war from thepoint of view of technology, economy, and politics, St.Petersburg, 1898, translated by Michael Bolysov).

Deeb, Marius. (1980). The Lebanese civil war. NewYork: Praeger.

Fargues, Philippe. (2000). “Protracted national conflictand fertility change: Palestinians and Israelis in thetwentieth century.” Population and Development26(3), 441-482.

Goldstone, Jack A. (1991). Revolution and rebellion inthe early modern world. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press.

Hudson, Valerie, & Andrea den Boer. (2004). Barebranches: The security implications of Asia’s surplusmale population. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Huntington, Samuel P. (1996). The clash of civiliza-tions and the remaking of world order. New York:Simon and Schuster.

Huntington, Samuel P. (2004). Who are we? The chal-lenge to American identity. New York: Simon andSchuster.

Levy, Jack S., & Ronald R. Krebs. (2001).“Demographic change and sources of internationalconflict.” In Myron Weiner and Sharon StantonRussell (Eds.), Demography and national security(pages 62-105). New York: Berghahn Books.

Mearsheimer, John. (2001). The tragedy of great powerpolitics. New York: W.W. Norton.

Nichiporuk, Brian. (2000). The security dynamics ofdemographic factors. Santa Monica, CA: RANDCorporation.

O’Ballance, Edgar. (1998). Civil war in Lebanon,1975-92. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Posen, Barry. (1993). “Nationalism, the mass army,and military power.” International Security 18(2),80-124.

Strand, Håvard, & Henrik Urdal. (2005). Differentialgrowth, political instability and violent conflict. Paperpresented at the International Studies AssociationConference, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Toft, Monica Duffy. (2002). “Differential demographicgrowth in multinational states: Israel’s two-frontwar.” Journal of International Affairs 56(1), 71-94.

Toft, Monica Duffy. (2003). The geography of ethnicviolence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Toft, Monica Duffy. (2005). Population shifts and civilwar. Manuscript in preparation.

Weiner, Myron. (1971). “Political demography: Aninquiry into the political consequences of popula-tion change.” In National Academy of Sciences(Eds.), Rapid population growth: Consequences andpolicy implications (pages 567-617). Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press.

Weiner, Myron, & Michael S. Teitelbaum. (2001).Political demography and demographic engineering.New York: Berghahn Books.

SPECIAL REPORT • ENVIRONMENTAL STRESS AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE IN NEPAL

29

Introduction

Until recently, Nepal’s presence in world newswas largely limited to stories about climbersseeking to summit the world’s highest moun-tain. In the past few years, however, the decade-long civil war between government forces andMaoist insurgents has pushed those stories offthe front page. According to some analysts,Nepal is experiencing a typical form of post-Cold War conflict, in which a society’s effort todemocratize produces widespread discontentthat erupts into violence. Since the early 1990s,the Maoists have criticized the government fornot addressing social and economic inequali-ties. They contend that this inattention com-pelled them to initiate the “People’s War” in1996 (Seddon & Adhikari, 2003). Despite thefact that the monarchy legalized political partiesin 1990, the royalists have also expressed con-cerns about Nepal’s democratic experiment.King Gyanendra justified his coup d’etat onFebruary 1, 2005, by criticizing the elected gov-ernment’s inability to resolve the Maoist issue,which he promised to do within three years(Timilsina, 2005).

But debates about Nepal’s democracy do nottell us much about the origins and durability ofthe civil war. For this, we must place recentevents in a broader context that considers theturbulence endemic to a rapidly growing,youthful, and extremely unequal society, in

RICHARDMATTHEW andBISHNU RAJUPRETI

Environmental Stress and DemographicChange in Nepal: UnderlyingConditions Contributing to a Decadeof Insurgency

Richard A. Matthew is associate professor

of international and environmental politics

in the Schools of Social Ecology and

Social Science at the University of

California at Irvine, and director of the

Center for Unconventional Security Affairs

(www.cusa.uci.edu). Recent books include

Contested Grounds: Security and Conflict

in the New Environmental Politics (SUNY

Press, 1999), and Landmines and Human

Security: International Relations and War’s

Hidden Legacy (SUNY Press, 2004).

Bishnu Raj Upreti is the regional coordina-

tor for the Swiss National Centre of

Competence in Research (INCCR), North-

South, South Asia Regional Coordination

Office in Jawolakhel, Kathmandu. His

books on environmental change and

conflict include The Price of Neglect:

From Resource Conflict to the Maoist

Insurgency in the Himalayan Kingdom

(Brikuti Academic Publications, 2004). In

2001, he was a research fellow at the

Centre for Environmental Strategy at the

University of Surrey and King’s College

London.

SPECIAL REPORT

which millions of undereducated and desper-ately poor people are struggling to eke out theirdaily existence from a declining naturalresource base. Their increasingly violent strug-gle has undermined development initiatives andcaused tourism—a key source of revenue—todrop 40 percent. In a vicious cycle, violence islimiting economic opportunity, therebyencouraging higher levels of desperation andmigration, which in turn facilitates recruitmentinto more violence.

In this article, we review the broad dynam-ics of Nepal’s current civil conflict. We arguethat environmental stress and population fac-tors have played significant roles in creating theunderlying conditions for acute insecurity andinstability.1 Through a brief case study of theKoshi Tappu Wetland area, we show that thissituation is evident not just in the Maoiststrongholds of western Nepal, but even inremote areas of the east, thus encircling the cap-ital region. We conclude that it will be difficultto resolve the conflict unless the underlyingdemographic and environmental conditionsreceive more attention than they have to date.

Background to Today’s Conflict

About the size of Arkansas, Nepal is a landlockedcountry of almost 28 million people, located inthe Himalayas between China and India. Duringthe four decades following the establishment ofIndia and Pakistan as independent states—a peri-od of tremendous upheaval, turbulence, and vio-lent conflict throughout South Asia—the king-dom of Nepal seemed immune to the instabilitythat surrounded it (Pokhrel, 2001). Althoughmany of its inhabitants were desperately impover-ished—indeed, Seddon and Adhikari (2003)claim that only “20 percent of those who live inrural areas are considered [food] secure in ‘nor-mal’ times” (page 11)—the feudal system of agri-culture and government remained stable fordecades after World War II. In fact, in 1975 thelate King Birendra sought to have Nepal declareda Zone of Peace, perhaps as a way of fortifying itagainst internal dissent, as well as maintaining itsindependence from its two big neighbors(Pokhrel, 2001).

Nepal comprises three major bioregions: thefertile river plain known as the Terai in thesouth, the central hills region, and the

Chart 1: Population Distribution by Ecological Region in Nepal, 1971-2001

Source: Central Bureau of Statistics (2003), Table 2.2


30

37.6

%52

.5%

9.9%

43.6

%47

.7%

8.7%

46.7

%45

.5%

7.8%

48.4

%44

.3%

7.3%

0

5,000,000

10,000,000

15,000,000

20,000,000

25,000,000

Po

pul

atio

n

1971 1981 1991 2001

Census Year

C

Mountain(20% of land)

Hill (63% of land)

Terai(17% of land)


31

Himalaya mountain range in the north. Theeconomy is agrarian, although most householdsare not self-sufficient and rely on some non-agricultural sources of revenue (Seddon &Adhikari, 2003). Per capita GDP is estimatedto be less than US$300; 47 percent of the pop-ulation is unemployed and 42 percent livesbelow the poverty line. The median age is 20;life expectancy is 59.8; and the populationgrowth rate is 2.2 percent. Nepal is the last offi-cially Hindu country in the world, with about81 percent of its population identified as such.The literacy rate is 45.2 percent overall, whichhides the enormous gender gap (27.6 percent ofwomen are literate compared to 62.7 percent ofmen) common to many aspects of Nepali socie-ty (CIA, 2005).

The roots of modern Nepal extend back to1768, when Prithvinarayan Shah, the leader ofa small hill state called Gorkha, conquered andunified the Kathmandu Valley. The expansion-ism of the Shah kings was thwarted during the

1814-1816 war against the British, fromwhich a smaller, but fiercely independent,Nepal emerged. A Shah king, regarded as anincarnation of Vishnu, governed until 1846,when the Rana family gained control of the

Note: Map by Malanding S. Jaiteh, Center for International Earth ScienceInformation Network (CIESIN).Sources: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, International Food Policy ResearchInstitute, the World Bank, and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical. (2004).Global rural-urban mapping project (GRUMP): Gridded population of the world(Version 3, with urban reallocation). Palisades, NY: CIESIN, Columbia University.Available online at http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpwElevation: ISciences. (2003). SRTM30 enhanced global map—elevation/slope/aspect(Release 1.0). Ann Arbor: ISciences, LLC.

Elevation and Population Density in Nepal

India

China

Population Density (persons per sq km)

Less than 2525-5050-100100-200Greater than 200

Elevation (meters a.s.l.)

Less than 500500-10001000-2000Greater than 2000


32

kingdom, took over the office of prime minis-ter, married into the royal family, and ruledbehind a symbolic monarch until 1950(Gayley, 2002, page 2).

Nepal’s contemporary political historybegins in 1950, when the Nepalese people andKing Tribhuvan overthrew the ruling Ranaswith support from the government of India. ANepali democratic movement had emergedalongside India’s struggle to establish itself asan independent and democratic state in the1940s. After King Tribhuvan sought refugefrom the Ranas in India in 1950, the dissidentsincreased their agitation for democracy, leadingto the “Delhi compromise,” under which theking, the prime minister, and the Nepali con-gress agreed to hold elections (Gayley, 2002).Even with India’s support, Nepal’s experimentwith multiparty democracy was brief. WhenKing Tribhuvan’s son, Mahendra, came topower in 1962, he introduced the panchayatsystem, a form of democracy in which the kingruled with the support of numerous councils,or panchayats.

But democratic forces continued to demandchange in Nepal. Student demonstrations led toa 1980 referendum in which 55 percent of the

electorate voted to maintain a form of the pan-chayat system. External events further politicizedNepal, including the collapse of the SovietUnion, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests,expanding global support for democracy, andIndia’s 1989 decision to restrict trade after theNepali government signed an arms deal withChina, which placed considerable hardship onthe Nepali economy. By 1990, persistentprotests forced the government to agree to a newconstitution reestablishing a multiparty democ-racy, which spurred the creation of more than100 political parties and many NGOs, newspa-pers, and other politically engaged entities(Gayley, 2002). Despite these political changes,social change was slow, and the political left—the United People’s Front—fragmented in1994, when Comrade Prachanda founded theCommunist Party of Nepal-Maoists or CPN(CIA, 2005; Watchlist on Children and ArmedConflict, 2005). The “Maoists claim to haveprepared for (1994-96), launched (1996) andundertaken…their People’s War in response tothis failure of development” (Seddon &Adhikari, 2003).

Since 1996, the collapse of Nepali societyhas been truly dramatic, resulting in close to

Female agricultural workers in Nepal (Mukunda Bogati, courtesy of Photoshare)


33

13,000 deaths, more than 200,000 people dis-placed internally, and the emigration of about1.8 million. This decade of violence has cap-tured world attention, especially for its impacton children. According to the NGO Watchliston Children and Armed Conflict (2005), asmany as 12,000 girls are trafficked across theborder into India each year, primarily to workin dangerous settings and in the sex trade; a cas-cade of reports accuse Maoist and governmentforces of raping girls; approximately 200 chil-dren are killed by landmines each year; and anunknown number of children have beenrecruited by both sides of the conflict to providemilitary services. Hundreds of schools havebeen destroyed or disrupted, and teachers havebeen targeted and harassed as well as students.Although human trafficking has plagued Nepalfor decades, many of these human rights fail-ures are directly related to the civil war. From ahuman security perspective, the conflict inNepal has grown increasingly brutal and is nowunder scrutiny by the United Nations andnumerous human rights groups.

The Dynamics of the Conflict

According to Dev Raj Dahal (2004), the con-flict in Nepal emerged from two factors. First,important structural dimensions, such as therural-urban disparity—which has been aggra-vated by the government’s focus on the urbaneconomy of the Kathmandu Valley—anddeeply embedded discriminatory practices thatdefy progressive laws, such as the persistence ofan “untouchable” class (the Dalits) and themarginalization of indigenous groups andwomen. Second, these structural conditionsunderlie and shape an ideological contestamong liberals, monarchists, and communists.For example, in the midwestern hill regions ofRukum and Rolpa, where dissatisfaction withthe state was widespread, the communistsfocused initially on combating social problemssuch as human trafficking and discriminationbefore turning to force. The liberals and monar-chists, which have not formed a united front,compete with each other, ideologically and

politically. These structural and ideological fac-tors give rise to or reinforce political problemsincluding corruption, politicization of publicservice, and human rights abuses by police andmilitary personnel (for a more elaborate analy-sis, see ICG, 2003; Thapa & Sijapati, 2003;Upreti, 2001, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a).

Shobhakar Budhathoki (2004) notes thatthe vested interests of the conflict’s key playersmake resolving it extremely difficult. Accordingto Dhruba Adhikary (2004), the key playersinclude:

The monarchy: King Gyanendra’s strength isbased in part on the loyalty of the “unified com-mand” that includes the Royal Nepali Army(78,000 troops), the Nepal Police (50,000), andthe Armed Police Force (15,000). On February1, 2005, the king declared a state of emergencyand assumed command of the country.

The army: The fight against the Maoists hasallowed the Royal Nepal Army—historically aceremonial entity—to modernize its weapons,beef up its training, and gain battle experience.

The political parties: During the 1990s, adozen progressive parties gained supportamong the Nepali people, who continue to seethem as the only viable platform for democra-tization; however, infighting and corruption,especially following the king’s dissolution ofparliament in May 2002, have alienated someof the population.

If the government adopts a pro-poor approachto conservation—reconciling the ecologicallimits of the wetland with sustainable develop-ment practices and integrating the localcommunity into wetland management—theymight win back the support of the people.


34

The Maoists: The outlawed CPN is regard-ed as a terrorist organization by the state, butwields considerable control and support inmuch of the countryside.

Beyond these indigenous actors, the UnitedNations, the United States, the UnitedKingdom, neighboring countries such as Chinaand India, NGOs, and donor agencies areembroiled in the conflict through theirattempts to help broker a peace agreement. Theend result is a complicated political landscapeof scrappy, entrenched interests, none of whichappears able to win the civil war or spearheadthe formation of an alliance that could achievepeace and restore good governance. Because ofthis, many assessments of Nepal are quite bleak(Budhathoki, 2004; Pokhrel, 2001; AsianDevelopment Bank, 2005), although someobservers believe a peaceful settlement is possi-ble (Dahal, 2004).

Consideration of population and environ-mental factors is absent from most analyses ofthe conflict. Their significance, however,affirms many of the arguments made over thepast 15 years in the literature on environmentand security (see, among others, Deudney &Matthew, 1999; Homer-Dixon, 1999; Peluso& Watts, 2001).

Population Factors

The population of Nepal is young, underem-ployed, undereducated, and insecure. Accordingto the 2001 census, 40 percent of the populationis under age 15 and the median age of the popu-lation is 20.1, compared to the global average of26 (United Nations, 2002). More than 40 per-cent of the people live below the poverty line, andunemployment and underemployment are 17.4and 32.3 percent, respectively (National PlanningCommission, 2003, pages 58, 99). The officialliteracy rate, which differs from other sources, is65.5 percent for men and 42.8 percent forwomen (Central Bureau of Statistics [CBS],2003). Approximately 12,700 people have beenkilled in the 10-year civil war.

Population in this resource-thin country hasincreased more than five-fold in less than a cen-

tury. Between 1911, when the first census wastaken, and 2001, Nepal’s population increasedfrom 5.6 million to 23.2 million, and popula-tion density rose from 38.3 to 157.3 people persquare kilometer (CBS, 2003, page 3). In 2001,the population growth rate was 2.25 percentand the total fertility rate was 4.1 per woman.Although agricultural output has kept pacewith population growth (Seddon & Adhikari,2003), human welfare has not improved inmany areas of Nepal, which was ranked 143rdin the 2003 Human Development Index—andlast in South Asia (United NationsDevelopment Programme [UNDP], 2003).

As Chart 1 shows, population growth has notbeen uniform across the country, which isunderstandable given the relative scarcity of nat-ural resources in the northern mountainousarea. The rapid growth of the population in theTerai (plains) results from a combination ofbirths and migration from mountains and hills,as people are lured by better physical facilitiessuch as electricity, transportation, communica-tions, education, and health; more productiveagriculture land; and other job opportunities inthe plains. The 2001 census summarizes internalmigration: 62.8 percent rural-to-rural, 25.5 per-cent rural-to-urban, and 3.5 percent urban-to-urban migration (CBS, 2003, page 141). Therate of urbanization is also faster in the Teraithan elsewhere in Nepal. Because the Terai is sit-uated along the border with India, it also experi-ences informal and seasonal immigration.Finally, it is estimated that 200,000 to 300,000people are internally displaced due to the ongo-ing armed conflict and most of them are livingin district headquarters and urban areas.

The situation in Nepal reflects the principalfindings of Phase III of the State Failure TaskForce, which found “the odds of failure to beseven times as high for partial democracies asthey were for full democracies and autocracies”(Goldstone et al., 2000, page vi). Moreover,“low levels of material well-being” doubled theodds of state failure, and “countries with largerpopulations and higher population density had30-percent and 40-percent greater odds of statefailure, respectively” (page vi).


35

Environmental Factors

Nepal is experiencing significant environmentalpressures. About 48.4 percent of the populationlives in the Terai, which constitutes about 17 per-cent of the total land (Subedi, 2003). This land isthe most productive in the country: the averageyield of Nepal’s major crops (barley, maize, millet,paddy, wheat, and potatoes) is 1.71 metric tonsper hectare in the mountains, 2.08 in hills, and2.61 in the Terai (Subedi, 2003). In fact, only 20percent of the entire country is suitable for agri-culture, upon which 78 percent of the total popu-lation relies for subsistence. Arable land is scarcein Nepal, and its cost is out of the reach of mostpeople. The Nepal Human Development Report2004 indicates that the bottom 47 percent ofhouseholds own only 15 percent of the totalarable land, whereas the top 5 percent ownaround 37 percent (UNDP, 2004). According tothe same report, 29 percent of the people arelandless and more than 70 percent of the peasantsown less than one hectare of arable land. Thisskewed distribution of land in favor of elites hasbeen criticized by the Maoist insurgents.

In fact, the CPN has developed detailedanalyses of Nepal’s economic structure, whichit characterizes as “semi-feudal” and “semi-colonial,” along with clear recommendationsfor change (International Crisis Group,2005). These reforms include “changing pro-duction relations” by “confiscating land fromfeudals,” “mixed ownership” of land, “a pro-tected and regulated economy,” “planneddevelopment” on the Maoist model, and “bal-anced development” (International CrisisGroup, 2005, page 6).

Terai areas are highly prone to flooding—facilitated by deforestation—during the rainyseason, which compels people to move.According to UNDP (2005, page 61), forestcover declined from 37 percent to 29 percentbetween 1990 and 1995, a trend that appears tobe continuing. The growing populationdepends primarily on traditional energysources, 90 percent of which is provided byburning wood for fuel. In fact, the use of fuelwood increased slightly from 1995 to 2003,while other traditional energy sources such ascow dung declined; kerosene use remained con-

Table 1: Summary of the Structural Causes of Instability in the Koshi Tappu Wetland Area

Source: Adapted from Upreti (2004b).

Livelihood insecurity Environmental insecurity Absence of reliable andaffordable legal support

Lack of access to adequatesupplies of safe food

Lack of access to safe shelter

Lack of access to clothes

Human insecurity

Lack of access to other basicservices (such as educational andhealth facilities)

Disturbed ecological services

Irrational use of availableresources

Ineffective management

Unrealistic laws and regulationsand their abuses

Natural calamities and hazards

Non-recognition or denial ofindigenous and customarypractices

Abuse of state laws

Lack of access to laws (becausethey are not known, or peoplelack the resources or time toaccess the legal system)

Politicization of law and justice


36

stant; and petroleum gas (LPG) jumped from0.99 percent of energy in 1995 to 8.2 percentin 2004 (UNDP, 2005, page 66). The extreme-ly high dependency on wood for fuel has alsocreated air pollution and respiratory problems,in addition to producing deforestation.Flooding, land scarcity, and wood collectioncause people to encroach on ecologically fragileareas such as Siwalik (CBS, 1998).

The general environmental trends in Nepalare well-summarized by L. P. Sharma (1998):

The Midland region of Nepal is at presentunder the serious attack of environmentalmaladies. The deforestation has already beensevere, so in most of the places, there is acuteshortage of wood, fuel wood, and fodder torun daily life. The soil erosion has been non-stop phenomena [sic] aggravated floods andlandslides. In most of the hill districts ofNepal, there is shortage of food supply onaccount of low productivity and ultimatelythe carrying capacity of the land has beenseriously distorted. The out migrationprocess to the valleys, plain lands and urbanareas for better opportunities has been a reg-ular practice. (page 23)

On the whole, environmental governance inNepal is uneven and often ineffective, a reflec-tion of the broader political processes that haveafflicted the country (Upreti, 2001). Therehave, however, been improvements in someenvironmental indicators. Land protected tomaintain biological diversity increased three-fold from 1995 to 2004 (UNDP, 2005, page61). The proportion of the population with sus-tainable access to safe drinking water increasedfrom 46 percent in 1990 to 81 percent in 2005,and the proportion with sustainable access toimproved sanitation jumped from 6 percent in1990 to 39 percent in 2005, a gain realized pri-marily in urban areas (UNDP, 2005, page 70).Ironically, in some cases conservation effortshave exacerbated the environmental scarcityexperienced by the growing population of poorand landless, making them more receptive tothe rhetoric of the CPN. This is clear in our

case study of Koshi Tappu, described below, butit is also validated by our work throughout theregion with the International Union for theConservation of Nature (IUCN; 2005).

Case Study: Koshi Tappu Wetland

A case study conducted in 2004 in the KoshiTappu area by an IUCN research team (includ-ing the authors) reveals the strong relationshipsbetween indigenous communities and naturalresources in Nepal in terms of livelihood, cul-ture, tradition, and religion. This wetland area,located on the eastern Terai plains near the bor-der with India, includes the Koshi TappuWildlife Reserve and the 16 villages surround-ing it. People moved into the remote andsparsely inhabited wetland only in the mid-20th century, a migration encouraged byNepal’s government to reduce pressure on theKathmandu Valley. Today some 78,000 peoplelive in an area where the resources they dependupon are steadily becoming less available dueto changes in land tenure, poor conservationpractices, and depletion. Primary resourcesinclude gathering grass for roofing and fodder;fishing; collecting fuel, including dung anddriftwood; irrigation farming; collecting rocksfor construction; grazing livestock; and gather-ing cattails for mattresses (Bastola, n.d., pages4-5). The region’s population growth rate is 2.8percent, adding more pressure on resources(Bastola, n.d., page 3).

Nepal leased 5,000 hectares of the wetlandto India in 1954 to permit the construction of adam so that water could be diverted to irrigatefarms in the Indian state of Bihar. A wildlifereserve, established in 1976 and expanded in1979, is now classified as a Ramsar Wetland ofInternational Importance.2 Little or no com-pensation was offered for the residents’decreased access to resources and the Maoistshave channeled frustration with this situationinto support for their insurgency.

During in-depth interviews conducted onsite, representatives of the 19 ethnic groupsdependent on the case study area’s naturalresources explained that their traditional or cus-


37

tomary rights to local natural resources havebeen curtailed or denied (Upreti, 2004b;Matthew, 2005).3 Consequently, their liveli-hoods have become increasingly perilous, andtheir willingness to engage in protest and crimehas increased.

The problem has at least three interactivecauses. First, local people have seen few benefitsfrom the development of the dam, the KoshiBarrage, in part due to barriers such as languageand lack of information. For example, the con-struction of the dam relied heavily on laborimported from India. Second, in the 1950s, theavailability of abundant natural resources andfertile land attracted a large number of migrantsfrom nearby hilly regions. But as resourcesbecame relatively scarce, the construction of theEast-West Highway made the area accessible toeven more migrants from other parts of thecountry (Heinen, 1993; Sharma, 2002).Finally, conservation efforts, including the deci-sion to protect the area as a Ramsar site due toits remarkable biodiversity, have further restrict-ed access to essential resources, including fish,birds, forest products, and grasses. Reserve war-dens have introduced the political corruptionendemic throughout the country, allowingsome people to access the reserve’s resources fora fee or other considerations.

The resources that are available to the resi-dents are woefully under-serviced. Since irriga-tion facilities are inadequate, farmers dependupon rainwater. Much of the area lacks a reliablemeans of transportation, making it extremelydifficult to reach the market, schools, and hospi-tals, especially during the rainy season.

The Maoist insurgents have promised toreturn the reserve land to the local inhabi-tants, thus underscoring their appeal to thebeleaguered residents. However, a recentstudy conducted by IUCN (2005) offers somegrounds for optimism: if the governmentadopts a pro-poor approach to conserva-tion—reconciling the ecological limits of thewetland with sustainable development prac-tices and integrating the local communityinto wetland management—they might winback the support of the people.

Conclusions

The current crisis in Nepal has not only erodedsocial capital but has also ruined communityrelationships, undermining indigenous forms ofsocial networks and institutions that once gluedthe society together. The state has not been ableto reduce poverty, control the exploitation of dis-advantaged communities by those in power, pre-vent environmental degradation, or generateemployment opportunities for the large mass ofunemployed people. Semi-educated and unem-ployed youths are a handy reservoir for theMaoist insurgents, providing justification fortheir cause and recruits for their war (Cincotta,2003; Upreti, 2004a). As Nepal’s human devel-opment indicators flounder, its population con-tinues to grow, placing enormous pressure onnatural resources and on the relatively prosper-ous Kathmandu Valley.

Knitting Nepali society back together willnot be an easy task, and the current focus onpolitical reform and reducing socio-economicinequalities is essential. As we write, the CPNhas forged an alliance—brokered in India—with mainstream political parties, which isregarded by some analysts as more focused andpromising than the previously intermittent dia-logue. However, the royal palace has beenexcluded from this agreement and is trying todiscredit it. At this point in time it is unclearwhether the uneasy truce will continue, orwhether this new alliance will coax the royalistsinto a meaningful and stable settlement.

In any case, we believe that rapid populationgrowth and environmental degradation areimportant elements of what has gone wrong inNepal, and they must be addressed before sta-bility can be restored. The following recom-mendations could help provide a solid founda-tion upon which to advance the fragile politicalprocess:

• Accept and act upon the recommendationof the United Nations InternationalConference on Population and Dev-elopment, held in Cairo in 1994, whichemphasized empowering women, focusing

We believe thatrapid populationgrowth andenvironmentaldegradation areimportant ele-ments of whathas gone wrongin Nepal, andthey must beaddressed beforestability can berestored.


38

on reproductive and sexual health, andunderstanding the integral linkagesbetween population policies and develop-ment strategies.

• Shift the focus of conservation effortstoward IUCN’s pro-poor approach to con-servation, which seeks to ensure that con-servation efforts: do not further disadvan-tage the poorest people in the area of envi-ronmental concern; consider and adoptmixed-use strategies when possible; offerfair compensation in exchange for reducingaccess to resources; and respect customaryand statutory property rights.

• Use the Millennium Development Goals asa guide to policymaking and as a baseline formeasuring policy impacts.

Finally, the situation in Nepal must not besimplified into a fight against left-wing terror-ism. Rather, its complex nature—includingpopulation factors and environmental degrada-tion—must be understood so that the rest ofthe world can provide appropriate assistanceand support.

Notes

1. For a general discussion of the relationshipamong population factors, environmental stress, andstate failure, see Goldstone et al. (2000).

2. The Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar,Iran, in 1971, is an intergovernmental treaty that pro-vides a framework for national action and internationalcooperation for the conservation and use of wetlandsand their resources. There are presently 147 contract-ing parties to the convention, with 1,524 wetland sites,totaling 129.2 million hectares, designated for inclu-sion in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of InternationalImportance. For more information, seehttp://www.ramsar.org/

3. The main ethnic groups are Sunaha, Khanwas,Mallahs, Bote, Mushahars, Bantar, Gongi, Mukhia,Dushad, Sahani, Kewat, Danuwars, Darai, Kumal,Barhamus, Dhangar, Pode, Kushars, and Majhi.

References

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fesnepal.org/reports/2004/seminar_reports/paper_conflict-reporting/paper_dhruba.htm

Asian Development Bank. (2005). “Nepal.” Asiandevelopment outlook 2005 (Part 2, South Asia).Retrieved on September 20, 2005, fromhttp://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/ADO/2005/nep.asp

Bastola, Rabin. (n.d.). Ramsar sites: Threats and oppor-tunities for community development. Retrieved onNovember 21, 2005, fromhttp://www.fern.org.np/publications/ramsar.htm

Budhathoki, Shobhakar. (2004, October). “The King’scommunist conundrum.” Asian affairs. Retrievedon September 21, 2005, from http://www.asianaffairs.com/oct2004/nepal.htm

Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). (1998). A com-pendium on environmental statistics of Nepal.Kathmandu: CBS.

CBS. (2003). Population monograph of Nepal, Vol. I.Kathmandu: CBS. Available online athttp://www.cbs.gov.np/Population/Monograph/volume1_contents.htm

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). (2005). Nepal.Retrieved on September 15, 2005, fromhttp://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/np.html

Cincotta, Richard, Robert Engelman, & DanieleAnastasion. (2003). The security demographic:Population and civil conflict after the Cold War.Retrieved on November 21, 2005, fromhttp://www.populationaction.org/resources/publications/securitydemographic/index.html

Dahal, Dev Raj. (2004). Conflict dynamics in Nepal.Retrieved September 20, 2005, fromhttp://www.fesnepal.org/reports/2004/seminar_reports/report_conflict-mangmt_decont.htm

Deudney, Daniel, & Richard A. Matthew (Eds.).(1999). Contested grounds: Security and conflict inthe new environmental politics. Albany: SUNY Press.

Gayley, Holly. (2002, Winter). “Gyanendra’s test:Nepal’s monarchy in the era of democracy.”Harvard Asia Quarterly VI(1). Retrieved onNovember 21, 2005, fromhttp://www.fas.harvard.edu/~asiactr/haq/200201/0201a009.htm

Goldstone, Jack A., et al. (2000). State Failure TaskForce report: Phase III findings. Retrieved onNovember 21, 2005, from http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/stfail/SFTF%20Phase%20III%20Report%20Final.pdf

Heinen, J.T. (1993). “Park-people relations in KoshiTappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal: A socio-economicanalysis.” Environmental Conservation 20(1), 25-34.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (1999). Environment, scarcity,and violence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

International Crisis Group (ICG). (2003, October 22).


