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Pathways to water conflict during drought
in the MENA region
Tobias Ide
University of Melbourne & University of Hamburg
Miguel Rodriguez Lopez
University of Hamburg
Christiane Fro
¨hlich
German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)
Ju
¨rgen Scheffran
University of Hamburg
Abstract
As hydro-meteorological hazards are predicted to become more frequent and intense in the future, scholars and
policymakers are increasingly concerned about their security implications, especially in the context of ongoing
climate change. Our study contributes to this debate by analysing the pathways to water-related conflict onset under
drought conditions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region between 1996 and 2009. It is also the first
such analysis that focuses on small-scale conflicts involving little or no physical violence, such as protests or
demonstrations. These nonviolent conflicts are politically relevant, yet understudied in the literature on climate
change and conflict, environmental security, and political instability. We employ the method of qualitative com-
parative analysis (QCA) to integrate quantitative and qualitative data at various scales (national, regional, local) for a
sample of 34 cases (17 of which experienced conflict onset). Our findings show that pre-existing cleavages and either
autocratic political systems or cuts of the public water supply are relevant predictors of nonviolent, water-related
conflict onset during droughts. Grievances deeply embedded into socio-economic structures in combination with a
triggering event like a drought or water cuts are hence driving such water-related conflicts, especially in the absence of
proper political institutions. We thus argue that drought–conflict links are highly context-dependent even for
nonviolent, local conflicts, hence challenging determinist narratives that claim direct interlinkages between climate
change, hydro-meteorological disasters and conflict.
Keywords
climate change, Middle East, North Africa, protest, rainfall, security
Introduction
Over the coming decades, ongoing climate change is
likely to increase the frequency and intensity of hydro-
meteorological events like droughts and floods even
under moderate greenhouse gas emission scenarios. At
the same time, both the number of people living in areas
vulnerable to such events and the value of assets located
there is increasing (IPCC, 2018). A case in point is the
2006–09 drought in north-eastern Syria, which had
devastating impacts on local livelihoods due to a combi-
nation of rainfall scarcity, a history of state-driven
Corresponding authors:
christiane.froehlich@giga-hamburg.de, tobias.ide@unimelb.edu.au
Journal of Peace Research
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ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343320910777
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agricultural expansion (leading to a degradation of land
and groundwater resources), the presence of relatively
large and poor populations, the termination of subsidies
for fuel and fertilizer, and a lack of external support (de
Cha
ˆtel, 2014; Selby, 2019).
In this context, researchers and policymakers alike
have frequently speculated about a link between
climate-related disasters and an increasing risk of violent
conflict (Peters, 2018). Former UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-Moon, for instance, warned: ‘[e]xtreme weather
events continue to grow more frequent and intense, in
rich and poor countries alike, not only devastating lives
but also infrastructure, institutions and budgets – an
unholy brew that can create dangerous security vacuums’
(United Nations, 2011).
A number of studies have picked up and tested such
claims. Eastin (2018), Nardulli, Peyton & Bajjalieh
(2015) and Schleussner et al. (2016), among others, find
a statistically significant correlation between climate-
related disasters and armed conflict occurrence. Other
scholars, by contrast, are unable to find such a link in
large-N, cross-case studies (e.g. Ghimire, Ferreira &
Dorfman, 2015; Omelicheva, 2011; Slettebak, 2012).
Droughts hold special importance within this debate.
Several articles have been devoted to studying the impact
of drought on violent conflict in particular. These articles
often focus on hazards (in the form of exogenous weather
events, mostly unusually low rainfall) rather than disas-
ters (the societal impacts of hazards). However, they still
provide important insights into disaster–conflict links as
they focus on societies vulnerable to hazards-turning-
into-disasters (for instance due to insufficient water
infrastructure and high agricultural dependence).
Some of those studies provide evidence for an impact
of drought on conflict risk (Maystadt & Ecker, 2014;
Raleigh, Choi & Kniveton, 2015; von Uexkull, 2014),
whileothersdonot(O’Loughlin,Linke&Witmer,
2014; Salehyan & Hendrix, 2014; Yeeles, 2015). This
divide is largely mirrored by qualitative research, which
controversially debates the role of rainfall deficits for
large-scale violence in Syria (Gleick, 2014; Selby et al.,
2017), Darfur (De Juan, 2015; Selby & Hoffmann,
2014) and northern Kenya (Adano et al., 2012; Schilling
et al., 2014), for example.
In recent years, a number of nuanced studies using
improved methods and datasets seem to indicate that
hydro-meteorological hazards increase the risk of violent
conflicts under certain conditions. Von Uexkull et al.
(2016) find that droughts during the growing season
make armed conflicts in Africa and Asia more likely, but
only among agriculturally dependent and politically
excluded groups. According to Detges (2016), the pres-
ence of road and water infrastructure is crucial in
accelerating or mitigating drought–violence links in
sub-Saharan Africa. Besides, Ide (2015) shows that
renewable resource scarcity, often a consequence of
hydro-meteorological hazards, facilitates violent conflict
escalation under conditions of negative othering, rela-
tively equal power balances between the groups in con-
flict, and acute political change. Similar conditional links
are also highlighted by Feitelson & Tubi (2017), Ide et
al. (2020) and Schleussner et al. (2016). Most often
these studies provide stronger and more robust results
for low-intensity violence causing only a small number of
fatalities (when compared to full-blown civil wars).
These findings are in line with early qualitative research
results claiming that environmental conflicts ‘tend to be
subnational, diffuse and persistent’, and only occur if
certain scope conditions are present, such as lack of
ingenuity and pre-existing cleavages (Homer-Dixon &
Blitt, 1998: 11).
