3.2 Eco-violence Theory
3.2.1 Major Postulations of the Theory
Eco-violence occupies the intersection between environmental and demographic changes on one hand, and scarcity of natural resources on the other, as factors which, under certain conditions, engender violent contestations over access to resources (Baechler, 1999; Kahl, 2006; Homer-Dixon, 1999).51 Along with other neo-Malthusian scholars, Homer-Dixon rooted eco-violence on the view that ‘shrinking resource pie’ fuels violent civil conflict by aggravating strained social relationships among different groups sharing common natural resources (Isiugo and Obioha, 2015). To Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff (1996), the eco-violence core postulation is that the depletion occurring in the amount or quality of resources reduces the total [resources] available, while increases in population divide what remains [of such natural resources] into smaller portions. They identify population growth and resource depletion as two potent factors which converge to produce conflict in many parts of the developing world. Highlighting the complex chain of events that contributes to environmental scarcity, Schwartz and Deligiannis (2008: 319) point out that:
[...] severe environmental scarcity can produce a number of identifiable ‘intermediate’ social effects: it restricts local food production, aggravates poverty of marginal groups, spurs large temporary or permanent migrations, enriches elites that capture resources, deepens divisions among social groups, and undermines a
51 According to Hagmann (2005: 3), “Environmental conflicts”, “environmental security”, or “eco-violence” are often used interchangeably in the literature.
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state’s moral authority and capacity to govern. Marginal groups that directly depend on renewable resources find themselves trapped in a vice between rising scarcity on one side and institutional and policy failures on the other. In many cases, these social impacts are aggravated and amplified by weak or dysfunctional governance capacities in developing states. These long term, tectonic stresses can slowly tear apart a poor society’s social fabric, causing chronic popular unrest and violence by boosting grievances and changing the balance of power among contending social groups and the state.
Schwartz and Deligiannis (2008: 319).
Eco-violence analysis sees conflict as a product of scarcity or the fear of natural resources depletion that may occur in at least two primary ways as illustrated by its proponents: one, “the environmental effects of human activities in a given ecological zone, which is in itself a function of the total population of the region and the physical activity per capita as defined by the level of available physical resources (whether non-renewable resources, renewable or ideational such as institutions, belief systems, social relations and preferences), and (2) the level to which the ecosystem in that region is vulnerable (Isiugo and Obioha, 2015).
Works by Homer-Dixon and his team capture wide ranging issues in showing how violent conflict may develop from environmental scarcity as a result of chains of events including the degradation of the environment, the depletion of its resource supply, spurring human migration into new regions and increasing competition among groups. As a result, there is an increase in demand occasioned by population influx and inequality in distribution. This situation results into competition for access and control of available resources thereby sharpening divides between groups. Clarke (1999: 598) posits that such turns of event have the potency to weaken governmental institutions and of the capacity of the state, as at
“contributes indirectly and in combination with other social, economic, and political factors, to various types of civil violence”.
Eco-violence points to four interrelated effects of environmental degradation in Homer- Dixon’s work, namely: reductions in the level of agricultural production, increased economic decline, displacement of populations, and a disruption in regular and legitimate social relations (Barnett, 2000: 280-281). The combination of these effects, depending on the contextual dynamics in the system, potentially gives rise to various forms of violent conflict ranging from insurgency, rebellion, and clashes among ethnic groups especially in developing countries. According to Homer-Dixon (1994), scarcity results from changes in the environment as events such as drought, flooding, and other forms of vulnerability
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exacerbating changes impact on the availability of fresh water, forests and cropland (Homer- Dixon, 1994: 5-40).
A central theme in eco-violence is the effects of resource scarcity. Homer-Dixon and Blitt (1998) highlight two environmental processes that are likely to produce resource scarcity and precipitate violent conflict. First, they argue that changes such as rising temperatures, precipitation anomalies, extreme weather etc. will aggravate environmental degradation and aggravate completion for the few available resources. Secondly, rising sea level, drought, flooding and other extreme weather events they argue, will force millions of people to migrate away from risk areas. The result of migration will impose pressure on available resources in destination areas leading to resource competition and conflict. These effects are more likely in less developed countries with limited mitigation and adaptation capabilities (Homer-Dixon and Blitt, 1988: 2-5).
Scarcity is described as a product of three patterns of interacting factors including population growth, resource degradation, and the distribution of resources between individuals and groups (Raleigh and Urdal, 2007). These factors according to Homer-Dixon, results in three scarcities namely: supply induced scarcity which refers to scarcity caused by the degradation and depletion of an environmental resource, for example, the erosion of cropland; demand induced scarcity which results from population growth within a region or increased per capita consumption of a resource, either of which heightens the demand for the resource, and structural scarcity which arises from an unequal social distribution of resources thereby resulting in its concentration in the hands of relatively few people while out-groups of the power circle are subject to resource shortages (Percival and Homer-Dixon, 1998).
According to Homer-Dixon, these forms of scarcity have the capacity to combine and interact with one another, and to shape the patterns of social relations in different social contexts. For example, he identifies two patterns of social relations that may result from environmental scarcity, namely: resource capture and ecological marginalisation. While the first describes a situation in which resource degradation and population growth leads to the acquisition and control of resources by powerful groups at the expense of groups that are relatively weaker or poorer, the second—ecological marginalization—describes the movement or concentration of large number of people in regions that are ecologically fragile as a result of inequality in access to land or the growth of population on a limited amount of land space (Homer-Dixon, 1991).
