Environmental Security

As a new area of study, environmental security has faced many challenges, especially because very little data has been collected on the topic.  Scholars have suggested that general security be reframed to include environmental security. However, framing environmental issues as a security issue can be problematic. Environmental security means different things to different people. Therefore, there are several ways to frame environmental security to represent different problems people might face in the future. This consequently creates a divide in the environmental security field. Another challenge this field has faced is proving that environmental security should be grouped with security threats such as terrorism.

Securitization theory states that security issues must be recognized by a powerful actor in order for it to become a security concern.  Framing environmental issues as security will be beneficial in creating effective policy to protect the environment. Floyd indicates that even in the security realm there are divides between traditionalist and human security. Similarly, in environmental security there is a comparable divide between scholars who take an educational approach so that those who are environmentally insecure can be in the future. While other scholars want to see what environmental security looks in in practice. Depending on how environmental security is framed one can argue for or against it being included in security. For example, in the Homer-Dixon model of scarcity the result is violence and conflict in states. One is compelled to say yes, security should be reframed. However, as seen in other sets of data, scarcity does not always lead to violence in a state. Then it is worth exploring what is different in the states where conflict did not occur. While resource depletion can lead to violence it is more important to know more about the political climate in that state. In certain undeveloped nations with poor institutions it is a given that unequal distribution to natural resources will cause violence.

On the other side of this issue, de Soysa presents the idea that resource scarcity has negative outcomes but so does natural resource abundance.  Similarly, to the Homer-Dixon model de Soysa indicates that a state’s dependence on a natural resource is the explanation for civil conflict. This is not entirely true. Industrialized countries do not have civil conflict due to natural resources abundance, but rather the nations that have poor institutions to begin with experience the resource curse. Overall, predicting what states will do and how people in those states will behave when faced with extreme weather conditions or lack of natural resources is difficult. One cannot ignore the role of institutions when it comes to resource abundance and scarcity. If these institutions are not strong enough to handle resource abundance or scarcity, then the outcome will be corruption and dissatisfaction amongst its citizens that will result in civil conflict.

The problem with each way environmental security is framed is that there is no clear outcome or policy that will be best. The environment will affect everyone differently and even geographically. If I had to choose to write on a topic this week I would write about how weak institutions in a state determine if conflict will arise due to resource abundance or scarcity.

Reading about theory has never been an easy endeavor for me. Attempting to understand the author’s use of big words and convoluted ideas and then translating those ideas to real life scenarios is extremely challenging, and I found reading about environmental security theory from Floyd and Matthews book no different. Nonetheless, I do see the value in learning theory, and found several of points in each school of thought to be compelling. However, generally one point from the Copenhagen School struck me the most.

The Copenhagen School theorizes that security is based on survival. Further, it also concludes an idea or an issue cannot be considered a security threat unless it poses an existential danger to a “referent object” (23). Only in this case can securitization take place. Several questions arose as I considered these ideas by the Copenhagen School. First, who determines what this existential threat is? From an international standpoint, will states/countries with more power (i.e wealth and military power) determine what the most pressing environmental issue will be? Additionally, what does this existential threat entail? To give a small example, when George Bush decided to pull out from the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, during his presidency, much of the agreement’s goals were not achieved. Countries such as Canada followed Bush and pulled out as well. Why was this? As a leading international power and one of the largest polluters in the world at the time, the U.S didn’t want to be primarily responsible for cleaning up the emissions of other countries, specifically underdeveloped countries. In essence, the United States told the world that climate change wasn’t an urgent problem for them, thus stinting international movement regarding climate change. In this way, the U.S became the decision-maker in the urgency of the existential threat.

From what I can comprehend, I am not sure I agree with the theory of the Copenhagen school. In retrospect, none of the concepts introduced in Floyd and Matthew’s book contain all the answers. Homer-Dixon with the Toronto Group and the Bern-Zurich Group theorize that resource scarcity may lead to violent conflict, further leading to environmental discrimination, ecological marginalization and resource capture (38-9). Indra de Soysa in chapter 3 argues that the problem isn’t about resource scarcity. Rather, the overabundance of goods and the lack of governance leads to the problem of violence (64), using Sub Saharan Africa as her case study. I think all the theories are correct in their own right and wrong at the same time, because environmental security theory isn’t just one size fits all. The specificities of individual countries must be considered (such as their economic or political situations), and only after determining these variables can a truly correct theory be created.

The assigned reading for this week delves into environmental security reasoning, approaches, theories and goals. Overall, the chapters provided insight into what is ahead. Each author had different ways of formulating thoughts and reasons. The addition of figures and incorporation of history assisted to make Chapter 2: Evolution of Environment-Conflict Research and Chapter 3: Environmental Security and the Resource Curse both compelling. As some of us are, photo orientated learners, the figures incorporated in Chapter 2 and 3 were concise and clear at the same time. When a topic regarding Neo-Malthusian Outcomes of Scarcity or Ecological Marginalization, the figures cleared up the text. Chapter 3 had a layout that was easy to follow, whereas the other chapters did not have a clear methodology. Having graphs with quantitative and qualitative matter was important.