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Nepal: Back to the gun (Asia Briefing No. 28).Kathmandu/Brussels: ICG.

ICG. (2005, November 28). Nepal’s new alliance: Themainstream parties and the Maoists (Asia Report No.106). Kathmandu/Brussels: ICG. Retrieved onNovember 29, 2005, from http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3810&l=1

International Union for the Conservation of Nature(IUCN). (2005). Livelihood security in South Asia.Retrieved on November 21, 2005, fromhttp://www.iucn.org/places/asia/livelihood/index.html

Matthew, Richard A. (2005). Sustainable livelihoods,environmental security and conflict mitigation: Fourcases in South Asia (Poverty, Equity and Rights inConservation Working Paper Series). Geneva:IUCN. Available online at http://www.iucn.org/themes/spg/Files/IUED/Case%20Study%20South%20Asia.pdf

National Planning Commission. (2003). Tenth five-year plan. Kathmandu: National PlanningCommission.

Peluso, Nancy, & Michael Watts (Eds.). (2001). Violentenvironments. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Pokhrel, Gokul. (2001). History of conflict in Nepal.Retrieved on September 22, 2005, fromhttp://www.fesnepal.org/reports/2004/seminar_reports/paper_conflict-reporting/paper_gokul.htm

Seddon, David, & Jagannath Adhikari. (2003).Conflict and food security in Nepal: A preliminaryanalysis. Kathmandu, Nepal: Rural ReconstructionNepal. Retrieved on September 25, 2005, fromhttp://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/cpcm/mission/nepal_food03.pdf

Sharma, L. P. (1998). “Geography.” In CBS (Ed.), Acompendium on environmental statistics of Nepal(pages 20-27). Kathmandu: CBS.

Sharma, R. K. (2002). Conservation and sustainable useof wetland resources in Nepal: Socio-economic andcultural dimensions. Kathmandu: IUCN Nepal.

Subedi, Bhim Prasad. (2003). “Population and envi-ronment: A situation analysis of population, culti-vated land and basic crop production in Nepal in2001.” In CBS (Ed.), Population monograph ofNepal, Vol. 2 (pages 1-36). Kathmandu: CBS.Available online at http://www.cbs.gov.np/Population/Monograph/volume2_contents.htm

Thapa, Deepak, & Bandita Sijapati. (2003). A king-dom under siege: Nepal’s Maoist insurgency, 1996 to

2003. Kathmandu: The Printhouse.Timilsina, Amga R. (2005, September 21). A plan for

the post-conflict reconstruction of Nepal (FPIF PolicyReport). Silver City, NM & Washington, DC:Foreign Policy in Focus. Retrieved on September26, 2005, from http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/683

United Nations. (2002). “Population ageing: facts andfigures.” Building a society for all ages. Retrieved onNovember 21, 2005, from http://www.un.org/ageing/prkit/factsnfigures.htm

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).(2003). Human development report. New York:United Nations.

UNDP. (2004). Nepal human development report.Kathmandu: United Nations DevelopmentProgramme.

UNDP. (2005). Nepal Millennium Development Goals:Progress report 2005. Retrieved on September 15,2005, from http://www.undp.org.np/publications/mdg/index.html

Upreti, Bishnu Raj. (2001). Conflict management in nat-ural resources: A study of land, water and forest conflictin Nepal (published doctoral dissertation).Wageningen, Netherlands: Wageningen University.

Upreti, Bishnu Raj. (2003a, April). Social exclusion,centralism and conflict: Challenges for conflict trans-formation in Nepal. Paper presented at the SocialScience Baha conference “The Agenda ofTransformation: Inclusion in Nepali Democracy” inKathmandu, Nepal.

Upreti, Bishnu Raj. (2003b). Management of social andnatural resource conflict in Nepal: Reality and alter-native. New Delhi: Adroit Publishers.

Upreti, Bishnu Raj. (2004a). The price of neglect: Fromresource conflict to the Maoist insurgency in theHimalayan Kingdom. Kathmandu: BrikutiAcademic Publications.

Upreti, Bishnu Raj. (2004b). Sustainable livelihoods,environmental security, and conflict mitigation inprotected areas of Nepal: Trends and challenges(Preliminary Draft Report). Kathmandu: IUCN.

Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict. (2005,January). Caught in the middle: Mounting violationsagainst children in Nepal’s armed conflict. New York:Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict.Retrieved on September 25, 2005, fromhttp://www.watchlist.org/reports/nepal.report.20050120.pdf


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Introduction

During two days in late July 2005, the Maradirefugee camp in Niger took in hundreds ofmalnourished children—and one truck justhalf filled with food supplies (Koinange,2005). The United Nations World FoodProgram announced it would begin airlifting23,000 tons of food to Niger, where GiancarloCirri, the program’s director, reported “someof the worst hunger I have ever witnessed”(CNN, 2005). But the promised food wasslow to arrive.

Less than 2,000 miles away, impoverishedrural communities in northern Kenya workedto recover from a brutal bloodletting in whichcattle rustlers killed villagers, who killed rightback in reprisal. At least 80 people died.

“Explosive population growth has increasedpressure on land, forcing farmers to sell cropson ‘corridors’ traditionally used by migratingherders for access to rivers, further stoking con-flict,” commented Reuters reporter EdStoddard (2005) in a news story about a spateof deadly conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa relatedto land scarcity.

“‘This is the age-old farmer/herder conflict,the old Biblical tale of Cain and Abel. The

struggle over resources between people who areusing them in different ways,’ said HenriJosserand, the head of the UN’s Food andAgriculture Organization’s Global Informationand Early Warning System,” Stoddard reported.

Thus did the journalist and the UN officialspeak to an issue only occasionally addressedin most recent discussions of hunger and con-flict in developing countries: the human andenvironmental impact of population growththat, contrary to some perceptions, continuesin most of the world. In this article I will firstconsider this issue in the context of theseevents in Niger and Kenya. Second, I willbriefly survey some current views andapproaches in the non-governmental, academ-ic, and international communities. Third, Iwill address four questions I was asked by atask force reviewing population issues for theDavid and Lucile Packard Foundation:

• What are the connections among reproduc-tive health, education, economic opportuni-ty, and natural resources?

• Does preservation of Earth’s natural systemsremain a viable rationale for programsdesigned to slow population growth?

• What kinds of message frames are mosteffective for influencing policymakersinvolved with decision-making aroundresource allocations for foreign aid for repro-ductive health in the case of donor countries,and public resources for reproductive health

Speaking Truth to Silence: There’s Stilla Place for the Demographic Case

SPECIAL REPORT

ROBERTENGELMAN

Robert Engelman is vice president for

research at Population Action

International.

SPECIAL REPORT • A PLACE FOR THE DEMOGRAPHIC CASE

41

in developing countries?• What is the connection between the demo-

graphic transition and political stability indeveloping countries?

Finally, I will suggest some ideas and directionsfor future population-environment (PE) fund-ing and work.

Population Trends: Underrated,Uncelebrated

Increasing population density is, of course,hardly the only or most immediate factor inNiger’s hunger or Kenya’s land conflicts. Ifthere is any consensus on population’s influ-ence on human affairs and the natural envi-ronment, it is that its role is complex, indirect,and inevitably entangled with other factors(Marquette & Bilsborrow, 1999). For decades,the poorest of Niger’s rural population havesuffered severe hunger periodically, and the2005 crisis has been blamed in part on free-market policies that the country’s governmentadopted under pressure from the World Bank(Timberg, 2005; Vasagar, 2005). Based onbenchmarks developed by Population ActionInternational (PAI) for population-relatedshortages of critical natural resources, forexample, Niger is neither water-stressed norshort of cropland on a per capita basis.1 It doeshave little forested land, however, and its pro-jected population growth would make itwater-stressed within roughly a decade.

If Nigerien and Kenyan farmers were as pro-ductive as those of Iowa or Thailand, and iftheir governments were comparably effectiveand accountable, it is reasonable to presumethat none of this would be happening today.But are these “non-demographic factors” likelyto improve enough to negate the impact of con-tinuing population growth in Niger and Kenya?If high food prices in the West African regionaleconomy are a factor in Niger’s hunger, forexample, might those prices stem in part from adynamic in which demand is rising faster thansupply, a dynamic that weak governments areunable to prevent or mitigate? Those of us con-

cerned with population and reproductive healthshould be trying to find answers to questionslike these.

The historic slowing of the world’s popula-tion growth in recent years is in large part dueto four decades of private and public donorassistance to the international family planningmovement. Most current analysts fail to askwhy this demographic revolution is happen-ing—and then assume that it is now completeor soon will be. It is neither. The planet’shuman population still gains more than200,000 people a day, a quarter of them inAfrica, where the fastest growth occurs.2 Yetwell over half the daily increment is Asian,enlarging populations in China and much lessstable regions, including the Middle East,South Asia, and the Philippines. More than5,000 a day are born in the United States,which, like many developed and developingcountries, also gains a few thousand peopleeach day who were born in other countries,on other days.

From governmental policy papers to thepages of newspapers, however, ongoing popu-lation growth is notoriously hard to makeexciting, fresh, or worth exploring.Demographic pundits take more interest inpopulation aging. Environmental pundits takemore interest in consumption. Poverty andconflict pundits take more interest in anythingbut the dynamics of human population. Thereasons are understandable: population hasalways been controversial, and, frankly, itsrelation to human and natural well-being iscomplex, indirect, and inevitably entangledwith other factors. What makes it worth pur-suing by advocates and donors, however, isarguably more relevant than ever: slower pop-ulation growth—yielded by women and cou-ples bearing the number of children theyintend—has major cross-cutting benefits thatmultiply with time. It is hard to imagineanother achievable development trend with somuch long-term promise for environmentalconservation and global stability.


42

Still Waiting for DemographicTransition

News accounts of Niger’s hunger crisis in sum-mer 2005 uniformly failed to note that thesmall nation is the caboose on the train of glob-al demographic transition. While most coun-tries have moved significantly toward longerlifespans and smaller families, Niger’s total fer-tility rates (TFR) and life expectancy have bare-ly budged since independence in 1960. Thecountry has the world’s highest TFR (7.5 chil-dren per woman) and second highest infantmortality rate (nearly 15 percent). Because somany of its infant girls fail to reach the medianreproductive age, Niger’s replacement fertilityrates are the third highest in the world, at 3.15children per couple. Only 4.3 percent of mar-ried women of reproductive age use moderncontraception, the seventh lowest proportionworldwide. Despite relatively low HIV/AIDSprevalence (less than 2 percent of reproductive-age adults), a baby born in Niger is likely to diebefore reaching age 45, the 18th lowest lifeexpectancy in the world (UN PopulationDivision, 2005).

This dismal demographic and health profilehardly condemns the impoverished country toperpetual famine. Niger’s government and insti-tutions are weak, and a world obsessed with ter-rorism and a teetering global economy puts littlepriority on donating food or providing assis-tance to Niger’s 12 million to 14 million peo-ple.3 Foreign investment is close to nonexistent,and the country has no pool of emigrants tosend home remittances. Government donorsprovided just $5.8 million annually—one dollarfor each person of reproductive age—for popu-lation activities from 1992 to 2002 (UNPopulation Fund, 2004).

Economists, journalists, and other analystswho are counting on an “expected” world popu-lation of nine billion in 2050, based on theUnited Nations’ medium projection, aren’t pay-ing attention to Niger and countries like it. Totalfertility rates have barely edged downward forthe past six decades, but despite the current lowlevel of donor and government investment in

family planning, UN demographers projectfuture Nigerien population based on theassumption that total fertility will fall to lessthan half its current level over the next fourdecades. This could happen, but there is nocompelling reason to expect it to do so, absentmajor increases in family-planning assistancethat are nowhere in sight. The UN’s “medium”world population projection, which drives mostfuturist thinking, is based on the assumptionthat the developing world as a whole will reachreplacement fertility before mid-century. ButUN demographers lack the resources to incor-porate country-specific fertility trends, muchless those related to population policy and fund-ing, in their assumptions. The experience ofcountries like Niger undermines the expectationthat world population trends will follow the“expected” path.

A landlocked country of subsistence farmers,Niger scarcely registers on the priority lists ofmajor foundations and governments. But itsdirection in 2005 nonetheless speaks to theimportance of philanthropy and governmentaid in enabling all people to choose the timingof childbirth. Niger’s hunger crisis and Kenya’sland conflict are recent, news-making illustra-tions of a growing set of problems that closelyrelate to the complex relation between humanpopulation dynamics and the natural environ-ment. These problems are more urgent thanmere “population impacts on the environ-ment,” because they deal with death fromhunger and violence.

It is hard to find consensus views on popu-lation’s connections to natural resources, theenvironment, security, and economics. Thefield remains not only controversial but mar-ginal in scientific and policy discussions. Itsprofile rose somewhat in the 1990s but hasfallen since. Most in the small community ofscholars, policy analysts, and activists whoponder these connections agree that the nexusof human population and the natural environ-ment is critically important to humanity’sfuture. They agree that population dynamicsare some of most important factors in environ-mental change. Many also agree that govern-

The historic slow-ing of the world’s

populationgrowth in recentyears is in largepart due to four

decades ofprivate and

public donorassistance to the

internationalfamily planning

movement.


43

ments need to act to make family planningand reproductive health care genuinely accessi-ble to all, along with more education and bet-ter economic opportunities for girls andwomen. It is a logical, practical, and consistentmessage—and for understandable reasons, ithas gone stale.

The Rise and Fall of NGO Interest

Philanthropic funding for PE research andadvocacy rose sharply in the 1990s and then fellalmost as dramatically in the next decade(Gibbs, 2003). Not surprisingly, PE activity bynon-profits also fell in tandem, but whether thiswas a cause or an effect (or both) of the drop infunding is hard to discern. One likely explana-tion: despite good efforts and a few logicalsound bites, a compelling and easily communi-cated advocacy case for funding family plan-ning activities worldwide failed to materialize.Most environmentalists found the complexitiesof the nexus and its sensitive connections togender, North-South tensions, and immigra-tion too daunting and too “far from mission” toembrace. Population and reproductive healthgroups had, for obvious reasons, invested more

in the effort (and many continue to pursue it).But all of us are hampered by the palpabledecline in interest from most quarters.

The PE connection appears to be simultane-ously obvious and complicated—and just notthat interesting to most people. The widespreadmisperception that population growth is slow-ing so fast it will soon reverse course “on itsown” undermines advocacy for policies thatwould slow population growth. The manyother benefits of these policies—better access tofamily planning services, more girls in school,more women working and gaining access tocredit—help, but not enough.

This loss of interest goes beyond the envi-ronmental connection to population. The keyconcept of reproductive health, a triumph ofinternational agreement at the United NationsInternational Conference on Population andDevelopment (ICPD) in 1994, failed to gain asingle mention in the UN’s MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs) six years later.4

Reproductive health advocates are now workingto clarify the concept’s importance in the sup-porting materials for the MDGs, but the origi-nal omission can scarcely be waved away(Crossette, 2004b). Within the already-margin-

Madagascar: mothers stand in line to have their children weighed (Courtesy of USAID)


44

alized field of reproductive-health-as-develop-ment, the demographic arguments that heldsway in past decades are virtually silent. A fewexceptions, such as the work of Jeffrey Sachs5

and Jared Diamond (2004), stand out as wel-come signs of life in the demographic case.

Interestingly, the debate between “popula-tion-environmentalists” and advocates forwomen’s rights and health that characterizedmuch of the 1990s has largely fallen silent. BetsyHartmann, director of the Hampshire CollegePopulation and Development Program, stillspeaks occasionally on the topic. The CornerHouse, a British nonprofit, recently published acritique of the idea that “youth bulges” (dispro-portionately large numbers of youth) may con-tribute to civil conflict (Hendrixson, 2004).Most other women’s rights and health advocatesuncomfortable with demographic messagesknow they have won the skirmish and see noneed to keep fighting. Mentions of demographicchange are all but absent from most intergovern-mental and NGO meetings on sexual and repro-ductive health and rights.

The PE linkage does thrive in a humbler set-ting: the few dozen community conservationand development projects in which reproductivehealth is combined consciously with naturalresource management. This operational linkage,difficult to explain and even harder to monitorand evaluate, has not taken the community-development world by storm. Some projectshave disappointed. But in the projects’ margin-alized rural communities, women and their fam-ilies are finding the synergy that personal man-agement of fertility, health, and the local envi-ronment appears to create.

New directions in the NGO arena appearpromising. Many groups working on this link-age strategically include health as well, turningthe “PE” acronym into the less demographicallyedgy “PHE.” This explicit inclusion makessense, because the pivotal center of the PE con-nection is human health and well-being.Environmental groups such as the NationalAudubon Society, the National WildlifeFoundation, the Sierra Club, and the IzaakWalton League continue small PE programs.

Most of the major population NGOs maintainat least some activity in this arena.

Innovative approaches could bring clarity tonew audiences. Roger-Mark De Souza, techni-cal director of the Population ReferenceBureau’s (PRB) population, health, and envi-ronment program, reports that PRB uses “newpoints of entry” to bring policymakers andcommunities to the PE linkage (personal com-munication, August 10, 2005). Constituenciesare approached on such issues as poverty allevi-ation, food security, and disaster mitigation—especially in the wake of the December 2004tsunami—and then gradually introduced toreproductive health, the environment, and theirrelationships to these issues. “You could see thatthe destruction of the tsunami was exacerbatedby unsustainable management of naturalresources, migration, and other populationdynamics such as age structure,” De Souza says.“None of this, of course, was well document-ed.”

Researchers: Let a ThousandFlowers Bloom

Common perceptions about population and theenvironment have impeded the production ofrespectable research. The academic communityassociates interest in population growth withpredictability and shrill advocacy, and under-standably wants to distance itself from these.There have been no overviews of population andthe environment since the 1990s, and only onebalanced but tame scientific policy statement(i.e., Global Science Panel on Population andthe Environment, 2001).6

“The field has matured,” notes Alex deSherbinin, coordinator for the Population andEnvironment Research Network, a project ofthe International Union for the Scientific Studyof Population (IUSSP; personal communica-tion, August 3, 2005). “More scientists arereluctant to engage in Paul Ehrlich-type ‘popu-lation-bomb’ discourse. If anything, they takepains to go the other direction and say popula-tion is a non-factor.” Scholars are increasinglytaking apart and analyzing the components of


45

the population-environment linkage in what deSherbinin calls a “nuts-and-bolts approach.”

“When you say population and environ-ment, what does it really mean? People are nowdisaggregating population into age structure,household characteristics, gender, income. Ithink it’s very exciting work.” Some researchersdecry the failure to develop any specific theoryof population and the environment—or even toagree on key methodologies such as those thatproduce widely cited population projections.De Sherbinin appreciates the diversity and feelsit may lead to better understanding of the link-age: “I say let a thousand flowers bloom.” Buthe acknowledges it has been harder to gainfunding for some of this work from founda-tions interested in policy advocacy, or at leastpolicy relevance.

“It’s a nuanced approach that I think mayyield better understanding of what the policylevers are,” de Sherbinin says. “We’re trying tomake population and environment relevant topolicymakers beyond simply saying that youneed to spend more money on family planningor environmental conservation. But the diversityof research results sometimes makes it hard to fitinto the traditional policy frame.” In this case,what may be good for scientific respectability—population and environment sessions are nowuniversal events at meetings of the IUSSP andthe Population Association of America—may beless useful for advancing the population andreproductive health policy agenda.

PE Policy: Exceptions Prove theRule, but Hint at Hope

In the absence of clear interpretations eitherfrom academia or NGO advocates, it is hardlysurprising that policymakers rarely have muchto say on the population-environment linkage.In the United States, the advocacy communitiesfor both international reproductive health andthe environment feel besieged as the WhiteHouse and Congress take their cues from thereligious and economic right. But even inEuropean capitals and in the offices of theWorld Bank and the United Nations, only the

bravest of bureaucrats acknowledge intersec-tions between population and the environment.The linkage is a marginal topic embedded in amarginal issue, population growth, which itselfis the victim of low levels of both public andelite interest. Europe faces the challenges ofaging and declining populations and under-standably feels a heavy hand on rapid popula-tion growth in developing countries wouldcome off as arrogant and “post-colonial.”Universally, the risks of—and responses to—ongoing population growth have been almostimpossible to bring to the world stage since theICPD in 1994, despite high hopes that therights and development framework emergingfrom the conference would make it easier toaddress demographic change.

Half of the eight MDGs (empower women,reduce child mortality, improve maternalhealth, and combat HIV/AIDS) relate strong-ly to reproductive health, despite the lack ofmention. The seventh goal—“ensure environ-mental sustainability”—is a logical platformfor considering demographic-environmentalconnections. Some UN supporting languagefor the MDGs noted the contribution of pop-ulation growth to water scarcity, urban crowd-ing, and increased greenhouse gas emissions.Population and total fertility, however, were

Population aging will challenge societies, butthat challenge pales in comparison with thosepresented by advancing water scarcity, climatechange, and the loss of nature itself. Withoutthe peaking and decline of population thatreplacement or sub-replacement fertility willeventually produce, natural resource use isunlikely ever to be sustainable.


46

dubbed “general indicators of development,”isolated from achievement of any of the goals.

The linkage of population growth to envi-ronmental and social problems gained a bitmore attention from the Commission for Africa(2005), launched by British Prime MinisterTony Blair and made up primarily of Africanrepresentatives. The panel’s 461-page reportmentioned the rapid demographic growth thecontinent has experienced in the last fewdecades, connected this growth in general termswith many of Africa’s development challenges,and called at several points for attention toreproductive health access and more educationof girls. The report’s attention to these linkagesserved to underline that the linkage remainsalive in international affairs, even if it is rarelyvisible. Difficult as it is for most policymakersand analysts to take on directly, the linkage maybe too powerful and obvious to completelyescape mention for long.

In an even more surprising acknowledg-ment of the PE connection, in 2002 Congressdirected the U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID) to include in its alloca-tion of family planning assistance money “areaswhere population growth threatens biodiversi-ty or endangered species.” (H.R. 2506, 2001).Despite the generally hostile environment inWashington for almost all things population orenvironment, this language became appropria-tions law and has now survived three fundingcycles. Perhaps no other recent developmentbetter illustrates the potential for application ofthe population-environment linkage toimprove human and environmental conditionsworldwide. The legislation led directly to thefounding in 2002 of a PHE program withinUSAID to fund projects providing reproduc-tive health services in and around biodiversity“hotspots,” areas of high biological diversityunder direct human threat. That program, inturn, proved complementary to private philan-thropic funding for reproductive health inhigh-priority conservation countries.

The USAID program already has providedan estimated $9 million to projects linking nat-ural resources management and improved

access to reproductive health care in eight bio-diversity-rich countries: Madagascar, thePhilippines, Kenya, Tanzania, Guatemala,Nepal, Cambodia, and the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo. USAID country mis-sions in the Philippines, Nepal, Tanzania,Madagascar, and Cambodia have each added tothe total by committing $200,000 to $300,000for integrated projects in their countries. Andthey have added a cross-sectoral focus to theirown strategies for addressing such multifactorchallenges as HIV/AIDS and fragile states.Many grantees—largely conservation organiza-tions such as World Wildlife Fund-U.S.,Conservation International, and the JaneGoodall Institute—had recently lost the sup-port of private foundations for similar work, sothe U.S. government money came not amoment too soon.

Are these projects valuable, or do they mere-ly bring a dollop of added family-planningaccess to a few thousand couples among theworld’s billions? A recent review by independ-ent consultant John Pielemeier of 17 projectssupported by the Packard Foundation andUSAID concluded that most were achievingresults within 9-36 months, producing repro-ductive health and environmental outcomessuperior to those of single-sector interventions,and—critically—drawing boys and men toreproductive health care and women to natu-ral-resource education and management.7 Suchprojects increase the acceptability of contracep-tion by linking it to women’s need to managetheir time in increasingly complex livelihoodroles stemming from male migration. As anadded benefit, project stories can teach thepublic and policymakers that reproductivehealth is an essential component in economicdevelopment and well-being in every corner ofthe world.

The future of this work seems uncertain,with USAID itself operating under an ongoingthreat of international-assistance “restructur-ing.” Absent major change, however, the U.S.government will be the major funder of appliedPE work in developing countries until majorprivate donors return to this work.


47

The Four Questions: What Are the Connections?

Population size is the dominant determinant ofthe scale of humanity and its activities on a plan-et of finite space and resources. Consumptionpatterns also help determine this scale, especiallywhen models of excess encourage societies andconsumers to acquire at the expense of commu-nity, sustainability, and shared well-being.However, no variation in individual behaviorcould prove as decisive as the planetary imprintof 6.5 billion human beings, compared to thatof the small numbers that characterized ourspecies in prehistory. The actions societies taketoday can determine whether populationgrowth ends in our lifetimes because birth ratesfall, or in generations from now because deathrates rise.

Universal access to decent family planningservices, education for girls through at leastsecondary school, and a full array of economicand social opportunities for women wouldalmost certainly bring global total fertilityrates to replacement levels within two or threedecades. Maybe they would go lower still.Population aging will challenge societies, butthat challenge pales in comparison with thosepresented by advancing water scarcity, climatechange, and the loss of nature itself. Withoutthe peaking and decline of population thatreplacement or sub-replacement fertility willeventually produce, natural resource use isunlikely ever to be sustainable except for theworst of reasons: low availability and highprices that continually worsen as human num-bers keep growing.

Is Preserving Natural Systems aRationale for Slowing PopulationGrowth?

In each of the Earth’s major natural cycles orsystems—renewable fresh water, carbon and cli-mate, fertile soils, forests, fisheries, the oceans,coastal and marine areas, wetlands, and the bio-logical diversity of life itself—the single biggestagent of change today is the scale of human

exploitation and use, and the biggest questionsconcern the future of that scale. Managing theglobal environment requires more appropriatebehavior and technology. But a growing worldrequires constant effort to modify behavior andtechnology, and laws of diminishing returnsundermine such strategies over time. No oneknows when and at what levels human popula-tion will level off and begin to graduallydecline, so no one can predict with confidencewhen the overall scale of human activity willbegin to recede.

Some of these systems—climate and fisheriesglobally, and soils and fresh water in somecountries—are now approaching crisis stage.The stories of Niger and Kenya illustrate thehuman dangers and tragedies associated withignoring such crises. Trends in human energyuse and settlement infrastructure (housing,transportation, and sanitation) are more worri-some today than they have been in decades orlonger. Policies that result in slower populationgrowth would produce expanding—not dimin-ishing—returns over time.

What Messages InfluencePolicymakers?

The education of key policymakers (or theirstaffs) can produce change, even in a challeng-ing policy climate. Each government includes atleast a handful of potential leaders, and as theworld’s future grows more uncertain, more vot-ers are likely to demand precautionary policy-making rather than business as usual. Balancedpolicy advocacy that combines good sciencewith practical advice can be effective, even ifsometimes overwhelmed by raw politicalmaneuvering. No messages resonate with allpolicymakers, but many respond to suchthemes as:

• Encouraging women’s contributions to theirsocieties by reducing gender inequality andencouraging autonomy;

• Enabling children to survive by assuring theavailability of safe water, adequate food, andclean air;


48

• Reducing rather than adding to the unfair-ness of life;

• Helping those who want to help themselves;and

• Leaving the planet and its living things noworse off than when we arrived.

At PAI, we have found that nothing con-vinces lawmakers like a visit to a family planningclinic in a developing country. There are risks incalling attention to national and local impacts ofpopulation growth, but it seems likely thatAmericans are feeling “population pressure”more acutely than ever in the rising prices ofenergy and housing. As these and similar dis-comforts continue, there may be new ways torelate the experience of voters to the actions oftheir elected officials that influence the course ofworld population and the global environment.

What Connects DemographicTransition and Political Stability?

In our report The Security Demographic:Population and Civil Conflict After the Cold War,Richard Cincotta, Daniele Anastasion, and I(2003) experimented with a new frame for con-sidering demographic change as a causal factorin human affairs. Rather than focus directly onpopulation growth, which is off-putting tomany audiences and is rarely the only demo-graphic factor involved, the report considereddemographic transition as the salient variable inthe case of civil (internal or intrastate) conflict.This concept has the conceptual and advocacyadvantage of stressing survival rates, lifeexpectancy, and general development as muchas total fertility and birth rates. Moreover, ourdata indicated that progress through the demo-graphic transition correlates strongly withreductions in the risk of new civil conflicts inany period. Several interacting factors appearedto be at work:

• High proportions of young men aged 15-29,who, if not optimally employed, search forless positive and often violent ways to vali-date their lives;

• Low availability of cropland, encouragingyoung people to move to cities; and

• Rapid urban population growth, stemmingin part from the first two factors and provid-ing locales for a critical mass of disaffectedyoung people to organize for conflict.

Ironically, this dynamic ends up not onlypredicting to some extent the potential for con-flict but producing a “surprisingly hearteningview of the future,” as Jack Goldstone (2004)noted in ECSP Report 10. As countries movethrough the demographic transition—as mostare—their vulnerability to civil conflict shoulddecrease, offering hope for a more peacefulworld. Hence, those concerned about securityshould promote access to reproductive health,HIV/AIDS prevention, and other measuresthat tend to contribute to lower death rates andlower birth rates. It is too early, however, to saythat this linkage between demographic transi-tion and political stability is fully understood,much less accepted, among policymakers. PAIis continuing its research and would welcomemore academic and policy researchers joiningin the study of demographic factors in conflictand security.

A Strategy for Funding and NewWork: Hypothesis andOpportunism

For understandable but unfortunate reasons, theU.S. philanthropic community has largelyturned away from the population-environment-security-livelihood connection over the last sev-eral years. Many of the foundations that bestunderstood this linkage have suffered financialreversals and have focused their limited funds ontheir core areas. New funding strategies are nec-essary—and possible. Funders, researchers, andadvocates might consider strategies based onclearly articulated hypotheses of how populationdynamics interact with the environment andhuman well-being, and how those dynamics canbe influenced. Hypotheses help to make sense ofthe world’s complexity by helping us selectopportunities from the myriad possibilities and

Those concernedabout security

should promoteaccess to

reproductivehealth, HIV/AIDSprevention, and

other measures thattend to contribute

to lower deathrates and lower

birth rates. It is tooearly, however, to

say that this linkagebetween demo-

graphic transitionand political

stability is fullyunderstood, much

less accepted,among

policymakers.


