Does environmental displacement provoke political instability? Though migration has long been considered an intermediary in the causal path between environmental change and political upheaval, the relationship remains theoretically underdeveloped and evidence has been limited. This article examines the impact of displacement caused by sudden-onset natural hazards on disruptive antigovernment events including armed conflict, protests and violent riots. It leverages the new Environmental Displacement Dataset (EnDis), an original dataset that identifies quantities of human movement in response to six types of sudden-onset natural hazards in Africa from 1990 to 2017, including floods, storms, wildfires, landslides, earthquakes and volcanic activity. The results of the analyses show that while environmental displacement is not associated with civil war onset or protests, it does increase the incidence of attacks by armed non-state actors and violent riots. Importantly, these destabilizing effects occurr primarily (1) in the context of displacement driven by floods and storms, and (2) when levels of displacement are well above average. Collectively, these findings portend deepening security crises and violent political upheaval as climate change drives more frequent episodes of extreme weather and excessive environmental displacement.

中文翻译：

---

环境流离失所和政治不稳定：来自非洲的证据


环境流离失所是否会引发政治不稳定？尽管长期以来，移民一直被认为是环境变化和政治动荡之间因果路径的中介，但这种关系在理论上仍然不发达，证据有限。本文研究了突然发生的自然灾害造成的流离失所对破坏性反政府事件的影响，包括武装冲突、抗议和暴力骚乱。它利用了新的环境流离失所数据集 （EnDis），这是一个原始数据集，用于识别 1990 年至 2017 年非洲六种突发自然灾害（包括洪水、风暴、野火、山体滑坡、地震和火山活动）的人类活动量。分析结果表明，虽然环境流离失所与内战爆发或抗议无关，但它确实增加了武装非国家行为者袭击和暴力骚乱的发生率。重要的是，这些不稳定影响主要发生在 （1） 洪水和风暴导致流离失所的情况下，以及 （2） 当流离失所水平远高于平均水平时。总的来说，这些发现预示着随着气候变化导致极端天气和过度环境流离失所事件更加频繁，安全危机和暴力政治动荡将不断加深。