Costly signalling and environmental scarcity as causes of the civil war in the Kivu

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2008 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, grade: 1,5, Uppsala University (Department for Peace and Conflict Research), course: Causes of War, language: English, abstract: In an attempt to throw light on the complex relationship between environmental change and conflict, and costly signalling and conflict, this paper examines the explanatory power of Homer-Dixon's theory on environmental scarcity and Öberg's signalling theory as regards the outbreak of violent conflict in North Kivu. In particular, the paper deals with the following problematic: Is the onset of civil war in North Kivu in 1994 correlated with demand-induced scarcity, or did the exchange of costly signals between the government and rebels spiral into war?