There is an intricate link connecting environmental degradation, poverty, and political instability around the world in contemporary times. These factors combine to form an insidious relationship when realised from the general perspective of world events. Poverty and the environment intersect at various points. On the one hand, poverty and inequality in the developing world place a huge burden on the environment. According to Kahl, “impoverished individuals frequently live in the most fragile ecological areas and are often driven to overexploit croplands, pastures, forests, fisheries and water resources in order to eke out a living” (353). On the other hand, environmental degradation worsens poverty because the resources that the poor depend on for survival are lost or diminished in the process. Therefore, these two co-exist in a degenerative cycle leading to political instability in many places around the globe.
In the past, armed conflicts due to natural resources were closely tied to oil and water. However, widespread environmental degradation is causing environmentally-induced scarcity, which then becomes a major source of civil clashes and strife. Kahl argues that rapid “population growth, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and unequal resource access combine to exacerbate poverty and income inequality in many of the world’s least developed countries” (354). The acute lack of resources leads to unprecedented grievances, rebellion, and competition, thus improving the probability of societal conflicts.
By itself, deprivation is unlikely to ignite large-scale planned violence, as the poor do not have the means and capacity to rebel, specifically where governments are strong and stable. However, problems set in when environmental and demographic pressures weaken the state’s power, thus exposing the political space in which violence will thrive. There are several pathways to political strife when governments are weakened. First, the increasing demands by the poor for the government to undertake various projects to address the situation can strain the state’s fiscal capabilities and erode the administrative capacity. Second, political elites can instigate chaos in the quest to remain in power.
Environmental degradation may also lead to a resource curse. In this case, minerals become highly valuable because they are rare in many places but abundant in a few areas. As such, insurgents are likely to arise in these resource-laden regions seeking to gain control of the underlying lucrative business, and thus resources can become a curse. Warlords and rebel groups easily hijack the government as has been witnessed in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kahl 356). Even in cases where governments in resource-rich countries are not under the threat of insurgency, the curse of resources can be a major problem.
For instance, governments in this situation could focus solely on the advancement of trade based on natural resources, thus neglecting other sectors. In the long run, non-resource-tradable economic sectors are not developed and this widespread lack of economic diversification leads to stagnation, specifically affecting labor-intensive manufacturing sectors. As such, these economies are exposed to the intensely unstable character of international commodities markets, and in the presence of dramatic economic shocks, the international market prices of commodities will crash. Without the advantage of having manufactured goods, which have a more stable price when compared to commodities, these countries experience economic crises. Under such circumstances, civil strife and political instability are likely to ensue because the government is weakened and cannot meet its obligations. Therefore, scarcity and abundance of resources, in the face of environmental degradation, can lead to political instability. As such, political institutions should create strategies for addressing these problems before they degenerate into civil conflicts.
Work Cited
Kahl, Colin. “Demography, Environment, and Civil Strife.” Book Title, edited by editor(s) name(s), Publisher, Year, pp. 353-361.