49

ultimately build theories of how the worldworks. The lack of theory in population andreproductive health is among the reasons policy-makers do not pay more attention to these disci-plines. We should monitor the globe for oppor-tunities to test and refine our hypotheses incountries facing PE challenges, and target fund-ing to these efforts. If confidence in the useful-ness of these hypotheses grows, they can beapplied to communication and advocacy efforts.

Continuing to implement, support, anddocument PHE projects in developing coun-tries is vital. Though the operational linkagestill needs better documentation, and clearerindications that its impact can be broadenedfrom thousands to millions, these projects pro-vide material for communication and advocacyby demonstrating that connecting reproductivehealth to the environment can improve lives.The world needs to see the faces of the womenand their families in whose lives these factorsunite to build livelihoods, well-being, and thesurvival of nature.

Success is hardly foreordained with a realityso complex. Most policymakers may be silenton the linkage of population dynamics withenvironmental change and human well-being.But voices of influence recognize the impor-tance of this linkage and help keep awareness—and the possibility of strategic action—alive. Ifwe are right to believe that rapid populationgrowth makes critical natural resources scarcerand that stalled demographic transition con-tributes to political instability, the unfolding offuture events, sadly, will validate our hypothe-sis. But the hypothesis works as well in reverse.We can educate policymakers. We can act onthe linkage. We can improve lives by promotingwith one strategy reproductive health, thedemographic transition, and environmentalsustainability. No private or public donorstoday support such work on the scale required.Many can—and should.

Author’s Note: This article is a revision of apaper written for the David and Lucile PackardFoundation in August 2005. I thank ElizabethLeahy of PAI and Jennifer Dusenberry of

Georgetown University for research assistance, andTom Outlaw for information on USAID’s popula-tion, health, and environment program. Theopinions expressed here are my own.

Notes

1.For more on PAI’s natural-resource benchmarksof stress and scarcity, see Cincotta et al. (2003); see alsothe methodology section of PAI’s People in the Balance:Update 2004 (Engelman, 2004).

2. World and African population gains calculatedbased on annual figures from United NationsPopulation Division (2005).

3. The higher figure is the most recent mediumprojection for 2005 by the United Nations PopulationDivision. The lower figure is from Soumana Harounaet al. (2005), writing for the Nigerien Ministry of theEconomy and Finances.

4. For the UN documents that established thesegoals, please see http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/,particularly the Millennium Declaration and theSecretary General’s Report.

5. “I do say that in many parts of rural Africa thereis absolutely a Malthusian crisis under way, ” JeffreySachs told Barbara Crossette (2004a, page 34).

6. According to its web-based statement, “theGlobal Science Panel comprises over 30 distinguishedscientists from various disciplines and comes under thejoint patronage of Maurice Strong and Nafis Sadik.The Panel is coordinated by Wolfgang Lutz andMahendra Shah, and receives financial support fromthe UNFPA, the government of Austria, and theMacArthur Foundation.” For more information seehttp://www.iiasa.ac.at/gsp/

7. A summary of John Pielemeier’s presentation atthe Woodrow Wilson Center, “Measuring Impact: AReview of Packard Foundation and USAID’s FirstGeneration Population-Environment Projects,” isavailable online at http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1413&categoryid=A8374B58-65BF-E7DC-4FAA15117F5B45C2&fuseaction=topics.events_item_topics&event_id=143972

References

Cincotta, Richard, Robert Engelman, & DanieleAnastasion. (2003). The security demographic:Population and civil conflict after the Cold War.Washington, DC: Population Action International.

CNN. (2005, July 28). “U.N. will begin food airliftsto Niger.” CNN.com. Retrieved October 20, 2005,from http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/


50

africa/07/27/un.niger/index.htmlCommission for Africa. (2005, March). Our common

interest: Report of the Commission for Africa.Retrieved October 20, 2005, from http://commissionforafrica.org/english/report/thereport/english/11-03-05_cr_report.pdf

Crossette, Barbara. (2004a). “No sound bites.”Countdown 2015, 33-34. Washington, DC: FamilyCare International, the International PlannedParenthood Federation, & Population ActionInternational. Retrieved October 20, 2005, fromhttp://www.populationaction.org/news/press/news_083104_magazine.pdf

Crossette, Barbara. (2004b, December). Reproductivehealth and the Millennium Development Goals: Themissing link (paper commissioned by thePopulation Program of the William and FloraHewlett Foundation).

Diamond, Jared. (2004). Collapse: How societies chooseto fail or succeed. New York: Viking Press.

Engelman, Robert (with Daniele Anastasion). (2004).“Methodology.” People in the balance: Update 2004.Retrieved October 20, 2005, fromhttp://www.populationaction.org/resources/publications/peopleinthebalance/downloads/AcknowlAndMethodo.pdf

Gibbs, Susan L. (2003.) “Population and environment:A review of funding themes and trends.”Environmental Change and Security Project Report 9,41-58.

Global Science Panel on Population and theEnvironment. (2001). Population in sustainabledevelopment. Retrieved October 20, 2005, fromhttp://www.iiasa.ac.at/Admin/INF/hague/GSP_final_statement.pdf?sb=2

Goldstone, Jack A. (2004). [Review of the book Thesecurity demographic: Population and civil conflictafter the Cold War]. Environmental Change andSecurity Project Report 10, 74-77. Retrieved October20, 2005, from http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/ecspr10_bookreviews.pdf

H.R. 2506 (Kenneth M. Ludden Foreign Operations,Export Financing, and Related Programs

Appropriations Act, Fiscal Year 2002). 107thCongress, Congressional Record H10374 (2001)(enacted).

Harouna, Soumana, et al. (2005, April). Projections dela population du Niger de 2005 à 2050: An appel àl’action, travaux demographiques. Niamey, Niger:Nigerien Ministry of the Economy and Finances.

Hendrixson, Anne. (2004, December). Angry youngmen, veiled young women: Constructing a new popu-lation threat (Briefing 34). Dorset, UK: CornerHouse. Retrieved October 20, 2005, fromhttp://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/item.shtml?x=85999

Koinange, Jeff. (2005, July 28). “Feeling of helpless-ness in Niger camp.” CNN.com. Retrieved October20, 2005, from http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/07/27/btsc.koinange/index.html

Marquette, Catherine M., & Richard E. Bilsborrow.(1999). “Population and environment relationshipsin developing countries: Recent approaches andmethods.” In Barbara Sundberg Baudot & WilliamR. Moomaw (Eds.), People and their planet: Searchingfor balance. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Stoddard, Ed. (2005, July 22). “Scarce degraded landis spark for Africa conflict.” Reuters.

Timberg, Craig. (2005, August 11). “The rise of amarket mentality means many go hungry in Niger.”The Washington Post, page A17.

United Nations Population Division. (2005). Worldpopulation prospects: The 2004 revision populationdatabase. Retrieved October 20, 2005, fromhttp://esa.un.org/unpp/

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). (2004).Financial resource flows for population activities in2002. New York: UNFPA. Retrieved October 20,2005, from http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/359_filename_financial_resource_flows.pdf

Vasagar, Jeevan. (2005, August 12). “Don’t blame thelocusts.” The Guardian (UK). Retrieved October20, 2005, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1547851,00.html

SPECIAL REPORT • U.S. MILITARY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SECURITY IN THE GULF REGION

51

Introduction

The United States Department of Defensedefends the nation’s security interests, which,over the past decade, have become more broad-ly defined. Today, U.S. forces find themselvesemployed in a wide range of nontraditionalactivities, including those that may fall in thecategory of “environmental security.” Inresponse, the U.S. military has developed pro-grams to encourage cooperation with othernations’ militaries based on environmentalsecurity, defined as “an integrated proactiveapproach that ensures the protection, preserva-tion, and restoration of the environment,including air, land, water, biodiversity, naturalresources, and people, from natural and man-made disasters that might contribute to insta-bility and conflict” (Griffard & Butts, 2002).

These environmental security programsdirectly contribute to the first two pillars of theNational Security Strategy of the United States(2002):

• Assure allies and friends of U.S. steadfastnessof purpose and capability to fulfill its securi-ty commitments; and

• Dissuade potential adversaries from under-taking policies, programs, or operations thatthreaten U.S. interests or those of U.S. alliesand friends.1

The cooperative activities that the UnitedStates undertakes with militaries around the

world, both in peaceful pursuits and in responseto the entire spectrum of contingencies, helpsassure allies and dissuade adversaries.

These activities are particularly important inthe Gulf, where, according to Curtis Bowling(2002), the principal assistant deputy under

REAR ADMIRALJOHN F. SIGLER,USN (RET.)

U.S. Military and EnvironmentalSecurity in the Gulf Region

SPECIAL REPORT

Rear Admiral John F. Sigler, USN (Ret.),

joined the Near East-South Asia

Strategic Studies Center of the National

Defense University as a Distinguished

Professor in 2002 and remains a visiting

professor with that institution. He also

served as the director of policy programs

at the Foundation for Environmental

Security and Sustainability from 2004-

2005. He retired as a rear admiral from a

34-year career as a surface warfare offi-

cer in the U.S. Navy on March 1, 2000.

During his career he commanded a

frigate, a cruiser, and an Amphibious

Ready Group. In addition to other tours,

he served as a plans and policy officer in

the Atlantic, Pacific, and Mid-East the-

aters and was the deputy commander-in-

chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. During his

final tour, Rear Admiral Sigler was the

plans and policy officer (J5) for the

United States Central Command.


52

secretary of defense for installations and envi-ronment, “environmental security of this regionis essential to the continued developmentalcapacity of much of the world” (page 14). Oilspills, water shortages, earthquakes, and deserti-fication are only some of the potential environ-mental threats to the region’s security, but mul-tilateral and regional efforts to address theseproblems could help build bridges betweennations. As Douglas Campbell (2002) of theU.S. Army War College states, environmentalsecurity cooperation is “important to U.S. strat-egy in the region…and offers a valuable venuefor regional security cooperation” (page v).

U.S. Military Operations andEnvironmental Security

U.S. military operations, both in peace and inwar, are conducted by nine four-star combatantcommanders in command of joint land, sea,and air forces from all of the services. Five of thecommanders are responsible for specific geo-graphic regions, while the others have function-al responsibilities.2 All of these commandersmust be attuned to environmental issues, such

as the impact of the environment on theirinstallations and operations (and vice versa).But the geographic combatant commandershave been, over the last decade or so, mostinvolved in environmental security, as theirresponsibilities require planning, training, andconducting contingency operations rangingfrom the “low end,” such as humanitarian assis-tance, to the “high end” of combat.

Environmental issues—mainly in the formof natural disasters—often cause low-end con-tingencies, as U.S. forces are called upon toassist in the relief efforts. While military forcesare rarely in charge of providing relief, they con-tribute organized, disciplined manpower; criti-cal supplies and equipment; transportation; andthe command, control, and communicationsrequired to coordinate relief activities.Environmental issues can also have a broaderimpact on security, according to Bowling(2002):

Environmental problems can be exacerbat-ed by natural or man-made events thatcontribute to regional instability and con-flict. Failure to respond to these events in acoordinated, timely, and efficient mannercan impact a government’s ability to gov-ern and to function…. Environmentaldegradation from these disasters can alsohinder economic development, displacepopulations, facilitate the growth of unde-sirable elements, and, potentially, increaseproliferation of the threat of weapons ofmass destruction. (page 11)

The Theater Security CooperationProgram

The Secretary of Defense and the geographiccombatant commanders increasingly recognizethe need to prepare in advance for relief andassistance operations. The Theater SecurityCooperation (TSC) program, which grew outof the late 1990s Theater Engagement Plans(TEP), improves focus on national, regional,and global security issues; improves coordina-tion across the commanders’ geographic

U.S. Army Sgt. Kornelia Rachwal gives a young Pakistani girl a drink of wateras they are airlifted from Muzaffarabad to Islamabad, Pakistan, aboard a U.S.Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter on Oct. 19, 2005. Credit: U.S. Air Force Tech.Sgt. Mike Buytas (Courtesy of U.S. Central Command)


53

boundaries; and prioritizes activities accordingto U.S. interests. As the United States SouthernCommand (USSOUTHCOM), responsible forLatin America, states succinctly, “USSOUTH-COM conducts Theater Security Cooperationto build military-to-military relationships,develop partner nation security force capabili-ties and professionalism, and afford U.S. forceswith peacetime and contingency access to sup-port training and military operations in orderto advance U.S. security interests.”3 While thearmed forces have always planned and trainedfor operations across the entire spectrum of pos-sible contingencies, planning for peacetimeactivities was not as detailed, integrated, or con-sistent before TSC.

U.S. Central Command’sEnvironmental Security Programsin the Gulf

When U.S. Central Command (USCENT-COM)—which is responsible for 27 countriesencompassing the Horn of Africa, the MiddleEast (excluding Israel), Central Asia, andparts of South Asia—first authored its theaterengagement plan in 1997-1998, the com-mand—headed by General Anthony Zinni—developed an environmental security programas a way to improve cooperation with othermilitaries.4 Conferences held in 2000 estab-lished standing regional environmental secu-rity organizations in two of the command’sfour sub-regions, the Persian Gulf andCentral Asia. The Gulf nations focused onwater, energy, and potential natural disasters,while the Central Asian countries focused onearthquakes and the environmental legacy ofthe Soviet era.5

The first conference, “Role of the ArmedForces in Environmental Security,” held inMuscat, Oman, in 2000, identified majorconcerns likely to impact military activities inthe Gulf, and issued five recommendationsfor moving forward. The initial sessions wereprimarily informational, which promptedU.S. and regional leadership to ask what valuefollow-on work would add. The planners of

the next conference faced a significant chal-lenge: how to present a compelling case forthe initiative and develop a process that wouldhave a high probability for producing a suc-cessful product.

Following the attacks of September 11,2001, their job became a little easier, as itbecame clear that global enemies would useevery tactic at their disposal, including innova-tive targeting, to degrade and ultimately destroyWestern regional interests, including friendlyregional regimes. While heavily guarded, forexample, sources and distribution nodes forwater and energy in the Middle East are vulner-able to attack; disrupting them could have direconsequences. Environmental warfare or terror-ism could include attacking the vital desaliniza-tion plants in the Persian Gulf, or—evenworse—using oil or liquefied natural gas(LNG) supertankers as weapons of massdestruction against population centers.

In 2002, the Gulf nations’ second confer-ence, “Environmental Security Planning,Prevention, and Disaster Response in theArabian Gulf Region,” hosted by the QatarArmed Forces in Doha, sought to move fromgathering information to producing results.6

The second meeting had three goals:

• Encourage the countries of the region toassume ownership of the initiative, with theUnited States moving to a supporting role;

• Identify the major actions required to estab-lish a standing organization; and

• Develop a process to maintain momentumbetween major meetings and during timeswhen other events and priorities mightdivert attention from the program.

To facilitate regional ownership of the pro-gram, the informational sessions of the confer-ence used fewer U.S. and Western subject mat-ter experts. More importantly, an executivecommittee—comprising a general from eachparticipating nation—was formed to receive thereports of functional working groups, to overseeprogress toward agreed-upon objectivesbetween the major meetings, and to provide


54

ongoing progress reports to each country’s sen-ior military officer (usually the armed forces’chief of staff ).

At the conference, working groups—com-posed of officers in the ranks of captain throughcolonel—addressed five functional areas:

• Defining environmental security and settingregional approaches;

• Environmental security intelligence, detec-tion, and information sharing;

• Regional center/command and control;• Regional training and exercises; and • Managing health and disease consequences.7

The senior military leaders of all of thecountries involved were personally invited bythe leader of U.S. Central Command (GeneralTommy Franks at the time) to receive thereports of the working groups and the executivecommittee at the conference’s final session.Each committee summarized its findings andrecommendations for the way forward, whichincluded the establishment of a regional intera-gency coordination center for preventing andresponding to natural and manmade disasters.

From Environmental Security toDisaster Preparedness

After the second conference, USCENTCOM’senvironmental security initiative was renamed“disaster preparedness” and refocused on man-made disasters. Manmade disasters may resultfrom accidents, or from terrorism or war.Accidents could, for example, include oil spills inthe Gulf, refinery explosions, or hazardous mate-rial spills in population centers. Terrorists orcombatants might attack environmental targets(for example, desalinization plants or refineries)or even use the environment as a weapon (forexample, poisoning the food supply). In any ter-rorism or combat event, the potential for collat-eral environmental damage is high—and couldbe exacerbated by the use of chemical, biological,radiological, or nuclear weapons.

Despite the name change, the same process formoving toward regional cooperation remains inplace. Hosted by the Bahrain Defense Forces inSeptember 2004, the third major conference,“Gulf Region Disaster Response PreparednessConference and Medical Workshop” focused onbuilding on the efforts of previous conferences toenhance disaster preparedness and medical sur-veillance capabilities in the region. “Disaster pre-paredness is the conduct of civil-military activitiesto improve host nations’ national and regionalcapabilities to effectively prevent, prepare for,respond to, and/or mitigate the effects of man-made and natural disasters,” according to theconference report (Moeller, Sigler, & Griffard,2004, page 3).

Participating nations laid the groundworkfor a permanent organization and headquarters(which may be actual and/or virtual). Theyagreed that a regional organization will exploreways to prevent disasters and, should preven-tion fail, coordinate a rapid response. Eachnation will dedicate a small standing cadre ofpersonnel to staff the center and augment thisgroup with pre-identified people as required.Once established, the center will likely act as aclearinghouse for long-term environmentalsustainability, but it will initially focus onpotential regional environmental disasters. A

U.S. Navy crew carry an injured, stranded Indonesian woman to a helicopterthat will transport her to a nearby medical center (Indian Ocean, Jan. 3, 2005).Credit: Mate Third Class (AW) Gabriel Piper (Courtesy of U.S. PacificCommand)


55

current database of capabilities and assets thatcan be brought to bear for a specific contin-gency is key to this effort. As the conferencereport concluded:

The improved national coordination andinformation-sharing capabilities identifiedby the participants demonstrate a commit-ment to strengthening regional cooperationand coordination capabilities. With theproposed USCENTCOM five-year pro-gram the GCC states, Egypt, and Jordanhave a roadmap that increases security andstability through effective national andregional civil-military coordination and“full spectrum” disaster preparedness.(Moeller, Sigler, & Griffard, 2004, page 4)

Environmental Security andDisaster Response: The TsunamiExample

U.S. forces reacted within minutes to theIndian Ocean tsunami disaster in December2004, delivering critical supplies to Indonesia,Sri Lanka, and Thailand within 96 hours. Overthe next three months some 16,000 U.S. mili-tary personnel from the Pacific Command pro-vided assistance with 26 ships, 58 helicopters,and 43 fixed-wing aircraft (U.S. PacificCommand, 2005). They delivered nearly half amillion gallons of water, 10 million pounds offood, 3,000 tons of supplies, and significantmedical services, including the thousand-bedhospital ship, USNS Mercy. Using both pre-established and ad-hoc arrangements, PacificCommand also coordinated the relief efforts of19 other nations, which together with theUnited States contributed 127 ships, 161 heli-copters, and 137 fixed-wing aircraft. Finally,and most significantly, the military closely coor-dinated their efforts with multiple agencies ofthe U.S. and foreign governments, as well asmore than 200 NGOs.

While the scope of the tsunami relief effortwas unusual, providing humanitarian assistanceand disaster relief are not uncommon tasks forthe U.S. military, which experiences a major

event every 2-4 years and many minor opera-tions (2005 has been abnormal, with threemajor disasters and several more approachingmajor status). Although these may be “low-end” contingencies, successful execution ofthese missions is both complex and essential toU.S. national security.

The contributions of these relief operationsto U.S. security interests cannot be overstated.American national values are on display, off-setting negative perceptions of the “hyper-power” and promoting positive views of theUnited States and other western nations,which could help reduce global terrorism. Forexample, the Pew Global Attitudes Project(2005) found that 79 percent of Indonesianshave a more favorable view of the UnitedStates as a result of the tsunami relief efforts.Further, cooperating with other national mili-taries can enhance their professional contribu-tion to their societies, improve their ability tooperate multilaterally in higher-end contin-gencies, and could facilitate access to assetsthat support vital U.S. security interests.

Environmental Security: A ProvenTool for the Future

Environmental security has already proven to bea useful tool for the U.S. military. The confer-ences held by U.S. Central Command inCentral Asia to address earthquakes and Soviet-era environmental legacies fostered increasedunderstanding and cooperation in the region,which were instrumental in persuadingUzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to allow essentialU.S. military bases during Operations EnduringFreedom and Iraqi Liberation. In the Gulf,where “uninterrupted access to and use of criticalinfrastructure in the Arabian Gulf region are keyto the successful prosecution of the Global Waron Terror,” disaster preparedness initiatives areusing regional cooperation to protect this access(Moeller, Sigler, & Griffard, 2004, page 1).

In 2001, General Tommy R. Franks, thencommander of U. S. Central Command, toldthe House Armed Services Committee in a pre-pared statement:8

Oil spills, watershortages, earth-quakes, anddesertificationare only some ofthe potentialenvironmentalthreats to theregion’s security,but multilateraland regionalefforts to addressthese problemscould help buildbridges betweennations.


56

While environmental factors can easilytrigger conflict, cooperation on theseissues can promote regional stability andcontribute to the ongoing process of con-flict resolution. As such, environmentalsecurity remains an important element inshaping a future made complex by compe-tition over natural resources. USCENT-COM-sponsored environmental confer-ences will continue to provide a valuableforum for the region to discuss environ-mental issues.

Military commands have not typicallybeen charged with examining the causal link-ages of environment and conflict, but ratherwith dealing with the consequences of envi-ronmental degradation.9 General Franks—like General Zinni before him—recognizedthe linkage, but saw environmental security asan additional means to achieve better cooper-ation among regional militaries, other govern-ment agencies, and NGOs. Because all agen-cies, including militaries, view conflict pre-vention as a far better use of constrainedresources than conflict mitigation, mecha-nisms for facilitating cooperative responses todisasters will likely extend to cooperative pro-grams for preventing environmental problems(or the “root causes”). For the same reasonsthat militaries are well-equipped to respond toenvironmental disasters (organization, effec-tive command and control, disciplined man-power, heavy equipment, and transportation)they can—and in the future, I believe, will—be used to mitigate existing environmentaldamage and prevent future degradation.

While environmental security is a valid mil-itary mission, it is also less threatening thanpreparing for combat, for example. Thus, itcan be a useful tool for encouraging coopera-tion with and between “frictional” nations.For example, cooperative regimes governshared water resources between Israel andJordan and between India and Pakistan. Thiscooperation should be an element of cam-paigns to dissuade threatening policies orbehaviors. Finally, broader environmental

security programs could indirectly contributeto the U.S. national security strategy, becauseU.S. forces may well have to operate where theenvironment is the greatest challenge—oreven the weapon of the enemy’s choice.

Conclusion

2005 has been a particularly bad year for envi-ronmental disasters. Militaries around theworld have responded to them alongside otheragencies and relief organizations. If some fore-casters are correct, this is merely a harbinger ofmore to come. Those who work routinely onthe broad range of issues that fall under therubric of environmental security know that alarge number of environmental issues may leadto conflict or disaster, and they know that theright efforts now could prevent a significantnumber of those events. Militaries around theworld are starting to understand the potentialof the prevention side of the equation. The U.S.military’s environmental security programs aresteps in the right direction.

Notes

1. The other two pillars of the United States’National Security Strategy are: deter aggression againstthe United States or U.S. allies and friends through thecapability and demonstrated will to impose severepenalties for such aggression; and decisively defeat anyadversary, should deterrence fail. For the completestrategy, see http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/wh/c7889.htm

2. The nine combatant commanders are comprisedof two generals each from the Army, Air Force, andMarine Corps, plus three Navy admirals. All reportdirectly to the Secretary of Defense.

3. See the USSOUTHCOM Theater SecurityCooperation mission statement at: http://www.southcom.mil/tscmis/TSCMIS.asp. For more onUSSOUTHCOM’s environmental security program,see Butts, Sonski, and Reynolds (2005).

4. A second cooperative program focused on devel-oping a shared early warning network for the nationsof the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plus two oth-ers. This simple civil defense system would warn if aballistic or cruise missile was launched by anothernation in the region. Since the intended target is theleast likely to detect the incoming missile—neighbor-


57

ing nations have a better chance of recognizing themissile’s profile—a mechanism that can rapidly conveythe information across national borders would deliverthe warning before it was too late.

5. For more on the conferences in Central Asia, seeReynolds and Butts (2002).

6. For an excellent executive summary and detailedreport on this meeting, please see Butts et al. (2002),which is available at online at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/ESAG1ETOC.htm

7. The medical surveillance group was added dur-ing the workshop.

8. From General Tommy R. Franks’ prepared state-ment, submitted prior to testifying before the HouseArmed Services Committee, 107th Congress, March28, 2001. Available online at http://www.house.gov/hasc/openingstatementsandpressreleases/107thcongress/01-03-28franks.html

9. An exception is the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers, which routinely assesses the environmentalimpact of its projects.

References

Bowling, Curtis. (2002). “Keynote address.” In KentH. Butts, Bernard F. Griffard, Curtis W. Turner, &John B. Wheatley (Eds.), Environmental securityplanning, prevention, and disaster response in theArabian Gulf (Conference Report). Carlisle, PA:Center for Strategic Leadership (CSL). Availableonline at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/ESAG1ETOC.htm

Butts, Kent H., Bernard F. Griffard, Curtis W. Turner,& John B. Wheatley (Eds.). (2002). Environmentalsecurity planning, prevention, and disaster response inthe Arabian Gulf (Conference Report). Carlisle, PA:CSL. Available online at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/ESAG1ETOC.htm

Butts, Kent H., Alex Sonski, & Jeffrey Reynolds.(2005, January). Environmental security trainingworkshop (Issue Paper 03-05). Carlisle, PA: CSL.Available online at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/03-05.pdf

Campbell, Douglas B. (2002). “Foreword.” In Kent H.Butts, Bernard F. Griffard, Curtis W. Turner, &John B. Wheatley (Eds.), Environmental securityplanning, prevention, and disaster response in theArabian Gulf (Conference Report). Carlisle, PA:CSL. Available online athttp://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/ESAG1ETOC.htm

Griffard, Bernard F., & Kent H. Butts. (2002,September). Environmental planning, prevention, anddisaster response in the Arabian Gulf: USCENTCOM’sregional environmental security conference (Issue Paper09-02). Carlisle, PA: CSL. Available online at

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/CSL%20Issue%20Paper%209-02.pdf

Moeller, Robert T., John F. Sigler, & Bernard F.Griffard. (2004, November). Combating terrorismand enhancing regional stability and security throughdisaster preparedness: 2004 Gulf Region disasterresponse preparedness conference and medical work-shop (Issue Paper 01-05). Carlisle, PA: CSL.Available online at http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/01-05.pdf

The national security strategy of the United States. (2002,September). Washington, DC: The White House.Available online at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/wh/c7889.htm

Pew Global Attitudes Project. (2005, June 23). “U.S.image up slightly, but still negative: American char-acter gets mixed reviews.” Available online athttp://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=247

Reynolds, Jeffrey C., & Kent H. Butts. (2002, May).Partnering for environmental security cooperation inCentral Asia and the Caspian Basin (Issue Paper 02-02). Carlisle, PA: CSL. Available online athttp://www.carlisle.army.mil/usacsl/Publications/CSL%20Issue%20Paper%202-02.pdf

U.S. Pacific Command. (2005, April 15). OperationUnified Assistance (PowerPoint presentation).Available online at http://www.pacom.mil/special/0412asia/UnifiedAssistanceBrief.pps

Flown in from Japan to aid in tsunami relief, U.S. air force crewmembers handoff boxes of water to Thai military officers at Phuket Airport (Thailand, Dec. 31,2004). Credit: Sgt. Cohen A. Young (Courtesy of U.S. Pacific Command)


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Introduction

In 2001, Nelson Mandela said, “I know of nopolitical movement, no philosophy, no ideol-ogy, which does not agree with the peaceparks concept as we see it going into fruitiontoday. It is a concept that can be embraced byall.”1 Parks for peace—transboundary conser-vation areas dedicated to the promotion ofpeace and cooperation—hold great promiseand appeal, but have they lived up to thispromise? Some say yes, others respectfully dis-agree with the former South AfricanPresident’s assertion.

Even the definition of peace parks—some-times called “transboundary natural resourcemanagement” (TBNRM) or “transboundaryconservation” initiatives—is subject to debate.The lack of a consistent and agreed-upon typol-ogy often leads to confusion and hinders inter-national discussions and legal agreements.Other problems have emerged in practice; forexample, the implementation of some TBRNMinitiatives in southern Africa engendered con-flict when the new parks evicted or excludedresidents. Proposals for future parks offer inno-vative approaches to resolving decades-longconflicts, but some doubt the chances that suchenvironmental conservation initiatives can helpcreate peace.

An upcoming ECSP publication—basedon a conference held in September 2005 atthe Wilson Center2—will explore the rhetoric

and reality of peace parks, including theirgoals and the factors that determine their suc-cess or failure. Drawing on future plans andsuccessful projects in southern Africa,Kashmir, and South America, the authorsdebate whether peace parks can protect theenvironment and promote conflict resolution.ECSP Report presents excerpts from five of theconference papers as a preview of the publica-tion forthcoming in 2006; complete versionsare available on ECSP’s website atwww.wilsoncenter.org/ecsp.

While the debate over peace parks and trans-boundary areas will continue for some time,Dorothy Zbicz, an international conservationpolicy consultant who attended the Septemberconference, provided an example of how trans-boundary resource management can lead togrand results. Resting on the Virginia andMaryland sides of the Potomac River, GreatFalls Park is the historic site where two statesbuilt a canal around the region’s impassablewaterfalls and rapids. This early act of Americancooperation is noted on the park’s plaque: “Theagreement that was developed betweenMaryland and Virginia to share the river fortheir common purpose led to further meet-ings—Annapolis 1786 and Philadelphia 1787and to drafting of the United StatesConstitution.” Today, while Great Falls Park isno longer building democracy, it stands as amemorial to the power of managing environ-mental resources for peace.

PREVIEW

Parks for Peace or Peace for Parks?Issues in Practice and Policy A Forthcoming Publication From ECSP

PREVIEW • PARKS FOR PEACE OR PEACE FOR PARKS?

59

International conservation efforts are generallyrelegated to specific government agencies andscientists, and are not linked to issues of region-al cooperation between adversarial states orcommunities. Thus, a “policy frontier” sepa-rates conservation initiatives from foreign poli-cy or intra-state community relations. Whileenvironmental security theorists have tried overthe years to inject the importance of resourcescarcity and quality into defense circles, theempirical focus on conflict causality has led tothe decline of this influence.

