The Climate Change–Terrorism Nexus: A Critical Literature Review

Stefanie Mavrakou, Emelie Chace-Donahue, Robin Oluanaigh and Meghan Conroy

Terrorism and Political Violence, 2022, vol. 34, issue 5, 894-913

Abstract: A growing number of policymakers around the world have recognized climate change as an escalating security threat and increasingly point to the climate change—terrorism nexus in particular. This critical literature review provides an analysis of the current state of research on the causal and correlative links between climate change, intermediary factors—such as resource scarcity, loss of economic opportunities, and instability—and terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa. Moving beyond a review of substantive themes within the existing body of scholarly research examining this topic, this article critically evaluates the theories, assumptions, and methods behind the literature. In doing so, the review identifies noteworthy trends, as well as gaps and shortcomings in the current research. Our review finds that the majority of the literature has observed a positive correlation between climate change and terrorism. More precisely, the current body of research overwhelmingly assesses that climate change indirectly leads to terrorism via its impact on conditions often considered to be drivers of terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa. Still, gaps remain in empirically backing up these assertions and examining the relationship between climate change, intermediary factors, and terrorism in more depth. We use our critical review and analysis to guide recommendations for further research into this emerging and timely field of study.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09546553.2022.2069445 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:ftpvxx:v:34:y:2022:i:5:p:894-913

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ftpv20

DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2022.2069445

Access Statistics for this article

Terrorism and Political Violence is currently edited by James Forest

More articles in Terrorism and Political Violence from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().