Environmental Peacemaking? An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Environmental Agreements on Interstate Reconciliation

在过去的二十年里，越来越明显的是，全球环境问题将对数百万人的生活产生负面影响。大量文献涉及这样一个问题，即这些环境挑战是否助长了国家失败、对稀缺资源的竞争，以及最终的武装冲突。然而，这项研究被批评为具有适得其反的政策含义，并产生了对未来冲突的自我实现的预测。另一本关于环境缔造和平的文献表明，不利的环境变化有可能刺激敌对各方之间的合作互动，以便更有效地应对这些变化。这种互动反过来可以为进一步合作和最终和解铺平道路。然而，尽管环境和平具有很高的政策相关性，但对环境和平的研究仍处于早期阶段，尚未产生多少共识的结果。因此，该项目的主要研究问题是：共同的环境问题是否会激励敌对国家之间的合作，从而改善它们之间的总体关系？但我们怎么知道各国承认环境问题的存在，并认为它足够紧迫，需要合作解决呢？如何解释各州之间的敌意足以阻止它们在环境问题上进行合作的情况？小型横向环境协定的存在既表明了对紧迫环境问题的认识，也表明了与其他(敌对)国家共同解决这些问题的意愿。根据环境和平理论，这种协议应该促进相互竞争的国家之间的沟通和进一步合作、建立信任和相互理解。从中长期来看，竞争应该会减少。然而，这种环境缔造和平的过程能否通过经验来观察？如果是，它们在什么情况下发生？为了回答这个问题，我们将创建一个全面的清单，列出二战后的所有州际竞争。然后，将确定敌对国家是否以及何时以河流或跨境保护区条约的形式缔结一项小型横向环境协议。根据这一数据，将调查在何种情况下建立环境条约有助于在中长期内实现敌对国家之间的和解。为了整合定量和定性数据，并考虑重要的背景因素，定性比较分析(QCA)将是首选方法。QCA的结果将按照集合论多方法研究的思路，通过进行两到四个案例研究来验证和完善。

In the last two decades, it has become increasingly clear that global environmental problems will negatively affect the lives of millions of people. A large amount of literature deals with the question whether these environmental challenges fuel state failure, competition for scarce resources, and ultimately armed conflicts. However, this research has been criticized for having contra-productive policy implications and producing self-fulfilling prophecies of future conflicts. An alternative body of literature on environmental peacemaking suggests that adverse environmental changes bear the potential to stimulate cooperative interactions between hostile parties in order to cope with these changes more efficiently. Such interactions, in turn, can pave the way for further cooperation and eventual reconciliation. However, despite its high policy relevance, research on environmental peacemaking is still at an early stage and has produced few consensual results yet.Hence, the main research question of this project is: Do shared environmental problems provide incentives for cooperation between rival states, thus improving the general relationship between them? But how do we know that states acknowledge the existence of an environmental problem and perceive it as urgent enough to cooperate on it? And how to account for cases in which the hostility between the respective states is strong enough to prevent them from cooperating on environmental problems? Both the acknowledgement of urgent environmental problems and the willingness to solve them together with other (rival) states are indicated by the existence of mini-lateral environmental agreements. According to environmental peacemaking theory, such agreements should facilitate communication and further cooperation, trust building, and mutual understanding between competing states. In the middle- to long-term, rivalries should then be reduced. However, can such environmental peacemaking processes be empirically observed, and if so, under which circumstances do they occur?In order to answer this question, a comprehensive list of all interstate rivalries after World War Two will be created. Then, it will be determined whether and when the rival states concluded a mini-lateral environmental agreement in the form of either a river or a transboundary conservation area treaty. Based on this data, the circumstances under which the establishment of environmental treaties contributes to reconciliation between rival states in the medium- to long term will be investigated. In order to integrate quantitative and qualitative data and to account for important context factors, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) will be the preferred method. The results of the QCA will be verified and refined by conducting two to four case studies along the lines of set-theoretic multi-method research.