However, with the exception of a few studies employ-
ing political ecology approaches (e.g. Bassett, 1988; Ben-
jaminsen, Maganga & Abdallah, 2009), the literature has
paid little attention to small-scale conflicts involving lit-
tle or no physical violence (henceforth: nonviolent con-
flicts) in the face of hydro-meteorological hazards or
disasters. While such conflicts have less impact on
human security and development when compared to
armed clashes or even civil wars, they are worth studying
for at least three reasons.
First, nonviolent conflicts can be a driver of emanci-
pation and social change. Civil resistance, for example,
has effectively challenged dominant and unequal politi-
cal power structures (Stephan & Chenoweth, 2008), for
instance in Georgia (2003), the Ukraine (2004/5) and
Egypt (2011). Second, nonviolent conflict episodes such
as demonstrations or sit-ins can be a starting point for
conflict escalation, eventually leading to violent confron-
tations (Bartusevic
ˇius & Gleditsch, 2019). When over-
whelmingly peaceful protests against the Assad regime in
2011 were met with repression, for example, an escala-
tion process towards a devastating civil war started (Selby
et al., 2017). Finally, nonviolent conflict can be an indi-
cator for legitimate grievances, which should be taken
seriously by political institutions and, if applicable, exter-
nal mediators, peacebuilders and development workers.
1
1
This does not imply that all demands articulated during nonviolent
conflicts are legitimate (think of neo-Nazi demonstrations, for
example).
2journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
As discussed above, the recent literature largely agrees
that disasters triggered by hydro-meteorological hazards,
and especially droughts, increase the risk of small-scale
violent conflict events in certain contexts. From a theo-
retical point of view, such a link should be even more
pronounced for nonviolent conflict events. When con-
fronted with water scarcity during a drought or unequal
vulnerability to a flood, for instance, especially poor and/
or marginalized groups might lack the financial or
administrative capacities to stage a violent confrontation
(Fro
¨hlich, 2016; Tarrow, 1998). A relatively strong gov-
ernment, the urgent need to sustain livelihoods (and to
care for disaster victims), social and/or moral stigmatiza-
tion of violence, and the considerable risks involved in
violent activities might further discourage such conflicts
(Collier, Hoeffler & Rohner, 2009; Salehyan, 2008).
Nonviolent activities like demonstrations or sit-ins, by
contrast, require fewer financial and organizational
resources, and are at least in some contexts associated
with lower personal risks. Due to their higher perceived
legitimacy, they can also be supported much more easily
by ‘external’ actors like political parties or (international)
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
Indeed, the qualitative literature provides numerous
studies of cases where protests or demonstrations, often
specifically concerning water issues, were initiated after
hydro-meteorological disasters. When Hurricane Mitch
and a number of droughts had reduced water availability
in the municipality of Cordega (Nicaragua) during the
late 1990s and early 2000s, disadvantaged households
pressed influential community members to stop illegal
water appropriation by rich cattle owners (Gomez &
Ravnborg, 2011). In the Ferghana Valley, drought fre-
quently ignites intercommunal water disputes – includ-
ing demonstrations, threats and scuffles – along ethnic
cleavages (Bichsel, 2009). In Yemen, drought has been
proven to accelerate competition over already scarce
water resources, often resulting in protests and court
cases against rural-to-urban water transfers (Weiss,
2015). But a systematic, cross-case analysis of such con-
flict cases is not yet available.
In this article, we present the first study on nonviolent
conflict onset in the context of hydro-meteorological
hazards. Specifically, we investigate the conditions of
nonviolent, water-related conflict onset under drought
conditions in the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA). Although the MENA region as a whole has
been extensively studied in the climate-conflict litera-
ture, our study provides new evidence for countries so
far hardly investigated, such as Algeria, Jordan and Tur-
key (Adams et al., 2018). Methodologically, we employ a
qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), thus combining
quantitative and qualitative data to disentangle complex
causal pathways for a medium number of cases (Schnei-
der & Wagemann, 2012).
This article proceeds as follows. In the next section,
we introduce our theoretical framework before outlining
our research design. Subsequently, we present and dis-
cuss our results and conclude the article by reflecting on
policy implications and further research tasks.
Drought and water-related conflict
In this study, we understand conflict as a situation in
which at least two social groups (i) perceive their interests
as mutually incompatible and (ii) act based on these
perceptions (Ide, 2016). Our definition hence only cap-
tures manifest conflicts that are articulated by concrete
actions, while latent or structural conflicts might be pres-
ent quite some time before or after manifest actions, or
even without them at all. Nonviolent conflicts here refer
to small-scale, often local conflicts which involve no or
very limited physical violence. As discussed above, the
organizational requirements and opportunity costs
involved in joining a nonviolent conflict are low com-
pared with armed conflicts or civil wars, hence making
the former more prevalent. Typical examples of nonvio-
lent conflicts (on which we focus in this study) include
protests and demonstrations. Conflicts that are handled
by the national political systems (e.g. through electoral
competition) or the formal judicial system, however, are
not included in our definition, because their local nature
and/or small-scale repertoire of actions can be contested.
We consider conflicts to be water-related if at least one
party explicitly articulates demands or grievances about
water access, water availability and/or water infrastruc-
ture (Houdret, 2012).
Along with almost all other environmental security
scholars, we reject determinist positions, hence assuming
no direct link between drought and water-related, non-
violent conflict (henceforth: water-related conflict).
Rather, we hypothesize that the occurrence of water-
related conflict during drought is conditional on a num-
ber of contextual factors. Four of these are considered in
further detail here.
