【Report】Peace and Security in the Anthropocene: From Governance of Nature to Governance for Nature

Peace and Security in the Anthropocene: From Governance of Nature to Governance for Nature

On May 28, Professor Dahlia Simangan of Hiroshima University delivered a presentation titled “Peace and Security in the Anthropocene: From Governance of Nature to Governance for Nature” at Ritsumeikan University. The presentation centered on the climate–conflict nexus and on how the Anthropocene, as a critical lens, challenges the foundational assumptions of International Relations (IR) theory and practice.

Prof. Simangan opened the session by highlighting the growing number of climate disasters and their relationship to peace. She underscored contradictions in climate governance, as evidenced by Amazon deforestation to build a road for COP30 and Indigenous activists’ protests against the summit. She then clarified the primary issue that motivated her research: the distinction between the concepts of governing nature and governing for nature.

Prof. Simangan introduced Hiroshima University’s Network for Education and Research on Peace and Sustainability (NERPS)’s empirical research on the relationship between environmental performance and peacefulness. The findings demonstrate that higher environmental performance — particularly in areas such as air quality, safe sanitation, and access to clean drinking water — is more closely associated with positive peace than with negative peace. She stressed the climate–conflict nexus, arguing that while climate change does not directly cause conflict, it can accelerate or contribute to violence under specific conditions.

Prof. Simangan then introduced the concept of the Anthropocene, a proposed geological epoch that can be defined as when human activities are the main driving force behind the changing Earth system. She pointed out that debates over its starting point—ranging from the mastery of fire 1.8 million years ago to European colonization in 1492, the Industrial Revolution of 1784, and the Great Acceleration of the 1950s—are politically significant, as these origin stories influence perceptions of responsibility. Prof. Simangan then addressed the particular relevance of the Anthropocene for IR scholarship. She emphasized that the Anthropocene is particularly relevant for IR, as the discipline is concerned with survival and security. She argued that the Anthropocene, however, challenges the world order upon which IR theory has been built and disrupts existing frameworks of peace and security governance. Prof. Simangan identified three prevailing worldviews embedded in the current world order that require critical examination: anthropocentrism, state-centrism, and linearity.

Prof. Simangan outlined what governance for nature would entail. She introduced the concept of the porousness of territoriality, defined as the unbundling of sovereignty from the state and of culture from a fixed place. This concept prompts a rethinking of world politics beyond state-bound and place-based territoriality toward relationality within and across worlds. She argued that IR alone is not equipped to grasp the complexity of social systems in a changing Earth system. In closing, she proposed three axes for rethinking peace and security: shifting from state security toward human and ecological security; expanding justice and reconciliation to include environmental justice and reconciliation with nature; and replacing growth-driven models with post-growth or degrowth alternatives.

The presentation was followed by a Q&A session in which the audience engaged with a range of questions, including the comparative capacity of autocratic versus democratic regimes to respond to Anthropocene-related challenges, the agency of secondary and vulnerable states in shaping global environmental governance, and the methodological challenges of integrating non-state and non-human actors into IR frameworks.

Merve OZTURK ASIL.