Suchergebnisse

In recent years, the quantitative international relations literature has increasingly paid attention to the potential problem of serially correlated observations in time-series cross-section (TSCS) data. Today, no study using TSCS data is published unless it manages to control for temporal dependence. Using Bremer's (1992) seminal "Dangerous Dyads" article as a starting point, this article has two ambitions. First, it seeks to explore whether the original results are replicable with new and updated data. Second, it aims to uncover whether Bremer's now unconventional choice of statistical model was decisive for his results. The analysis shows that despite clear evidence of serially correlated units, the alternative logit, GEE, and survival models yield relatively similar results. However, Bremer's finding of a monadic democratic peace is not robust to various operationalizations of democracy. His choice of democracy indicator thus seems to have had a significant influence on his conclusions, demonstrating that data selection can be as crucial as the choice of statistical model.

Climate policies will need to incentivize transformative societal changes if they are to achieve emission reductions consistent with 1.5°C temperature targets. To contribute to efforts for aligning climate policy with broader societal goals, specifically those related to sustainable development, we identify the effects of climate mitigation policy on aspects of socioeconomic development that are known determinants of conflict and evaluate the plausibility and importance of potential pathways to armed conflict and political violence. Conditional on preexisting societal tensions and socioeconomic vulnerabilities, we isolate effects on economic performance, income and livelihood, food and energy prices, and land tenure as most likely to increase conflict risks. Climate policy designs may be critical to moderate these risks as different designs can promote more favorable societal outcomes such as equity and inclusion. Coupling research with careful monitoring and evaluation of the intermediate societal effects at early stages of policy implementation will be a critical part of learning and moderating potential conflict risks. Importantly, better characterizing the future conflict risks under climate policy allows for a more comprehensive comparison to the conflict risk if mitigation is not implemented and graver climate damages are experienced. This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Benefits of Mitigation.

The recently developed Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) have enabled researchers to explore coupled human–nature dynamics in new and more complex ways. Despite their wide applicability and unquestionable advantage over earlier scenarios, the utility of the SSPs for conducting societal impact assessments is impaired by shortcomings in the underlying economic growth projections. In particular, the assumed economic convergence and absence of major growth disruptions break with historical growth trajectories in the developing world. The consequence is that the SSP portfolio becomes too narrow, with an overly optimistic lower band of growth projections. This is not a trivial concern, since resulting impact assessments are likely to underestimate the full human and material costs of climate change, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable societies. In response, we propose that future quantifications of the SSPs should incorporate the likelihood of growth disruptions, informed by scenarios of the relevant political contexts that historically have been important in curbing growth.

The recently developed Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) have enabled researchers to explore coupled human–nature dynamics in new and more complex ways. Despite their wide applicability and unquestionable advantage over earlier scenarios, the utility of the SSPs for conducting societal impact assessments is impaired by shortcomings in the underlying economic growth projections. In particular, the assumed economic convergence and absence of major growth disruptions break with historical growth trajectories in the developing world. The consequence is that the SSP portfolio becomes too narrow, with an overly optimistic lower band of growth projections. This is not a trivial concern, since resulting impact assessments are likely to underestimate the full human and material costs of climate change, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable societies. In response, we propose that future quantifications of the SSPs should incorporate the likelihood of growth disruptions, informed by scenarios of the relevant political contexts that historically have been important in curbing growth. How will climate change shape societies in coming decades, and what steps could be taken to avoid the gravest consequences? The recently developed Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) framework, which plays an integral role in the ongoing Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment cycle, constitutes the most comprehensive attempt to date to model societal development consistent with different climate change scenarios (O'Neill et al. 2014; Riahi et al. 2017). The SSPs span a range of alternative futures, determined by assumptions about challenges to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Four pathways (SSP1, SSP3–SSP5) capture the four possible combinations of low versus high barriers to adaptation and mitigation, whereas the fifth (SSP2) represents a middle-of-the-road pathway. Central drivers of these challenges include changes in demographic, economic, technological, social, political, and environmental factors. The SSPs serve two key functions: to provide "a basis for integrated scenarios of emissions and land use" and to facilitate "climate impact, adaptation and vulnerability analyses" (O'Neill et al. 2017, 169). There is some tension between these functions, since the former is determined mostly by the development trajectories of large economies and major greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters, whereas the latter is much more sensitive to future development in low-income countries and the world's poor. In other words, there is little overlap between the countries that contribute the most to anthropogenic climate change and those that are the most vulnerable to its impacts (Althor et al. 2016). Presently, the SSP framework appears better suited to fulfilling the first task than the second. In this research note, we show that existing quantifications of the SSPs, despite their wide applicability and unquestionable advantage over earlier scenario exercises, have clear limitations for researchers seeking to conduct societal adaptation and impact assessments because of shortcomings in the economic growth models underlying the SSPs. In particular, the assumption of growth convergence, whereby poorer countries gradually catch up with wealthy economies as long as educational attainment improves, and the related assumption of a future without major growth disruptions break with historical development trajectories. The result is an overly narrow and optimistic range of projected development outcomes. In response, we encourage revising or expanding the SSPs to incorporate growth projections that are sensitive to the underlying political and security contexts. Assumptions about such conditions are already embedded in the narratives that accompany the quantified SSPs (O'Neill et al. 2014, 2017), but presently, they exist in isolation from the growth projections. By bringing the political context explicitly into the quantitative scenarios, the SSP modeling community would help the IPCC get one step closer to achieving its objective: "to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies." ; publishedVersion ; © 2019 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