Instead of trying to tease out environmentalcausality in conflicts and thereby accentuate theimportance of conservation, we could also lookat how environmental issues play a role in coop-eration—regardless of whether they were partof the original conflict. Scholars have onlyrecently begun to examine the utility of thisapproach, which is termed “environmentalpeacemaking” (Conca & Dabelko, 2002). Themain premise of environmental peacemakingholds that certain key attributes of environmen-tal concerns could lead acrimonious parties toconsider them as a means of cooperation.

Using conservation as a direct means of con-flict resolution challenges conventional assump-tions about the secondary role of environmentalissues in conflict resolution. For example, peaceparks are being actively pursued in Korea andKashmir, two high-conflict areas. Since 1986,the Siachen glacier in Kashmir has served as abattleground for India and Pakistan. More than

100 million people depend on the meltwater ofthe Himalayan glaciers, increasing the humansecurity dimensions of this issue in both adver-sarial countries (Ali, 2005). Anticipating watershortages requires studying the glaciers’ retreatin the face of climatic changes. Given theimportance of this work, the Kashmir parkplanners have focused on using science as apeacebuilding tool.

Geologists and hydrologists from India andPakistan, with help from colleagues at theNational Science Foundation in the United Statesand Italy, have appealed to the governments togive them access to this region. Environmentalistsand mountaineers have joined forces to use thisopportunity to establish a conservation zone. TheIndian prime minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh,gave the idea its most significant political supportduring his visit to Siachen in June 2005, duringwhich he publicly remarked that the territorycould become a “peace mountain.” Strategies for

Notes

1. The full text of Nelon Mandela’s October 21,2001, speech is available online at http://www.game-rangers.com/left_frameset/05_nieuws/01_natuur/sub2_frameset_bestanden/natuur.html#speech

2. A summary of the September 12, 2005, confer-ence is available on ECSP’s website athttp://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1413&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=146506

Conservation and Conflict Resolution: Crossing thePolicy FrontierBy Saleem H. Ali

Saleem H. Ali is an assistant professor of

environmental planning at the University

of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of

Natural Resources, and an adjunct facul-

ty member at Brown University’s Watson

Institute for International Studies. He is

also the editor of Peace Parks:

Conservation and Conflict Resolution,

forthcoming from MIT Press.


60

de-escalating the Siachen conflict continue,including a project supported by Sandia NationalLabs in New Mexico involving Pakistani andIndian military officials.

In the Korean case, the demilitarized zone(DMZ) has become a default sanctuary forwildlife since conflict has prevented the area’sdevelopment.1 Several conservation biologistshave suggested using the region’s high biodiver-sity to develop a conflict resolution strategybetween the two countries. An organizationcalled the DMZ Forum, established in theUnited States in 1998, has lobbied for this pro-posal’s inclusion in the six-party talks. Mediamagnate Ted Turner has popularized this effort,most recently during his visit to both Northand South Korea in August 2005.

Recommendations

For proper implementation, the peace parkeffort must first undergo a phase of local reviewand transparency. A clear process is particularlyimportant in conflict settings to avoid thespread of conspiracy theories that can lead tosuspicion and rumor-mongering, which oftenspoil even the most sincere efforts.

In addition, the military should be consid-ered a facilitator rather than a hindrance.Demilitarization might not be the first step, buttransforming the military into a ranger forcecould assuage security and employment con-

cerns while accomplishing conservation tasks. Ifthe conflict has caused environmental damage,the military can certainly play an importantrole in the clean-up effort.

The positive economic impact of peace parkformulation is often quantifiable, based on thepotential for increased tourism as well as thewillingness of donors to invest in such a pro-gram. Integrated planning for peace parks mustinclude a clear assessment of livelihoods andhow those would be made sustainable by thedevelopment of a peace park. The incorpora-tion of conservation provisions and access topeace park areas through visa waivers or on-siteprocessing of visas for the conservation zonescan also be proposed.

As with many complex interactions ofhuman behavior and the environment, we mustnot expect instant solutions. Peace parks consti-tute a new vision for addressing global conflictsand hence will suffer growing pains beforereaching cognitive acceptance and practicalresults. However, there is substantive theoreticalbacking for their efficacy as well as emergingexamples of their success, which we should viewwith optimism.

Note

1. Ke Chung Kim, professor of entomology atPennsylvania State University, discussed the DMZpeace park proposal at the ECSP conference. His pres-entation, “Biodiversity and Barbed Wire: ExploringJoint Conservation in the Korea DMZ,” is available onECSP’s website at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1413&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=146506

References

Ali, Saleem H. (2005, February). “Siachen: Ecologicalpeace between India and Pakistan.” SanctuaryMagazine, 76-77. Available online athttp://www.sanctuaryasia.com

Conca, Ken, & Geoffrey D. Dabelko (Eds.). (2002).Environmental peacemaking. Washington, DC &Baltimore, MD: The Woodrow Wilson CenterPress & Johns Hopkins University Press.

Peace parks constitute a new vision foraddressing global conflicts and hence willsuffer growing pains before reaching cognitiveacceptance and practical results.


61

During the past 50-80 years, the number andcomplexity of formalized transboundary natu-ral resource management arrangements andagreements between countries have increased,particularly for key shared resources such aswater and fisheries.

Such arrangements have also grown whereprotected areas are adjacent and cross aninternational boundary. At least 188 trans-boundary conservation areas, spanning theborders of 122 countries, have followed thedeclaration of the Waterton-GlacierInternational Peace Park in 1932 (Besançon& Savy, 2005). This grand-scale experimentreflects a range of methods of implementa-tion, expression, and objectives. This makes itdifficult to define “transboundary conserva-tion” precisely, and identify how best toundertake it.

We propose the following typology as anorganizing framework for transboundary con-servation and development initiatives.

1. Transboundary protected areas: A trans-boundary protected area is an area of landand/or sea that straddles one or more bordersbetween states, sub-national units such asprovinces and regions, autonomous areas,and/or areas beyond the limit of national sover-eignty or jurisdiction, whose constituent partsare especially dedicated to the protection andmaintenance of biological diversity, and of nat-ural and associated cultural resources, and man-aged cooperatively through legal or other effec-tive means (Sandwith et al., 2001).

Examples: La Ámistad International Parkbetween Costa Rica and Panama; KgalagadiTransfrontier Park between Botswana andSouth Africa; and Neusiedler See/Seewinkel -Fertö Hansag Transfrontier Park betweenAustria and Hungary.

2. Transboundary conservation anddevelopment areas: Transboundary conser-vation (and development) areas are areas of landand/or sea that straddle one or more bordersbetween states, sub-national units such asprovinces and regions, autonomous areas,and/or areas beyond the limit of national sover-eignty or jurisdiction, whose constituent partsform a matrix that contributes to the protectionand maintenance of biological diversity, and ofnatural and associated cultural resources, as wellas the promotion of social and economic develop-ment, and which are managed cooperativelythrough legal or other effective means.

Examples: Maloti-Drakensberg TransfrontierConservation and Development Area (Lesotho-South Africa); the Palatinate Forest NaturePark–Northern Vosges Regional Natural Park(Germany-France); and Sungai Kayan NatureReserve and the proposed Pulong Tau NationalPark (Indonesia-Malaysia).

3. Parks for Peace: Parks for Peace are trans-boundary protected areas that are formally ded-icated to the protection and maintenance of

Trade-offs Among Multiple Goals for TransboundaryConservationBy Trevor Sandwith and Charles Besançon

Trevor Sandwith is coordinator of Cape

Action for People and the Environment

in South Africa, deputy chair of the

World Commission on Protected Areas

(WCPA), and the co-leader of the

IUCN/WCPA Transboundary

Conservation Task Force. Charles

Besançon is the head of the protected

areas program at the UNEP-World

Conservation Monitoring Centre in

Cambridge, UK, and the co-leader of

the IUCN/WCPA Transboundary

Conservation Task Force.


62

biological diversity, and of natural and associat-ed cultural resources, and to the promotion ofpeace and cooperation (Sandwith et al., 2001).

Examples: Si-a-Paz project (CostaRica–Nicaragua); the Cordillera del Cóndorprojects in Ecuador and Peru; and Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park (Canada–USA).

4. Transboundary migratory corridors:Transboundary migratory corridors are areas ofland and/or sea in two or more countries thatare not necessarily contiguous, but are requiredto sustain a biological migratory pathway, andwhere cooperative management has beensecured through legal or other effective means.

Examples: Palearctic Flyway (Siberia toSenegal); European Green Belt; and theMesoamerican Corridor.

Recommendations

Transboundary conservation initiatives havecaptured the imagination of many. They repre-sent an ideal whereby conservation can deliver

more than simply biodiversity, species, andhabitat protection, but also sustainable devel-opment and the promotion of a culture ofpeace and cooperation. But the questionremains whether this assertion is valid, whetherthe methods currently being employed areoptimal in relation to the investment andtransaction costs of such initiatives, andwhether the enthusiasm for implementationoverlooks the emergent and unforeseen conse-quences. We call for a more deliberate processof reflection and analysis that disaggregatesobjectives, methods, and impacts.

In particular, we draw your attention to theneed to standardize terminology as an aid forcomparative analysis and to apply innovativemethods to measure impacts of differenttypes. While some dismiss this as an unneces-sary exercise in “splitting hairs,” the contin-ued use of a range of terms could engender anuncooperative response to transboundaryconservation. These suggestions from theIUCN/WCPA Transboundary ConservationTask Force are consequently offered as a wayto clarify the issues and circumstances in aneffort to encourage cooperation.

References

Besançon, Charles, & Conrad Savy. (2005). “Globallist of internationally adjoining protected areas andother transboundary conservation initiatives.” InRussell A. Mittermeier, Cyril F. Kormos, CristinaG. Mittermeier, Patricio Robles Gil, TrevorSandwith, & Charles Besançon (Eds.),Transboundary conservation: A new vision for protect-ed areas. Mexico City: CEMEX, Agrupacion SierraMadre, & Conservation International.

Sandwith, Trevor S., Clare Shine, Lawrence Hamilton,& David Sheppard. (2001). Transboundary protect-ed areas for peace and co-operation (Best practiceprotected area guidelines series No. 7). UnitedKingdom: IUCN & World Commission onProtected Areas. Available online athttp://www.iucn.org/themes/fcp/publications/files/tbca_sandwith.pdf

While some dismiss this asan unnecessary exercise in“splitting hairs,” thecontinued use of a range ofterms could engender anuncooperative response totransboundary conservation.


63

For more than 150 years after independencefrom Spanish rule, the border of Perú andEcuador witnessed territorial conflict initiatedby both countries. In 1998, after intensenegotiation and the intervention of othercountries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and theUnited States), a final agreement—the ActaPresidencial de Brasilia—was signed, finallyresolving the border conflicts between the twocountries. The agreement recognized the needto update and improve existing mechanismsto promote bilateral cooperation and integra-tion between Perú and Ecuador. Likewise, itemphasized that such mechanisms must leadto economic and social development andstrengthen the cultural identity of native pop-ulations, as well as aid the conservation ofbiological biodiversity and the sustainable useof the ecosystems of the common border.

There have been several attempts by the con-servation community to find ways to preserve theexceptional biodiversity of the Cordillera delCóndor, a relatively isolated mountain range thatstraddles the Perú-Ecuador border. The cordilleralies in a highly significant global conservationzone: thanks to an abundance of water through-out the year, the region hosts the world’s mostdiverse plant communities and serves as a key ele-ment in the great hydrological cycle linking theAndes with the Amazon.

However, only the Acta Presidencial deBrasilia brought bilateral cooperation and apeaceful environment for conservation to bothcountries. The Peace Agreement officially estab-lished two protected zones governed by thesame treaty. These new Ecological ProtectionAreas include the 2,540-hectare “El Cóndor” inEcuador. In Perú, in addition to the 5,440-hectare Ecological Protection Area, thePeruvian government established the Santiago-Comaina Reserved Area, with a surface area of1,642,570 hectares.

These actions created a space for coopera-tion between both countries. For the “Peaceand Bi-national Conservation in the Cordilleradel Cóndor, Ecuador-Perú” project, between2002 and 2004, a group of Peruvian andEcuadorian specialists jointly prepared propos-als and designed a planning and implementingprocess. Both countries formulated proposalsfor the establishment of Bordering ProtectedAreas on either side the border. And together,Peruvian and Ecuadorian experts helped iden-tify the threats to conservation on both sides ofthe border. Management plans includedactions necessary to mitigate such threats,emphasizing the continuous, coordinatedmanagement of bordering protected areas;joint investigation proposals; knowledgeexchange among protected area managers; andcoordinated monitoring of the biodiversity inboth countries (Sandwith et al., 2001).

The peace agreement and the conservationefforts to date have helped create an environmentfor long-lasting peace in the region. The agree-ment has helped reestablish centuries-old rela-tionships among the indigenous populations liv-ing in the zone, and improved relationshipsbetween the states and between the professionalsfrom both countries who work together to con-serve this exceptional biological richness.

The protected areas—those already estab-lished and those yet to be created—on both sidesof the Peruvian-Ecuadorian border help conservethe ecosystems shared by the countries. The

Peace Parks in the Cordillera del Cóndor MountainRange and Biodiversity Conservation CorridorBy Martín Alcalde, Carlos F. Ponce, and Yanitza Curonisy

Martín Alcalde is the Cóndor region

director for Conservación Internacional

(CI) Perú; Carlos F. Ponce is CI’s senior

regional advisor on protected areas,

CBC – Andes; and Yanitza Curonisy pro-

vided editorial assistance to the authors.


64

successful coordination and cooperation thattakes place beyond the frontiers highlight howborder protected areas act as real “links” connect-ing peace and conservation.

Recommendations

These efforts have set the stage for progress inthe development of the Cóndor-KutukúConservation Corridor (part of a Conservation

International initiative to link protected areas inthe Tropical Andes hotspot). For this to be suc-cessful, we believe it is necessary to:

• Strengthen the planning processes and con-solidate a bi-national vision;

• Promote a bi-national information net-work between protected areas within theCóndor-Kutukú Conservation Corridor;

• Generate social, economic, and biodiversitydata to help prioritize conservation actionsand sustainable development; and

• Encourage a participatory process for theCóndor-Kutukú Conservation Corridor, tospread the concept of conservation corridorsand promote the development of a planningprocess for a bi-national strategy.

References

Sandwith, Trevor S., Clare Shine, Lawrence Hamilton,& David Sheppard. (2001). Transboundary protect-ed areas for peace and co-operation (Best practiceprotected area guidelines series No. 7). UnitedKingdom: IUCN & World Commission onProtected Areas. Available online athttp://www.iucn.org/themes/fcp/publications/files/tbca_sandwith.pdf

Source: Conservación Internacional, CI - Perú 2005.

Protected Areas and Ecological Protection Zones in the Cordillera del Cóndor Region

Ecuador

Protected Areas (proposed):Ecological Reserve: "El Quimi" (9,266 hectares)Wildlife Shelter: “El Zarza” (3,743 hectares)

Ecological Protection Zone: “Parque El Cóndor” (approx. 2,540 hectares)

Peru

Protected Areas (proposed):National Park Ichigkat Muja: Cordillera delCóndor (approx. 150,000 hectares)

Ecological Protection Zone: (approx. 5,440 hectares)


65

Transboundary Natural Resource Management(TBNRM) initiatives, such as “peace parks,”abound throughout southern and eastern Africa.Although a good idea in theory, TBNRM ingeneral—and peace parks in particular—mustreflexively consider their motives, methods, andhypothesized outcomes to be successful. Failureto do so will result in limited buy-in at all levelsof stakeholder involvement.

Issues to Consider

1. Peace parks must be set within localpolitical ecology: At a theoretical level, peaceparks are an indisputably good idea. But at thelevel of implementation, one must be willingto adapt a generic model to highly specificlocal and regional political ecologies—perhapseven to recognize that the peace parkapproach will not work. As physical symbolsof land alienation and exclusion, nationalparks have long been an object of derision bythe majority of Africa’s rural people (Grove,1997; Koch, 1998). Linking them together byobtaining more land will surely result in polit-ical difficulties; land claims lodged by SouthAfrican communities forcibly removed fromKruger and Richtersveld National Parks arethe examples cited most often (Fig, 1991;Swatuk, 2005a; Umhlaba Wethu, 2005;Wolmer, 2003).

2. Peace parks cannot be consideredseparately from other conservationactivities and their results: Various INGOshave undertaken the responsibility of preserv-ing biodiversity and empowering communitiesthrough the establishment of Community-Based Natural Resources Management(CBNRM) projects (Fabricius & Koch, 2005).Many have deliberately attempted to begin atthe village level and only involve the state whennecessary and/or unavoidable. However, where

projects involve state-owned resources such aswildlife, challenge existing forms of landtenure, or could truly empower local people(such that they are no longer dependent on cen-tral government for survival), the state invari-ably gets involved, often in an obstructive way(Swatuk, 2005a). Simply because it is easier todeal with educated elites at a high level of gov-ernment does not mean that the outcome—peace park establishment—will be any lessfraught with conflict and failure than otherattempts at linking conservation to rural devel-opment. Thus, one (TBNRM) is not a substi-tute for the other (CBNRM).

3. Peace parks cannot be de-linked fromnational/regional development strate-gies/priorities: Those interested in biodiver-sity preservation must recognize that southernAfrican leaders’ support for TBNRM initiativesmay have different roots and goals, such asachieving economies of scale and global advan-tage in megafauna-based tourism to generaterevenue and economic development. Thesegoals may only tangentially relate to perceivedglobal environmental goods.

Recommendations

Five suggestions may help lead the way over thehurdles facing peace parks:

1. Assess what has been achieved thusfar. An accurate assessment will only emergewhere we dispense with naïve or arrogantapproaches to conservation and biodiversitypreservation. However, as Chapin (2004)

Peace Parks in Southern Africaby Larry A. Swatuk

Larry A. Swatuk is an associate professor

at the Harry Oppenheimer Okavango

Research Centre at the University of

Botswana, Maun.


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suggests, humility is in short supply amongthe global purveyors of “conservation.”

2. Put people first: Following Child (2004),the goals of TBNRM must be set and alignedwith those of national parks, game reserves, andother forms of protected area in southernAfrica. This means putting people first andmaking social/economic benefits the primarymotivating factor in TBNRM processes andestablishment—and putting conservation sec-ond. This, too, may be a pill too bitter for con-servationists to swallow.

3. Get local level buy-in: TBNRM by defi-nition privileges the central state and itsmachinery in the negotiation and managementprocess. While it may be easier to deal with cen-tralized agencies, supporters of TBNRM mustpress for subsidiarity. Without local level buy-in, TBNRM will fail.

4. Monitor and benchmark: As highlightedby Murphree (2004), the potential benefitsfrom parks are numerous, and cut acrosseconomic, ecological, political, and socio-cul-tural lines. But there has been little systematicinformation gathered on the performance ofprotected areas of all kinds. If stakeholdersacross the spectrum are expected to buy into it,TBNRM must build in mechanisms formonitoring (e.g., biodiversity preservation,economic development, and gender empower-ment) and benchmarking (e.g., “by this pointwe will have created X number of jobs”), as

well as the financial means to do so. Claims of“numerous” benefits are not enough.

5. Do not exaggerate achievements.Many claims regarding the achievements ofTBNRM projects in southern Africa are nottrue. States are very good at signing, and evenratifying into law, a wide variety of docu-ments; implementation, however, is anothermatter altogether. Evidence from river basincommittee development in southern Africasuggests that where states have rushed aheadwith donors’ good ideas, little has beenachieved; but where communities have beeninvolved from the start, where governmenthas been brought in as a key stakeholder, andwhere timelines are medium-term, new, sus-tainable, and meaningful institutions mayemerge (Swatuk, 2005b; Manning & Seely,2005). This is an appropriate lesson for sup-porters of peace parks—a good idea whosetime may yet still come.

References

Chapin, Mac. (2004, November). “A challenge to con-servationists.” WorldWatch,17-31.

Child, Brian. (2004). “Parks in transition: Biodiversity,development and the bottom line.” In Brian Child(Ed.), Parks in transition: Biodiversity, rural develop-ment, and the bottom line (pgs 233-256). Sterling,VA: Earthscan.

Fabricius, Christo, & Eddie Koch (Eds.). (2005).Rights, resources and rural development. London:Earthscan.

Fig, David. (1991). “Flowers in the desert: Communitystruggles in Namaqualand.” In Jacklyn Cock &Eddie Koch (Eds.), Going green: People, politics andthe environment in South Africa (pages 112-128).Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

Grove, Richard. (1997). Ecology, climate and empire:Colonialism and global environmental history, 1400-1940. Cambridge: White Horse.

Koch, Eddie. (1998). “Nature has the power to healold wounds: War, peace and changing patterns ofconservation in southern Africa.” In David Simon(Ed.), South Africa in southern Africa: Reconfiguringthe region (pages 54-72). London: James Currey.

Manning, Nadia, & Mary Seely. (2005). “Forum forintegrated resource management (FIRM) inephemeral basins: Putting communities at the centreof the basin management process.” Physics and

An accurate assessment will only emerge wherewe dispense with naïve or arrogant approachesto conservation and biodiversity preservation.


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Nowhere is the need for transnational forms ofmanagement more apparent than in the realmof the environment. Natural resources—suchas marine life, wildlife, the atmosphere, andthe ozone layer—are not bounded by nationalborders, and thus, effective conservationrequires international cooperation. The grow-ing interest in peace parks reflects this need.Briefly defined, peace parks are conservationareas that cross one or more international bor-ders and use common management practicesto conserve a single transnational ecosystem.Peace parks are not simply neutral, technicalpolicies, however. They have not developed ina social, political, and economic vacuum;instead, they reflect wider changes in the glob-al system since the end of the Cold War.Increasing levels of globalization have led togrowing global regulation, which is oftenreferred to as “global governance.”

I suggest that peace parks, like global gover-nance, do not represent a radical new depar-ture for conservation; instead, peace parksoperate within the existing framework ofpolitical and economic liberalization, and, assuch, they do not challenge it. Furthermore, ifwe regard the expansion of neoliberalism ascausing or contributing to global environmen-tal degradation, then peace parks cannot

“save” the environment. Instead, peace parkscan only hope to achieve small successes in therealm of environmental conservation andpeacebuilding that impose costs for some andbring benefits for others.

Ecosystems have often been separated by“artificial” national political boundaries, andpeace parks seek to restore ecosystem connec-tions through common management policies.However, Neumann (2000) argues that suchscientific justifications for global conservationstrategies tend to gloss over the magnitude ofpolitical change involved, and instead investinternational conservation groups and stateswith increased authority over resources and,often, over local communities. The failure torecognize the level of political change requiredand to anticipate community responses to newforms of control over natural resources by exter-nal agencies (e.g., NGOs, IFIs, transnationalmanagement authorities) can affect the long-term implementation of peace parks.

Peace park supporters have consistentlyargued that they have a neoliberal, market-

Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C 30, 886-893.Murphree, Marshall W. (2004). “Who and what are

parks for in transitional societies?” In Brian Child(Ed.), Parks in transition: Biodiversity, rural develop-ment, and the bottom line (pages 217-232). Sterling,VA: Earthscan.

Swatuk, Larry A. (2005a). “Environmental security.” InMichele Betsill, Kathryn Hochstetler, & DimitrisStevis (Eds.), Palgrave advances in the study of inter-national environmental politics. New York: Palgrave.

Swatuk, Larry A. (2005b). “Political challenges to inte-grated water resources management in southern

Africa.” Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, PartsA/B/C, 30, 872-880.

Umhlaba Wethu (A quarterly bulletin tracking landreform in South Africa). (2005, June). Bellville,South Africa: Programme for Land and AgrarianStudies. Available online athttp://www.uwc.ac.za/plaas/publications/Umhlaba%20Wethu%2003.pdf

Wolmer, William. (2003, March). “Transboundaryconservation: The politics of ecological integrity inthe Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park.” Journal ofSouthern African Studies 29(1), 261-278.

Global Politics and Peace Parksby Rosaleen Duffy

Rosaleen Duffy is a senior lecturer in the

Centre for International Politics at

Manchester University.


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oriented economic rationale in the form oftourism (especially ecotourism). However, thepromotion of tourism as a way to financiallysustain conservation is a misplaced effort(Duffy, 2005). For example, local communitiesthat subsist on the resources held within thenew peace parks may be asked to relinquishsuch user rights in return for promises thattourism will bring more revenue. Yet, newtourism ventures often take a number of yearsto become financially viable, and this is simplytoo long for many poor communities to wait.In addition, the revenues, profits, and employ-ment opportunities from such ventures are notalways clearly earmarked for local communityuse, but instead often end up in the hands ofexternal (and wealthy) tour operators (seeMowforth & Munt, 1998).

Supporters of peace parks see communitiesas vitally important actors in ensuring that theschemes are socially as well as environmentallysustainable (see Hulme & Murphree, 2001).However, local participation is far from politi-cally neutral and has often helped the dominanteconomic, political, and social groups withincommunities further their interests at theexpense of others. Furthermore, presentingcommunities as single units with common

interests that support peace parks is a clear over-simplification.

As part of peace park proposals, local com-munities are expected to enter into complexrelations with external agencies, such as localand global NGOs, donors, and IFIs (e.g., theWorld Bank). Peace parks have attractedenthusiastic financial backing from suchorganizations. On one hand, the bargainingpower of communities can be significantlyenhanced through their relationships withinternational NGOs. On the other hand, theneeds and political power of communities canbe severely undermined through their partici-pation in transboundary conservationschemes that incorporate a number of global-ly powerful actors.

Supporters of peace parks have used argu-ments about national security, environmentalsecurity, and conflict resolution to justifythese schemes. The World Bank and the PeaceParks Foundation argue that transfrontierconservation encourages regional integrationand fosters peaceful cooperation betweencountries that have been—or may be—engaged in conflict with one another. Peaceparks are promoted as a way to reduce oreliminate conflict over natural resources andto cooperatively encourage sustainable eco-nomic development. The assumption thatpeace parks reduce competition over scarceresources, however, needs more refined analy-sis of peace parks in practice.

Furthermore, peace parks are already“transnationalized” by illicit networks. Peaceparks are often proposed for areas that providekey resources for those illegally harvesting floraand fauna for local use or international trade. Itis clear that networks utilize weakly enforcedborders to traffic arms, drugs, stolen cars, andpeople, as well as to illegally trade endangeredspecies of plants and animals, such as ivory,rhino horn, rare orchids, furs, and tiger bone.These border regions are often where environ-mental NGOs, state governments, and localcommunities look to establish peace parks(Duffy, 2005, in press).

The needs and politicalpower of communities canbe severely underminedthrough their participationin transboundary conser-vation schemes that incor-porate a number ofglobally powerful actors.


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References

Duffy, Rosaleen. (2005). “The politics of global envi-ronmental governance: The powers and limitationsof transfrontier conservation areas in CentralAmerica.” Review of International Studies 31(1),307-323.

Duffy, Rosaleen. (in press). “Global governance andenvironmental management: The politics of trans-frontier conservation areas in southern Africa.”Political Geography.

Hulme, David, & Marshall Murphree. (2001). Africanwildlife and livelihoods: The promise and performanceof community conservation. Oxford: James Currey.

Mowforth, Martin, & Ian Munt. (1998). Tourism andsustainability: New tourism in the Third World.London: Routledge.

Neumann, Roderick P. (2000). “Primitive ideas:Protected area buffer zones and the politics of landin Africa.” In Vigdis Broch-Due & Richard A.Schroeder (Eds.), Producing nature and poverty inAfrica (pages 220-242). Uppsala: NordiskaAfrikainstitutet.


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From Ultrasound to Insurgency

Although this review will challenge the authors’predictions, Bare Branches: The SecurityImplications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population isan impressively researched work: it is provoca-tive, path-breaking, and deserving of a place inthe personal library of all those who considerdemographic security issues relevant to contem-porary society. Throughout the book, politicalscientists Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boerdo an admirable job of digging through vital sta-tistics to show the nature and extent of imbal-anced sex ratios at birth, assembling historicaland contemporary evidence, and making thecase that we should take seriously the reports—particularly from China and northern India—ofgenerations approaching marriageable age withan uncommonly large proportion of men.

The authors’ thesis is clear from the outset. Alarge demographic dominance of males, theycontend, could directly unsettle Asia’s politicalenvironment. These women-short generationsare destined to cast off millions of “bare branch-es”—a pre-revolutionary Chinese expression thatdisdainfully describes young men who do not

marry and build a family. In the past, Chineseofficials looked upon bare branches with suspi-cion, portraying these young men as shiftlesstroublemakers. Because their behavior was notconstrained by familial responsibilities and socialobligations, bare branches could be easily recruit-ed by dangerous political malcontents and anti-social subcultures, and then cultivated into a mil-itary force. On this point, Hudson and den Boerare unwavering: high sex ratios were dangerousin 19th century China, and they still are today.

I am not so certain. Within the authors’neatly forged chain between thesis and valida-tion, I find two weak links. First, they assumethat sex ratios at birth—and sometimes sexratios of entire populations—represent the sexratio that young marriageable men encounter. Icontend that these ratios are not representative,which matters immensely. Second, Hudson andden Boer sift through history to identify thesecurity dimension of these surplus bachelors.But I do not believe that in this case, the his-toric past is relevant to China or India’s future.

Which Sex Ratio?

In Bare Branches, Hudson and den Boer con-vincingly link increases in the sex ratio1 at birthin China and India (and several other coun-tries) to son preference, expressed in the differ-ences in male and female infant mortality, and

Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’sSurplus Male Population Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 400 pages.

Reviewed by RICHARD P. CINCOTTA

Richard P. Cincotta is a senior research

associate at Population Action

International in Washington, D.C.

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to the increasing practice of sex-selective abor-tion, which is facilitated by the spread of ultra-sound technology. All nationwide surveys inChina and India show some regional impact ofson preference. A one-percent survey—whilenot the source of China’s official population sta-tistics—estimated the 1995 sex ratio at birth tobe nearly 116 males per 100 females (ChinaState Statistical Bureau, 1997). These data sug-gested an upward trend since 1980 across muchof China, particularly in the southern provinces(the sex ratio in Hubei was recorded at 130,Jiangsu at 123, and Fujian at 122). While the2001 census showed that India’s countrywidesex ratio for children under age six had risen toonly about 108, it also revealed that the north-western states of Haryana and Punjab hadreached ratios of 122 and 126, respectively.

