Human development, climate change, disasters and conflict: linkages and empirical evidence from the last three decades

The main aim of this research paper is to contribute to the current academic debate about the relationship between disasters and conflict. If a catastrophe can actually affect the current political stability of a country, what can we learn in order to minimize the negative effects of such events? Is there a relationship between conflicts and disasters and how are they connected? If any, is this relationship positive or negative? Using a quantitative analysis this research aims to answer these questions. More precisely this paper builds a robust armed conflict explanatory model and tests whether disasters (in many of its forms) have an effect on conflict. In addition to the above and taking into consideration the increased risk of hazards due to climate change, this research also tests whether climate-related disasters have a different effect on conflict. The novelty of this research lies in merging different approaches and including the Human Development Index in a conflict explanatory model. This novelty leads to interesting results. The findings of this research show that there isn´t a statistically significant relationship between these two variables and therefore it is not possible to state (in a general manner) that disasters trigger, intensify or reduce conflict. This result empathizes with a strand of thought that argues that there isn't a statistical relationship between disasters and conflict and that conflict depends generally on other deep determinants.