Geographical factors play a critical role in determining how a civil war is fought and who will prevail. Drawing on the PRIO/Uppsala Armed Conflict dataset covering the period 1946-2000, the authors have determined the location of all battle-zones for all civil wars in this time period, thereby identifying the geographic extent and the center point of each conflict. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) and three-stage least squares (3SLS) estimation techniques, factors are analyzed that determine the scope of the conflict (area of the conflict zone) and the location of the conflict relative to the capital. It is found that in addition to geographical factors such as the total land area of the country, scope is strongly shaped by such factors as the adjacencies of a border of a neighboring country, the incidence of natural resources in the conflict zone, and the duration of the conflict. The distance of the conflict zone from the capital is influenced by the scope of the conflict, the size of the country, whether or not the objective of the rebels is to secede, and whether or not the rebel group has a religious or ethnic identity. Also, evidence is found of an endogenous relationship between scope and location.

The study of security implications of climate change has developed rapidly from a nascent area of academic inquiry into an important and thriving research field that traverses epistemological and disciplinary boundaries. Here, we take stock of scientific progress by benchmarking the latest decade of empirical research against seven core research priorities collectively emphasized in 35 recent literature reviews. On the basis of this evaluation, we discuss key contributions of this special issue. Overall, we find that the research community has made important strides in specifying and evaluating plausible indirect causal pathways between climatic conditions and a wide set of conflict-related outcomes and the scope conditions that shape this relationship. Contributions to this special issue push the research frontier further along these lines. Jointly, they demonstrate significant climate impacts on social unrest in urban settings; they point to the complexity of the climate–migration–unrest link; they identify how agricultural production patterns shape conflict risk; they investigate understudied outcomes in relation to climate change, such as interstate claims and individual trust; and they discuss the relevance of this research for user groups across academia and beyond. We find that the long-term implications of gradual climate change and conflict potential of policy responses are important remaining research gaps that should guide future research.

The study of security implications of climate change has developed rapidly from a nascent area of academic inquiry into an important and thriving research field that traverses epistemological and disciplinary boundaries. Here, we take stock of scientific progress by benchmarking the latest decade of empirical research against seven core research priorities collectively emphasized in 35 recent literature reviews. On the basis of this evaluation, we discuss key contributions of this special issue. Overall, we find that the research community has made important strides in specifying and evaluating plausible indirect causal pathways between climatic conditions and a wide set of conflict-related outcomes and the scope conditions that shape this relationship. Contributions to this special issue push the research frontier further along these lines. Jointly, they demonstrate significant climate impacts on social unrest in urban settings; they point to the complexity of the climate–migration–unrest link; they identify how agricultural production patterns shape conflict risk; they investigate understudied outcomes in relation to climate change, such as interstate claims and individual trust; and they discuss the relevance of this research for user groups across academia and beyond. We find that the long-term implications of gradual climate change and conflict potential of policy responses are important remaining research gaps that should guide future research.