Violent Escalation, Communal Cooperation, and Peace Quality: Dynamics of Intrastate Environmental Peacebuilding in Somalia

Osman M Jama

Despite extensive research on environmental conflicts and the growing prominence of environmental peacebuilding, limited attention has been given to why communities exposed to similar environmental pressures in fragile intrastate contexts yield divergent outcomes: violent escalation in some cases, sustained (yet sometimes unequal) cooperation in others. This thesis addresses this puzzle by examining intercommunal governance of shared boreholes in Puntland, Somalia, a semi-arid, politically fragile region. The study draws on primary data collected through semi-structured interviews across 22 community dyads that involved cooperation and violent interactions over water access between 2015 and 2023. Using a cumulative three-paper design that combines fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative analysis with qualitative case evidence, the thesis investigates three analytically distinct but empirically interconnected outcomes: violent escalation, communal cooperation, and the quality of peace produced through cooperative governance arrangements. The findings show that violent escalation emerges through configurational pathways in which grievance-based conditions, particularly low pre-existing trust, unequal power distribution, and contested boundaries, interact with structural opportunity conditions of weak traditional institutions and limited interdependence. In contrast, sustained cooperation is associated with configurations characterized by the simultaneous presence of high levels of pre-existing trust, strong mutual interdependence, and strong traditional institutions. However, cooperation does not necessarily produce inclusive peace. Therefore, an in-depth qualitative thematic analysis of selected cooperative borehole arrangements shows that cooperation can stabilize relations and prevent violent escalation. However, intercommunal resource governance often relies on exclusionary authority structures centered on senior male clan elders, leaving women, youth, and minority clans largely excluded from decision-making. The thesis advances climate security and environmental peacebuilding by explaining why similar environmental pressures produce divergent trajectories of escalation, cooperation, and uneven peace, and by empirically examining peace quality rather than assuming it. It shows that cooperation in fragile, environmentally stressed contexts can stabilize communal relations while leaving exclusionary authority structures intact.

Violent Escalation, Communal Cooperation, and Peace Quality: Dynamics of Intrastate Environmental Peacebuilding in Somalia

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