Manufactured Doubt in Conflict Zones: Science Politicization and the Barriers to Environmental Peacebuilding

Jennifer da Rosa, Goucher College (United States)

Environmental peacebuilding depends on shared scientific understandings of resource scarcity, ecological harm, and climate risk — yet these sciences are increasingly contested in conflict and post-conflict settings. This poster extends the stakes–visibility–contestability (SVC) framework to the context of environmental peacebuilding. The SVC framework identifies the structural conditions — social and economic stakes, public visibility, and perceived contestability — that render science politically charged. In conflict-affected settings, each dimension is compounded: contestability is amplified by parties with strategic interests in disputing scientific baselines; stakes become existential rather than merely distributional; and visibility dynamics are distorted by weaponized information and institutional distrust. Standard depoliticization strategies face heightened barriers here. Drawing on cases in transboundary water disputes, post-conflict resource governance, and climate displacement, the SVC framework provides practitioners with a more precise vocabulary for analyzing science politicization as a dynamic, multistage process and offers practical implications for dismantling contestability and promoting peace.