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The eco-violence model also recognises the role of innovative intervention as an ameliorative strategy which if well deployed as is the case of developed societies, will help populations adapt. This he describes as social and technical ingenuity modifications and adjustments which help societies avoid the adverse effects of environmental scarcity. The likelihood of adjustment depends on the available technical or social ingenuity which determines one of two options: first to deploy effective knowledge and attitudes which helps them to continue to depend on the natural resources in a more sensible manner while adopting strategies for mitigating the effects on a resource-strained population, or second, to decouple itself from reliance on the resources in the supply of which it is vulnerable given its capacity for alternatives (Homer-Dixon, 1994: 5-40).
Furthermore, eco-violence analysis also deals extensively with intergroup dynamics as defining elements in environmental scarcity and conflict linkages that is particularly apposite in explaining the impact of scarcity-induced migration on increases in urban crime rates, youth violence, militancy and insurgency, as well as the incidence of terrorist mobilization in the Nigerian context. Percival and Homer-Dixon (1998: 280) point out that in order “for these social effects to cause heightened grievances, people must perceive a relative decrease in their standard of living compared with other groups or compared with their aspirations, and they must see little chance of their aspirations being addressed under the status quo”.
Contrary to the assumption that grievances, group identities, and opportunities for violent collective action are causally independent, Percival and Homer-Dixon (1998) presents a socially intertwined process in which grievances play a very significant role in influencing the formation of groups and in defining what group membership means. In such systems as they explain, the existence of grievances has the potency to shift members’ perception of opportunities for violence (p. 280). As such, the tendency towards group formation increases just as the understanding of the essence of membership is informed by the degree and character of shared grievances, when people are able to identify with one another on the basis of a mutually shared grievance. The perception of justifications or opportunity for group action is influenced by the level of saliency in group identity as this level guarantees that individual participant shares in the costs of violent resistance to authority, and that their resistance increases the likelihood of success from their confrontation with the authority (Percival and Homer-Dixon, 1998).
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The transition from environmental scarcity to violent conflicts is shaped by the socio- economic and institutional or political system, but the impetus for conflict arises more evidently from the distributional effects (Baechler, 1999; Homer-Dixon, 1999; Kahl, 2006).
Percival and Homer-Dixon argue that:
...high levels of grievance do not necessarily lead to widespread civil violence. At least two other factors must be present: groups with strong collective identities that can coherently challenge state authority, and clearly advantageous opportunities for violent collective action against authority. The aggrieved must see themselves as members of groups that can act together, and they must believe that the best opportunities to successfully address their grievances involve violence (Percival and Homer-Dixon, 1998: 280).
Homer-Dixon also captures the migratory effects of environmental scarcity in eco-violence, highlighting human migration as one of the common outcomes of adverse changes in the chain of events which leads to demographic pressures and violence, as influx in receiving areas causing distributive tension over access and control for scarce resources (Homer-Dixon, 1994: 5-40). Homer-Dixon (1991: 91) points out that “scarcity and its interactions produce several common social effects, including lower agricultural production, migrations from zones of environmental scarcity, and weakened institutions”.
Another notable assumption in eco-violence theory is the recognition that industrializing countries are more vulnerable to environmental change than rich ones. Hence Barnett argues that poor countries are “more prone to environment-induced conflicts” (Barnett, 2000: 281).
Conflict outcomes are produced by both the distributional implications aggravated by subsisting socioeconomic conditions of the affected population, as well as by the poor capacity of state and its institutions to leverage adaptation among affected groups with the requisite infrastructural innovation and support. As such, whereas developed countries easily adapt to changes in the environment, countries characterised by high poverty rates and low levels of development are exposed to higher risks of environment-induced violence (Baechler, 1999; Homer-Dixon, 1999). This risk is proportionate to the reliance on primary natural resources.
Percival and Homer-Dixon (1998: 279-280) note that “the causal relationship between environmental scarcities- the scarcity of renewable resources-and the outbreak of violent conflict is complex... since “environmental scarcity emerges within a political, social, economic, and ecological context and interacts with many of these contextual factors to
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contribute to violence”, hence they note that “the context specific to each case determines the precise relationship between environmental scarcity and outbreaks of violent conflict” (p.
280)
Explaining further the factors which often determine the specificities of the context, Percival and Homer-Dixon (1998: 280) note “the quantity and vulnerability of environmental resources, the balance of political power, the nature of the state, patterns of social interaction, and the structure of economic relations among social groups” as factors which define or influence how resources are used, the significance of environmental scarcities on the society, the level of grievances that may arise as a result of these scarcities, and how much contribution can be generated from such grievances as a contributory factor to violence.
The relevance of the eco-violence approach in examining the dynamics of resource contestations in Nigeria derives from the balance of variables captured in the framework. The eco-violence framework as presented by Homer-Dixon and his team is described by Gleditsch and Urdal (2002) as far removed from the simplifications which characterize some other analysis of the environment-conflict discourse as represented by the sensationalism of Robert D. Kaplan (1994), or the prediction of doomsday as presented by Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich (1968).52 Thus, Homer-Dixon avoids the tendency for definitive claims presenting population pressure and environmental degradation as sole sources of violent environmental conflict, and instead emphasizes the close interrelationship between demographic/environmental, social, and political factors in the generation of violent conflict.