Environmental Stress and Conflict

Resource Scarcity and Innovation: Can Poor Countries Attain Endogenous Growth?

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Edward Barbier and Thomas Homer-Dixon | Endogenous growth models have revived the debate over the role of technological innovation in economic growth and development. The consensus view is that institutional and policy failures prevent poor countries from generating or using new technological ideas to reap greater economic opportunities. However, this view omits the important contribution of natural-resource degradation and depletion to institutional instability

Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: The Case of Rwanda

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Valerie Percival and Thomas Homer-Dixon | On April 6, 1994, President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane exploded in the skies above the Kigali region of Rwanda. Violence gripped the country. Between April and August of 1994, as many as 1 million people were killed and more than 2 million people became refugees.

Strategies for Studying Causation in Complex Ecological-Political Systems

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This paper shows that some commonly advocated methodological principles of modern political science are inappropriate for the study of complex ecological-political systems. It also provides conceptual tools for thinking about the causal roles of environmental and demographic factors, and it discusses various strategies for hypothesis and inference testing.

Correspondence: Environment and Security

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Professor Marc Levy of Princeton University has published several critiques of recent scholarship on environmental security, including one in International Security. Thomas Homer-Dixon responds to his comments.

The Myth of Global Water Wars

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At a meeting in Stockholm this past August, Ismail Serageldin, the World Bank’s Vice President for Environmentally Sustainable Development, released a new report on global water issues.

China’s Challenge

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Walking along Shanghai’s waterfront late on a misty June evening, it’s easy to be intoxicated by China.

Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: The Case of Gaza

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Kimberley Kelly and Thomas Homer-Dixon | The achievement of limited autonomy for Palestinians in Gaza and Jericho in 1993 engendered hope for peace in the Middle East, yet violence persists. The links between environmental scarcity and conflict are complex, but in Gaza, water scarcity has clearly aggravated socioeconomic conditions.

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