Hudson and den Boer then connect high sexratios at birth to the future number of mar-riageable women available for marriageablemen. But is the sex ratio of same-age adults aproper estimate of the supply of mates? In manysocieties, men delay marriage to obtain skillsand accumulate wealth, often wedding womenmore than five years their junior, whichexpands the available pool of marriage-agewomen. Because population has grown throughmost of history, each female age cohort is largerthan the preceding male age cohort—and thatmakes the available pool of potential femalemates exceedingly large.

Using a methodology similar to that used byDaniel Goodkind (2003), I estimate the sexratio encountered by men preparing for mar-riage by assuming that it is equal to the numberof males, ages 25 to 29, divided by the numberof females, ages 20 to 24. I compare this mar-riage sex ratio to the apparent sex ratio, which iscalculated as the number of males, ages 20 to29, divided by the number of females in thesame age group. The results of this comparativeanalysis (Chart 1) show that China’s marriagesex ratio (an effect of age structure) has swungbetween extreme highs and lows over the pasthalf-century. Although consistently higher thanthe expected sex ratio for that age group, theamplitude of China’s apparent sex ratio has

been overshadowed, so far, by these swings,which can be traced to episodes of high mortal-ity (the first two swings) and to declines in fer-tility (the last swing). In fact, the marriage sexratio hit low points (representing an abundanceof marriage-age women) during the CulturalRevolution (1966-1976) and just before the1989 Tiananmen Square protests. This suggeststhat China’s “marriage market” is not as inflexi-ble as the authors assert, and that the securityeffects of a male-skewed sex ratio, at the levelcurrently observed among children (111,according to UN estimates), are insignificant incontemporary Chinese society.

The authors use prior studies of Indian dis-tricts that show a correlation between high sexratios in the entire population and the murderrate. But these population sex ratios, I argue,reflect fertility and age structure (which arelinked) as much as the sex ratio at marriageableage. Males typically outnumber females inchildhood and adolescence; women tend to dieprematurely in high-fertility societies, whilewomen in older, low-fertility populations out-live men by about eight years. Analysis of 2005data from the UN Population Division showsthat median age and population sex ratio arecorrelated, as are the adult population’s propor-tion of young adults (15-29 years) and popula-tion sex ratio.2 These correlations are consistentwith studies that have found that increased vio-

60

80

100

120

140

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

SRm

SRa

Sex

Ratio

(ma l

espe

r100

fem

ales

)

Chart 1: Sex Ratios at Marriage in China, 1950–2004

Note: Variation in rates ofchild survival and birth inChina have caused the sexratio of marriage-age men(ages 25-29 years) to mar-riage-age women (20-24),SRm (or the “marriage sexratio”), to swing widely whilethe “apparent sex ratio” ofthat age group (20-29 years),SRa, has changed relativelyslowly. This suggests that, inrecent years, the relativesupply of females at mar-riage age has been moresensitive to age structurethan to sex ratios at birth.And, it calls into questionexpectations of violencefrom contemporary “barebranches.” Source: United NationsPopulation Division (2005).


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lent crime often can be statistically explained byan increase in the proportion of young men inthe population (Daly & Wilson, 1988).

Is History an Honest Guide?

The authors’ presentation of evidence from con-temporary comparative psychological and crimi-nal behavior research is fairly strong.Psychological studies have generally found youngmen to be more aggressive under conditions ofsustained sexual isolation, while parallel researchhas shown that men with mates and familialresponsibilities are less likely to be involved incriminal behavior (see Laub et al., 1998).

Hudson and den Boer turn to history forfurther validation, but it yields as much ambi-guity as it does proof. Each historical case isconfounded by other factors that may boost therisk of conflict: the instabilities occur in volatileyouthful populations (Moller, 1967/68;Mesquida & Wiener, 1999; Fuller, 1995;Goldstone, 1999; Cincotta et al., 2003); therebels are members of large families and oftenhigh birth-order sons (Goldstone, 1991); theyoung men are landless or otherwise unem-ployed (Homer-Dixon & Blitt, 1998; Ohlsson,2000); or there is a state power vacuum, as isoften the case in frontier settlements and decay-ing empires.

No single case demonstrates that a high sexratio, on its own, is enough to substantiallylower the costs of recruiting men for risky coali-

tional violence. But this is exactly what theauthors must show. In China—with whichHudson and den Boer are most concerned—nearly all of the destabilizing demographic,social, and economic conditions that accompa-nied high sex ratios in the historical case studieshave since been systematically peeled away.

Most notably, China’s age structure hasmatured. While the country’s median age waslikely younger than 18 throughout most of the19th century, today the median age is 32 yearsold (United Nations Population Division,2005). The proportion of young adults ages 15to 29 years—a measure that has been shown tobe positively related to a state’s risk of civil con-flict (Cincotta et al., 2003)—peaked in themid-1980s at more than 43 percent. Today, it is30 percent and falling. Job growth, which hasbeen driven by the past decade’s 8 percentannual increase in real GDP, surely outpaces theslowing growth of its working-age population(now at 1.3 percent annually).

Nor are young Chinese men and women stillcircumscribed by the sexual constraints andoccupational limitations of pre-revolutionChina. Increased rates of divorce and remar-riage, the removal of social stigma constrainingwidows and older women from marriage,declining social restrictions on premarital sexualactivity, weakening class structure, bustlingurban job markets, and the migration of youngChinese for education and work—all of theseare likely to reduce the perception and impactof a high sex ratio by reducing the number ofidle young men with low mobility or withoutfamilial or employment-related responsibilities.

Turning the Skew

From the first pages of Bare Branches, I was curi-ous to see how the authors would navigate thetense politics surrounding sex-selected abortion.But Hudson and den Boer steer clear of thisthorny debate. They point out that in China themost cost-effective solution is obvious: remov-ing the one-child policy should substantiallydepress the demand for sex-selected abortionand could reduce mortality among infant girls.

Hudson and den Boer turn to history forfurther validation, but it yields as much ambi-guity as it does proof. Each historical case isconfounded by other factors that may boostthe risk of conflict.

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Dismantling India’s ubiquitous and already out-lawed dowry system presents a more formidablepolicy challenge, however. The authors offer sev-eral recommendations, the most solid of whichadvises governments to improve the legal andsocial status of girls and women, which shouldreduce the costs of bearing girl children andincrease the returns on investments in theirhealth and education (even as technologies facil-itating fetal sex determination and selectiongrow more affordable and available).3

Despite my criticisms, I highly recommendBare Branches. Through their research and pub-lications (see also Hudson & den Boer, 2002;den Boer & Hudson, 2004) the authors havesparked a vibrant debate that will undoubtedlyclaim a significant place in the literature ondemographic security. Moreover, their workcontinues to draw much needed attention tothe extent and persistence of discriminationagainst women.

Notes

1. Demographers assess the degree of numericalbalance between human males and females using the“sex ratio,” which is calculated as the number of malesdivided by the number of females, multiplied by 100.For reasons that Hudson and den Boer admit are stillpoorly understood, the normal sex ratio at birth for alarge human population is typically around 105 (105males per 100 females).

2. I used a two-tailed hypothesis to test statisticalsignificance, where the critical value is F(DF= 184,184). Both correlations are significant at p<0.01. Sixoutliers, all of them Arabian Gulf countries, were omit-ted from the analysis because of the presence of anunusually large proportion of male workers in theirpopulations.

3. New technologies are likely to come online; theauthors note that companies in the developing worldare seeking to license a technology for separating spermcarrying X or Y chromosomes.

References

China State Statistical Bureau. (1997). China populationstatistical yearbook. Beijing: China Statistics Press.


Daly, Martin, & Margo Wilson. (1998). Homicide.New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

den Boer, Andrea M., & Valerie M. Hudson. (2004).“The security threat of Asia’s sex ratios.” SAISReview 24(2), 27-43.

Fuller, Gary. (1995). “The demographic backdrop toethnic conflict: A geographic overview.” In Thechallenge of ethnic conflict to national and interna-tional order in the 1990s: Geographic perspectives(pages 151–154). Washington, DC: CentralIntelligence Agency.

Goldstone, Jack A. (1991). Revolution and rebellion inthe early modern world. Berkeley: Univ. ofCalifornia Press.

Goldstone, Jack A. (1999). “Population and the pivotalstates.” In Robert Chase, Emily Hill, & PaulKennedy (Eds.), Pivotal states: A new framework forU.S. policy in the developing world (pages 247-269).New York: W.W. Norton.

Goodkind, Daniel. (2003). China’s demographic des-tiny: Aging, social security, and gender imbalance.Unpublished manuscript.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas F., & Jessica Blitt. (1998).Ecoviolence: Links among environment, populationand security. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Hudson, Valerie M., & Andrea M. den Boer. (2002).“A surplus of men, a deficit of peace.” InternationalSecurity 26(4), 5-38.

India Registrar General. (2001). Census of India, 2001,Series 1: India, Paper of 2001: Provisional populationtotals. New Delhi, India: Office of the RegistrarGeneral.

Laub, John H., Daniel S. Nagin, & Robert J. Sampson.(1998). “Trajectories of change in criminal offend-ing: Good marriages and the desistance process.”American Sociological Review 63(2), 225-38.

Mesquida, Christian G., & Neil I. Wiener. (1999).“Male age composition and the severity of con-flicts.” Politics in the Life Sciences 18(2), 181-189.

Moller, Herbert. (1967/68). “Youth as a force in themodern world.” Comparative Studies in Society andHistory 10, 237-260.

Ohlsson, Leif. (2000). Livelihood conflicts: Linkingpoverty and environment as causes of conflict.Stockholm: SIDA.

United Nations Population Division. (2005). Worldpopulation prospects: 2004 revision. New York:United Nations.


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“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bangbut a whimper.”—T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,Jared Diamond’s hefty and challenging book,demonstrates that while popular history isreplete with stories of conquered empires thatended with a bang, a number of civilizationscollapsed under the weight of their own actions(or inactions) regarding their environment, andthus ended (perhaps literally) with T.S. Eliot’swhimper. Diamond argues that the failures ofthe past provide lessons for today’s societies;global prosperity and well-being require that weact on these lessons, so that the past does notbecome prologue.

Collapse has been widely reviewed in thepress—even more widely discussed in the blo-gosphere—and Diamond has given a numberof well-publicized speeches and interviews onits themes (including one published in lastyear’s ECSP Report; see Diamond, 2004). Soinstead of offering a general review of the book,

I will focus on some of the implications ofDiamond’s theses for today’s policymakers andthe informed public.

But first, a few comments on the book itself.Reading Diamond is always a pleasure, evenwhen he is not writing about pleasant events.He writes well and entertainingly, and theamount of knowledge he can deploy to supporthis arguments is impressive, interesting, andoften convincing. For example, instead of rely-ing solely on academic studies for his chapterson the demise of the Easter Islanders and theNorse of Greenland, he visited the sites him-self, which helps bring to life these long-pastcivilizations and the problems that causedthem to fail.

While I enjoyed the book and admire whatDiamond has accomplished, on balance he hasprobably done too much. At more than 500pages, Collapse is a long read, even for the mostcommitted. In chapter after chapter, Diamondmakes his case and then piles on additionalmaterial that reconfirms an argument alreadywell made. Less information might have beenmore convincing—in part because more peoplewould have time to read the whole book.

Most valuable is Diamond’s ability to makethe past accessible and understandable, andthen demonstrate its relevance to the presentand future. Many of Collapse’s critics argue thatDiamond focuses on past civilizations that wereuniquely vulnerable because they were island-based, or otherwise remote and resource-con-strained. Therefore, according to these critics,these past experiences are irrelevant to today’sworld, which has the technology, science, andcapital to deal with its problems. Some accuseDiamond of espousing “environmental deter-minism,” a charge he rejects (page 302).

But these critics discount Diamond’s open-ing chapter on the challenges facing today’s

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or SucceedJared DiamondNew York: Viking Penguin, 2004. 592 pages.

Reviewed by KENNETH C. BRILL

Kenneth C. Brill is the director of the

National Counterproliferation Center

and the counterproliferation mission

manager for the Office of the Director of

National Intelligence (DNI). He has previ-

ously served as the U.S. ambassador to

Cyprus, the U.S. governor on the Board

of Governors of the International Atomic

Energy Agency, the U.S. permanent rep-

resentative to the United Nations Office

in Vienna, and the acting assistant secre-

tary of state for oceans, environment,

and science.

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Montana. Diamond uses Montana’s situationto illustrate that vulnerability is not unique toislands or drought-prone regions; even aseemingly prosperous state in the most afflu-ent and technologically advanced nation inhuman history suffers from some of the sameproblems that undermined earlier civiliza-tions. His review of four contemporary cases(Rwanda, the island of Hispaniola, China,and Australia) vividly demonstrates that theseeds of past “collapses” are very much presentin today’s world—and not only in the devel-oping countries.

In the final chapter, Diamond declares thatsocieties, in essence, choose to fail or succeed,and concludes that there is reason to be “cau-tiously optimistic.” This optimism rests on hisexpectation that the seeds of collapse will not gocompletely unattended and that we will takesustainable steps to deal with them.

Lessons From Collapse

In the post-9/11 world, some in political andpolicy circles argue that security and terrorismmust be our overriding concerns, making allother issues secondary. Diamond suggests thatglobalization and the interconnectedness ofglobal systems require policymakers to take abroader view. To that end, policymakersshould consider the following lessons drawnfrom Collapse.

Human impacts on the environment andother global systems have real-world conse-quences in the near term (e.g., for the war onterrorism). Failed states breed instability andinsecurity well beyond their borders.Deforestation, one of the issues highlighted inCollapse, can affect state health and regional sta-bility by undermining local livelihoods and cre-ating conditions for long-term economicdecline. For example, Charles Taylor’s rape ofLiberia’s forests sustained several destabilizinginsurgencies in West Africa and created condi-tions for continued instability in Liberia—andbeyond. Had a forest certification scheme beenin place, it would have been more difficult forAsian and European timber buyers to fund

Taylor at the outset. Therefore, internationaland regional agreements on such issues asforests, fisheries, and water pollution are notjust “nice” things to do for the environment,they are required for development, prosperity,stability and, ultimately, security.

Environmental problems need to regain theattention and priority they enjoyed in develop-ment aid programs of the 1990s. Collapse makesa strong case that environmental and humanimpact issues played a role in Rwanda’s geno-cide, and Diamond is not the first to identifythe political, security, and human consequencesof Haiti’s devastated environment. Other coun-tries, such as Afghanistan, Uganda, andNamibia, support the argument that the envi-ronment must be a key component of any sus-tainable development program. In addition, thegrowing body of evidence on the impacts of cli-mate change, the pressure on fresh water sup-plies, and the steady destruction of forests bylegal and illegal logging, to name only a few,show that aid programs must make the environ-ment a priority if we are to meet developmentgoals—and promote regional stability and glob-al security in the process (see MillenniumEcosystem Assessment, 2005).

In Chapter 14, Diamond notes that societiescan make bad decisions and fail for a variety ofreasons, such as not anticipating or perceivingproblems. Clearly, in a globalized world, policy-makers need long-term analyses of environmen-tal and human “megatrends” to help them bothanticipate and identify problems. It is, there-fore, distressing that while the NationalIntelligence Council’s (NIC) 2000 report,Global Trends 2015, addressed some issues relat-ed to human impacts on the environment, therecently released Mapping the Global Future:Project 2020 (NIC, 2004) essentially does not.The NIC and other security bodies should reg-ularly examine the impact of environmentalproblems on development and stability in keycountries and regions.

Having information is only part of the bat-tle. Collapse also argues in Chapter 14 that soci-eties can fail if they do not respond rationally asa problem develops. The depletion of fisheries

International andregional agree-ments on suchissues as forests,fisheries, andwater pollutionare not just“nice” things todo for theenvironment,they are requiredfor development,prosperity,stability and, ulti-mately, security.


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and the spread of persistent organic pollutants,for example, are known problems addressed byinternational and regional agreements. Climatechange, on the other hand, is a known problemto which states have only partially responded.Not only has policy failed, but the public hasalso failed to insist that such known problemsbe addressed, not avoided.

The spread of democracy and the rule of laware essential to sustainably confront the humanimpact issues Diamond discusses (despite theunique example presented by the formerDominican dictator and environmentalistJoaquin Balaguer). Corruption is antithetical—and good governance is vital—to sustainableresource management and the regulation ofhuman impacts on global environmental sys-tems. But, as we have seen repeatedly, corrup-tion is sure to occur when economic interestsseek to exploit limited resources in the absenceof transparency and strong legal systems.

Democracies tend to be both transparentand supportive of the rule of law. The UnitedStates has led the way in promoting the rule oflaw as an essential part of sustainable develop-ment, despite some developing countries’ insis-tence that such issues are “political” and haveno place in development discussions. However,developing countries’ support for a global anti-corruption convention in 2003 indicates thatthe link between the rule of law and sustainabledevelopment is becoming more widely accept-ed. But more needs to be done, and in thisregard, the Bush administration’s broad effortsto promote international democratic reformcould benefit the environment and help, inDiamond’s words, societies choose to succeed.

Finally, the most fundamental step is one weall can take: individuals concerned about humanimpacts on the global environmental systemsthat sustain us must work steadily to increase thenumber of people who share those concerns. Wemust make the environment an important issueacross the political and ideological spectra, bybuilding inclusive coalitions, and, as Diamondpoints out in Chapter 15, working with—not

against—businesses and other economic inter-ests. For example, the Marine StewardshipCouncil, an NGO-industry collaboration thatpromotes sustainable fisheries and sustainablefishing practices, is constructively contributingto both the economy and the environment.Broad-based support is essential, if politiciansand policymakers are to overcome the daily pres-sure to provide only short-term responses to anyproblem—and if we are to avoid perpetuating“the tragedy of the commons.”

Collapse is a big book, and not just in its size.It raises important issues, suggests some waysforward, and should increase our understandingof why we must sustainably address humanimpacts on the environment and other globalsystems, at all levels—local, national, and inter-national. In Collapse, Diamond describes howpast civilizations have ended with a whimper,not a bang. Let us hope that we can learn from,and act on, these lessons from the past, so thatunlike in “The Hollow Men,” no shadow willfall “Between the idea / And the reality.”

Author’s Note: the views expressed are solely thoseof the author and do not reflect in any way theviews of the U.S. government.

References

Diamond, Jared. (2004). “Environment, population,and health: Strategies for a more secure world.”Environmental Change and Security Project Report10, 8-11.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005, March).Millennium Ecosystem Assessment synthesis report(pre-publication final draft approved by MA Boardon March 23, 2005). Retrieved April 10, 2005,from http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx

National Intelligence Council (NIC). (2000,December). Global trends 2015: A dialogue aboutthe future with nongovernment experts (NIC 2000-02). Retrieved April 10, 2005, fromhttp://www.cia.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_global/global-trend2015.pdf

NIC. (2004, December). Mapping the global future:Project 2020 (NIC 2004-13). Retrieved April 10,2005, from http://www.foia.cia.gov/2020/2020.pdf

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In December 2001, the United NationsEnvironment Programme (UNEP) announcedthe formation of a major new activity, the Post-Conflict Assessment Unit (PCAU), based inGeneva. Building on the earlier success ofUNEP’s assessments in the Balkans, PCAU wasestablished to investigate the environmentalimpacts of conflict and pre-existing chronicenvironmental problems in war-torn regions,integrate environmental considerations intopost-conflict recovery and reconstruction, rec-ommend strategic priorities for post-conflictcleanup and remediation, and catalyze andmobilize international support for post-conflictenvironmental projects.

UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer, atan October 2004 Wilson Center EnvironmentalChange and Security Program event, describedPCAU as the first—and most visible—ofUNEP’s three pillars of environment and conflictwork.1 UNEP considers post-conflict environ-mental assessments vital tools for determiningthe environmental impacts of conflict and forproviding clear recommendations for remedia-tion. PCAU therefore seeks to demonstrate thelinkages connecting environmental degradation,public health, and sustainable development toidentify environmental risks and promote sus-tainable resource use.2

PCAU’s 38 reports cover Afghanistan,Albania, Serbia-Montenegro, Macedonia, Iraq,Liberia, the Occupied Palestinian Territories,

and the effects of depleted uranium (in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia-Montenegro, and Kosovo).Exclusively descriptive and reportorial in tone,these reports follow no common format but areall clearly written, well-edited, and ably supple-mented by photos and maps that add to theirreadability.3 The reports reviewed here—onSerbia-Montenegro and Liberia—typify boththe variety and the quality of PCAU’s writtenproducts.

Pekka Haavisto (2005), the former head ofPCAU, draws three general conclusions fromthe post-conflict assessments conducted to date.First, a military conflict always has negativeconsequences for the environment that must beaddressed as soon as the situation allows.Second, environmental concerns are not stand-alone issues, but should be fully integrated intoboth short-term humanitarian work and long-term reconstruction and development. Third,post-conflict environmental work can buildconfidence and peace, bilaterally and regionally;

From Conflict to Sustainable Development:Assessment and Clean-up in Serbia andMontenegro (Final Report)United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)Switzerland: UNEP, April 2004. 55 pages.

Desk Study on the Environment in LiberiaUNEPSwitzerland: UNEP, February 2004. 116 pages.

Reviewed by GREGORY D. FOSTER

Gregory D. Foster is a professor at the

Industrial College of the Armed Forces,

National Defense University,

Washington, D.C., where he previously

served as George C. Marshall Professor

and J. Carlton Ward Distinguished

Professor and Director of Research.


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where other topics are too sensitive to discuss,the environment can often serve as an icebreaker.

Serbia-Montenegro

From March to June of 1999, following the fail-ure of the Rambouillet peace process, NATOconducted air strikes within the then-FederalRepublic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The intensity ofthe air strikes—particularly those targetingindustrial and military facilities—fueled claimsthat the conflict had produced massive air, land,and water pollution, leading to an environmen-tal disaster.

UNEP and the UN Centre for HumanSettlements initiated a neutral, independent,scientific assessment of the environmental situ-ation in the FRY, sending four expert missionsto the area between July and October 1999.4

Based on the missions’ fieldwork, UNEP con-cluded that the conflict had not produced ageneralized environmental catastrophe, but thatmore localized impacts—combined in somecases with a long-term legacy of poor environ-mental management—gave cause for concern.In particular, the environmental situation atfour “hot spots” in Serbia was so severe that thereport urged their cleanup on humanitariangrounds, recommending the following steps:

• Clean the wastewater canal to the DanubeRiver and remove mercury from the groundin Pancevo;

• Decontaminate dioxin and polychlorinatedbiphenyl hot spots in Kragujevac;

• Protect drinking water wells in Novi Sad; and • Reduce sulfur dioxide emissions from the

copper mine in Bor.5

UNEP identified 27 cleanup projects forthese 4 hot spots at a total estimated cost of $20million, and eventually generated $12.5 millionin contributions from 10 donor countries tosupport 22 of them. UNEP awarded nearly 400contracts to perform this work, some 300 ofwhich went to local companies or institutions,thereby building local capacity and generatinglocal income and employment.

Before handing over responsibility for thecleanup program to environmental authoritiesin Serbia-Montenegro, UNEP and the localauthorities jointly assessed the four original hotspots, along with environmental conditions atthree additional industrial sites. The finalassessment found that:6

• The clean-up program was a notable success,especially in light of limited funding andtime constraints, and significantly reducedconflict-related impacts at the four hot spots:– At Pancevo, where more than half of

available funds were spent, conflict-relat-ed concerns were significantly reduced,though important environmental prob-lems remain;

– At Novi Sad, the risk of serious contami-nation affecting drinking-water supplieswas substantially reduced and conflict-related environmental impacts systemati-cally monitored;

– At Kragujevac, the environmental im-pacts of the conflict (high PCB concen-trations at various sites throughout theZastava industrial complex) were success-fully mitigated; and

– At Bor, conflict-related environmentaleffects were largely mitigated (PCB con-tamination at the mining and smeltingcomplex’s transformer station), but wereminor compared to the wider, pre-existingenvironmental problems affecting the area.

• The clean-up program generally strength-ened environmental management institu-tions and helped resume and strengtheninternational and regional environmentalcooperation;

• Conflict-related impacts represented onlysome of the environmental and health chal-lenges at most locations—several sites still suf-fered considerable environmental problems;

• Strengthening national and local environ-mental management capacities will requirecontinuing efforts to integrate the environ-ment into the national development agendaand to promote preventive and precaution-ary environmental management;

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• Partnerships with donors, the wider interna-tional community, the UN system, and localcounterparts and experts were fundamentalto the program’s success; and

• A faster start—with more immediate finan-cial resources—would have produced evengreater environmental benefits.

Liberia

Two missions to the Liberian capital ofMonrovia met with stakeholders and collecteddata for UNEP’s desk study following the AccraPeace Agreement of August 2003. As PekkaHaavisto points out in the report’s introduc-tion, the desk study is not a comprehensiveenvironmental survey, but rather a rapid strate-gic assessment aimed at identifying the mosturgent environmental issues for Liberia’s post-conflict reconstruction.7

The report presents a disturbing litany ofenvironmental stresses growing out of and con-tributing to Liberia’s 14 years of civil war,including:

• The water supply systems in 10 urban areasoutside Monrovia have completely col-lapsed, and only 26 percent of the popula-tion has access to safe drinking water;

• The sewage treatment plant in the capital,designed to treat waste water from 130,000people, now treats waste water from800,000;

• An estimated half a million people are livingin temporary housing or refugee camps,often without adequate sanitation facilities;

• Household and commercial waste collectionservices in major towns and cities have most-ly collapsed, and rubbish trucks, transfer sta-tions, depots, and equipment have beenlooted, heavily damaged, or destroyed;

• The conflict left power plants, electricitysubstations, and transmission lines damagedand vandalized;

• Leaking oil storage facilities, alongside leak-ing pipelines and transformer fluids, threat-en rivers and groundwater;

• As many as 99 percent of Liberians may now

be dependent on charcoal and fuel wood forcooking and heating, further depleting thecountry’s rich forest cover, which hasdeclined to approximately 31 percent, a 7percent decrease since 1990;

• Warring factions exploited and exported thecountry’s rich timber resources to pay forarms and armies, which sharply increased thenumber of logging roads, thus acceleratingthe fragmentation of forest habitat, providingeasier access for hunters and poachers, andincreasing slash-and-burn agriculture; and

• Artisanal gold and diamond miners havecleared and excavated large areas of forestand river beds, as well as clogged and pollut-ed rivers with suspended solids and harmfulmetals and cyanide.

These and other serious instances of degra-dation prompt Klaus Toepfer to note in thereport’s foreword:

The misuse of natural resources has notonly been a source of conflict in Liberiaand the wider region, but has also sus-tained it. Effective and strong manage-ment to promote the sustainable use ofnatural resources is central to preventingadditional conflict in Liberia. For thelong-suffering people of Liberia, many ofwhom have been displaced and separatedfrom their families, this new era providesthem with a chance for a better future.(page 6)

The PCAU, via efforts like those described inthese reports, has already achieved consider-able success in making environmental concernsmore than a peacetime issue.


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To address these conditions, the report offers60 recommendations that could serve as a tem-plate for environmental rehabilitation in anycomparable situation. In addition to specific sec-toral recommendations, the report proposes anumber of more sweeping measures, including:

• Carry out comprehensive environmentalassessments;

• Integrate environmental considerations intothe reconstruction process;

• Create employment through the expansionof environmental protection;

• Improve environmental governance andinternational cooperation;

• Expand environmental information andawareness; and

• Develop and use creative financial mecha-nisms.

Conclusion

In a May 2004 address at the Wilson Center,Pekka Haavisto observed with frustration thatgovernments seeking to recover from conflictsand negotiate peace rarely prioritize environ-mental concerns.8 Yet the PCAU, via efforts likethose described in these reports, has alreadyachieved considerable success in making envi-ronmental concerns more than a peacetimeissue, while donor interest, funding, and sup-port have provided strong incentives for gov-ernments to undertake much-needed conserva-tion and clean-up measures. Underscoring theintrinsic strategic importance of the environ-ment, Haavisto emphasized that after a conflict,environmental conditions can either hinderrecovery and development or provide an arenafor negotiation and cooperation. “The post-conflict situation,” he said, “is a unique oppor-tunity to create something new.”

Indeed, one hopes that thoroughly and sys-tematically documenting the environmentalcosts of conflict may not only sensitize decision-makers to how environmental degradation mayprecipitate and nurture conflict, but also helpprevent them from regarding violence as a fruit-ful strategic option in the first place. As Klaus

Toepfer (n.d.) has argued: “Environmentalsecurity, both for reducing the threats of war,and in successfully rehabilitating a country fol-lowing conflict, must no longer be viewed as aluxury but… as a fundamental part of a longlasting peace policy.”

Notes

1. The second pillar of UNEP’s environment andconflict work is ENVSEC (the Environment andSecurity Initiative), the UNEP European regionaloffice’s partnership with the United NationsDevelopment Programme and the Organization forSecurity and Cooperation in Europe. The third pillar isthe Environment and Conflict Prevention Initiative ledby UNEP’s Division of Early Warning and Assessment.See event summary on ECSP’s website athttp://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1413&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=95111

2. For more information on PCAU’s methodology,please see http://postconflict.unep.ch/about.htm

3. All of these reports are available on the unit’s web-site, at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications.htm

4. The first mission took soil, air, and groundwatersamples at industrial sites in 10 locations. A secondmission visited several sites along the Danube River,while the third investigated the conflict’s consequenceson biodiversity, especially in protected areas. Finally, anexpert team working in Kosovo studied municipaladministration, the regularization of housing andproperty rights, the development of a cadastral (landsurvey) information system, and environmental policyand institutions in the province.

5. These findings were complemented by subse-quent field research on the environmental risks arisingfrom the use of depleted uranium weapons during theconflict; see http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications.htm#du for more information.

6. A technical report (UNEP, 2004) supplementsthese findings with detailed assessments and appraisesthe institutional capacity at each of the seven sites.Additionally, it offers detailed recommendations forthe country’s industrial sector and local institutionalcapacities; see http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/assessment.pdf

7. Other recent desk studies have reported on Iraqand the Occupied Palestinian Territories; seehttp://postconflict.unep.ch/publications.htm

8. See event summary on ECSP’s website, athttp://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1413&fuseaction=topics.event_summary&event_id=68772.See also Airhart (2003).

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References

Airhart, Marc. (2003, September 15). “Cleaning upafter war.” Scientific American, 26-27.