First, water-related conflicts rarely occur in a political
vacuum. This is especially the case as the comparatively
low economic value of water and the availability of tech-
nological solutions (e.g. obtaining water from tankers,
buying virtual water in the form of food) render intense
disputes about water cost-inefficient (Selby & Hoff-
mann, 2014). Rather, socio-environmental conflicts
Ide et al. 3
often overlap with existing grievances, hence forming
subdimensions of broader societal conflicts (Homer-
Dixon & Blitt, 1998). The water conflict between Israel
and Palestine, for instance, is deeply embedded into the
broader material and discursive structures of the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict (Fro
¨hlich, 2012). Similarly, the
nonviolent water conflict between highland and lowland
dwellers in Thailand is also the result of existing tensions
between ethnic Thai valley populations and margina-
lized, supposedly ‘foreign’ hill tribes (Ide, 2016). Thus,
we assume that the occurrence of water-related conflict
under drought depends on the presence of pre-existing
grievances in the form of cleavages. These exist if the
groups in question have been engaged in broader conflict
prior to the start of the drought.
However, cleavages exist in all societies, but rarely
transform into open (though nonviolent) conflicts
(Fearon & Laitin, 2003). Social movement studies have
demonstrated that protests are most likely to occur when
people feel that their legitimate grievances cannot be
successfully articulated and dealt with by the existing
political or juridical system (Benford & Snow, 2000).
Autocratic political systems that allow for little demo-
cratic participation are particularly likely to ignite such
feelings (Geddes, Wright & Frantz, 2018).
2
The per-
ceived corruption of the political elite, the lack of proper
responses by state institutions and the inability to change
this situation through elections, for example, made
forest-dependent communities actively protest large-
scale logging in Kalimantan, Indonesia, during the reign
of Suharto (Barber, 1998). We therefore hypothesize
that the presence of an autocratic regime is an important
context factor for the onset of water-related conflicts.
One should note, however, that autocracies might also
discourage nonviolent conflict actions because risks can
be high (due to potential repression and punishment)
while the gains might be low (as elites are not accoun-
table to the broader public). Yet many cases in our sam-
ple are protests by ‘ordinary’ local people (often
coordinated by local networks or well-respected individ-
uals) who might have few other options to express their
political demands, and who consider non-action in the
face of rising grievances and/or livelihood insecurity not
to be an option (Tarrow, 1998).
In addition to grievances and the lack of effective ways
to articulate them, the occurrence of a conflict event is
also dependent on the presence of sufficient opportuni-
ties. Even spontaneous, bottom-up protests are often
coordinated and led by local elites such as traditional
authorities or urban middle classes with considerable
social capital (Tarrow, 1998). Conflicts are also more
likely to occur in areas with a high population density,
as more people can be mobilized and logistical con-
straints are less challenging (Dixon, 2009). It is no coin-
cidence, for example, that the anti-regime protests in
Syria in 2011 mainly occurred in (peri-)urban areas and
were led by young, well-educated and well-networked
people (Fro
¨hlich, 2016). We therefore assume that better
opportunities for mobilization make the onset of water-
related conflicts more likely.
Specifically, we propose that high nightlight emissions
are a well-suited indicator for mobilization opportuni-
ties. Nightlight emissions refer to the light intensity of a
certain area during the time when no daylight is present.
High nightlight emissions are indicative of three condi-
tions, all of which facilitate mobilization of social move-
ments: (1) a high electrification rate (indicating a certain
level of development, hence allowing people to allocate
time to conflict activities), (2) a continuous supply of
power (thus enabling people to organize via digital
media),
3
and (3) a high population density (and there-
fore a larger group of persons that can potentially join a
movement) (Segerberg & Bennett, 2011; Shortland,
Christopoulou & Makatsoris, 2013).
Finally, even with grievances and opportunities pres-
ent, conflicts are usually ignited by a trigger, that is, by a
specific event taking place at a certain time that causes at
least one party to take action in order to pursue its
interests (Hendrix & Glaser, 2007). The escalation of
Hindu–Muslim conflicts in Gujarat (India), for instance,
was triggered by the burning of a train, some of whose
passengers were Hindu nationalists (Chatterjee, 2012). A
drought in itself can also be a trigger, as hydro-
meteorological hazards lay open and reinforce
(perceived) societal contradictions and inequalities
(Garcı
´a-Lo
´pez, 2018). But droughts are slow-onset
events that gradually unfold over longer periods, and
therefore might be less suitable to trigger conflicts (at a
certain point in time). We therefore add another trigger-
ing factor to the analysis: water cuts, defined as interrup-
tions of the regular water supply provided by state or
2
Having said that, perceptions of a non-accountable political system
which is only accessible for a small elite also play a key role for the
growth of populism and anti-governments protests in Western
democracies.
3
Which, however, requires other conditions to be present as well,
such as high literacy and internet access rates.
4journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
private actors. In particular, water cuts that go beyond
short-term interruptions (lasting just a few hours) or
regular interruptions (which happen in areas with insuf-
ficient supply and/or infrastructure and to which locals
are usually well adapted) can put significant strains on
livelihoods and cause grievances related to disappointed
expectations. We thus hypothesize that during droughts,
such water cuts trigger the onset of water-related
conflicts.
The following section (and particularly the subsection
‘Data and calibration’) provides further information on
the operationalization of these four factors highlighted
by our conceptual framework.
Methods and data
Method
In order to analyse the factors driving water-related con-
flicts under drought conditions, we employ the method
of qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). In a nutshell,
QCA is a set-theoretic method based on Boolean algebra
that is able to detect (combinations of) conditions suffi-
cient and/or necessary for a given outcome (Schneider &
Wagemann, 2012). Implicit to this is a weak under-
standing of quasi-necessity and quasi-sufficiency as there
are no perfect (deterministic) predictors of the human
behaviour and social interactions (Legewie, 2013). The
method of QCA has been successfully used in environ-
mental security research (e.g. Bretthauer, 2015; Hossu
et al., 2018; Ide, 2015, 2018) and is particularly suitable
for our research design for three reasons.
