Tracing the tracks: uncovering the causal process between drought and pastoralist violence in southwestern Madagascar

Abstract

Abstract While climate change is widely recognized as a contributor to violent conflict, the specific causal mechanisms linking environmental stress to violence remain insufficiently understood. This article addresses that gap by tracing how drought contributes to pastoralist violence in the understudied case of southwestern Madagascar—a region that has recently experienced both an unprecedented surge in violent cattle raids and the most severe drought in decades. Understanding this link is crucial given the rising incidence of pastoralist violence across Africa and projections of more frequent and severe droughts. The article examines two commonly theorized mechanisms that connect climate variability to organized violence through adverse economic effects: increased economic inequalities and lower opportunity costs. Drawing on extensive qualitative interview data, the process tracing analysis finds empirical support for both mechanisms and identifies an additional pathway to reduced opportunity costs. The first two causal pathways stem from failed harvests that reduce food and income, thereby increasing inequalities and lowering opportunity costs. The third one arises from drought-induced environmental changes, which make tracking more difficult, creating strategic advantages and further reducing the costs of violence. Lower opportunity costs emerge as the most significant mechanism. Overall, the study advances our understanding of the climate–conflict nexus, broadens the empirical scope of the literature, and offers policy-relevant insights into the drivers of pastoralist violence in Africa.