Drought and Communal Violence : A study of the relationship between drought and communal violence in Kenya from 1997 to 2012

Abstract: This thesis explores the impact of drought on communal violence, posing the research question: How does drought influence the occurrence of communal violence? Considering empirical evidence and theoretical postulations from previous research, economic grievances are introduced as a crucial factor in the causal pathway between drought and communal violence. Thus, two hypotheses are put forward to address the research question: incidences of communal violence will increase following droughts (H1), and an increase in economic grievances is associated with an increase in communal violence incidence in instances following drought (H2). The study employs a quantitative analysis utilizing climate, conflict, socioeconomic, and geographic information systems (GIS) data, employing generalizedlinear mixed models (GLMMs) in R to test the hypotheses for Kenya from 1997 to 2012. The findings indicate the inability to reject the null hypothesis for H1, suggesting no significant increase in communal violence following drought. The null hypothesis for H2 is generally not rejected, except for in one model, suggesting an association between economic grievances and communal violence 12 months following drought. While this thesis contributes to understanding the link between drought, economic grievances, and communal violence, further research is needed to explore alternative research designs, geographical contexts, and time periods.