Countdown to Extinction : A comparative case study of ethnically motivated and climate change-induced communal conflict in Nigeria and Bangladesh

Abstract: Seven years ago, Wegenast and Basedau (2014) refurbished the greed and grievance theory made famous by Collier and Hoeffler, and championed an argument that ethnic fractionalization combined with an abundance of natural resources could especially spur internal conflict in a society. Their theory is the inspiration for this thesis which theorizes that climate change-induced decrease of, and subsequent competition for, natural resources and arable land will risk escalating to communal conflict, which is an underrepresented form of plausible conflict in climate change-triggered settings. Primarily this type of climate-conflict is hypothesised to be experienced in societies which are more ethnically diverse, as such a composition may hinder cooperation and collective action. The thesis is structured as a comparative case study with ethnically homogeneous Bangladesh and ethnically diverse Nigeria as the selected cases. The results find support for the hypothesis that communal conflict is more likely in ethnically diverse societies, but it could be explained by the government playing a secondary role in the Bangladeshi context. Finally, it also finds avenues for further research to conclusively confirm it, such as applying the theory to case countries with other characteristics such as governmental presence and bias in affected regions.