First, one of the core assumption of QCA is ‘conjunc-
tural causation’ (Schneider & Wagemann, 2012: 78),
that is, a given outcome can be the result of a complex
interaction of several factors. The QCA algorithm is
geared towards detecting such INUS conditions (insuffi-
cient but necessary parts of an unnecessary but sufficient
condition for a given outcome). It hence mirrors our
theoretical assumptions, which highlight context depen-
dence and the interaction between different conditions.
Second, QCA is able to integrate quantitative and
qualitative data in a single analysis. For this, it employs
a calibration procedure which determines for each case
whether it is in (1) or out (0) of the set of cases to which a
certain condition applies (for instance, in or out of the set
of democratic states). While partial set-membership
scores are possible, we opt for a binary (crisp-set) QCA
because the outcome relevant to this study can only have
two values (occurrence or absence of water-related con-
flict), hence making a fuzzy-set analysis mathematically
infeasible (Ragin, 2009).
Finally, and relatedly, QCA serves as a bridge between
quantitative and qualitative analysis (Schneider & Wage-
mann, 2012). On the one hand, it is able to process
qualitative data derived from a deeper knowledge of par-
ticular cases and contexts, and on which no quantitative
information is available. This enables us to include vari-
ables like cleavages and water cuts in our analysis that are
rarely considered by quantitative approaches. But on the
other hand, QCA produces generalizable findings for a
medium number of cases and employs reproducible
mathematical procedures that can also be subjected to
robustness tests (Skaaning, 2011; Vis, 2012). As research
on environmental security and climate-conflict links is
often criticized for fierce debates between or mutual
ignorance of quantitative and qualitative approaches
(Ide, 2017; Scheffran et al., 2012; Solow, 2013),
employing such an integrated research design promises
to shed new light on debates around climate-related
hazards and conflict.
4
Case selection
In order to draw our sample, we utilized the PRIO-
GRID dataset (Tollefsen, Strand & Buhaug, 2012),
which projects a raster of cells with an edge length of
0.5(*55 km at the equator) over the world map.
Afterwards, we identified those cell-years that suffered
from a meteorological drought in the recent past. Spe-
cifically, we included all cell-years into the sample with a
Standardized Precipitation and Evapotranspiration
Index (SPEI) of 0.0833 or higher, indicating that at least
one of the previous 12 months was characterized by an
unusually severe drought (SPEI1 > 1.5) when compared
with historical averages. Such a drought hazard can be
considered very severe and likely at least partially exceeds
the coping capacities of local societies, hence resulting in
a (small-scale) disaster. The comparative advantage of the
SPEI data is that it measures drought against historical
averages (hence being a good proxy for extreme events)
and that it includes temperature and evapotranspiration
in addition to precipitation as drivers of drought (hence
measuring conditions on the ground more adequately)
(Almer, Laurent-Lucchetti & Oechslin, 2017).
The resulting cell raster was merged with the Water-
Related Intrastate Conflict and Cooperation (WARICC)
dataset. WARICC is a comprehensive event dataset
4
This is not to say that QCA is without weaknesses. Compared to
large-N studies, generalizability is limited and no substantive effects
of individual factors can be estimated, while single or small-N
qualitative studies can dig deeper into their particular cases.
Ide et al. 5
containing information on water-related conflict and
cooperation for several states in the MENA region for
the time period 1996–2009 (Bo
¨hmelt et al., 2014).
5
We
selected all conflict events which took place in a cell-year
characterized by drought. In order to make sure that the
analysis would focus on somewhat sustained conflicts
about water at the local level, we excluded international
events (scale value of 4), low intensity events (WES val-
ues of 1 and 2, which often simply refer to the existence
of local water problems or rather mild verbal state-
ments
6
) and events where water was not the object of
contention.
As WARICC codes all events with an unknown
location in the country as having taken place in the
capital, we also excluded conflicts in capitals unless
the description explicitly referred to the capital city.
By doing so, we yielded a sample of 17 water-related
conflicts, of which ten were described as protests, five
as demonstrations (including sit-ins and road
blockages), and two as riots (see Online appendices
2and3forfurtherdetails).Allofthemwerenon-
violent in the sense that they included no or only very
limited physical violence
7
against humans (although
property was actively targeted in some cases), and no
casualties occurred.
These conflict events were matched by a further 17
non-conflict cases. Selecting such cases is no easy task, as
the absence of an entry in WARICC can indicate either
that the cell-year is free of water-related conflicts or that
the respective conflicts have not been reported. Indeed,
studies have shown that news media from which data-
bases like WARICC draw their information substan-
tively underreport local-level conflicts, and speculated
whether such false negatives impact the validity of
cross-case analyses (Funder et al., 2010; Ide & Scheffran,
2014).
In order to determine our set of non-conflict cases, we
thus selected cell-years characterized by cooperative
events according to WARICC. However, our study does
not deal with water-related cooperation, and most coop-
eration cases recognized by WARICC in fact do not
represent water-related cooperation between distinct
groups in the narrow sense of the term.
8
Rather, we use
the presence of a cooperative event in the WARICC data
as an indicator for media attention to a given region
during a particular period of time. This minimizes the
risk that intense (yet nonviolent) water-related conflicts
occurred, but were not covered for the respective cell-
year. Using instances of cooperation is therefore a pro-
mising strategy to reduce potential reporting biases in the
sample of non-conflict cases.
Again, we excluded events on an international scale or
with significant international involvement, events with
an unclear spatial (capital) coding, and events that may
have occurred simultaneously with and masked local
conflicts (e.g. opening of a new dam). We also made
sure that the Environmental Justice Atlas does not reg-
ister a conflict for the respective cell-year in any of the
non-conflict cases (Temper, del Bene & Martinez-Alier,
2015).
