To Understand How Disasters Relate to Conflict and Peace, Reframe the Starting Point

Aug 11, 2020 | Laura E. R. Peters
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Is the world doomed to be ever-more tumultuous? For years, headlines have suggested that climate change causes or acts as a threat multiplier for violent conflicts. For example, climate change-influenced drought has been labeled a cause of the Syrian conflict and the war in Darfur. Natural hazard-related disasters (“disasters”) like earthquakes that are not related to climate change have also been connected to an increased risk of violent social conflict and political instability. The narratives are often that disasters displace people who then put pressure on already-strained resources and infrastructure in receiving areas, and that disaster-stricken people fight over limited resources in their struggle for survival.

However, every so often a hopeful headline suggests that these same types of disasters can bring people together and inspire altruism in times of crisis and encourage cooperation and peace between adversaries.

So which of these seemingly incompatible outcomes holds true? Do disasters cause conflict, or do disasters lead to increased cooperation and peace?

Across studies and geographies, the findings are unsatisfyingly inconclusive. Even meta-studies on these topics disagree with each other about the fundamental relationships between disaster, conflict, and peace. Why is it so challenging to reach a consensus?

In the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, I write with Ilan Kelman that this question will never lead us to a definitive answer, because the reality is much more complex. We argue that disasters do not create new conflict or peace, but disasters can reflect, reproduce, or rearrange ongoing processes of peace and conflict—and their undercurrents.