Sampling bias in climate–conflict research

Courtland Adams, Tobias Ide (), Jon Barnett and Adrien Detges
Additional contact information
Courtland Adams: School of Geography, The University of Melbourne
Tobias Ide: School of Geography, The University of Melbourne
Jon Barnett: School of Geography, The University of Melbourne
Adrien Detges: Freie Universität Berlin

Nature Climate Change, 2018, vol. 8, issue 3, 200-203

Abstract: Abstract Critics have argued that the evidence of an association between climate change and conflict is flawed because the research relies on a dependent variable sampling strategy1–4. Similarly, it has been hypothesized that convenience of access biases the sample of cases studied (the ‘streetlight effect’ 5 ). This also gives rise to claims that the climate–conflict literature stigmatizes some places as being more ‘naturally’ violent6–8. Yet there has been no proof of such sampling patterns. Here we test whether climate–conflict research is based on such a biased sample through a systematic review of the literature. We demonstrate that research on climate change and violent conflict suffers from a streetlight effect. Further, studies which focus on a small number of cases in particular are strongly informed by cases where there has been conflict, do not sample on the independent variables (climate impact or risk), and hence tend to find some association between these two variables. These biases mean that research on climate change and conflict primarily focuses on a few accessible regions, overstates the links between both phenomena and cannot explain peaceful outcomes from climate change. This could result in maladaptive responses in those places that are stigmatized as being inherently more prone to climate-induced violence.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0068-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcli:v:8:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1038_s41558-018-0068-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/nclimate/

DOI: 10.1038/s41558-018-0068-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Climate Change is currently edited by Bronwyn Wake

More articles in Nature Climate Change from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().