Catastrophes, Confrontations, and Constraints: How Disasters Shape the Dynamics of Armed Conflicts by Tobias Ide

Recent research indicates that disasters frequently occur in conflict-affected countries, often with greater impact. For instance, in recent decades, as many as 81 percent of countries grappling with armed conflict also experienced disasters, and more than half of all disaster-related deaths occurred in conflict-affected nations.¹ Despite these statistics and while research examining the relationship between disasters and conflict is growing, this field remains relatively limited. Tobias Ide's work, Catastrophes, Confrontations, and Constraints: How Disasters Shape the Dynamics of Armed Conflicts, contributes significantly to this research area, offering a unique perspective on the effect of disasters on ongoing intrastate armed conflicts, examining how disasters can have positive, negative, or no effects on conflict dynamics.

The book proposes an original theoretical framework using three factors to explain conflict escalation (grievances, opportunity, costly signal) and three for de-escalation (solidarity, constraints, and image cultivation). Ide uses these concepts as analytical tools to understand the effect of disasters on conflict dynamics, with each factor examined in relation to three drivers of armed conflict: actors' motives, the strategic environment faced by armed groups, and communication (or violence as communication), to provide insights (and six pathways) into how disasters can exacerbate or mitigate conflicts.

I find "communication" to be an innovative contribution to our field in this theoretical arrangement. It refers to actions taken by armed groups to signal their strength or territorial dominance, for example, in response to people's perception that they may have become weaker after a disaster. While communication in Ide's finding presents a positive but lukewarm effect on conflict dynamics (in contrast to the importance of the strategy approach), the book shows how it can provide insights into the everyday practices of disaster–conflict relationships, particularly with an actor-oriented perspective. It illustrates the most subtle and relational aspect of conflict–disaster dynamics, where beyond the overt impact of disasters on infrastructure, resources, or fostering cooperation, actors also engage in the social construction of reality, in a symbolic interactionist process of giving meaning to the effects of disasters.

Building on this theoretical approach, the book's empirical core comprises a notable qualitative comparative analysis of thirty-six case studies on disaster–conflict intersections. The cases are drawn from twenty-one countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Burundi, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, and Uganda. Each case study examines the impact (or lack thereof) of disasters on conflict escalation or de-escalation and examines the presence and characteristics of the relationships between disasters and conflict dynamics, providing a wealth of examples.

As a general finding, Ide presents that disasters have an effect on conflict dynamics in half of the cases studied in the book; this effect is evenly split between escalation and de-escalation. The book suggests that two context factors are critical: a high vulnerability to disasters and a strong disaster effect on at least one conflict party.

In cases where disasters can lead to conflict resolution or de-escalation, Ide argues that the main factors are the creation of incentives for parties to negotiate or the increasing international pressure for peace. For example, disasters may create a shared sense of vulnerability among conflicting parties that could lead them to cooperate in relief efforts. Reinforcing the results of other research, Ide suggests that disasters are never the sole factor explaining the de-escalation of conflicts and that the role of disaster diplomacy is limited.² On the other hand, disasters can exacerbate conflicts by exacerbating existing grievances and inequalities or creating new opportunities for armed groups to gain control over resources or territory. Disasters may disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid and other essential services, worsening the humanitarian situation and increasing suffering among affected populations.

A highlight in the analysis is the use of multiple analytical lenses. One of them is the speed of onset of the disaster, concluding that sudden or rapid-onset events, such as earthquakes or floods, are more likely to exacerbate conflicts, because they can create new vulnerabilities that armed groups may exploit to gain support or recruits. Regarding the speed of disaster onset, Ide's book would have benefited from indicating that it primarily pertains to the development of the hazard, not the disaster itself. Disasters are intricately tied to social and political constructs and necessitate time for forming the social conditions that determine people's vulnerability. In this sense, at its core, every disaster exhibits a gradual onset, as it hinges on the accumulation and maturation of social conditions, sometimes even spanning a century.³

The book also provides insights into COVID-19 as a disaster, highlighting its conflict-related implications. It suggests that the pandemic introduced new vulnerabilities and opened opportunities for armed groups to gain influence by providing essential services or exploiting existing grievances. In addition, the pandemic disrupted humanitarian aid and peacebuilding efforts, possibly exacerbating conflicts through new crises or reduced dialogue chances. However, the book also indicates that the pandemic has opened doors for conflict de-escalation. Some armed groups reduced hostilities in response to global calls for a pandemic-related ceasefire. This case underscores the significance of recognizing the high levels of instrumentalization of COVID-19 (and, one can argue, disasters in general), with similar research showing that this instrumentalization has led to a notable securitization approach to the COVID-19 disaster in conflict-affected settings.⁴

All in all, Ide's large qualitative study presents the mediated relationships of disasters over conflict dynamics, complementing what recent large-N quantitative analysis of disaster effect over disaster also found: While disasters and armed conflicts frequently co-occur, there is no direct statistically significant correlation between them, suggesting that their relationship is likely mediated by various mechanisms and factors.⁵ This indirect rather than deterministic approach is critical for practice and policy, because it emphasizes the importance of addressing underlying vulnerabilities and promoting conflict resolution mechanisms to mitigate the negative effects of disasters on armed conflicts. It also reaffirms the possibilities of disaster risk reduction in armed conflict settings.⁶ In addition, the author provides extra policy recommendations to mitigate the impact of disasters on armed conflicts, including addressing underlying environmental vulnerabilities. The result is a book that offers a wide range of examples and innovative theoretical contributions to the study of disaster's role in conflict dynamics, making it relevant for students and researchers interested in disasters and conflict and related fields as peace studies.