Figure 1 provides an overview about the 34 cases
under study. One should note that while we used
PRIO-GRID’s cell-years to generate the sample and
extract quantitative data, WARICC’s geo-coordinates
and event descriptions (along with the available litera-
ture, see below) enabled us to work on a more fine-
grained level of analysis including specific villages, towns
or districts.
Data and calibration
The previous subsection has already explained datasets
used and the calibration procedure for the outcome of
the analysis (water-related, nonviolent conflict onset). As
discussed in the second section, we assume that four
variables are relevant as necessary, sufficient and/or
INUS conditions for the outcome.
Firstly, as an indicator for grievances, we calibrate
whether cleavages between social groups existed in a
location prior to a drought (cleavages ¼1) or not (clea-
vages ¼0). We do so based on qualitative information
for each case, collected from academic books and journal
articles, news media reports identified via the Factiva
database (Dow Jones, 2018), the Environmental Justice
Atlas (Temper, del Bene & Martinez-Alier, 2015) and, if
appropriate, additional websites. Especially for Gaza,
Israel, Turkey and the West Bank, we also consulted
with country experts to gain a deeper knowledge of the
cases. Online appendix 2 provides summary descriptions
of all cases, along with complete lists of the sources used.
5
Data are available for these countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan,
Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.
6
By contrast, we included WES values of 3 (large-scale opposition
towards water-related policies or actions) and 4 (actions related to
events that could deteriorate water quality/quantity at the regional
level).
7
Such as police forces dispelling a demonstration.
8
Example include water infrastructure construction work or water-
related awareness campaigns.
6journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
Secondly, quantitative data on the regime type cur-
rently in power are obtained from Autocratic Regime
Data, which is currently the most widely accepted data-
set on the presence or absence of autocratic regimes
(Geddes, Wright & Frantz, 2014). If the case is located
in a country-year classified as autocratic by this dataset,
we consider it as autocratic (auto_reg¼1); if not, as dem-
ocratic (auto_reg¼0).
Thirdly, PRIO-GRID supplies information on night-
light emissions based on data collected by NOAA and
Figure 1. Location of the cases under study
Ide et al. 7
DMSP (Tollefsen, Strand & Buhaug, 2012). We used
the calibrated mean values which are standardized
between 0 and 1, as these are most suitable for cross-
regional and cross-temporal analyses. As no theoreti-
cally meaningful cutoff point is available, we follow
established procedures and use a natural gap in the data
to calibrate the nightlights condition (Schneider &
Wagemann, 2012). Cases with a normalized value
below 0.112 are calibrated as having low night emis-
sions (nlight ¼0), while cases with a normalized value
above0.142areconsideredtohavehighemissions
(nlight ¼1). We perform various tests to check the
robustness of this calibration decision (see next section
and Online appendix 1).
Lastly, we rely on the qualitative information col-
lected (see above) to calibrate whether the cases experi-
enced longer interruptions of the regular water supply
prior to the conflict onset (water_cuts ¼1) or not
(water_cuts ¼0).
Conditions for water-related conflicts under
drought
Results
In a first step, we perform an analysis of (quasi-)necessary
conditions for the onset of water-related conflicts during
drought. The relevant measurehereisconsistency,
which indicates the degree to which the presence of a
condition overlaps with the outcome (hence indicating
the potential strength of a causal link between them). A
score of 0.9 or above is the generally accepted threshold
for considering a condition necessary (Schneider &
Wagemann, 2010). The consistency scores for the pres-
ence of cleavages (0.82), of an autocratic regime (0.71),
of high nightlight emissions (0.71) and of water cuts
(0.77) are below this threshold, hence indicating that
there are no necessary conditions for water-related con-
flict onset under drought conditions. Similarly, none of
the conditions used for robustness tests (see below) come
close to being a necessary condition.
When it comes to sufficiency, we prefer the parsimo-
nious solution of QCA, which is considered to be most
robust (Baumgartner & Thiem, forthcoming). The
QCA identifies two (quasi-)sufficient pathways for the
onset of water-related, nonviolent conflicts as depicted
by Table I. The first pathway (middle column) high-
lights the simultaneous presence of an autocratic regime
and pre-existing cleavages, and has a perfect consistency
score of 1.0 (indicating that every time this pathway was
present, conflict onset occurred). Its raw coverage is
0.53, meaning that 53% (nine out of 17) of the conflict
onset cases are explained by this pathway, and 18% of
the cases are only explained by this pathway (unique
coverage of 0.18; the respective cases are underlined in
the fifth row). The second pathway (right column)
emphasizes the simultaneous presence of water cuts and
pre-existing cleavages. This pathway still has a very high
consistency score (0.91) as well as slightly higher raw
(0.24) and unique coverage (0.59, explaining ten conflict
cases) scores. Both pathways reappear in all of the robust-
ness tests conducted.
The resulting solution formula can hence be read as
follows. The combined presence of pre-existing cleavages
and either an autocratic regime or water cuts is a
(quasi-)sufficient condition for the onset of water-
related, nonviolent conflict. The consistency (0.93) and
coverage (0.77) values of this solution are well above
established thresholds for sufficiency analyses in QCA
(0.8 for consistency, around 0.6 for coverage) (Legewie,
2013; Schneider & Wagemann, 2010). The solution
explains 13 of the 17 conflict cases and 16 of the 17
non-conflict cases analysed, which is a high explanation
rate (> 85%) when compared to other applications of
QCA and statistical approaches (Schneider & Wagemann,
Table I. Results of the QCA
causal pathway auto_reg*cleavages water_cuts*cleavages
consistency 1.00 0.91
raw coverage 0.53 0.59
unique coverage 0.18 0.24
cases covered AinBerda
Annaba
Batna
Damascus
Damru
El Burullus
ElChatt
Guercif
Ouargla City
Aidah
AinBerda
Annaba
Aramta
Batna
Damru
Diyarbakir
El Burullus
El Chatt
Nablus
solution formula cleavages*(auto_regþwater_cuts) !
conflict
solution consistency 0.93
solution coverage 0.77
cases not covered Al-Ramah, Bouhenni, Jordan Valley 2,
Van
contradictory cases Rafah
*¼and, þ¼or, !¼sufficient for. Underlined cases are explained
solely by the respective pathway. Signs follow the predominant cur-
rent conventions.
8journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
2012). As Table I shows, there are four deviant cases with
regard to coverage (conflicts unexplained by the solution),
while one further case is deviant regarding consistency
(Rafah is covered by the solution formula, but experienced
no conflict). The possible reasons for the deviant cases are
discussed in further detail below.
Interestingly, high nightlight emissions, which we use
as an indicator for mobilization opportunities, does not
appear as a relevant necessary or INUS condition in the
QCA analysis. While it is not uncommon for hypothe-
sized causal conditions to turn out insignificant in the
analysis, we discuss the possible reasons for this in the
subsequent section.
Before the results are substantively interpreted and
discussed, we check their robustness. The literature
recommends performing five types of robustness tests:
(1) alternative frequency thresholds, (2) alternative con-
sistency thresholds, (3) alternative sets of cases, (4) alter-
native causal conditions, and (5) alternative calibration
decisions (Cooper & Glaesser, 2016; Schneider &
Wagemann, 2012; Skaaning, 2011). We perform 20
alternative runs of the QCA covering all five types of
robustness tests (see Online appendix 1 for a full descrip-
tion). All tests yield solutions that are in a sub- or super-
set relation with the solution formula of the main
analysis (and thus do not contradict it), hence increasing
our confidence in the results. The pathway auto_reg*
cleavages is exactly yielded by 18 out of 20 robustness
tests, while the pathway water_cuts*cleavages is still
exactly yielded by 12 out of 20 robustness tests.
9
The
QCA results are hence considered robust.
Discussion
The presence of pre-existing grievances or cleavages is
part of both pathways to nonviolent, water-related con-
flict onset under droughts. As hydro-meteorological
hazards are predicted to get more frequent and/or intense
with ongoing climate change, this echoes claims that
climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’ (Okpara, Stringer
& Dougill, 2016: 90), but is hardly the main driver of
conflicts (Brzoska, 2018). But pre-existing cleavages
alone are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition.
Only their combined presence with either water cuts or
an authoritarian regime is considered to trigger water-
related conflicts during droughts, again highlighting the
strong context-dependence of environment-security lin-
kages (Ide, 2015; Raleigh, Linke & O’Loughlin, 2014;
Scheffran et al., 2012).
Both pathways are plausible in the context of our
theoretical expectations discussed above. In the first
pathway (auto_reg*cleavages), an already ongoing conflict
cannot be articulated or mediated due to the presence of
an authoritarian regime. The drought might add further
grievances, for instance due to decreasing water access
and increasing livelihood insecurity, or it heightens the
(perceived) discrimination of certain groups, for example
regarding water access or resources for disaster relief. In
this pathway, drought thus functions as a trigger which
ignites pre-existing conflicts that are not articulated
within or mediated by existing political structures. While
fear of repression and punishment by the regime could
theoretically inhibit protests, the affected groups often
either have longstanding tensions and a history of con-
flict with state institutions, or feel that their livelihoods
are so severely affected that the costs of non-action would
be too great (Le Billon & Duffy, 2018; Tarrow, 1998).
As scholars of social movements have repeatedly shown,
‘the diffusion of grievances, the structural availability of
protesters, and especially the embeddedness of protesters
in pre-existing networks of civic associations’ are the
main explanatory variables for protests in autocratic
regimes (Brym et al., 2014: 286).
This reading of the QCA solution is further backed
up by the qualitative evidence we gathered on the cases
(see Online appendix 2 for full case descriptions with
references). Ouargla City in southern Algeria, for exam-
ple, has been characterized by intense tensions between
Arab and Berber populations, as well as by grievances
about marginalization vis-a
`-vis northern Algeria. These
grievances could not be effectively articulated to or even
mediated by the authoritarian political system. They
were further fuelled by sinking groundwater tables,
caused by, among others, the local petroleum industry
(which generated few benefits for the inhabitants of the
region). When sinking water tables combined with a
drought to put further strain on agricultural and
tourism-related livelihoods, inhabitants of Ouargla City
and the surrounding villages engaged in riots and road
blocks on 29 February 2004, to protest against the water
situation (Recioui et al., 2018).
Similarly, the city of Guercif in northern Morocco is a
regional commercial centre, yet economically and in
terms of livelihoods strongly dependent on agriculture.
Due to the dry climate, groundwater is highly important
for agriculture. But safe access to freshwater and
9
This is mostly because the only deviant case regarding consistency,
Rafah, affects this pathway and destabilizes (but never contradicts) it
in several robustness tests. When the case is removed from the
sample, the pathway is more stable (although its higher explanatory
power vis-a
`-vis auto_reg*cleavages is lost).
Ide et al. 9
groundwater is unequally distributed, mostly along
socio-economic lines, which is a source of longstanding
tensions. Although elections were held, the political sys-
tem remained essentially autocratic and provided few
opportunities to deal with these issues. When a drought
further worsened the situation and national elections
provided a symbolic context to articulate demands, local
citizens organized protests about inadequate access to
and unequal distribution of basic services such as water
on 28 September 2002 (MAP, 2002).
For the second pathway (water_cuts*cleavages), pre-
existing cleavages play an important role as well. They
combine with drought-related livelihood insecurity (and
often poverty) to produce widespread grievances. This
results in high levels of instability and structural con-
flict, which are ‘ignited’ by water cuts, possibly because
they make (perceived) inequalities (regarding water
access) more visible, or because they aggravate percep-
tions of indifference by the state, or because they esca-
late livelihood insecurity and the associated grievances.
