RESEARCH

Doctorate

Do fluctuations in climate spur violence? Across a variety of stakeholders, there is an intuitive expectation that climate factors influence conflict in vulnerable areas. While existing research suggests that there might be a relationship between climate and conflict, the exact linkage between the two remains an open question. To address this gap, I independently developed and organized a multi-year research project to explain the connection between climate volatility and political violence in sub-Saharan Africa. My dissertation develops a theoretical framework for climate and conflict which focuses on how individuals react to the uncertainty created by climate volatility. I find that climate volatility heightens feelings of uncertainty among farmers; discomfort with feelings of uncertainty pushes individuals to try and seek certainty in a variety of ways. One way to find certainty, although not the only one, is to align with social groups that can offer psycho-social and economic benefits to membership. Armed groups are just one example, and the pertinent example for this project, of social groups that benefit from this certainty seeking behavior. A key outcome of individual efforts to reduce uncertainty is a larger pool of potential supporters and recruits for armed groups, leading to violence over time.

In this project, I leveraged statistical tools (R, Quantum GIS, Qualtrics) and databases of climate and violent event data to model the relationship between climate fluctuations and conflict. I organized and executed both quantitative and qualitative research activities in rural Uganda (Soroti District), including a survey experiment with 400 participants, 20 key informant interviews, and more than 15 focus groups. I also conducted a detailed content analysis of primary source documents from micro-finance groups to better understand how farmers hedge against economic uncertainty.

Triggers of Non-State Actors’ Escalations in Violence Against Civilians in Africa

(with Hollie Nyseth Brehm and Amanda Robinson)

Although past research has addressed why civilians are targeted, we know less about what influences variation in such targeting and, specifically, why non-state actors escalate violence against civilians at particular times. Accordingly, this project seeks to identify the events that trigger spikes in violence against civilians committed by non-state actors. We employ an innovative method to identify 24 escalations of violence against civilians in Africa between 1989 and 2015. Rigorous case study work reveals three major types of triggers, including situations in which (1) groups lose relative power, (2) groups gain relative power, and (3) opponents attack civilians. Specifically, we find that opponent’s military advances (a decrease in power) are the most common trigger, with 75 percent of the escalations tied to a relative decrease in power more broadly. As such, our results improve our understanding of civilian targeting by non-state actors and may inform efforts to forecast such violence before it occurs.