Introduction
Reg All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine,
public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health,
what have the Romans ever done for us?
Attendee: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace - shut up!
(Monty Python’s Life of Brian)
The systematic literature concerning the relationship between environment and conflict is
relatively new and without consensus. Quantitative studies have started to examine the
hypothesized linkage between water resource scarcity and conflict (Hauge and Ellison
1998; Toset, Gleditsch and Hegre 2000; de Soysa 2002; Hensel, Mitchell and Sowers
2004; Furlong and Gleditsch 2003; Gleditsch et al 2004), and much qualitative case study
work has analyzed this link (Homer-Dixon 1991, 1994, 1999; Gleick 1993; Lowi 1995;
Wolf 1995). Nevertheless, questions remain about a direct relationship between water
resources and conflict. In addressing this puzzle in the literature, in this paper we
distinguish between direct effects and indirect effects linking water resource scarcity and
conflict. We systematically examine intervening variables that might influence the
impact of conflict on water resources.
Governance and political institutions have been understudied in the case study
literature as well as the large-N quantitative literature. The focus of the debate in both
literatures has been on whether or not environmental or natural resource scarcity or
degradation are causes of conflict, but both have been slow to recognize and evaluate the
importance of governmental responses to such potential problems. The exclusion of
measures for governance and institutional capacities to deal with environmental problems
may lead to mis- or under-specified models and spurious correlations.
This study focuses on political responses to resource scarcities as the intervening
variable between these factors and possible conflict. Thus the ability of governments to
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Convention