Did drought abet the start of the Syrian civil war?

I have no idea. But there was a bad drought in Syria in 2006-11. (Hat tip: Wonkblog.) It is not unreasonable to think that there might be a connection.

Have we historical evidence?

Maybe. Many historians believe that the Mexican drought of 1906-10 played an important role in setting off the Mexican Revolution. Melissa Dell set out to test that hypothesis, combining one dataset of pre-1910 precipitation and another one of Revolutionary violence. She found that drought-affected counties were more likely to experience violent mobilization during the revolution.

I think she is right ... but I am not sure that her data is good enough to show it. The data on revolutionary mobilization were not the best. They came from the Encyclopedia of Mexican Counties, taking on a value of zero or one depending on whether the authors of the Encyclopedia noted spontaneous violent mobilizations. The data are summarized in this map:

The counties singled out on the map are  few of the ones where the coding is unclear. Tlahualilo, for example, produced few local leaders or organized revolt, but there were not a few complaints of banditry in 1911 and when Pancho Villa did roll in, the locals supported him. In Camargo, the Loyal Camargo Brigades formed an important part of the Villista army. (Inasmuch as they were no violent mobilizations in Camargo, it appears to be because the Revolution took over the state quickly enough to let Villa use it as a place for serious R&R as early as 1913.) If you go through all the possible switchers (and note that there might be something special about Yucatán) the results are weaker. Contagion models could weaken it further.

This does not mean that the argument is wrong! Just that more data is necessary.

Which brings us back to Syria. The report from the Center for American Progress (see page 25) is damnably vague. But data on precipitation, internal displacement, and the pace of revolutionary mobilization in the country should exist. (Doug? Carlos?) If they do, then it should be possible to see if climactic stress is linked to unrest or violence, at least in the modern Levant.

Comments

[Doug M.]

I'd call it very plausible, though not proven. The droughts were regional and were causing serious concern in both Lebanon and Jordan in the late noughts (and to a lesser extent, in Israel too). The first anti-Assad demonstrations were in poor rural areas.

Note that economic stress is often what tips a shaky regime over the edge. One of the major drivers of the collapse of Yugoslavia, for instance was a recession at exactly the wrong time. There have probably been a number of the opposite cases, where a boom or at least uptick defused a political situation that might have turned catastrophic, but obviously those are a lot harder to spot...

Anyway. The correlation between precipitation and revolutionary mobilization might not be as direct in 2011 Syria as it was in 1910 Mexico, because Syria had a much more advanced economy. The government was able to move food around and keep people from actually starving. So the stresses would tend to be more indirect -- rising food prices, internal migration, macroeconomic problems, and the like.

Doug M.

[Luke]

It's certainly there in Egypt. If you map global grain prices 2008-2011, grain prices in Egypt, and PPP, you can see fewer and fewer Egyptians getting enough calories as middle class incomes got sharply squeezed.

There were a wave of bread riots in 2008 that were linked to increased labor unrest, radicalization, and organization in several major manufacturing towns and the canal cities; the summer prior to the revolution, half the grain in Egypt was rendered inedible due to insects caused by the poor conditions of the warehouse.

While it was not the only cause, it certainly help put bodies on the streets.

In 2009, USDA noted that on average Tunisian spent 35.7% of their income on food and Egyptians spent Egypt 38.1%. It may be worth it to map any spending over 35% of income on a graph where the country has more than 5 demonstrations with more than, say, 10,000 people (or perhaps appropriate percentage of population) per year. Drawn from data here: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditures.aspx#26654

As of 2012, that group includes Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Vietnam, Belarus, Peru, Ukraine, Guatemala, Nigeria, Georgia, Morocco, Azerbaijan, Egypt, the Philippines, Algeria, Kenya, Cameroon, and Pakistan.

As for Syria, in some ways, it's a much more advanced economy, but it's horribly Bonapartist and faces real difficulty with reform and liberalization so it can have real difficulty reacting to sudden changes in global trade.

[Doug M.]

WTH is Kazakhstan doing on that list? It's a middle-income country with a respectable ag sector and a massively postive balance of trade.

Doug M.

[Noel Maurer]

Doug, the data are drawn from household survey data, not national accounts. Simply put, Kazakhs earn low incomes relative to food prices.

That is entirely consistent with the country having a big agricultural sector and a trade surplus.

(The survey data as reported include pet food, animal feed, and ice. I doubt that distorts the figures too much, but it might.)

[Luke]

So, we might want to filter out countries with a large ag sector plus a big trade surplus.