Conflict, Environment, and the Dynamics of Fear: The Examples of Rwanda and Nepal

This chapter intends to explore once more the vexing question of the relationship between environment and conflict and the role certain emotions like fear play in it. Given the fact that the empirical evidence about this relation is ambiguous, it suggests that the link between the two issues only makes sense and works whenever institutional factors such as the clear definition and enforcement of property rights are absent or weak within or across societies. The empirical cases of Rwanda and Nepal are used to illustrate this relationship. After a discussion of the data problems that the case raises, simulations of the conflict and the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda and of the Maoist uprising in Nepal are proposed. The simulation model accounts quite well for the conflict and genocide evolution in Rwanda and for the casualties of the uprising in Nepal.