Paper short abstract:

This study finds that collective shocks, in comparison to individual shocks, reduce cooperation more for farmers than herders. Herders living in shock-prone environments show to be more resilient to collective shocks, e.g. extreme climate events, and have higher levels of cooperation.

Paper long abstract:

Climate change has a rising impact on rural livelihoods, particularly for those dependent on stable rainfall patterns, as on rain-fed agriculture. Especially the Sahel region is stressed due to climate variability, including extreme heat, shortening of rainfall season and more frequently occurring, extreme hydrometeorological events. For decades, disputes over water and grazing opportunities between sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic herders have been ongoing, but are becoming more frequent in relatively peaceful areas, as droughts and lack of rainfall push populations from the Sahelian drylands into more fertile areas. Climate shocks and competing livelihood strategies are considered to be some of the underlying causes that can bring existing fragile contexts out of balance, and cause farmer-herder tension to escalate. Most extreme climatic events carry covariate risks that could potentially affect whole communities, and a better understanding of responses to such shocks is needed. In particular, differences associated to strong group identities among sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic herders could affect cooperation patterns and trigger ethnic tensions.

This study aims to answer the central question: How do individual versus collective shocks affect cooperation between farmer and herder communities? We conducted a lab-in-the-field experiment, based on a public good game, with farmers and herders in Senegal. We find that collective shocks contribute to cooperation towards group members with shared identity, but have an opposing effect on members from the perceived out-groups. We show that herders show higher cooperation levels compared to farmers and that herders are more robust to collective shocks in their cooperation levels.