The Hunger Games: Food Prices, Economic Horizontal Inequality and Social Unrest in Africa

Transcription

1 The Hunger Games: Food Prices, Economic Horizontal Inequality and Social Unrest in Africa Luke Abbs University of Kent Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC) Prepared for the Development Leadership Program Annual Conference University of Birmingham, 12th February 2015

2 Motivation for Study Food prices may have a common effect on unrest Food prices affect poorer and richer populations differently

3 The Existing Literature Resource-scarcity rainfall variation and competition over resources (de Soysa 2002; Hendrix and Glaser, 2007; Hendrix and Salehyan, 2012) Decline in Food Production economic shocks to the state (Miguel et al, 2004; Bohlken and Sergenti, 2010) and reductions in rural income (Wischnath and Buhaug, 2014) International Food Prices - price shocks generate grievances over cost of living (Arezki and Bruckner, 2011; Lagi et al, 2011; Bellmare, 2014)

4 Domestic Food Price Shocks and My Contribution Domestic food prices (Smith, 2014; Weinberg and Bakker, 2014) 1. This study controls for sub-national factors 2. This study looks at the relationship between food prices and economic inequality 3. This study focuses on less intense forms of conflict unrest

5 Research Questions Do food price shocks increase the risk of unrest? Is this risk exacerbated when food prices combine with economic inequality?

6 Theoretical Framework: Food Prices and Political Unrest What Types of Food Prices Matter 1. Price shocks not normal price increases (Barrett 2013) 2. Transitory prices immediate but temporary (Hendrix and Brinkman, 2013) Price shocks generate grievances and build on existing grievances

7 Who is Affected by Food Prices? Price shocks impact the income of poorer households However, food prices also affect the richer populations (Hendrix and Brinkman, 2013) Categories of wealth often overlap with ethnic group cleavages Horizontal Inequalities (HIs) (Stewart 2008)

8 When Food Prices and Economic Horizontal Inequalities (HIs) Matter Food prices alter levels of economic inequality Food prices enhance the politicisation of group cleavages: 1. Visibility of prices enables clear inter-group comparison 2. Effects of prices provide a direct frame of injustice Price shocks increase the cohesiveness of identity networks

9 Derived hypotheses: H1: Shocks in domestic food prices should increase the likelihood of unrest. H2: Locations with higher levels of economic HIs should witness higher levels of conflict. H3: Unrest should also be likely where high domestic food prices and high economic HIs combine.

10 Research Design

11 Research design II Independent Variables Food price shocks aggregated monthly food indices (ILO) Asymmetric and Symmetric measures of economic HIs (Cederman et al, 2011) Control Variables Sub-national and national-level controls Method I exclude a number of observations Rare-events logistical regression

12 Results I Food Prices and Unrest Model 1 Unrest Model 2 Unrest Model 3 Unrest Food Price Shock 3.372** (1.253) 3.057*** (0.887) 2.685*** (0.782) International Price Increases 63.8% 40.1% 34.3% (0.920) International Price Decreases (1.048) GDP Growth (0.014) GDP Decline 0.050** (0.019) Rainfall Abundance (0.096) Rainfall Scarcity (0.092)

13 Results II Economic HIs and Unrest Economic HIs (Symmetric) Model 4 Unrest 0.554* (0.251) Model 5 Unrest Relatively Richer Groups Relatively Poorer Groups 0.232* (0.111) (0.114) 41.3% 10.3%

14 Results III Food Prices X Economic HIs and Unrest Model 6 Unrest Food Price Shock (1.114) Relatively Richer Groups (0.130) Relatively Poorer Groups (0.111) Model 7 Unrest 2.832** (1.041) 0.209* (0.101) (0.125) Richer Groups X Food Price Shock (1.228) Poorer Groups X Food Price Shock 38.5% (0.797)

15 Results IV Control Variables GCP Wealth Grid population Freedom House Elections Regime Type Resource rents (% of GDP) Peace years National population Size POSITIVE POSITVE POSITIVE POSITIVE POSITIVE NO EFFECT NO EFFECT NEGATIVE

16 Conclusion Food price shocks increase the risk of unrest Economic HIs related to unrest Some indication food price shocks may combine with richer groups to cause unrest

17 Thank you for your attention!