ABSTRACT
Most scholars have responded to these analytical ambiguities by calling for more climate conflict research. Underpinning this proposal is a belief that further methodological refinements, aimed at bringing statistical models closer to theorized climate conflict connections, will produce more consistent and reliable empirical findings. This assumption has some merit; the methods employed in quantitative climate conflict research have improved significantly over the last few years and additional advances could enhance our understanding of the connections between climate change and intra-state conflict. However, maintaining the current research agenda also comes at a cost. Basic methodological fixes will not address the normative problems that arise from researchers’ current framing of climate conflicts. Consequently, in this chapter, I argue for a more radical reframing of climate conflict research. Specifically, I encourage scholars to disconnect climate change and conflict analyses either by removing climate change from conflict studies or by studying the full range of social responses to climate change, without privileging conflict.
