Adapting to Environmental Insecurities: A Conceptual Model

Abstract

How do states tackle inevitable uncertainties and prepare for dimly foreseen threats? This question is especially acute in the context of insecurities stemming from environmental degradation and growing resource scarcities. This chapter argues that the question of adaptation can be approached as the resultant of strategies that are intended both to reduce uncertainty and maintain autonomy. Two types of adaptive strategies are identified and discussed. Through coping strategies, states seek to reduce vulnerabilities and protect themselves from the consequences of ill-defined environmental change, or try to change their behaviour in order to take uncertainty into account. Alternatively, transforming strategies are intended to eliminate or mitigate the threat either through direct action aimed at the source of the threat or, indirectly, by shaping the conditions that have given rise to it. Finally, two complementary sets of hypotheses about the choice of particular strategies are suggested. The first set includes hypotheses that may determine the range of possible options, whereas the second set focuses on factors that may affect the preferences of decision makers themselves.