Environmental Security and Communal Conflict in Iraq

Abstract

This dissertation argues that ethnicity, what Kahl calls 'groupness' and institutional exclusion, affect the perceptions of competing ethnic groups in response to environmental insecurity, mainly the water scarcity and competition of arable lands in the Iraqi disputed territories and the authorities they turn to govern their environmental degradation. Northern Iraq is a mosaic of ethnic and cultural divisions. The dissertation examines how ethnicity in this region affects the perception and response of competing ethnic groups to environmental insecurity and the likelihood of increasing the risk of communal conflict. The region has experienced environmental and structural scarcity, especially a lack of water security and historical land appropriations driven by state policies. Environmental peacebuilding theory asserts that shared environmental insecurity facilitates coordination between competing ethnic groups. However, by employing the environmental scarcity theory, this dissertation elucidates that environmental and structural scarcity is influenced by historical and ethnic divisions and exclusion, thus reducing cooperation between groups when they face environmental degradation. The findings of this study show a contradicting understanding of environmental security and its implications, including the communal conflict and environmental migration. The dissertation also shows that the ethnic groups navigate different "arenas of authority" to govern their everyday environmental needs. It also seeks to take a step away from the environmental security mainstream literature by examining the role of non-state actors, such as social institutions and customary leaders, in everyday environmental governance in Iraq. However, the findings illustrate that vulnerable communities tend to turn to state institutions like the governments of Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, which serves the state-centric environmental security debate. Furthermore, the study uncovers that the elite's understanding of environmental security, such as governing shared water resources, is less competitive within Iraq's environmental federalism framework than anticipated. There is no substantial intergovernmental conflict over shared water resources, and people from different ethnic groups are unsure whether the Kurdistan Regional Government weaponizes water resources and the associated risk of intergovernmental conflict over water administration.