Climatic Stress, Internal Migration, and Syrian Civil War Onset
Publisher: Journal of Conflict Resolution
Author(s): Konstantin Ash and Nick Obradovich
Date: 2019
Topics: Climate Change, Conflict Causes, Livelihoods
Countries: Syrian Arab Republic
Syria recently suffered a once in five-hundred-year meteorological drought followed by one of the worst conflicts of the 21st Century. The authors exploit sub-national variation in drought impact to examine associations between climatic stress and Syria's political unrest. Climatic stress may produce instability through both immediate hardship and, indirectly, via internal migration. Consistent with the internal migration hypothesis, the authors find less severely drought-stricken Syrian regions more likely to experience protest. They employ nighttime lights as a proxy for population density to examine the association between climatic stress and internal displacement. The authors find climatic stress decreased nighttime light intensity during the drought period. Increases in nighttime lights from 2005 to 2010 are associated with added risk of protest in Sunni Arab areas, suggesting an influx of migrants bolstered local grievances. Their findings support the internal migration hypothesis and suggest extreme climate events may impact civil unrest via geographically and temporally indirect paths.