Democratic institutions (if existent) are presumably not
sufficient to mediate in such situations, especially as
they are relatively weak in many of the cases covered
by this pathway (Lust, 2011), and therefore the pres-
ence (or absence) of an authoritarian regime plays no
explanatory role.
This interpretation of the QCA results is again sup-
ported by qualitative evidence from cases. For instance,
the Aidah refugee camp close to Bethlehem, just like
other parts of the Palestinian West Bank, is strongly
affected by the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the
respective cleavages are hence very strong. The Israeli
occupation and a lack of proper maintenance of the
existing infrastructure frequently cause problems regard-
ing water supply and quality. Aidah suffered from water
cuts during a drought in summer 2008. The cuts were
ascribed to conscious decisions by Israeli authorities to
prioritize their own people’s water needs, and democratic
means to contest these decisions were not available. In
consequence, the camp inhabitants protested against
their water situation on 10 September (Crump et al.,
2012).
Also, the poor, predominantly agricultural village of
El Chatt in northeastern Algeria is characterized by grie-
vances related to its inhabitants’ marginalization and
tensions between Arabs and Berbers. In the face of a
severe drought and ensuing freshwater cuts that lasted
for around a month, pre-existing tensions intensified in
early 2003. On 15 January, people started protests
against this situation which quickly escalated into riots
(Le Matin, 2003).
Interestingly, opportunities for mobilization, for
which we use nightlight emissions as a proxy, do not
emerge as part of the solution formula. This might be
due to two (interrelated) reasons. First, the nonviolent,
often short-term and small-scale conflicts we study are
not as dependent on mobilization opportunities as large-
scale, sustained and/or armed conflicts. People can
gather relatively spontaneously or coordinate by word-
of-mouth, especially when facing common hardship
(such as water scarcity) in a familiar setting. Second, the
presence of widely accepted opinion leaders or traditional
institutions might be more relevant than population
density, wealth and electrification (Ratelle, 2013), espe-
cially with regard to small-scale protests. A case in point
is the pivotal role that women’s networks played in initi-
ating water protests in the Turkish town of Diyarbakır
(the case with the 9th lowest nightlight emissions in the
sample) in June 2006 (Al Jazeera, 2008).
Deviant cases
Discussing deviant cases regarding coverage (conflict
cases not explained by the QCA solution) and regarding
consistency (non-conflict cases covered by the QCA
solution) is helpful to identify omitted conditions, cali-
bration errors and tasks for future research (Schneider &
Rohlfing, 2013).
Of the four deviant cases regarding coverage, three are
characterized by the presence of an authoritarian regime
and water cuts, but the absence of cleavages. The two
Jordanian cases (Al-Ramah and Jordan Valley 2) are very
low-intensity conflicts even in the context of our sample.
In both cases, a small number of locals publicly expressed
concerns about water cuts. It is hence possible that for
such small-scale conflicts, prior cleavages are not essen-
tial. Alternatively, neoliberal policies of the Jordanian
regime since the 1990s, namely the cutback of farming
subsidies in the Jordan Valley and the partial privatiza-
tion of the water sector in Al-Ramah, could have been a
source of grievances prior to the onset of the conflicts (in
2002 and 2009). Such longstanding structural issues
could also help to explain why locals (mildly) challenged
the Jordanian state despite the potential of authoritarian
backlash. However, this issue is not discussed in the
academic sources and media reports we could access.
The Algerian case of Bouhenni also experienced water
cuts and an authoritarian regime, but no pre-existing
cleavages. In contrast to the two Jordanian cases, how-
ever, the water-related conflict in 2005 was rather
intense, as the police had to forcefully remove a road
blockade after mediation failed. But according to the
10 journal of PEACE RESEARCH XX(X)
sources we consulted (Liberte
´, 2005), the town suffers
from very high unemployment rates and insufficient
provisions of public services, which might have been a
source of grievances about the central government, espe-
cially among young people, who also were the main
instigators of the conflict. But again, these social prob-
lems are not explicitly linked to grievances and conflict in
the sources we use.
In the Turkish city of Van, water-related protests
occurred in 2006. Grievances were present (mainly in
the context of the larger Turkish–Kurdish conflict), but
no water cuts were reported and a democratically elected
regime was in power. Yet, it is still possible that the
inhabitants of the city saw little chance in pursuing their
water-related claims through the political or legal system,
given the widespread discrimination of the Kurdish
minority (which could then be considered a functional
equivalent to auto_reg) (Yegen, 2010).
The only deviant case regarding consistency is the city
of Rafah, located in the Gaza Strip, in early 2005.
Despite the presence of a drought, strong cleavages
(mainly between Israelis and Palestinians) and water
cuts, no conflict about water has been reported. This is
presumably due to the reduction of conflict and fighting
activity in 2004, the corresponding improvement of the
water situation, and the fact that inhabitants preferred to
protest against other, presumably more important issues
such as Israeli military violence (Moore & Guy, 2012).
Overall, the analysis of the deviant cases supports the
results of the main analysis, as Rafah can be considered
an exceptional case, while Van and Bouhenni would be
covered if equivalents of the relevant conditions auto_reg
and cleavages are considered. The two Jordanian conflicts
are likely either special cases (due to their low intensity)
or characterized by existing grievances (about neo-liberal
water policies) not covered by the literature we con-
sulted. However, the potential relevance of neoliberal
policies, ethnic discrimination and socio-economic mar-
ginalization in the cases not covered by the solution
formula highlights the need to pay additional attention
to these factors in future analysis, even if they are directly
translated into political grievances (see also Selby &
Hoffmann, 2014).