Haavisto, Pekka. (2005). “Green helmets.” Our Planet15(4), 21-22. Available online at http://www.our-planet.com/imgversn/154/haavisto.html

Toepfer, Klaus. (n.d.). “In defence of the environment,putting poverty to the sword” (an editorial on war

and the environment). Available online athttp://www.unep.org/Documents.multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=288&ArticleID=3810

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).(2004, April). From conflict to sustainable develop-ment: Assessment of environmental hot spots, Serbia andMontenegro (Technical Report). Switzerland: UNEP.Available online at http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/assessment.pdf

Global Crises: UnfortunatelyUnrecognized and Unsolved

Global Crises, Global Solutions is an unfortunatebook. It begins with a good question: howshould $50 billion (or some other largeamount) of new foreign aid money be spentover the next four years to get the most “bangfor the buck”? However, the method chosen toanswer this question is fatally flawed, renderingthe results useless, if not dangerous.

The flaws are apparent in the first 8 pages ofthe introductory chapter, which is the only sec-tion of this 647-page book written by its editor,Bjørn Lomborg. The fair and important ques-tion of how to prioritize our global challengesand opportunities certainly needs more seriousattention. But Lomborg’s method is problematic.First, he generated a list of 32 “general challengesfacing humanity” by scouring UN publications(see Table 1). Even this initial step was not inclu-sive, because sustainability is not mentioned.The sustainability challenge is a core global prob-lem, long recognized by the United Nations (see,e.g., World Commission on Environment andDevelopment, 1987) so it is hard to imagine howa scan of UN publications missed it.

Another major flaw arises in the next step.Rather than circulating this list to a broad

range of stakeholders for comment and review(as Lomborg acknowledges he could havedone), he instead concluded that even thoughthis effort might produce more “buy-in,” itwould take too long. It is ludicrous that hecould not afford to devote another month oryear to a process whose recommendations forspending billions on global problems he hopedwould be taken seriously. Even a cursory glanceat the initial list of problems would have iden-tified the major omission mentioned above.Contrast this with the Intergovernmental Panelon Climate Change (2001) process or theMillennium Ecosystem Assessment’s four-year,1,300-participant process of scientific consen-sus building.1

Lomborg narrowed the original list of 32challenges down to the 10 “found to hold themost promising opportunities” (page 4).

Global Crises, Global SolutionsBjørn Lomborg (Ed.)Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 647 pages.

Reviewed by ROBERT COSTANZA

Robert Costanza is the Gund Professor

of Ecological Economics and director of

the Gund Institute of Ecological

Economics at the Rubenstein School of

Environment and Natural Resources at

the University of Vermont. E-mail:

[email protected]


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Found by whom? Eight like-minded econo-mists who met for one week—hardly worthyof the name “Copenhagen consensus,” consid-ering the problems’ magnitude.2 The biasinherent in both of these initial winnowingsteps is huge but never acknowledged. Forexample, while the initial list of 32 includes 10environmental challenges, ranging from airpollution to deforestation, from lack of energyand water to climate change, the final listincludes only one environmental entry: cli-mate change.

Contrast this with Jared Diamond’s (2004)list of the 12 most serious environmentalproblems facing past and future societies—problems that more often than not have led tothe well-documented collapse of these histori-

cal societies:

• Loss of habitat and ecosystem services;• Overfishing;• Loss of biodiversity;• Soil erosion and degradation;• Energy limits;• Freshwater limits;• Photosynthetic capacity limits;• Toxic chemicals;• Alien species introductions;• Climate change;• Population growth; and• Human consumption levels.

While climate change is certainly a seriousproblem, and has contributed to several histori-

Table 1: Global Challenges in Global Crises, Global Solutions

The 32 Original Challenges FacingHumanity

The Final 10 Challenges Found to Holdthe Most Promising Opportunities

EnvironmentAir pollutionChemical pollution and

hazardous wasteClimate changeDeforestationDepletion of the ozone

layerDepletion of water

resourcesLack of energyLand degradationLoss of biodiversityVulnerability to natural

disasters

EconomyDigital divideFinancial instabilityLack of intellectual

property rightsMoney launderingSubsidies and trade

barriersTransport and infra-

structure

GovernanceArms proliferationConflictsCorruptionLack of educationTerrorism

Health andpopulationDrugsHIV/AIDSHuman settlementsLack of people of

working ageMalariaLiving conditions of

childrenLiving conditions of

womenNon-communicable

diseasesUndernutrition/hungerUnsafe water and lack

of sanitationVaccine-preventable

diseases

Climate changeCommunicable diseasesConflicts and arms proliferationAccess to educationFinancial instabilityGovernance and corruptionMalnutrition and hungerMigrationSanitation and access to clean waterSubsidies and trade barriers

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cal collapses—as Diamond and several others(Tainter, 1988; Yoffee & Cowgill, 1988;Ponting, 1991) have pointed out—the interplayof multiple factors is almost always more criticalthan a single one. Societies on the edge becomebrittle and lose resilience, making them moresusceptible to the impacts of climate change aswell as to other potential perturbations, such aspolitical corruption, war, terrorism, or theinability to adapt to new circumstances.

Lomborg commissioned a background paperon each of the 10 challenges from “renownedeconomics specialists within each field” (page5). These 10 papers, along with two “alternativeperspectives” on each challenge, form the bulkof the book. Unfortunately, while presenting aslightly broader perspective than that of theoriginal eight experts, these papers still drawfrom far too narrow a set. Despite this, most ofthe papers in the collection are well worth read-ing for what they are: statements of a particularposition, based on a particular worldview, on aparticular complex issue. Missing—for the pur-poses of this book’s stated aims—are truly alter-native positions. Perhaps most important, how-ever, is the lack of any appreciation of the inter-connectedness of the global challenges—a sys-tems perspective. The book assumes that thesechallenges are independently solvable and there-fore able to be ranked in a simple linear fashion.

The final chapter of Global Crises, GlobalSolutions presents the experts’ “consensus” rank-ing of the alternatives. This, again, is a misuseof the term: each expert ranked the alternativesindependently, and Lomborg presents the meanrankings as the consensus. Fortunately, thebook includes each expert’s individual rankingsand reasoning, so that the reader can recon-struct the (still limited) range of opinions andthe rationales behind the individual rankings.

What can we conclude about the originalquestion? Unfortunately, very little. We haveonly the opinions of eight economists, whosethinking on these topics was already well-knownbefore the exercise and changed very little afterone week in Copenhagen. We are left with themere illusion of scientific consensus, an illusionwhich the editor obviously intended.

But there is a deeper issue. This work demon-strates how worldview or vision can shape theresults of purportedly objective analysis.Lomborg and the contributing authors share aworldview that has been called “technologicaloptimism” (Costanza, 2000). Technologicaloptimists assume that technical progress willsolve all current and future social problems.Humans and their dominion over nature willcontinue to expand without limits. This world-view does not see population growth and over-consumption, among other sustainability issues,as problems.

As the work of Diamond (2004), Meadowset al. (2004), and literally thousands of otherauthors have shown, the problem of sustainabil-ity is today’s core global problem. Will ourcompletely interconnected global society fallinto the same traps that led to Easter Island’scollapse? I hope not, but we cannot assumethese problems will be addressed, as Lomborgand associates do, by simply believing in thepower of technology.

Unfortunately, even the title of Lomborg’sbook is a sad sham: the authors do not believethat there are any truly global crises, only chal-lenges that a few tens of billions of dollars cansolve. They have done the world a grave disserv-ice by holding on to their unquestioned valuesand assumptions about the feasibility of unlim-ited economic growth. As demonstrated by thefate of the Easter Islanders, the Maya, theGreenland Norse, and several other historicalsocieties, clinging to maladaptive values in theface of mounting evidence to the contrarycould lead to collapse (Diamond, 2004). If weare to create a sustainable and desirable globalhuman society in the 21st century, we must notrepeat the same mistakes. This real global crisisrequires global solutions, but instead Lomborg’sbook only perpetrates past myths.

Notes

1. See www.maweb.org for more information onthe Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

2. It is interesting to note that while Lomborg feelsthat a small group of like-minded economists are the

The bookassumes thatthese challengesare indepen-dently solvableand thereforeable to beranked in asimple linearfashion.


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appropriate “experts” to consult on the best way tosolve global problems, he has no trouble dismissing thebroad and overwhelming scientific consensus reachedby experts on the biophysical aspects of environmentalissues (Lomborg, 2001).

References

Costanza, Robert. (2000). “Visions of alternative(unpredictable) futures and their use in policyanalysis.” Conservation Ecology 4(1), 5. Availableonline at http://www.consecol.org/vol4/iss1/art5

Diamond, Jared. (2004). Collapse: How societies chooseto fail or succeed. New York: Viking Press.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).(2001). Summary for policymakers: A report ofWorking Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change. Available online at

http://www.ipcc.ch/Lomborg, Bjørn. (2001). The skeptical environmental-

ist: Measuring the real state of the world. Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press.

Meadows, Donella, Jørgen Randers, & DennisMeadows. (2004). Limits to growth: The 30-yearupdate. Post Mills, VT: Chelsea Green.

Ponting, Clive. (1991). A green history of the world: Theenvironment and the collapse of great civilizations.London: Sinclair-Stevenson.

Tainter, Joseph A. (1988). The collapse of complex soci-eties. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

World Commission on Environment andDevelopment. (1987). Our common future. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Yoffee, Norman, & George L. Cowgill (Eds). (1988).The collapse of ancient states and civilizations.Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

No one can accuse Paige Whaley Eager of beingoverly nuanced. Starting with the title of herbook, Global Population Policy: From PopulationControl to Reproductive Rights, she confronts the

reader with absolutes. There has never been, ofcourse, a “global population policy,” nor canhumankind’s complex and diverse response topopulation and reproduction be easily separat-ed into two camps, population control andreproductive rights.

For Eager, the evolution of population policyhas been a tectonic battle between evil (“popula-tion controllers”) and good (the “GlobalWomen’s Health and Rights Movement” orGWHRM). Population controllers are whitemen, mostly American, who are hell-bent onreducing the rate of population growth for eco-nomic, political, and national security reasons.Until the Reagan Administration, these powerfulmen made population control the centerpiece ofU.S. foreign policy. They encouraged “govern-mental use of coercive methods” to compelwomen to use “unsafe contraceptives” (page 6).

Eager outlines the population controllers’other transgressions, the most egregious of

Global Population Policy: From Population Controlto Reproductive Rights Paige Whaley EagerAldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004. 234 pages.

Reviewed by DUFF GILLESPIE

Duff Gillespie, PhD., is a senior scholar

at the Bill and Melinda Gates Institute

for Population and Reproductive Health

at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of

Public Health. He is also a visiting pro-

fessor in the Department of Population

and Family Health Sciences. Previously,

Duff Gillespie served as senior deputy

assistant administrator for the Global

Health Bureau at USAID. He has worked

in the population and health field for 33

years and was the director of USAID’s

Office of Population for 7 years.

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which is their disregard for women, who theyview as little more than instruments for lower-ing the population growth rate. While there isno doubt that government family planning pro-grams have perpetrated serious human rightsabuses, Eager spends little time documentingthem. If she had, she would have found suchabuses to be the exception, not the rule, and cer-tainly not as pervasive as her book implies.

Arrayed against this monolithic cabal of pop-ulation controllers is the GWHRM, a constructEager never really explains. She does describe insome detail how various women’s groups, most-ly from the North, altered the policy landscapein fundamental ways. Their labors were reward-ed at the 1994 International Conference onPopulation and Development in Cairo, whereessentially all countries endorsed a more com-prehensive view of population that encompassesthe concepts of sexual and reproductive healthand rights (SRHR). Surprisingly, Eager spendsvery little time explaining SRHR but dwellsextensively on what it is not: population control.

Quite rightly, Eager states that such terms as“population control” have been largely ban-ished from official lexicons throughout theworld. This excision is more than symbolic;policies and government officials are generallymore sensitive to the rights and needs ofwomen. Indeed, Eager could make a strongercase for the GWHRM by documenting the sig-nificant policy changes since Cairo throughoutthe developing world, such as raising the age ofmarriage, liberalizing abortion and divorcelaws, and criminalizing or discouraging femalegenital cutting.

When polemists dichotomize complex sub-jects, their simplifications often distort reality.Eager is no exception: she gets many things—far too many to cover here—just plain wrong.One of her most egregious errors is her disdainfor the underlying rationale of “population con-trollers”: that rapid population growth impedessocio-economic development. Her derision isbased on her personal philosophy; she makes noattempt to refute this assumption analyticallyand appears unaware of the extensive literatureon population and development. If Eager had

consulted the masterful volume edited byBirdsall, Kelley, and Sinding (2001), she wouldhave learned that the importance of populationdynamics to development has never been aswell-documented as it is today. Most of whatthe “population controllers” have been sayingover the last three decades is actually true.

Eager’s biggest mistake is grossly overstatingthe influence of the United States in convincingthe developing world to decrease fertility rates.She is not only wrong, but also insulting. First,Eager tries to make the case that decreasing fer-tility is a core component of U.S. foreign assis-tance policy, which has never been the case.Uncomfortable realities that would call intoquestion her assumptions about the UnitedStates’ priorities are not presented or, perhaps,not known by the author. Eager feels theUnited States was particularly influential in the1970s; yet, the annual budget for populationprograms ranged between $120 million to $250million, and the total staff never exceeded 200people. This modest level of commitment hard-ly reflects a high priority.

Unintentionally, Eager’s portrayal of U.S.population controllers convincing or hood-winking developing-country governments intomounting efforts to reduce their fertility isdemeaning and wrong. For example, if the

There has never been, of course, a “globalpopulation policy,” nor can humankind’s complex and diverse response to populationand reproduction be easily separated intotwo camps, population control and reproduc-tive rights.


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author had even cursorily examined the litera-ture she would have discovered that Asiancountries incorporated fertility reduction intheir development plans before the UnitedStates even had a population program. It neverseemed to occur to her that these countries, andjust about every developing country today,might institute such policies and programsbecause they meet the needs and desires of theircitizens when carried out in ways that respectthose needs and desires.

References

Birdsall, Nancy, Allen C. Kelley, & Steven W. Sinding(Eds.). (2001). Population matters: Demographicchange, economic growth, and poverty in the develop-ing world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jain, Anrudh (Ed.). (1998). Do population policies mat-ter? Fertility and politics in Egypt, India, and Mexico.New York: The Population Council.

Mason, Andrew (Ed.). (2001) Population change and eco-nomic development in East Asia: Challenges met, oppor-tunities seized. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Integrated Water Resource Management(IWRM) suffers from a paucity of new knowl-edge, particularly in theoretical approaches.Very little of the last decade’s avalanche ofIWRM literature is groundbreaking or deeplyinsightful. The new angle on an age-old prob-lem outlined in Ken Conca’s Governing Water:Contentious Transnational Politics and GlobalInstitution Building is therefore a breath offresh air.

Governing Water is a hefty piece of work—457 pages—but its sheer size does not over-whelm the exquisite intellectual thread Concaexpertly weaves. This sincere attempt to openthe “black box” obscuring the governance oftransboundary rivers describes efforts to con-

quer water resources through “violent” acts,such as dam building and aggressive engineer-ing, and the counter-offensives against theseacts.

A Funny Thing Happened

Conca introduces the problematique of IWRMgovernance with an elegant analysis of theopening ceremony of the Second World WaterForum at The Hague in 2000. The slick andglitzy event was cleverly hijacked by a nakedwoman and a number of athletic young men,who abseiled from the rafters above the keynotespeaker’s head, unfurling banners protesting theconstruction of a large dam in Spain. This cun-ningly planned protest action is deeply symbol-ic of the underlying tensions in the global questto manage water. “A funny thing happened onthe way to the World Water Forum,” Concaobserves wittily:

The official report on the forum and min-isterial conference made no mention of thedisruptive incident or any other expres-

Governing Water: Contentious TransnationalPolitics and Global Institution BuildingKen ConcaCambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005. 457 pages.

Reviewed by ANTHONY R. TURTON

Anthony R. Turton holds the Gibb-SERA

Chair in Integrated Water Resource

Management at the Council for Scientific

and Industrial Research and the

University of Pretoria, South Africa.

E-mail: [email protected]

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sions of dissent throughout the meet-ing.…One motive for writing this book isto examine the stark disconnect betweenthe forum’s blueprint for forging a globalwater regime and the contentious politicssurrounding water all around the world.(page 2)

Conca lists a series of vexing questions.Whose water is it? Who should have the legiti-mate power to decide? What does it mean todescribe governments as sovereign and legitimatewhile also calling for private sector investment?What are the relationships among authority inthe watershed, boardroom, and nation-state? Isthere hope for a cooperative and broadly legiti-mate approach to water governance?

Shifting Focus

Having laid the foundation, Conca focuses onthe politics of global institution buildingaround local ecosystems, which he claims playthree fundamental roles:

• They transcend elements of scale; • They sustain local livelihoods and engender

vibrant cultures that become unique identi-fying labels in a globalized world; and

• Increasingly, they are subjects of the globaleconomic market, either as basic naturalresources or ecotourism goods and services.1

Conca seeks to understand the inadequacyof negotiated international agreements or“regimes,” which too often die on the negotiat-ing table or prove ineffective. In light of thisinadequacy, he shifts the focus from the regimeparadigm in two new directions:

• Away from the environmental problems thatneatly fit the regime solution towards thehidden, creeping, and cumulative impacts ofthe “assault on the global environment”; and

• Away from the substantive content of globalenvironmental cooperation towards the pro-cedural elements of environmental conflict.

Together, these new foci enable the reader tocritically examine the way we establish rulesthat “channel deeply divisive, contentiousdebates when a broad consensus on substancemay be unattainable” (page 6).

Pushing Rivers Around

Governing Water’s first seven chapters eachaddress an element of water governance, fol-lowed by two country case studies (Brazil andSouth Africa). Chapter 2 questions mainstreaminternational relations (IR) scholarship, whichdoes not seem to challenge the inherent flaws inchoosing regimes to regulate interstate inter-course. Although regimes are assumed to beproduced by bargaining, Conca argues thatthey actually take the form desired by the dom-inant coalition.2

Chapter 3, “Pushing Rivers Around,”describes the impact of a century of dam build-ing on southern Africa’s culture and ecosystems.Rivers mean different things to different actorsor stakeholders; they are spatial and temporallinks that cross a range of issues and scales fromthe local to the international. Recognizing this,Conca provides critical but sensitive insightsinto the complexity of river basin management.He plumbs society’s “hydraulic mission,” iden-tifying an emerging transnational network oftechnical experts who construct dams and relat-ed hydraulic infrastructure for multinationalfirms and global financial institutions. Concamakes a forceful case for shifting the focus ofour scholarly attention to the cumulativeimpact of these individual acts of ecosystemmodification.

Hydropolitical Theory

Chapter 4 provides excellent empirical insightsinto the emergence of a global regime on waterresource management, starting with three star-tling new facts, discovered largely by AaronWolf ’s Transboundary Freshwater DisputeDatabase (TFDD) team at Oregon StateUniversity:3


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• The number of international rivers hasincreased as more rivers are “international-ized” by changes in political geography afterthe Cold War;

• International river basins cover almost halfof the planet’s land area; and

• A part of almost all sovereign states is locatedin an international river basin.

This is compelling stuff, because the lack ofa theory of hydropolitics is IR’s black hole—ahole that Governing Water may begin to plug.While many intuitively believe that water is adriver of conflict, as asserted by the now largelydiscredited “water wars” literature (e.g., Irani,1991; Starr, 1991; Bulloch & Darwish, 1993;Gleick, 1994; de Villiers, 1999), Jesse Hamnerand Aaron Wolf (1997) have shown that waterresource management is more likely to catalyzecooperation than conflict between nation-states. According to their work, 145 interna-tional treaties on shared river basins have beengenerated since 1814 (Wolf et al., 2003). This islikely a gross underestimate, further strengthen-ing Conca’s argument (see, e.g., Turton et al.,2004, pages 387-389; Ashton et al., 2005).4

Significantly, Conca finds that the contentof basin-level accords has escaped seriousnotice, noting that “even if most of the world’sshared basins remain uncovered by internation-al accords, those for which accords are in placecould be converging on a set of norms forshared governance” (page 106). Empirical evi-dence tentatively shows convergence aroundsome core concepts—mostly procedural issues,such as sharing data and building confidence—but these are still framed in the polarizing lan-guage of sovereignty. Consequently, there is lit-tle evidence of a common normative structure.

Water Is a Social and an EconomicResource

Chapter 5 analyzes the emergence of a globalcommunity under the banner of IWRM.Caught in the tension between planning andmarketization, this global network is ambiva-lent toward the most fundamentally contested

issues in the water sector—the basic questionsConca poses (noted above)—leading to thenear-hegemony of the core logic of IWRM.However, challenges to this hegemony includethe nascent WISER (“Water Is a Social and anEconomic Resource”) discourse that seeks toelevate the social values of water (see Allan,2000, page 27).

Another challenge starting to raise its head(but not listed in Governing Water) disputes theassumption that the river basin is the naturalunit of management. The four most economi-cally developed countries in southern Africa—South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, andZimbabwe—are all reaching the limits of theirreadily available water and thus may face con-straints on their economic growth. However,this constraint is being effectively managed by acombined policy that uses interbasin transfersand moves water out of agriculture to theindustrial and services sectors, a softer approachheavily dependent on the existence of effectivegovernance structures.

The Real Water Wars

Chapter 6 unpacks the complex dynamics ofthe anti-dam lobby and the democratization ofwatershed management. Conca builds a case forthe real water wars—not between sovereignstates, but between sub-national groups. Anarray of state entities and other beneficiaries oflarge engineering projects are pitted againstopponents from the affected communities,aligned with sympathetic environmental andhuman rights NGOs. These disputes often flyunder the radar of international river diploma-cy, rendering the international regime a “bluntand limited instrument for responding to thistype of complex, multilayered struggle, for allthe reasons discussed in Chapter 2” (page 169).

Defining a bounded, finite, fixed “sovereign”territory is problematic when dealing with riversthat are fluid, dynamic, and complex. Concausefully notes that one way out of this corehydropolitical conundrum is to draw distinc-tions among transnational advocacy groups(grounded in information-based framing poli-

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tics), transnational coalitions (grounded in coor-dinated campaigns), and transnational socialmovements (grounded in joint mobilization),thus shifting the focus to assess norms evolvingaround notions of watershed democracy.

At the Second World Water Forum, IsmailSerageldin (then vice president of the WorldBank) asserted that two controversies stood inthe way of global progress towards a more sus-tainable water future: the debate over largedams, and a complex set of economic issuesrelating to property rights, privatization, waterexports, water pricing, and foreign investmentand ownership in the water sector. Whileunraveling this set of issues in Chapter 7,Conca discusses the implications for the sub-national water sector of the General Agreementon Trade in Services (GATS), which seeks toliberalize trade in services and ferret out regula-tions that restrain it. GATS thus opens upwater and sanitation services as possible targets,and consequently potential entry points, forforeign actors in a traditionally national sphere.This whole new arena for hydropolitical inter-action is mostly unknown to water resourcemanagers and professionals, particularly in thedeveloping world.

Brazil and South Africa: CaseStudies

Brazil and South Africa are central players inthe global debate surrounding water and rivers;both countries have important transboundaryriver basins and strong social movementsprotesting large dams and the privatization ofwater. Much of the water in Brazil, which is asignatory to 15 international water agreements,is the subject of active and violent dispute. Yet,despite these enduring conflicts, governance ofwater and aquatic ecosystems in Brazil isincreasingly institutionalized around a sharedunderstanding of roles and rules.

The complex case of South Africa is seldomfully understood by foreign writers. Conca doesan exceptionally good job, however, of tracingthe golden thread of water and political contes-tation in the country. Post-apartheid South

African water law, policy, and practice is moretechnocratic and less participatory than Brazil’s.In addition, South Africa’s desire to be a goodriparian neighbor has shaped water governance.Water marketization and associated issues aremore controversial in South Africa, but Brazilhas witnessed greater resistance to water infra-structure projects. These conclusions demon-strate the great value that serious empiricalstudies can offer to the discipline of hydropoli-tics and IR theory.

Conclusion

Four important forces—international law, neo-liberal structural adjustment, elite networkingamong water resource professionals, andtransnational activism for the rights of localcommunities—are pushing and pulling water-related policies, laws, and practices in differentdirections. Each force is thoroughly transna-tional and sufficiently embedded in interna-tional intercourse to govern and influence glob-al practice, but none has yet generated a domi-nant framework for governing watershed prac-tices at the local level. Therefore, if watershedgovernance is being normalized across nationalboundaries, it is taking place at the intersectionof these various forces. Consequently, weshould not assume that international environ-

Four important forces—international law, neo-liberal structural adjustment, elite networkingamong water resource professionals, andtransnational activism for the rights of localcommunities—are pushing and pulling water-related policies, laws, and practices in differentdirections.


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mental agreements are the best—or indeed theonly—ways to govern rivers and aquatic ecosys-tems that cross international political borders.

In conclusion, Conca’s well-written andthought-provoking Governing Water: ContentiousTransnational Politics and Global InstitutionBuilding is a serious book. It fills major gapsin IR theory, IWRM literature, and the disci-pline of environmental security, and itinforms water resource managers of the impli-cations of GATS. It demonstrates the realvalue of empirical research, taking its placealongside the paradigm-busting work led byAaron Wolf at Oregon State University, PeterAshton at the Council for Scientific andIndustrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa,Tony Allan at the Water Issues Group inLondon, and Nils Petter Gleditsch at theInternational Peace Research Institute inOslo. Conca’s work should be read by univer-sity students, water sector professionals, andIR scholars alike, and I sincerely believe that itwill play a substantial role in placing the disci-pline of hydropolitics firmly on the IRresearch agenda.

Notes

1. These three roles resonate with a current initia-tive by the Universities Partnership forTransboundary Waters (UPTW) to understand gov-ernance of water and aquatic ecosystems as the mani-festation of a “trialogue,” which is a specialized formof dialogue among government, science, and society.In conjunction with Group on Development Issues(EGDI) at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs,the Swedish Water House, and UNESCO, UPTWhosted a special session at the Stockholm WorldWater Week 2005. Following a second workshop inOctober 2005, the trialogue governance model willbe published in a textbook and a special edited vol-ume of Water Policy, the scientific journal of theWorld Water Council.

2. This echoes research by Tony Allan and his teamof graduate students at the School of Oriental andAfrican Studies and Kings College London into what

they are calling “hydro-hegemony.”3. For more information, see http://www.trans-

boundarywaters.orst.edu/4. Table 9.1 in Turton et al. (2004) identifies 30

international water agreements to which South Africais a signatory, 20 of which are not listed in the Atlas ofInternational Freshwater Agreements (United NationsEnvironment Programme, 2002). Ashton et al. (2005)has identified 59, but not all of these are limited toriver basin management.

References

Allan, J.A. (2000). The Middle East water question:Hydropolitics and the global economy. London: I.B.Tauris.

Ashton, P.J., Anton Earle, D. Malzbender, B. Moloi,M.J. Patrick, & Anthony R. Turton. (2005).Compilation of all the international freshwater agree-ments entered into by South Africa with other states(Final Water Research Commission Report forProject No. K5/1515). Pretoria, South Africa:Water Research Commission (WRC).

Bulloch, John, & Adel Darwish. (Eds.). (1993). Waterwars: Coming conflicts in the Middle East. London:Victor Gollancz.

de Villiers, Marq. (1999). Water wars: Is the world’swater running out? London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Gleick, Peter. (1994). “Water wars and peace in theMiddle East.” Policy Analysis 36 (4).

Hamner, Jesse, & Wolf, Aaron T. (1997). “Patterns ininternational water resource treaties: TheTransboundary Freshwater Dispute Database.”Colorado Journal of International EnvironmentalLaw and Policy (1997 Yearbook).

Irani, Rustom. (1991). “Water wars.” New Statesman& Society 4(149), 24-25.

Starr, Joyce R. (1991). “Water wars.” Foreign Policy 82,17-36.

Turton, Anthony R., R. Meissner, P.M. Mampane, &O. Seremo. (2004). A hydropolitical history of SouthAfrica’s international river basins (Report No.1220/1/04). Pretoria, South Africa: WRC.

United Nations Environment Programme (withOregon State University & the Food andAgriculture Organization). (2002). Atlas of interna-tional freshwater agreements. Nairobi: UnitedNations Environment Program.

Wolf, Aaron T., Shira B. Yoffe, & Marc Giordano.(2003). “International waters: Identifying basins atrisk.” Water Policy 5(1), 29-60.

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Since 2000, the international policymakingcommunity has discussed HIV/AIDS in thecontext of national and international security.HIV and National Security: Where Are the Links?by Laurie Garrett of the Council on ForeignRelations summarizes the state of the argumentand examines the research linking HIV/AIDSto security.1

Garrett treads familiar ground, detailing therisks posed by high HIV prevalence in mili-taries, infection rates among UN peacekeepers,the impact of AIDS orphans, demographictrends such as “youth bulges” and urbanization,and the connections to economic security.Despite the lack of groundbreaking informa-tion, Garrett is careful to outline the real chal-lenges facing assessments of AIDS’ threat tonational and international security. One inter-esting chapter calls for more funding toimprove tracking of virus types and mutations,outlining the real benefits to the internationalcommunity. Policy reports rarely delve into thescience of the disease, and Garrett’s argumentfor improved tracking is convincing.

Interestingly, Garrett chooses to begin thebody of the report by comparing HIV/AIDSto another great killer, the Black Plague,which ravaged Europe in the 13th, 14th, and15th centuries, wiping out two-thirds of thepopulation and bringing sweeping social,political, and economic changes in its wake.Though the case of the Black Plague illus-trates the way a disease can engender wide-spread social change, it is unclear exactly whatpolicymakers should take away from this les-son. Most historians would argue that thelong-term impacts of the Black Plague led tothe end of feudalism and the eventual rise ofdemocracy in Europe. Garrett could have bet-

ter spent the space by citing specific examplesof successful initiatives or projects—interna-tional, national, and local—that could miti-gate the impacts of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Despite this one problem, Garrett endsstrongly with six key recommendations for pol-icymakers, including:

• Develop strategies for preventing the emer-gence of drug-resistant HIV strains;

• Develop HIV-prevention programs aimedspecifically at uniformed personnel;

• Use viral genetic fingerprinting to track thespread of HIV;

• Fund long-term longitudinal studies onpopulation cohorts to study the social, polit-ical, and economic impact of the AIDS epi-demic;

• Develop an HIV vaccine; and• Develop strategies to provide HIV treatment

for all sufferers, not only the elite.

HIV and National Security is most useful forthose interested in a review of the current litera-ture linking AIDS to security issues. It is a con-cise, well-written, and useful addition to the lit-erature on this important connection.

Notes

1. A pdf copy of the report can be downloadedfrom the Council on Foreign Relations website, athttp://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attach-ments/HIV_National_Security.pdf

HIV and National Security: Where Are the Links?Laurie GarrettNew York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2005. 67 pages.

