This project examines geographies of environmental conflict by investigating the importance of spatial patterns of citizen opinion and political activity in shaping dissent related to natural resources and environmental conditions. The proposed project examines the case of oil-rich Azerbaijan. That country would appear to be a clear case where resource abundance, coinciding with resource scarcity experienced by much of the populace, would be expected to lead to resource-related dissent or conflict. Based on a pilot public opinion survey conducted in the spring of 2002, four hypotheses structure the research questions and methodology of this study. These hypotheses are 1) that a lack of political freedom will stifle environment-related dissent, 2) that environmental dissent may be eclipsed by other priorities of day-to-day life, 3) that a minimum population threshold must be met to sustain environmental dissent and 4) that dissent requires an object of focus. This study posits that spatial patterns of citizen opinion and activity will help to explain the unexpected lack of environment-related dissent in Azerbaijan. Findings from this investigation in Azerbaijan will be useful in generating theories about the roles of space and scale in environment and resource-related conflict more generally and in other contexts. A two-part data collection strategy combining a nation-wide public opinion survey and smaller scale, in-depth interviews will generate two complementary data sets. The broader impact of the proposed project will be its contribution to work on resource conflicts by theorizing the spatial role of political activity related to resource issues. The intellectual merit of this study is the argument that conflict, as a social process, is not solely determined by resource scarcity, abundance, distribution or other characteristics as argued in previous work on resource conflicts, but also by geographic factors shaping citizen response to resource-related concerns.
