Much of the literature on climate change adaptation claims the destabilizing consequences of environmental crises are mitigated by sociopolitical conditions that influence a state's susceptibility to scarcity-induced violence. However, few cross-national studies provide evidence of conditional scarcity-conflict relationships. This analysis of drought severity and civil conflict onset in sub-Saharan Africa (1962–2006) uncovers three sociopolitical conditions that influence the link between environmental scarcity and civil conflict: social vulnerability , state capacity , and unequal distribution of resources . Surprisingly, we find drought does not exacerbate the high risk of conflict in the vulnerable, incapable, and unequal states thought to be especially susceptible to increased scarcity. Instead, drought negates the peace-favoring attributes of stable states with less vulnerable populations. During severe drought, states with sociopolitical conditions that would otherwise favor peace are no less likely to suffer conflict than states with sociopolitical conditions that would otherwise increase the risk of violence. These findings, which are robust across several measures of these sociopolitical concepts, suggest environmental scarcity is most likely to increase the risk of conflict where populations have more to lose relative to periods with more favorable weather.

中文翻译：

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撒哈拉以南非洲干旱与国内冲突之间的条件关系

许多关于气候变化适应的文献都声称，环境危机的不稳定后果可以通过影响国家对稀缺性暴力的易感性的社会政治条件来减轻。然而，很少有跨国研究提供有条件的稀缺-冲突关系的证据。这项对撒哈拉以南非洲（1962-2006 年）干旱严重程度和内战爆发的分析揭示了影响环境稀缺和内战之间联系的三个社会政治条件：社会脆弱性、国家能力和资源分配不平等。令人惊讶的是，我们发现干旱并没有加剧脆弱、无能和不平等的国家发生冲突的高风险，这些国家被认为特别容易受到日益严重的短缺影响。反而，干旱使人口较少脆弱的稳定国家失去了有利于和平的特性。在严重干旱期间，社会政治条件本来有利于和平的国家遭受冲突的可能性并不比社会政治条件本来会增加暴力风险的国家低。这些研究结果在对这些社会政治概念的多项衡量标准中都具有说服力，表明环境稀缺最有可能增加冲突的风险，在这种情况下，与天气更有利的时期相比，人口损失更多。