Reviewed by JENNIFER WISNEWSKI KACZOR

Jennifer Wisnewski Kaczor is a program

associate for the Environmental Change

and Security Program.


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Fresh water—its availability, distribution, andcontrol—has been woven into the fabric ofhuman settlement and development at leastsince the Neolithic Revolution. Not only neces-sary for daily survival, water is an essential partof our economy, society, and ecology. But thismuch-needed resource is distributed acrossspace and time in a highly dispersed and vari-able pattern. Not only do large parts of theglobe contend with general water scarcity, theyalso suffer fluctuations in supply.

In reaction to this natural climatic variability,people have tried to secure their water supplies

in dry times, storing water in reservoirs or trans-ferring it from water-rich areas. The path towardhydro-security invariably crosses the tracks ofpower—be it political, economic, or military.Powerful countries can appropriate a greatershare of water resources, while powerful groupswithin countries can mobilize resources in theirfavor. Large-scale infrastructure developmentcan provide many benefits, but the costs affectdifferent groups in unequal measures. On aninternational scale, these power inequalities havesparked debate about the likelihood of “waterwars.” Especially in the world’s arid zones, suchas the Middle East and southern Africa, somepredict that the wars of the future will be foughtto secure scarce water resources for growing pop-ulations—although none have to date (Wolf etal., 2003). On a local level increased waterdemand, especially due to urbanization andindustrialization, pits rural communitiesdependent on agriculture against the supportersof large dam-building projects.

Dams and Development

In Dams and Development: TransnationalStruggles for Water and Power, Sanjeev Khagramdescribes the rising opposition to large-scaledam-building projects in the developing world.According to Khagram, the traditional model ofdevelopment seeks mainly to enlarge GDPthrough large-scale, top-down technocratic

Dams and Development: Transnational Strugglesfor Water and Power By Sanjeev KhagramIthaca: Cornell University Press, 2004. 270 pages.

Identity, Conflict and Cooperation in InternationalRiver Systems By Jack KalpakianAldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004. 213 pages.

Reviewed by ANTON EARLE

Anton Earle is the deputy head of the

African Water Issues Research Unit,

based at the University of Pretoria,

South Africa. He conducts applied

research into southern African water

management issues, with a specific

focus on transboundary water manage-

ment. As a member of the Regional

Technical Committee of the Global

Water Partnership-Southern Africa, he

facilitates research and capacity-building

initiatives on transboundary water man-

agement issues in the Okavango,

Limpopo, Orange-Senqu, and Incomati

river basins.

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methods of exploiting natural resources. Thealternative vision of development is based on“bottom-up participatory processes directedtowards socially just and ecologically sustain-able outcomes,” which is gaining more interna-tional acceptance (page 4). He contends thatthe conflicts associated with competitionbetween these two modes of development havebeen most vividly displayed in the transnationalopposition to large-dam projects.

Khagram identifies three important prereq-uisites for ensuring effective opposition tolarge-dam projects:

• Global norms and principles regardinghuman rights, indigenous peoples, and theenvironment, among others, must convergein international anti-dam pressure groups;

• Local opposition to large-dam projects mustlink up with international pressure groups tobe effective; and

• The political environment must be open anddemocratic, upholding civil liberties such asfreedom of the press, equality before the law,and freedom of association.

Khagram investigates case studies from sixdeveloping countries with different degrees oflocal opposition to large dams—India, Brazil,Indonesia, South Africa, Lesotho, and China—but half the book is devoted to India’s NarmadaRiver project. Initial local resistance efforts inthe 1950s were unsuccessful; only after localgroups began working with internationalgroups did they stop the largest components ofthe project. By making international donors,such as the World Bank, aware of the project’snegative social and environmental impacts, theopposition swung opinion their way.Intuitively, one would expect this nonviolentapproach to be more successful in the land ofMahatma Gandhi than in Indonesia or China.

Surprisingly, social resistance to large damsmanaged to flourish in Brazil, even during themilitary rule of 1964–1985. The WorldCommission on Dams (WCD), of whichKhagram was a member, ranks Brazil as one ofthe top 10 big-dam builders in the world

(WCD, 2000). Since the 1950s, successive gov-ernments developed plans for large-scale waterstorage, water transfer, and hydropowerschemes. By the mid-1980s, anti-dam groupshad managed to mobilize around issues such asnative rights, displacement processes, compen-sation packages, and environmental concerns,in conjunction with international movements.Most of the projects were abandoned as costsspiraled, driven by the social and environmentalprovisions required for construction and opera-tion. Brazil’s debt crisis in the 1980s reducedpublic funding for big-dam projects, but theefforts of social opposition movements prevent-ed the country from borrowing money from theWorld Bank and other donors to fill the gap.

A rapidly industrializing arid country, SouthAfrica is also ranked among the top 10 large-dam builders by the WCD. Khagram hypothe-sizes that the Lesotho Highlands Water Project,which sought to transfer water from SouthAfrica’s neighbor, moved ahead in 1986 andcompleted its first phase in 2002 due to a lackof domestic social resistance to the project.Khagram does not tell us, however, whether

The cases show that countries’ actions aremore likely to be informed by nationalidentity issues than by hydrologic realities.Thus, Sudan chooses to side with Egypt inthe management of the Nile River, eventhough it could gain more by siding withother riparians. The common culture andreligion shared by the countries’ ruling elitesexert greater influence than hydrology.


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people in the region supported the project orwhether resistance faded in the face of politicalturbulence in the early 1990s. Certainly, therate of big-dam building in South Africa hasdropped markedly over the past decade, but isthis due to social mobilization against dams orbecause all the prime sites are in use? This ques-tion could also be posed about Brazil and India.

While Dams and Development provides awealth of detailed information on internationalopposition to big-dam building in the develop-ing world, it focuses too much on India’sNarmada Valley. The reader is caught up in theminutiae of protest marches, meetings, and courtcases. Coupled with the large number ofacronyms and mixture of metric and imperialmeasurement units (e.g., acre-feet coexist withcubic meters), the book is cumbersome to read.However, these problems should not detractfrom its solid contribution to the scientific litera-ture—they just require the reader’s perseverance.

Identity, Conflict and Cooperationin International River Systems

In Identity, Conflict and Cooperation inInternational River Systems, Jack Kalpakian setsout to correct the emphasis on water conflict ininternational relations literature. For a bookthat grew out of a Ph.D. dissertation, it readssurprisingly well, reviewing literature on inter-national river management and using three casestudies to illustrate the de-coupling of water as adirect driver of conflict. The author disprovesthe hypothesis that water disputes lead to seri-ous conflicts between states, but he fails to con-vince us when he refers to this as “a completelyunforeseen result” (page 2).

Kalpakian’s literature review focuses on theRealist and post-Realist schools of internationalrelations, with an emphasis on writers such asThomas Homer-Dixon (1995a, 1995b),Thomas Naff (1993), and Nurit Kliot (1994),all broadly in the “water wars” camp. Althoughhe notes that water disputes do not cause inter-state conflicts—instead, he says they are “sec-ondary fora for conflicts rooted in nationalidentity questions” (page 7)—he does not men-

tion the research conducted by Aaron Wolf(1998; Wolf et al., 2003), Anthony Allan(1998a, 1998b, 1999, 2000, 2002), andAnthony Turton (2003; Turton & Earle, 2005),which promotes this alternative school ofthought. In other words, issues of nationalidentity and views of co-riparian states are morelikely sources of conflict than water. The omis-sion of the work by Wolf, Allan, and Turton onthis view detracts from the book and is a sur-prising oversight.

The strength of Identity, Conflict andCooperation lies in its comprehensively researchedcase studies of the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, andIndus rivers, which include a wealth of data onhydrology, water use, and socio-economic condi-tions in the basin states. In all three cases, data arecontested—the basin states do not agree on evenbasic facts such as the extent and size of catch-ments. The cases show that countries’ actions aremore likely to be informed by national identityissues than by hydrologic realities. Thus, Sudanchooses to side with Egypt in the management ofthe Nile River, even though it could gain more bysiding with other riparians. The common cultureand religion shared by the countries’ ruling elitesexert greater influence than hydrology.Consequently, the state “is becoming less and lessof an independent actor in InternationalRelations” (page 84).

Disputes over the allocation of water fromthe Tigris-Euphrates will only end once theunderlying identity clash is resolved, whichdates to World War I and the animositybetween Turkey and its Arab neighbors arisingfrom the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Syria’sintermittent support of Kurdish separatistmovements in Turkey also destabilizes the rela-tionship. “Identity tends to be both the organiz-ing criteria and cause of conflict. It is rooted inthe language of exclusion and inclusion ofgroups into or out of the respective nationalgoverning communities of the states involved”(page 140).

The 1960 agreement between Indian PrimeMinister Jawaharlal Nehru and PakistaniPresident Field Marshall Ayub Khan resolvedissues of water allocation, financing, and adju-

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dication on the Indus River. Unfortunately,this functional cooperation—even at a politi-cal level—has not spilled over into generalrelations between the two countries. Threewars (1947, 1965, and 1971) have been foughtbetween the states, the first two over Kashmirand the last on the partitioning of Bangladesh.Much of the rest of the basin (e.g., Afghanistanand Nepal) also lacks peace and stability. Thusthe hydrologic interdependence between Indiaand Pakistan, although leading to cooperationover water resources, has not led to peace inthe region. The reader is left to wonder if agreater degree of water stress would contributeto the hostility between the states—a signifi-cant omission from an otherwise illuminatingcase study.

Dams and Development and Identity, Conflictand Cooperation are solid contributions to ourunderstanding of the nexus of water, power,and conflict, at the interstate as well as domesticlevel. Both books have their limitations—suchas a lack of maps illustrating the case studies—and could have used a good editor to improvethe readability of the first and correct the sec-ond’s many spelling and grammatical errors.But these problems do not detract from thebooks’ overall usefulness to the study of waterconflict and cooperation.

References

Allan, J.A. (1998a). “‘Virtual water’: An essential ele-ment in stabilizing the political economies of theMiddle East.” Yale University Forestry &Environmental Studies Bulletin 103, 141-149.

Allan, J.A. (1998b). “Virtual water: A strategicresource: Global solutions to regional deficits.”Ground Water 36(4), 545-546.

Allan, J.A. (1999). “Avoiding war over naturalresources.” In S. Fleming (Ed.), War and water.Geneva: ICRC Publication Division.

Allan, J.A. (2000). The Middle East water question:

Hydropolitics and the global economy. London: IBTauris.

Allan, J.A. (2002). “Water resources in semi-aridregions: Real deficits and economically invisibleand politically silent solutions.” In Anthony R.Turton & Roland Henwood (Eds.), Hydropolitics inthe developing world: A Southern African perspective(pages 23-36). Pretoria, South Africa: AfricanWater Issues Research Unit (AWIRU).

Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (1995a). “Environmentalscarcities and violent conflict.” In Sean Lynn-Jones& Steven E. Miller (Eds.), Global dangers (pages144-182). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (1995b). “On the threshold.”In Sean Lynn-Jones & Steven E. Miller (Eds.),Global dangers (pages 43-83). Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.

Kliot, Nurit. (1994). Water resources and conflict in theMiddle East. New York: Routledge.

Naff, Thomas. (1993). “Conflict and water use in theMiddle East.” In Peter Rogers & Peter Lydon(Eds.), Water in the Arab world: Perspectives andprognosis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress.

Turton, Anthony R. (2003). “The hydropoliticaldynamics of cooperation in Southern Africa: Astrategic perspective on institutional developmentin international river basins.” In Anthony R.Turton, Peter Ashton, & T.E. Cloete (Eds.),Transboundary rivers, sovereignty, and development:Hydropolitical drivers in the Okavango River Basin(pages 83-103). Pretoria & Geneva: AWIRU &Green Cross International.

Turton, Anthony R., & Anton Earle. (2005). “Post-apartheid institutional development in selectedSouthern African international river basins.” In C.Gopalakrishnan, C. Tortajada, & A.K. Biswas(Eds.), Water resources management - Structure, evo-lution and performance of water institutions (pages154-168). Heidelberg: Springer.

World Commission on Dams (WCD). (2000). Damsand development: A new framework for decision-making. London: Earthscan.

Wolf, Aaron T. (1998). “Conflict and cooperationalong international waterways.” Water Policy 1(2),51–65.

Wolf, Aaron T., Shira B. Yoffe, & Marc Giordano.(2003). “International waters: Identifying basins atrisk.” Water Policy 5, 29–60.


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The Journal of Peace Research (JPR) can alwaysbe relied upon to deliver an interesting, rele-vant, high-quality product. This special issue,tackling the relationship between demographyand conflict, lives up to JPR’s reputation.1

In recent years, the prominence of conflictand demography has grown. In the aftermath ofthe Cold War, international wars have almostdisappeared. Domestic strife has also waned. Allforms of civil war—e.g., ideological, revolu-tionary—have declined, save one: ethnopoliti-cal conflict. The vast majority of civil conflictsnow involve issues of language, culture, andespecially religion. Since 3,000 of the world’sestimated 5,000 ethnic groups are located inAsia and another 1,800 in Africa, it is no sur-prise that these two continents have emerged asthe world’s main internecine flashpoints.

These two continents are also of particularinterest to demographers. On no continent isthe population expected to burgeon in the 21stcentury as in Africa. AIDS notwithstanding (70percent of those infected with the virus live inAfrica), the continent’s population is projected

to grow 50 percent by 2050. Similarly, manyAsian states, especially the arc of Muslim coun-tries stretching from Egypt through Indonesia,will continue to be subject to considerable—albeit differentiated—pressures owing to theirgrowing populations.

Demographic composition and demograph-ic change are never a cause of conflict or vio-lence, per se. Researchers tends to ask questionsabout contingency instead: what impact, if any,might a population’s composition have onpolitical stability? To what extent does relativedeprivation factor into the relationship betweendemographic change and conflict? Is the com-petition for scarce natural resources, such aswater, a growing problem? And how doesmigration affect population dynamics withinand between population groups?

Two of the JPR articles address relative dep-rivation. Marie Besançon examines the relation-ship between economic inequality and politicalconflict. Using aggregate regression-type statis-tical analysis with data from the State FailureTask Force,2 she arrives at the counterintuitive(and thus all the more important) conclusionthat economic inequality is not a predictor ofgenocide. Her analysis also finds ethnic conflictto be more likely when groups are economicallyequal; improving a group’s economic staturewithout also addressing political and socialgrievances actually increases the propensity forconflict. Unfortunately, Besançon’s investiga-tion does not tell us whether political and socialgrievances are occasioned by improved econom-ic conditions, nor whether the potential forconflict can be mitigated if political and socialgrievances are addressed without improving theequality of condition.

Journal of Peace Research: Special Issue on theDemography of Conflict and ViolenceHenrik Urdal and Helge Brunborg (Eds.)Volume 42, No. 4, July 2005.

Reviewed by CHRISTIAN LEUPRECHT

Christian Leuprecht is assistant professor

of political science at the Royal Military

College of Canada. He is cross-appoint-

ed to the Department of Political Studies

at Queen’s University, a research associ-

ate at the Institute of Intergovernmental

Relations in the School of Policy Studies

at Queen’s University, and a fellow of the

Queen’s Centre for International

Relations.

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Helen Ware compares the determinants ofconflict in Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia.The article is worth reading for the wealth ofexperience she brings as a long-time Australiandiplomat. In her conclusion, she negates theneo-Malthusian claim that population pres-sures on land and natural resources precipitateconflict. The second part of the conclusion,however, unfortunately posits, as an alternativeexplanation, the popular myth that “idle handsmake work for the devil.” Of course, there aremany peaceful places in the world with aplethora of unemployed young men.Therefore, what other variables intervene inthe particular case of Oceania? Had theauthor’s research addressed this question, thearticle’s contribution to the literature wouldhave been considerably more germane.

Henrik Urdal—who co-edited this specialissue with statistician Helge Brunborg—alsoquestions the neo-Malthusian proposition. Hisstatistical contribution finds that populationpressure on natural resources is not a determi-nant of a state’s security or its political stability.Countries with rapidly growing populations,high rates of urbanization, or large refugee pop-ulations do not face a disproportionate risk ofcivil war.

Urdal’s finding, however, contrasts to somedegree with Manus Midlarsky’s analysis ofgenocide. Comparing pogroms committedagainst European Jews, Midlarsky infers thatgenocide is more likely when loss of territory iscompounded by an influx of refugees. Still,Urdal’s and Midlarsky’s findings are commensu-rate insofar as they suggest that the environ-mental pressures and competition that mightensue from less land and more people are not toblame for any conflict that might arise.

Also on the topic of refugees, StephenLubkemann’s ethnographic research inMozambique leads him to caution against gen-eralizing about the cause of forced migration ina given conflict. His research confirms otherfindings (e.g., Sambanis, 2001) that show thatthe same macro-conflict may have different log-ics of violence at the local level. It follows thataddressing the problem of displaced persons

during a conflict necessitates a multipronged,micro-approach to conflict resolution.

John Landers asks whether the advent offirearms had a measurable demographicimpact on warfare in Europe. From his com-parative historical analysis, he concludes thatthe demographic impact was a function of thestrategies adopted by rulers rather than of thegrowing scale and cost of warfare. His carefulresearch contrasts starkly with the banality ofQuan Li and Ming Wen’s behavioralist preten-sions. Under the positivist guise of substitut-ing sophisticated mathematical techniques forsubstantive depth, they arrive at the perfectlyintuitive conclusion that more severe conflictslead to greater loss of life. Their article’sredeeming qualities, such as its focus on thegender differences in mortality rates in theimmediate and long-term aftermath of violentconflict, are compromised by its blind faith inweak mathematical relationships. Had Li andWen struck a better balance between pedestri-an use of statistical methods and understand-ing the literature, they would have realizedthat the relationship between degree of con-flict and loss of life has already been amplydocumented and is thus hardly novel.

In the grand scheme of things, however, theresearch in this special issue makes several ger-mane contributions to the literature on thedemography of conflict and violence. First, itcomplements a body of research that challengesneo-Malthusians to advance more nuancedclaims. Second, violent causes and conse-quences of migration warrant our attention ifwe are to resolve or avert future conflict. Third,the mass destruction of human life is due less toadvanced weaponry than light arms under thecontrol of instrumentalist elites. Fourth, weshould pay more attention to political andsocial grievances and put less emphasis onimproving socio-economic well-being. Thus,environmental sustainability and relative-depri-vation policies are more likely to reduce the riskof conflict and violence if they are linked tosocio-political improvement.

The seven articles in this edition of JPR pro-vide a good overview of many of the key

Environmentalsustainability andrelative-depriva-tion policies aremore likely toreduce the risk ofconflict andviolence if theyare linked tosocio-politicalimprovement.


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debates on the relationship between demogra-phy and conflict. The edition is refreshinglyinterdisciplinary, spanning political science, his-tory, anthropology, statistics, international rela-tions, and foreign policy. The methodologicalpluralism is notable: quantitative and statisticalwork is balanced by qualitative and comparativeapproaches, as well as an impressive ethno-graphic case study. Senior scholars are joined bysome very talented young scholars. The heavilygendered field of conflict studies notwithstand-ing, three of the seven articles are authored bywomen. The authors come from four conti-nents and the research and data cover just aboutevery corner of the globe. They hone in on dif-ferent eras and investigate diverse types of con-flict and violence. In other words, this even-handed volume unequivocally does justice tothe topic in every conceivable way. And finally,the journal tops it all off with an excellent criti-

cal review of the most recent literature on therelationship between demography and conflict.

Notes

1. The special issue emerged from a conference onthe demography of conflict and violence sponsored bythe International Union for Scientific Study ofPopulation and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, heldin Norway in 2003. The European Journal of Population(2005, Volume 21, Issues 2-3) has published a set ofadditional articles emerging from the conference that willbe of greater interest to strict demographers.

2. Now known as the Political Instability TaskForce; see http://globalpolicy.gmu.edu/pitf/

References

Sambanis, Nicholas. (2001, June). “Do ethnic andnon-ethnic civil wars have the same causes? A theo-retical and empirical inquiry (Part 1).” Journal ofConflict Resolution 45(3), 259-82.

As oil prices rise, turmoil in Iraq continues,and the United States, China, and others jock-ey for access to oil and gas resources, energyissues are once more climbing to the top of theglobal agenda. But if journalist and educatorRichard Heinberg is correct, these concerns are

only a foretaste of far more fundamentalupheavals to come.

According to Heinberg’s latest book, TheParty’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of IndustrialSocieties, industrial civilization as we know it—predicated on the consumption of cheap, butfinite, reserves of fossil fuels—is drawing to aclose, as oil production will soon peak and thenbegin a slow but inexorable decline. As it declines,competition for remaining energy resources willgrow, prices will rise, countries will undergowrenching economic and political changes, andthe global human carrying capacity will plummet.

Mainstream energy analysts project theworld’s demand for oil will grow endlessly—

The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate ofIndustrial SocietiesRichard HeinbergGabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society Publishers, 2003. 274 pages.

Reviewed by Michael Renner

Michael Renner is a senior researcher at

the Worldwatch Institute, where he

directs the Global Security Project. His

main research interest concerns the

intersection between resources, environ-

ment, and peace and conflict issues.

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the typical scenario foresees a 50 percentexpansion in the next 20 years—but how willthat rising demand be satisfied? Heinbergpoints out that the rate of global oil discoveriespeaked in the 1960s and that consumption faroutpaces today’s new discoveries. Moreover, theamount of energy required to find additionaldeposits keeps increasing, as the easily-extract-ed deposits are drained, thus squeezing theamount of “net energy” available to society. Inthe United States, for instance, the amount ofenergy extracted relative to the energy expend-ed to find and extract oil fell from 28:1 in 1916to 2:1 in 1985, and continues to drop.

Pioneered by petroleum geologist M. KingHubbert (1969), the concept of “peak oil” waslong derided or ignored. According to Hubbert,any given oil field will reach its production peakwhen roughly half of the total oil in the reser-voir has been extracted, followed by a steadydecline in output. In the 1950s, Hubbert cor-rectly predicted that U.S. oil production wouldpeak between 1966 and 1972; the actual peakoccurred in 1970.

While U.S. reserves have been largely deplet-ed, conventional wisdom suggests that suppliesfrom other regions of the world will remainabundant. But even in oil-rich Saudi Arabia keyfields may be past their prime, limiting thecountry’s ability to satisfy rising demand. TheSaudis angrily deny such assertions, but havenever refuted them with concrete evidence tothe contrary.

The literature on this previously near-taboosubject is growing fast, but not surprisingly,there is no consensus on when oil productionmight peak globally. The U.S. Department ofEnergy (1998) expects the peak to occur nearthe middle of this century; Heinberg contendsthat it will occur much earlier—some timebetween 2006 and 2015.

But pinpointing when the peak will happen isless important than understanding its likely con-sequences and preparing for the post-peak peri-od—and, ultimately, life after oil. Acknowledg-ing that forecasts are necessarily speculative,Heinberg offers a range of equally pessimisticand unpalatable predictions for the post-petrole-

um age—in his own words, a “century ofimpending famine, disease, economic collapse,despotism, and resource wars” (page 199).

The end of cheap and plentiful energy willcause the world economy to sputter, producingfewer goods and services, fewer jobs, and afinancial crisis. Fewer cars will be built, andonly the wealthy will be able to afford them.Road building will grind to a halt and existingroads will gradually disintegrate. Air travel willbecome prohibitively expensive. Withoutabundant transportation fuels, businesses willreturn to local production for local consump-tion—globalization in reverse. And agriculturewill support far smaller populations: “The agri-cultural miracle of the 20th century maybecome the agricultural apocalypse of the 21st”(page 177).

Of equal importance are the likely social andpolitical impacts, greatly exacerbating eventoday’s grotesque inequalities and triggeringmore intense struggles between empowered anddisempowered groups, as well as intergenera-tional conflict. Coming decades will likely seemore frequent and deadly conflicts over fadingenergy supplies. Heinberg predicts that thesescarcities and pressures “will likely place evergreater stress on the already battered democrat-ic ideals of industrial societies” (page 188). Heis skeptical that large nation-states as we knowthem will hold together under such conditions,and he foresees the emergence of regionalenclaves—which could be either democratic orauthoritarian—in their place.

The era of cheap oil may have been a prom-ised land for those—mostly the inhabitants ofWestern countries—who benefited from theflow of “black gold.” But for many others, par-ticularly the inhabitants of poor oil-producingcountries, oil is more aptly described as the“devil’s tears.” A growing literature has focusedon the downside of oil development. For exam-ple, in Oil: Politics, Poverty, and the Planet,Financial Times journalist Toby Shelley (2005)summarizes the social and economic distortionsthat have afflicted so many oil-producing coun-tries, including growing poverty and inequality,the inability to develop a vibrant economy out-

Environmentalsustainability andrelative-depriva-tion policies aremore likely toreduce the risk ofconflict andviolence if theyare linked tosocio-politicalimprovement.


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side the oil sector, massive corruption andpatronage, and civil conflict.

The oil-related wars of the past and presenthave been essentially fought to divide the spoils.In the future, conflicts are more likely to arise tosecure dwindling supplies, particularly as risingeconomic powers such as China and India joinEurope, North America, and Japan in theirvoracious appetite for energy.

What about alternatives to oil? Oil is a partic-ularly valuable commodity because it is easilytransported, energy-dense, and suitable formany types of uses—and thus difficult toreplace. Natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy areno saviors in Heinberg’s judgment. Each comeswith its own set of problems, including pollu-tion, vexing—and perhaps irresolvable—wastedisposal problems, dangers to human health,and declining net energy yield. These are validobservations, yet societies may pursue theseoptions anyway, because industries are addictedto endless growth, irrespective of the costs.

Heinberg also throws cold water on environ-mentalists’ sometimes cozy assumptions.Though he is in favor of pursuing wind andsolar power, he cautions that it will take decadesto fully develop them. Even then, electricitycannot easily provide the fuel needs of trans-portation and agriculture. “A Golden Age ofplentiful energy from renewable sources is sim-ply not in the cards,” he says (page 4).

Could fuel cells and a hydrogen economycome to the rescue? Heinberg agrees there arereasons to be hopeful, but he scorns boostersthat “occasionally exhibit a techno-utopianismof almost messianic intensity” (page 147). Hewarns that the transition to a hydrogen energyinfrastructure would require huge amounts oftime and money, and that hydrogen productionalways uses more energy than the resultinghydrogen will yield. And dwindling natural gassupplies will soon force decision-makers todecide whether the transition to a hydrogeneconomy or heating people’s homes shouldreceive priority.

Heinberg is careful to note that he is notarguing that we abandon the development of

such alternatives—quite the contrary. But heemphasizes that the transition to a new energysystem will entail an almost complete redesignof industrial societies and wrenching adjust-ments toward a “less mobile, more localized, andmore materially modest society.” He warns that“it is misleading to think that we can achievethat result easily or painlessly” (page 165).

The choice is not whether, but how toreduce energy use, and how to deliberately, sys-tematically simplify society’s structures: “grace-fully and peacefully… or petulantly and vio-lently” (page 230). Heinberg refers to this as a“managed collapse,” as opposed to a suddenand chaotic disintegration. He does not offer(or claim to offer) novel solutions. But hisprovocative book is a wake-up call rousing usfrom our abundance-induced complacency.One does not have to share all of the author’spessimistic prognostications to agree that weurgently need fundamental changes in policy.

The political obstacles are enormous, andHeinberg acknowledges that “the vast majorityof people will continue to prefer happy illu-sions to the stark truth,” voting for candidatesand parties that promise a rosy future (page200). He laments lost opportunities forlaunching a transition during the past threedecades. While it is now too late for a com-pletely painless transition, Heinberg arguesthat it is never too late to improve the future.In an otherwise pessimistic analysis, he is cau-tiously hopeful that these radical shifts canoccur if an informed citizenry dramaticallyincreases its involvement. The solution, then,lies not so much in alternative technologies,but in a revitalized political process.

References

Hubbert, M. King. (1969). Resources and man.Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciencesand National Research Council.

Shelley, Toby. (2005). Oil: Politics, poverty, and theplanet. London: Zed Books.

U.S. Department of Energy. (1998). Annual energyoutlook. Washington, DC: Energy InformationAdministration.

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In the 1970s the ecologist Garrett Hardinobserved that although long dead, ThomasMalthus continues to haunt each new genera-tion of scholars (Daly, 1977, page 43). In hisexcellent new book, The Return of Malthus:Environmentalism and Post-war Population-Resource Crises, Björn-Ola Linnér explains indetail why Malthusian concerns have beenraised intermittently over the past 50 years.

Malthus, one will recall, was an 18th cen-tury British economist and clergyman whosuggested that humanity was likely to outstripthe food supply. This prediction arose fromhis observation that population growthincreased exponentially while agriculturalproduction increased arithmetically (Malthus,1798). Left unchecked, human reproductionwould lead to famine, instability, and war.Since the end of World War II, according toLinnér, similar Malthusian fears have risenand fallen in three waves.

The first wave emerged immediately afterWorld War II, as hunger reigned in much ofEurope and Asia. Years of war had despoiledfarmland and depleted livestock; dilapidatedtransportation systems hindered food distri-bution. Parts of Europe experienced actualstarvation. However, massive provisions ofAmerican food and reconstruction aid avertedthe worst outcomes. Within a few years agri-cultural production—at least in WesternEurope—began to recover.

Paradoxically, even after this crisis had beenaverted, the fears continued. Linnér argues thatpolitical and economic factors account for thepersistence of Malthusian concerns. In particu-lar, he points to the transformation of the glob-al economy and the geopolitical interests of theUnited States. The new world economy that the

United States sought to construct after the wardepended on a steady flow of raw materials.Political and social unrest in countries provid-ing these materials—many of which happenedto be resource-scarce—would be detrimental tothis new interlinked economy.

In addition, American policymakers worriedthat resource scarcity in poor countries mightengender political unrest and leave them ripefor a communist takeover. Thus, the issue ofnatural resources became vital to U.S. nationalsecurity policy (page 33). Indeed, the resource-security nexus underlay Truman’s Point FourProgram, which specifically sought to aidunderdeveloped areas. Years later, U.S. efforts toprevent famine in India was arguably anothermanifestation of these concerns (page 153).

After a brief interregnum of optimism in the1950s, neo-Malthusianism returned with avengeance in the 1960s. This second wave ofMalthusian anxiety arose in part from historicalcircumstance: catastrophic famines in Asia andAfrica killed millions, lending credence to thewarnings of an impending population-resourcecrisis. Global food trading patterns also shifted;until World War II, many developing countrieswere net exporters of food. By the 1960s, theyimported 13 million tons annually—consistentwith the image of a looming crisis.