The “how” that occurs when identifying scarcities and the reason behind them happening was of interest. Although these environmental scarcities happen, there are interventions that prove to be effective, that can assist with the needs. It is interesting to understand the why and the how these interventions are used to control certain variables. (Deligiannis, 51) Even though, solutions for environmental security are not all simple, in fact, none are, it is noteworthy to grasp the amount of time and energy people spend for this topic. When reading all of this, mostly I was thinking about why does violence from environmental insecurity happen more in some geographic locations opposed to others. It make me think more about the unpinning of the factors and “brutal acts” which take place.

If I were to go further into depth on a broad topic, I would want to try to understand the social changes that occur from the transformation of the natural environment. I am also interested in the wealth distributions that occur with the frequency of scarcity which leading to insecurity. Connecting environmental security back to how resources are distributed and how they are regulated is also a broad topic that is of curiosity. Overall, finding out in which ways security is considered to be a performative speech act, will be fascinating.

The theorization of Environmental Security, from these chapters, may not be diverse in scope, but attracts contradictions of core ideas that frustrate a simple discourse. Rita Floyd’s four debates defining contemporary ESS allow for depth of engaging with the topic and provide questions that can either open up or close the topic. For example, the second debate questions the definition of security. Does security just refer to violent conflict or does it go broader (“freedom from want”)? While she acknowledged the traditional and non-traditional understanding of “security”, how can political/international/relevant/economic environmental issues be limited to “violent conflict” in reference to security. While this idea is addressed in many peoples’ interest in ESS deriving only from the potential for violent conflict, many of the issues are so indirectly associated with violent conflict that the pertinence of violence is barely more than a motivation technique to implicate the uninterested.

Why spend time on this subject when the next chapter deals with the Resource Curse, a phenomenon likely to lead to violence or international conflict as seen in Venezuela, but not an immediate violent security threat. The newness of the discipline and its lack of authoritative voices that agree on basic ideals frustrates a core understanding of the subject. That said, this conundrum emphasizes the importance and urgency of the subject. While “science” says that we must act immediately to mitigate environmental damages, how can we be sure of anything without decades of scholars telling us we’re on the right page? (Floyd would understand that I am not a poststructuralist.)

From the readings, I understand the “dysfunction” to derive from the morality inherent to so many issues in Environmental Security. For example, Soysa’s discussion of globalization as the positive alternative to developing rentier states contradicts much of my impressions of the World Bank and IMF meddling in developing economies to benefit Global North countries. In my prior critiques of development studies, globalization is a happy ideal that rarely works in favor of the common people. Soysa’s explanation of the resource curse brings in the International Relations and International Political Economy disciplines moreso than the theoretical, scientific, or methodological explanations employed by Floyd and Derigiannis. While the chapter explains the phenomenon, the methods which examine relevant case studies and schools of thought behind them create the background literature for ESS. To bolster an oft divided discourse on Environmental Security then, the various methods of analyzing and views of securities can continue to come together to create a complex quilt of this dire topic.

This weeks’ readings address the different theoretical approaches to environmental security issues – their different focuses, goals, and theoretical points of divergence and consensus. Having dedicated my academic career thusfar to the study of particular regions, what struck me the most in these readings was the propensity of each school of thought to reach normative conclusions so as to be able to propose solutions that would fit any culture, geographical region, political system, etc. Although certain authors, such as Soyas, recognize the need to develop region-specific political and economic strategies to curtail the potentially violent effect of environmental change and resource-based conflict her analysis, being based on quantitative data, nevertheless attempts to produce a generalized theory that largely ignores cultural and historical specificity within groups of people. I am not trying to say that she is necessarily wrong to do that, but this method always induces the risk of thinking all people-groups in Western terms. That is also not to say that these theories do not take into account multiple factors contributing to the occurrence of violent conflict in environmentally vulnerable areas, as chapter 2 demonstrates very well.

At the risk of rehashing the same old postcolonialist critique, it seems to me that the danger with this stance is that “underdeveloped” countries, recognized in these texts to be the primary victims of climate change and resource-based conflict, are denied agency insofar as it casts Western powers, societies and technologies as the only possible actors in peacebuilding and finding other resolutions to environmental issues. It also effectively ignores the great potential for resistance to Western intervention – often perceived as neoimperialistic encroachment – in what is treated as a “global” issue whilst being thought in a national framework. In fact, one of the pervading problems that appears throughout these texts is the inadequacy of security theory, grounded in traditionalist international relations theory and thus in the system of nations, as a framework for articulating a transnational issue – one that transcends borders.

Finally, I was particularly interested in a minor point in these readings: Soyas’ suggestion that “underdevelopment and human security are inextricably linked”, something that I undeniably agree with. If I were to write a paper based on this supposition, it would be one that explores the role of environmental policy, particularly the correlation between the brand of security theory adopted by the state, its trade relations, international relations and its domestic security policies – the extent to which the state has a right and even a duty to determine and control internal dissent as a security issue. “Underdeveloped” is a term too often employed to describe nations economically and politically dependent on Western institutions. Thus, instability in these countries becomes inextricably linked to issues of government legitimacy. I would argue that focusing on the state as referent object of security in the context of the environment promotes the idea that the state as the undeniable owner and steward of the biosphere contained within its borders. This can in turn contribute to the legitimation of state policies controlling its citizens and, more specifically, their bodies.*

*This idea draws on a previous paper that I wrote on the correlation between gender politics, petrol politics and national/religious methods of constructing legitimacy in Saudi Arabia.