Conclusion
This study aimed to disentangle pathways to small-scale,
low-intensity conflicts about water during droughts. It
fills an important gap in the literature on environmental
security, natural hazards, climate change and conflict,
which largely focuses on violent disputes causing 25 or
more battle-related deaths. However, analysing less
intense conflicts is important, as they can be a driver
of social change, a starting point for violent escalation,
and an indicator for legitimate grievances.
Our findings show that the combination of pre-
existing cleavages and either an authoritarian regime or
water cuts facilitates the onset of nonviolent, water-
related conflict during droughts. This is in line with
theoretical expectations (formulated in the section
‘Drought and water-related conflict’) stating that such
conflict onsets are driven by (i) grievances (in the form
of cleavages, sometimes accelerated by droughts), (ii) a
lack of effective means to articulate these grievances in a
given legal or political system (authoritarian regime), and
(iii) a specific trigger (drought or water cuts). In terms of
policy, this implies that in regions that are confronted
with a combination of intense drought and pre-existing
tensions, politicians and development workers should
make sure to avoid water cuts and to give inhabitants
the opportunity to articulate their grievances within the
existing political and/or legal system.
Our study contributes to wider debates in a number
of ways. First, it supports claims that climate change,
when resulting in a higher frequency or intensity of
droughts, can indeed be linked to increased conflict risks
(Brzoska, 2018; Sakaguchi, Varughese & Auld, 2017).
While we do not treat drought as a causal condition in
the QCA, the causal pathways detected together with
qualitative evidence from the 34 case studies indicate
that droughts can multiply the risk of conflict onset.
Second, however, our analysis makes clear that such a
link is strongly conditional on the presence of a number
of context factors, thus lining up with a number of recent
studies drawing similar conclusions (e.g. De Juan, 2015;
Ide et al., 2020; Schleussner et al., 2016; von Uexkull
et al., 2016).
Third, we add to a growing literature on low-intensity
conflicts (e.g. Bartusevic
ˇius & Gleditsch, 2019; Day,
Pinckney & Chenoweth, 2015). We do so by shedding
light on some of their so-far unexplored drivers, such as
droughts and water cuts, but also by showing that certain
opportunities for mobilization (specifically those indi-
cated by our nightlight emissions condition, such as
population density and access to electricity) perhaps play
less of a role for small-scale conflict onset than previously
assumed (Coscieme et al., 2017). We also introduce a
novel procedure to address the issue of false negatives,
particularly acute in the study of low-intensity conflicts,
by using reported cooperation as a proxy for media
attention.
Ide et al. 11
Fourth, we demonstrate how our method, QCA, can
be used to bridge the divide between qualitative and
quantitative approaches in environmental and climate
security research (Ide, 2017; Solow, 2013), as well as
in peace and conflict studies more broadly (Wood,
2017). Using a medium number of cases, we integrated
data on the national (e.g. on regime type) and the local
level (e.g. on water cuts), as well as qualitative (e.g. on
pre-existing cleavages) and quantitative information (e.g.
on nightlight emissions).
In this context, our study also illustrates pathways for
future research. Water cuts, which we identified as a
crucial triggering factor, have so far hardly been dis-
cussed in the relevant literature. Their interactions with
drought response policies and broader inequalities
might be particularly relevant here (Carse, 2017). Dif-
ferentiating more strongly between completely nonvio-
lent conflict and conflicts which contain some minor
forms of violence (such a physical violence against prop-
erty) would be another step forward, especially with
regard to policy relevance. The question of when and
why people protest against authoritarian institutions
despite limited prospects and a risk of repression also
require further attention.
Further, as we have illustrated in our discussion of
deviant cases, factors like neoliberal policies and socio-
economic marginalization likely play a crucial role for
water-related conflict onset, yet often remain understu-
died. Addressing them more thoroughly would also
enable environmental security scholars to link up closer
with political ecologists, who have worked on the inter-
section between environmental degradation, inequality
and neoliberalization for quite some time (Abrahams &
Carr, 2017; Le Billon & Duffy, 2018). In the end,
cooperation between scholars using different theoretical
and methodical approaches is key to study, and eventu-
ally address, intertwined global problems such as exclu-
sion, poverty, climate change and conflict.
Replication data
A description of the robustness tests for the QCA, the
full dataset for the QCA and qualitative descriptions of
all cases, as well as the Online appendices can be found
http://www.prio.org/jpr/datasets.
Funding
Research for this study was funded in part by the Aus-
tralian Research Council (DE190101268) and the Ger-
man Science Foundation’s (DFG) Clusters of Excellence
‘CliSAP’ (EXC177) and ‘CLICCS’ (EXC2037).
ORCID iD
Tobias Ide https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8401-2372
Christiane Fro
¨hlich https://orcid.org/0000-0002-
1802-0419
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TOBIAS IDE, b. 1985, PhD in Geography (University of
Hamburg, 2015) and habilitation in Political Science (TU
Braunschweig, 2019); ARC DECRA Fellow at the School of
Geography, University of Melbourne (2019– ).
JUAN MIGUEL RODRIGUEZ LOPEZ, b. 1978, PhD in
Political Science (University of Hamburg, 2012); research
fellow at the Institute of Geography, University of Hamburg.
CHRISTIANE FRO
¨HLICH, b. 1977, PhD in Sociology
(Philipps-University Marburg, 2009); research fellow at
GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies,
Hamburg.
JU
¨RGEN SCHEFFRAN, b. 1957, PhD in Physics
(University of Marburg, 1989); Senior Researcher and
Faculty Member, University of Illinois (2004–09); Professor
of Geography, University of Hamburg (2009– ); head of
Research Group Climate Change and Security at CliSAP/
CLICCS Clusters of Excellence.
Ide et al. 15