The Return of Malthus: Environmentalism and Post-war Population-Resource Crises Björn-Ola LinnérIsle of Harris, UK: White Horse Press, 2003. 303 pages.

Reviewed by TED GAULIN

Ted Gaulin is a doctoral candidate in

political science at the University of

California, Irvine. His work has appeared

in the Canadian Journal of Political

Science, Global Environmental Politics,

The Peace Review, and Issues in Science

and Technology.


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This wave of concern was also influenced bythe growing scientific recognition that humanbehavior was transforming the environment.This was a new twist in the Malthusian logic:not only were the differential rates of populationgrowth and agricultural production on a crashcourse, human beings were actually undermin-ing the productive capacity of the Earth throughpollution and despoliation. We were burningthe environmental candle at both ends, so tospeak. These developments led to an explosionof neo-Malthusian scholarship by thinkers likeWilliam Vogt, Fairfield Osborn, Julian Huxley,Garrett Hardin, and Paul Ehrlich—whoseprovocatively titled The Population Bomb (1968)became a national bestseller.

Throughout his narrative, Linnér returns toone particular neo-Malthusian thinker, theSwedish biologist Georg Borgström. Borgströmis most well-known for his 1965 book TheHungry Planet, but he began writing passionatelyabout population-resource issues in the early1950s. Linnér shows Borgström to be a particu-larly prescient scholar whose work should be bet-ter appreciated. For example, his concept of“ghost acreage”—the amount of additionalarable land a country would require in order tobe able to feed itself—anticipated by 30 years theterm “ecological footprint.” His efforts to trackfood and energy flows on a global scale anticipat-ed the full-cost accounting approach that envi-ronmental economists use today. His calls for“nutritional equalization” would be perfectly insync with the appeals of today’s environmental

justice movement. In addition, his 1960s esti-mates of future population levels have proved—in hindsight—to be particularly accurate.

Linnér does not simply wish to raiseBorgström’s historical profile; he is interested inBorgström as a “conveyer of ideas” on environ-mental issues. A conveyer serves as a mediatorbetween the scientific community, policymak-ers, and society at large. In tracing Borgström’scareer Linnér demonstrates how conveyers canbecome controversial, inciting both praise andresentment from the general public and withinthe scholarly community. More generally,Linnér is trying to show how Borgström’sideas—and the ideas of other neo-Malthusians—were vital to the development ofa coherent environmental ideology.

A third wave of Malthusian warningsemerged in the late 1990s. Linnér describes thismost recent cycle as the product of discursivearguments employed by large plant-breedingcorporations to promote their genetically modi-fied (GM) crops. In the author’s view, biotech-nology companies like Monsanto, Pioneer, andNovartis have revived Malthusian rhetoric inthe hope of gaining public support for GMcrops. For example, Monsanto’s public relationsliterature ominously warns: “World populationis soaring, yet the amount of arable land avail-able for food production is diminishing. Newagricultural technology has never been moreurgently needed” (page 203). This is an inter-esting argument, and Linnér should be creditedfor pointing out the duplicity of this rhetoric.He shows how the bulk of biotechnologyresearch has been, and continues to be, directedtowards crops for Western markets. Yet, for thelast decade the biotech industry’s primary argu-ments center on feeding the world’s poor.

Linnér’s focus on the discourse of thebiotech industry causes him to overlook a larg-er, more significant source of neo-Malthusianism in the 1990s; namely, the exten-sive research conducted throughout that decadeon the issue of environmental scarcity and con-flict. Research by Thomas Homer-Dixon’s(1991, 1994, 1995) project at the University ofToronto, Günther Baechler’s (1998) project at

Linnér shows how the bulk of biotechnologyresearch has been, and continues to be, direct-ed towards crops for Western markets. Yet, forthe last decade the biotech industry’s primaryarguments center on feeding the world’s poor.

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the Swiss Peace Institute, and a number otherorganizations on the potentially violent conse-quences of the depletion of renewable naturalresources reintroduced neo-Malthusianism intothe political discourse in the 1990s.1 Thisresearch, communicated to policymakersthrough a few highly influential articles, putneo-Malthusianism on the post-Cold Warmap.2 This research set the stage for the biotechindustry to use a Malthusian discourse.

This point highlights the one shortcoming ofThe Return of Malthus: its failure to engage withthe large and pertinent literature on the securityimplications of environmental change. In fact,the readers of this journal will be surprised tolearn that Linnér never refers to Homer-Dixonor Baechler. Nor does the book reference thosewho criticize some environmental security textsas overly Malthusian. This is a strange omission,since Linnér had already made the scarcity-secu-rity connection in his discussion of the immedi-ate post-World War II era. Why not explorewhether those same dynamics were at workimmediately after the Cold War, when the envi-ronmental security research agenda took shape?One wonders if Linnér, who has carefully ana-lyzed Malthusianism from a historian’s perspec-tive, would classify key thinkers like Homer-Dixon as neo-Malthusian.

This shortcoming, however, hardly dilutesthe power of The Return of Malthus. The bookis a strong work of scholarship that demon-strates that population-resource debates dateback much further than those taking placewithin the environmental security communitytoday. And it demonstrates that Malthusianthought—right or wrong—has had a powerfuleffect on the development of the environmentalmovement.

Notes

1. To be sure, many of the scholars associated withthese projects would renounce the Malthusian label.But the connection these researchers make amonggrowing populations, dwindling resources, and fre-quently bleak outcomes gives much of this work anundeniable Malthusian cast. On the Malthusian natureof Homer-Dixon’s work, for example, see Peluso andWatts (2001).

2. For a detailed analysis of how the environmentalsecurity paradigm took shape see Richard Matthew(2002).

References

Baechler, Günther. (1998). “Why environmental trans-formation causes violence: A synthesis.”Environmental Change and Security Report 4, 24-44.

Borgström, Georg. (1965). The hungry planet: Themodern world at the edge of famine. New York:Macmillan.

Daly, Herman. (1977). Steady state economics: The eco-nomics of biophysical equilibrium and moral growth.San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.

Ehrlich, Paul. (1968). The population bomb. New York:Balantine.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (1991). “On the threshold:Environmental changes as causes of acute conflict.”International Security 16, 76-116.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (1994). “Environmentalscarcities and violent conflict: Evidence from cases.”International Security 19, 5-40.

Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (1995). “The ingenuity gap:Can poor countries adapt to resource scarcity?”Population and Development Review 21, 587-612.

Malthus, Thomas. (1798). An essay on the principle ofpopulation. London: J. Johnson.

Matthew, Richard. (2002). “In defense of environmentand security research.” Environmental Change andSecurity Project Report 8, 109-124.

Peluso, Nancy Lee, & Michael Watts (Eds). (2001).Violent environments. Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress.


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In the past decade, the links between naturalresources and violent conflict—particularly inthe resource-rich but conflict-ravaged countriesof Africa—have garnered increased attention.Controversial research, led by Paul Collier andhis associates at the World Bank (see, for exam-ple, Collier et al., 2003), argues that conflictsare more likely to be caused by economicopportunities—greed—rather than grievances.This argument contrasts with earlier studies,such as those by the Ted Robert Gurr (1968;2000), which argue that social, political, andeconomic deprivation, inequities, and griev-ances are the main causes of political violence.The August 2005 issue of Journal of ConflictResolution contains a series of articles exploringand critiquing aspects of the resource-basedexplanations of violent conflict (e.g., Ron,2005), illustrating the importance of under-standing such links.

Jeremy Lind and Kathryn Sturman, editors ofScarcity and Surfeit: The Ecology of Africa’sConflicts, have compiled six case studies in twovolatile regions of Africa, the Greater Horn

(Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan) and the GreatLakes (Burundi, Rwanda, and the DemocraticRepublic of the Congo). The contributors chal-lenge the distinction between greed and griev-ance, naming structural inequalities, resourcemismanagement, and predatory states as amongthe principal causes of conflict. While the qualityof the case studies is uneven, the authors all agreethat resource-based factors play an importantrole in sustaining conflicts in Africa. At the sametime, they carefully emphasize that ecologicalissues are rarely the main causes of civil discord.

The chapters on Rwanda, Burundi, andSomalia persuasively examine how economicissues, particularly land distribution, play sig-nificant roles in conflicts traditionally viewed asdriven by ethnicity. Jean Bigagaza, CarolyneAbong, and Cecile Mukarubuga argue thatRwanda’s political violence was greatly influ-enced by competition to control scarce land.Unfortunately, peace-building attempts in theregion (e.g., the Arusha peace process) placedundue emphasis on the ethnic dimensions ofthe conflict. As a result, the remedies focusedon institutional solutions such as sharingpower, holding elections, and adjusting the eth-nic composition of the armed forces. Theseefforts lacked concerted attempts to tackleunequal land distribution, the decreasing inter-national value of agricultural commodities, anddeepening rural poverty.

The Burundi case study makes a similar argu-ment. Like Rwanda, Burundi must cope with theproblem of land scarcity, which is accentuated bythe country’s dependence on its main naturalresource, coffee. The Burundi state is predatoryand rent-seeking; controlling the state meanscontrolling coffee production and export. InSomalia, too, the interplay between local and

Scarcity and Surfeit: The Ecology of Africa’sConflictsJeremy Lind and Kathryn Sturman (Eds).Pretoria, South Africa: Institute for Security Studies, South Africa, 2002. 388 pages.

Reviewed by BIDISHA BISWAS

Bidisha Biswas is a doctoral candidate in

government and politics at the

University of Maryland, College Park.

Her dissertation examines international

intervention in ethnopolitical conflicts.

She has published in Nationalism and

Ethnic Politics and the Journal of

Conflict Resolution, and has also written

for the Center for Strategic and

International Studies’ South Asia

Monitor.

NEW PUBLICATIONS

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national competition for land influences politics.To help build peace, all three countries needgreater consideration of land usage patterns andpolicies that emphasize sustainable naturalresource use and management.

The war-ravaged Democratic Republic of theCongo (DRC) illustrates the tragedy of the“resource curse.” Though the country is richlyendowed with high-value natural resources, 70percent of its population lives in absolute poverty.Celine Moyroud and John Katunga investigatethe deleterious effects of coltan extraction, whichis concentrated in the eastern part of the coun-try.1 While coltan extraction is not the sole—oreven primary—cause of conflict, it is an aggravat-ing factor, as it contributes to environmentaldegradation and tensions over land ownershipand utilization—and generates revenues for rebelgroups. The authors provide some interestinginsights into the politics of natural resourceextraction in DRC; for example, trade in coltan iscontrolled almost entirely by Rwandan brokers.Policymakers might benefit from heeding thechapter’s suggestions. For example, the authorsfavor an international code of conduct to moni-tor the extraction and purchase of coltan, butthey also argue that this issue must be addressedwithin the wider context of the conflict.

Writing on Sudan, Paul Goldsmith, Lydia A.Abura, and Jason Switzer counter identity-based interpretations of conflict by arguing thatresource mismanagement, exploitation, repres-sion, and the absence of community participa-tion in decision-making have all sharpeneddivisions in the country—to the point that con-flicts would have occurred even if the country’speople shared one religion. While the authorschallenge ethnicity-based explanations of civilwar, a clearer discussion of the role of environ-mental factors, such as the availability of wateror oil and the specific links between theirexploitation and conflict, would have strength-ened the chapter.

Fiona Flintan and Imeru Tamrat examinethe role of water scarcity in exacerbating con-flicts in Ethiopia, underlining the importanceof local capacity in resolving or mitigatingresource-based conflicts. Community elders

and religious leaders manage access to and dis-tribution of resources. According to traditionalnorms, clan resources are often shared in timesof resource scarcity or stress. Clan leaders alsohelp adjudicate conflicts and appeal to the gov-ernment in the event of larger conflicts.Traditional peace-building institutions haveworked with the government to hold peaceconferences in the Afar region. In addition,women often act as mediators between compet-ing clans and play important roles in conflictprevention and resolution. While the authorsprovide some fascinating insights, the articleneeds a tighter focus on the impact of waterissues on the situation, and an analysis of thestrengths and limitations of localized conflictmanagement efforts, particularly in disputesbetween Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The case studies compiled in this volumepersuasively argue that structural inequalities,particularly land distribution, are key determi-nants of conflict in Africa. Rather than blamingviolence solely on opportunistic criminals, thesestudies examine how state power can become anarena of conflict over material resources. Manyof the authors suggest that building local capac-ity to effectively utilize resources would be auseful way to challenge predatory states. A closeexamination of local or national initiatives thathave contributed towards peacemaking andpeace building would help these efforts.

The causal process of conflict is complex,and, as these case studies make clear, environ-mental factors are only one dimension of politi-cal violence. By examining how resource issuescan harden ethnic divides (or vice versa), we canenhance our understanding of the interplay ofconflict’s economic, social, and political deter-minants. However, we need more systematicempirical research to understand the preciserole of resource-based issues. In the concludingchapter, Richard Cornwall calls for more criti-cal and innovative research on the subject.Indeed, attempts to prevent, manage, andresolve conflicts can greatly benefit from effortsby the research and policy communities tounderstand, as clearly as possible, the role ofecology in conflicts in Africa and elsewhere.

The contributorschallenge thedistinctionbetween greedand grievance,naming structuralinequalities,resource misman-agement, andpredatory statesas among theprincipal causesof conflict.


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Notes

1. Coltan (short for columbite-tantalite) is a keyingredient in capacitors for cellular phones. The tech-nology boom caused the price of coltan to soar, but itsettled down after 2002. However, other resources havesince become new targets (see Balint-Kurti, 2005).

References

Balint-Kurti, Daniel. (2005, July 3). “Tin trade fuelsCongo war.” News24. Available online athttp://www.news24.com/

Collier, Paul, V. L. Elliott, Håvard Hegre, AnkeHoeffler, Marta Reynal-Querol, & NicholasSambanis. (2003). Breaking the conflict trap: Civilwar and development policy. Washington, DC:World Bank.

Gurr, Ted Robert. (1968). Why men rebel. Princeton:Princeton University Press.

Gurr, Ted Robert. (2000). People versus states:Minorities at risk in the new century. Washington,DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.

Ron, James. (2005). “Paradigm in distress? Primarycommodities and civil war.” Journal of ConflictResolution 49(4), 443-450.

The comprehensive and excellent book Twenty-First Century India: Population, Economy,Human Development, and the Environment isthe outcome of a research project “designed toexamine the nature and consequences of thefuture growth of India’s population” (page vii).The book’s editors—Tim Dyson and RobertCassen of the London School of Economics,and Leela Visaria of Delhi’s Institute ofEconomic Growth—have achieved this ambi-tious goal.

The volume’s 16 chapters can be groupedinto 3 sections. The first describes past, present,and future trends in India’s population growth,while the middle section examines the implica-tions of this growth for education, employ-ment, poverty, and the economy. The last thirdof the volume outlines major challenges thatIndia faces in meeting its requirements for food,water, and energy, as well as the implications forthe environment. The final chapter discussesthe lessons learned, and suggests policies toaddress these challenges. The 14 authors, mostof them based in the United Kingdom (the rest

Twenty-First Century India: Population, Economy,Human Development, and the EnvironmentTim Dyson, Robert Cassen, and Leela Visaria (Eds.)Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 414 pages.

Reviewed by TOUFIQ A. SIDDIQI

Toufiq Siddiqi is president of Global

Environment and Energy in the 21st

Century, a nonprofit organization based

in Hawaii. He is also an adjunct senior

fellow at the East-West Center and affili-

ate graduate faculty at the University of

Hawaii. Dr. Siddiqi has published widely

in the fields of energy, environment, and

global climate change, and coordinated

a recent study on water and security in

South Asia. He is a graduate of

Cambridge University, and received a

doctorate in nuclear physics from the

Johann Wolfgang Goethe University,

Frankfurt, Germany. He was a regional

adviser on energy for the United

Nations, and a consultant for the World

Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the

UN Development Programme.

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mainly in India), bring a variety of disciplinarybackgrounds to bear on the topics, resulting ina rich diversity of approaches.

Past, Present, and Future Trends inIndia’s Population Growth

With a current population of more than 1 billion,it is hard to imagine that India had only 251 mil-lion people in 1921. Due to high mortality frominfectious and parasitic diseases, epidemics, andfamines, preceding centuries witnessed only asmall growth rate (Visaria & Visaria, 1982).Improved health care led to a rapid decline inmortality after 1921, and attention turned to thecountry’s high birth rate. Consequently, in 1952India became the first country to officially adopta family planning program, but it was not untilthe 1990s that the birth rate began to fall signifi-cantly faster than the death rate.

The chapter “Mortality Trends and theHealth Transition” provides tables detailing notonly the overall death rates during the last partof the 20th century, but also the impact of spe-cific communicable diseases, such as tuberculo-sis (TB) and typhoid. The resurgence of malar-ia, the spread of drug-resistant TB, and therapid rise in HIV/AIDS indicate that despiteconsiderable progress communicable diseasesare still major contributors to mortality.

Many of the book’s tables provide state-leveldata rather than country-level aggregates—aparticularly useful feature in a country as vast asIndia, where regions differ considerably.Policies must be designed to take social, cultur-al, and economic differences into account. Inhis chapter on India’s future population, Dysonprojects a total population of about 1.4 billionby 2026 and more than 1.5 billion by 2051.Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (in their former bor-ders) will continue to have the largest popula-tions during the next 50 years.

Education, Employment, Poverty,and the Economy

The much-discussed “outsourcing” of softwareand other services to India by the United States

is one indicator of India’s enormous progress inproviding quality education to ever-larger num-bers. The overall literacy rate has climbed to 65percent, but a third of the population is stillilliterate. As in many other developing coun-tries, poorer children and girls have access onlyto lower-quality schooling. Twenty-FirstCentury India provides a wealth of informationon education-related topics, such as schoolattendance and literacy rates, in various statesand age groups.

Although the Indian economy grew fairlyrapidly during the 1990s, unemployment hasalso increased, due to privatizations of stateenterprises and the introduction of moderntechnologies, among other factors. KirstyMcNay, Jeemol Unni, and Cassen, in theirchapter on employment, estimate that eightmillion people will join the work force everyyear for the next 20 years. Even if the Indianeconomy grew by eight percent a year duringthat period, unemployment is still likely toincrease—a serious and growing problem thatpolicymakers should address.

Poverty is defined these days not only as lackof income, but also as lack of education, healthcare, and other important components of thequality of life. The analysis undertaken in theeducation chapter confirms the prevalent viewthat inequalities in many fields are large andgrowing, both within and between states. Intheir chapter on education and literacy, GeetaGandhi Kingdon, Cassen, McNay, and Visariaconclude that five large states—Bihar, MadhyaPradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, and UttarPradesh—suffer more than their fair share ofpoverty, inadequate health care, and malnutri-tion. They also find large gaps between religiousgroups, and between the mainstream popula-tion and cultural minorities.

During the 1990s, India’s economyincreased about six percent per year; the statesof Gujarat and Maharashtra grew the fastest,with Rajasthan not far behind. In the chapter“The Economy, the Past, and the Future,”Shankar Acharya, Cassen, and McNay ascribethis growth to the states’ reform of infrastruc-ture, industrial policy, and investment incen-


108

tives, which echoes the conclusions of otheranalysts (e.g., Bajpai & Sachs, 1999). They alsoaddress a question seldom explicitly discussed:how might environmental degradation affecteconomic growth? The authors estimate thatIndia’s annual losses due to environmental dam-age range from 2-9 percent, depending on dif-ferent estimates of the impacts on humanhealth and the value assigned to human life.

Major Challenges

Twenty-First Century India also addresses theopposite and more traditional concern: theimpact of economic growth on the environment.Based on the results of a model that links realGDP to emissions from energy production anduse, Dennis Anderson makes five propositions:

• Addressing environmental problems willimprove, not reduce, India’s economicprospects;

• If environmental policies were in place, the“population effect” would be relatively small;

• The worst environmental problems affectthe lowest income groups the most, andenvironmental policies will therefore helpthem the most;

• Technical progress, and policies that induceit, are the most important factors in promot-ing growth along with improving the envi-ronment; and

• Environmental problems should be ad-dressed sooner rather than later.

Anderson provides case studies to supportthese propositions, and uses computer simula-tion models to predict emissions of pollutantsunder various scenarios. His findings are gener-ally in agreement with those of several otherstudies (e.g., Grubler, 1998; Pachauri &Sridharan, 1998). He recommends eliminatingsubsidies for rural electrification and for coal-fired and nuclear power, which would not onlyprovide economic benefits, but also help reducethe pressure on groundwater resources.

As in other rapidly growing developingcountries, India’s environment has deteriorat-

ed—particularly in the urban areas—duemostly to the use of fossil fuels for transporta-tion, power generation, industrial activities,and domestic needs. Many of India’s largestcities rank among the most polluted in theworld. The chapter “India’s UrbanEnvironment, Current Knowledge, andFuture Possibilities” predicts that these nega-tive trends—as well as the problems of munic-ipal solid waste, sewage, and shortage of safedrinking water—will continue, and that envi-ronmental quality in urban areas will becomeincreasingly problematic for India.

Water, agriculture, and food are closely relat-ed. While short, the chapter on water byBhaskar Vira, Ramaswamy Iyer, and Cassenaddresses several important issues, includingthe possible effects of climate change. Climatemodeling is still not precise enough to predictthe magnitude and direction of changes in rain-fall and temperature at the state level, but suchchanges will likely occur by the middle of thiscentury. Thus, policymakers should begin con-tingency planning soon. Many parts of Indiaalready suffer water shortages, especially duringthe dry months, which have led to conflictsbetween states and between end-users. Theauthors summarize the demand for waterthrough 2050, concluding that India can avoida water crisis if appropriate supply- anddemand-side measures are adopted in time.

The chapter points out that some states’ pol-icy of providing free water and electricity hasled to overuse of surface and ground water.Political parties have been unwilling to incurfarmers’ wrath by eliminating or reducing thiscostly subsidy. Since water comes under thejurisdiction of the state rather than the centralgovernment, the latter can only intervene in thecases of rivers that flow across state borders.1

Cereal production in India has increasedfaster than the population during the past 50years. In “Prospects for Food Demand andSupply,” Amresh Hanchate and Dyson assertthat this trend may continue for the next fewdecades, if some policy changes, such as increas-ing the price of water and electricity, can beimplemented. While this may be true for the

As in otherdeveloping

countries, imple-menting policies

in India thatcreate some

hardships willtake time,

education, and asocial safety net.

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country as a whole, over a long-term horizon,regions can fluctuate considerably from oneyear to another. Global climate change couldalso affect future cereal production.

Common pool resources (CPR)—whichinclude fuel wood, fodder, crop wastes, cowdung, organic manure, and small timber, aswell as local fisheries and water for drinking,cooking, and irrigation—are closely linked toIndia’s rural economy. Vira’s chapter on CPRdescribes the conflicting claims on theseresources by, for example, the forest productand chemical industries.

Lessons Learned

In the final chapter, “Lessons and Policies,” theeditors outline the policies that they consider tobe especially important for meeting India’s chal-lenges. While the government has already articu-lated policies and legislation for the issues dis-cussed in the book, difficulties arise in theirimplementation. Policymakers in many devel-oped as well as developing countries face thisproblem, so it is no surprise that the authors offerno magical solutions. For example, while manyparts of India suffer from water shortages, theagriculture sector uses a great deal of water,which is essentially provided free of charge. Nopolitical party is willing to advocate chargingmoney for water, for fear of being voted out inthe next election. Similarly, closing down a facto-ry for polluting—even temporarily—is likely tolead to widespread demonstrations and strikes.As in other developing countries, implementingpolicies in India that create some hardships willtake time, education, and a social safety net.

Despite the lack of new policy recommen-dations, Twenty-First Century India is an

insightful and comprehensive book that shouldbe of great value to academics, policy advisors,and researchers interested in exploring thedemographic and sustainable developmentchallenges facing the second most populouscountry in the world.

Notes

1. Readers interested in examining these issues ingreater detail should refer to a number of recent works,such as Shiva (2002) and the two volumes edited bySiddiqi and Tahir-Kheli (2004, 2005).

References

Bajpai, Nirupam, & Jeffrey D. Sachs. (1999). Theprogress of policy reform and variations in perform-ance at the sub-national level in India (HarvardInstitute of International Development DiscussionPaper No. 730). Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity.

Grubler, Arnulf. (1998). Technology and global change.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pachauri, R. K., & P.V. Sridharan (Eds.). (1998).Looking back to think ahead: Green India 2047.New Delhi: Tata Energy Research Institute.

Shiva, Vandana. (2002). Water wars: Privatization, pol-lution, and profit. New Delhi: India Research Press.

Siddiqi, Toufiq A., & Shirin Tahir-Kheli (Eds.).(2004). Water conflicts in South Asia: Managingwater resource disputes within and between countries.Honolulu: Global Environment and Energy in the21st Century.

Siddiqi, Toufiq A., & Shirin Tahir-Kheli (Eds.).(2005). Water needs in South Asia: Closing thedemand-supply gap. Honolulu: Global Environmentand Energy in the 21st Century.

Visaria, Pravin, & Leela Visaria. (1982). “Population(1757-1947).” In D. Kumar (Ed.), The Cambridgeeconomic history of India, Volume II: c. 1757-c. 1970(pages 463-532). Hyderabad, India: OrientLongman.


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AIDS Epidemic Update: December 2005

UNAIDShttp://www.unaids.org/Epi2005/doc/report.html

UNAIDS lists its most recent estimates of HIV prevalence and AIDS mortality, country bycountry. With maps and regional summaries, the 2005 edition explores new trends, includingevidence that adult HIV infection rates have decreased in certain countries, in large part due tochanges in behavior to prevent infection—such as increased use of condoms, delay of first sex-ual experience, and fewer sexual partners. A special section on HIV prevention looks at inten-sive efforts to reduce transmission, but despite their success, overall rates of HIV transmissioncontinue to increase in all regions of the world except the Caribbean.

Population, Development, and HIV/AIDS, with Particular Emphasis onPoverty: The Concise Report (2005)

UN Population Division http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/concise2005/PopdevHIVAIDS.pdf

The UN Population Division examines the relationship between poverty and HIV prevalenceto illustrate how poverty not only exacerbates the impact of HIV/AIDS but is also a key factorleading to behaviors that expose people to the risk of HIV infection. Globally, the UN findsthe highest prevalence of HIV in poor countries, but within regions such as Africa, the poorestcountries do not necessarily have the highest rates. Data resources include demographic andpoverty indicators, among others, grouped by both region and level of HIV prevalence.

dotPOP

Online resources for data on HIV/AIDSCompiled by JENNIFER WISNEWSKI KACZOR

dotPOP

111

Population and HIV/AIDS 2005: Wall Chart

UN Population Divisionhttp://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/POP_HIVAIDS2005/POP_HIVAIDS.htm

The extensive tables in this wall chart display country-level data on HIV/AIDS, with a specialfocus on government policies and programs for the prevention and treatment of the disease. Ittracks five government measures for each country, in addition to per capita expenditures onhealth. Other datasets report HIV prevalence; demographic indicators impacted by AIDS;number of AIDS orphans; and condom usage.

Financing the Response to HIV/AIDS in Low and Middle IncomeCountries: Funding for HIV/AIDS from the G7 and the EuropeanCommission

Kaiser Family Foundationhttp://www.kff.org/hivaids/7344.cfm

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s detailed overview of donor financing for HIV/AIDS programsincludes the latest data on funding commitments and disbursements by the Group of 7 andthe European Commission, the largest international donors for HIV/AIDS through theirbilateral programs and contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, andMalaria. The report—which suggests that despite these commitments the funding gap contin-ues to grow—also examines several ways to assess “fair share” among donors.

Combating AIDS in the Developing World: Report of the UNMillennium Project’s Working Group on HIV/AIDS

UN Development Programmehttp://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/HIVAIDS-complete.pdf

The Working Group on HIV/AIDS draws on existing data and research to examine strategiesfor achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS by2015. Chapters of the report address the scope of the epidemic, prevention, treatment, AIDSorphans, and financing. The report offers 10 imperatives for meeting the MDG, includingrapidly scaling up essential HIV prevention and antiretroviral treatment through sustainedinvestment in health systems.

Please visit http://www.wilsoncenter.org/ecsp for more population,health, environment, and security links.

Editor

Geoffrey D. Dabelko

Managing Editor

Meaghan E. Parker

Production Editor

Lianne Hepler

Assistant Editor

Alison Williams

Contributing Editors

Nelia Forest

Jennifer Wisnewski

Kaczor

Jennifer L. Turner

Charlotte Youngblood

Research Staff

Katherine Carrus

Crystal Chase

Alicia Hope Herron

Zachariah Zanek

Advisory Committee

Co-Chairs

Thomas E. Lovejoy, The Heinz

Center for Science,

Economics and the

Environment

P.J. Simmons, Rockefeller

Brothers Fund

WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARSLee H. Hamilton, President and Director

Board of TrusteesJoseph B. Gildenhorn, ChairDavid A. Metzner, Vice Chair Public Members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States; BruceCole, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities; Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary, U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services; Tamala L. Longaberger, designated appointee within the Federal Government; CondoleezzaRice, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; MargaretSpellings, Secretary, U.S. Department of EducationPrivate Citizen Members: Carol Cartwright, Robert B. Cook, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Charles L. Glazer,Sander Gerber, Ignacio E. Sanchez

About the CenterThe Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president,Woodrow Wilson. Congress established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute foradvanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relationship between the world of learning and theworld of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees.

In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, supported financially byannual appropriations from Congress, and by the contributions of foundations, corporations, and individuals.Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and donot necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organiza-tions that provide financial support to the Center.

Cover Photos: An army soldier keeps vigil at the Indo-Pakistan border, Siachen © AFP/AFP/Getty Images;Cloudy sky in Myanmar, © 2005 Kyaw Winn, Courtesy of Photoshare; Sprawling Spruce Forest, © Royalty-Free/Corbis

REPORTPopulation and Conflict: Exploring the Links

Nepal: Environmental Stress, Demographic Change, and the Maoists

Population-Environment Funding: A Place for theDemographic Case

U.S. Military: Environmental Security in the Gulf

Preview: Parks for Peace or Peace for Parks?

Reviews: New Publications

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ISSUE 11 2005


This publication is made possible through support provided by the Office of Population,

U.S. Agency for International Development, and the University of Michigan, under the

terms of Grant No. HRN-A-00-00-00001. The opinions expressed herein are those of

the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Agency for International

Development, the University of Michigan, or the Woodrow Wilson Center.

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