Pathways to instability: A synthetic framework to parse connections between water and conflict

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Abstract
While water has long been an object and mechanism of conflict, predicting water conflict remains a challenge. Little evidence supports strong, direct causal, or statistical links. Yet, connections between water and conflict remain relevant. As climate-driven water disturbances increase, it is imperative to understand how monitorable and predictable drivers like droughts and floods may affect political instability, of which conflict is a subset. Drawing from a variety of bodies of literature, we synthesize theory and case studies on water and conflict and integrate them into a generalized Pathways to Instability Framework. This framework presents a novel arrangement of conceptual categories that parse the biophysical and social elements that make up the multi-step, indirect links from water disturbance to instability. We demonstrate the framework’s usefulness by organizing literature on the onset of the Syrian Civil War and showing how disagreements among findings stem from studies on different links in the causal chain. The framework’s linear nature effaces specificity and depth in favor of simplicity, which helps evaluate the importance of different drivers. Acknowledging that policy contends with intertwined rather than standalone issues, the conceptual categories present discrete entry points in which policy-makers can devise and assess the value of interventions.
Funding Information
  • U.S. Department of War (HQ00342220002)
  • U.S. Department of War (HQ00342420014)

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