This book explores the role of environmental degradation or scarcity in intrastate or interstate violent conflict and how cooperative efforts might forestall undesirable consequences. It enhances understanding of the possibilities for future conflict and how to prevent it.

Paul Diehl is Professor of Political Science and University "Distinguished Teacher/Scholar" at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Michigan in 1983 and has held faculty positions at the University of Georgia and SUNY-Albany. Nils Petter Gleditsch was trained as a sociologist at the University of Oslo. He is a Research Professor at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) and edits one of the leading journals in the field, the bi-monthly Journal of Peace Research. He is also Professor of International Relations at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

1 Controversies and Questions -- Part I Environmental Degradation as a Source of Conflict -- 2 The Case of South Africa -- 3 Causal Pathways to Conflict -- 4 Demographic Pressure and Interstate Conflict -- 5 Demography, Environment, and Security -- 6 Water and Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality -- 7 Resource Constraints or Abundance? -- Part II The Reduction of Environmental Conflict -- 8 Democracy and the Environment -- 9 The Limits and Promise of Environmental Conflict Prevention -- 10 Fair Division in the Spratly Islands Conflict -- 11 Environmental Cooperation and International Peace -- Part III Environmental Conflict: A Future Research Agenda -- 12 Armed Conflict and the Environment -- 13 The Environment and Violent Conflict