Arctic Shock: Utilizing Climate Change to Test a Theory of Resource Competition

• Published in: Journal of Conflict Resolution
• Main Author: Markowitz, Jonathan N.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2023
• Subjects: Arctic; Climate change
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00220027231153577; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/00220027231153577; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/00220027231153577

Why do some states project military force to seek control of resources, while others do not? Conventional wisdom asserts that resource-scarce states should have the strongest interest in securing control over resources. Counter-intuitively, I argue that, under existing conditions, the opposite is true. It is not resource-scarce states that will be more interested in militarily seeking additional resources, but rather states that are resource-abundant and dependent on income from extracting those resources. I test this proposition by leveraging a natural experiment that analyzes how states reacted to an exogenous shock that exposed resources in the Arctic in 2007. I employ original data that measures the change in states’ Arctic military presence before and after the shock. I find that dependence, not scarcity, explains how states responded to the shock. The findings enhance our understanding of the causes of resource competition and the geopolitical implications of climate change.