Climatic Stress, Internal Migration, and Syrian Civil War Onset

• Author: Konstantin Ash,Nick Obradovich
• Date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002719864140
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Climatic Stress, Internal

Migration, and Syrian

Civil War Onset

Konstantin Ash

1

, and Nick Obradovich

2

Abstract

Syria recently suffered a once in 500-year meteorological drought followed by one of

the worst conflicts of the twenty-first century. We exploit subnational 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, internal migration. Consistent with the internal migration hypothesis,

we find less severely drought-stricken Syrian regions more likely to experience

protest. We employ nighttime lights as a proxy for population density to examine

the association between climatic stress and internal displacement. We 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. Our findings

support the internal migration hypothesis and suggest extreme climate events may

impact civil unrest via geographically and temporally indirect paths.

Keywords

Syria, civil wars, climate, migration

The Syrian Civil War has been one of the most devastating conflicts of the twenty-

first century. The conflict evolved from anti-government protests in the Southern

1

School of Politics, Security and International Affairs, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

2

MIT Media Lab in the Scalable Cooperation group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,

MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Konstantin Ash, School of Politics, Security and International Affairs, University of Central Florida, 4297

Andromeda Loop N., Howard Phillips Hall Room 302, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.

Email: konstantin.ash@ucf.edu

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(1) 3-31

ªThe Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0022002719864140

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city of Dara’a on March 18, 2011, that were met with lethal state repression

(McEvers 2012). Protests spread across the cou ntry in the following weeks and

months with Syrians eventually demanding the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime

(Wimmen 2016). By late July 2011, a group of Army defectors organized the Free

Syrian Army (FSA) and launched attacks against the government (Holliday 2011).

There are numerous explanations for the uprising and subsequent conflict: diffusion

of the Arab Spring (Phillips 2012), the breakdown of postcolonial Arab nationalism

into sectarian politics (Hegghammer a nd Zelin 2013), economic inequality as a

result of market reforms (Landis 2012), and many others. However, one explanation

has particularly captured popular attention (see Friedman 2013 or Mhanna 2013):

the association between Syria’s 2006 to 201 0 drought

1

and subsequent political

dissent in 2011.

The role of climatic factors in the Syrian Civil War’s onset has also sparked

robust academic debate (see Ide 2018). In many ways, the debate represents broader

views on the role of extreme climate events in conflict. Scholarship has suggested

that climate anomalies—unusual changes in precipitation or temperature—are asso-

ciated with conflict outcomes (i.e., Burke et al. 2009; Hsiang and Burke 2014;

Hsiang, Burke, and Miguel 2013). Precipitation has been linked to conflict at the

country (O’Loughlin et al. 2012) and subnational levels (Caruso, Petrarca, and

Ricciuti 2016; Hendrix and Salehyan 2012; Maystadt, Calderone, and You 2015).

However, the results have been mixed when comparing extreme climate events and

conflict across different contexts. Extreme climate events have been found to

increase (Nel and Righarts 2008), de crease (Bergholt and Lujala 2012; Theis en

2012), and have no effect (Slettebak 2012) on the likelihood of civil conflict.

Following several failures to find direct relationships between drought and con-

flict (Benjaminsen et al. 2012; Buhaug 2010; Theisen, Holtermann, and Buhaug

2011), broad critiques have been brought against a direct relationship between cli-

matic factors and conflict outcomes (Raleigh, Linke, and O’loughlin 2014). These

critiques emphasize that local institutional contexts and heterogeneous vulnerabil-

ities can shape “more subtle and complex conditions under which climatic

events ...may have [an] ...impact on conflict” (Buhaug et al. 2014, 396). Subse-

quent empirical work bolsters such critiques. Institutional factors (Jones, Mattiacci,

and Braumoeller 2017; Linke et al. 2018), vulnerability to climate shocks (Von

Uexkull et al. 2016), or local economic factors (Buhaug et al. 2015) have all been

found to condition the relationship between climatic factors and government chal-

lenges. Vulnerability and institutions are just some conditions that may temper the

direct effects of climate. Koubi et al. (2014) suggest that resource abundance may be

associated with conflict. For instance, negative crop outcomes can influence migra-

tion to more fertile areas where conflict is more likely (De Juan 2015).

Were the Syrian drought assoc iated with the outbreak of conflict, the pathway

would be similarly indirect. A historic drought from 2006 to 2010 negatively

affected crop and livestock outcomes in Syria’s Northeast provinces (Raqqa,

Deir-ez-Zour, and Hasakeh), inducing some families to migrate to other parts of

4Journal of Conflict Resolution 64(1)