Irrigation and Conflict: Evidence from Kurdish Separatism in Turkey

Ollie Ballinger

No 2022-07, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: This paper leverages a large-scale dam construction project in Southeastern Turkey to test the hypothesis that climactic shocks play a causal role in civil conflict. I use original 5km and 10km gridded datasets on irrigation and Kurdish separatism for the period 1985-2019. Exploiting exogenous topographical variation in the distribution of irrigation schemes, Iand that conflict incidence and insurgent recruitment decline significantly in grid cells following the introduction of irrigation. Yields for all major crops except irrigated cotton are highly sensitive to rainfall, and clashes are more frequent following a poor harvest. However, the effect of irrigation on conflict is strongly mitigated by land inequality.

Keywords: Irrigation; Conflict; Agriculture; Turkey; Insurgent; PKK (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 C23 C26 D74 O13 Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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