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
Motivation for Study
 Food prices may have a common effect on unrest
 Food prices affect poorer and richer populations
differently
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)
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’
Research Questions
Do food price shocks increase the risk of unrest?
Is this risk exacerbated when food prices
combine with economic inequality?
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
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)
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
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.
Research
Design
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
Results I – Food Prices and Unrest
Food Price Shock
International Price Increases
International Price Decreases
GDP Growth
GDP Decline
Rainfall Abundance
Rainfall Scarcity
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Unrest
Unrest
Unrest
3.372** (1.253)
3.057*** (0.887)
2.685*** (0.782)
63.8%
40.1%
34.3%
-1.688 (0.920)
0.544 (1.048)
0.007 (0.014)
0.050** (0.019)
0.0677 (0.096)
0.125 (0.092)
Results II – Economic HIs and Unrest
Economic HIs (Symmetric)
Model 4
Model 5
Unrest
Unrest
0.554*
(0.251)
Relatively Richer Groups
0.232*
(0.111)
Relatively Poorer Groups
0.067
(0.114)
41.3%
10.3%
Results III –Food Prices X Economic HIs
and Unrest
Food Price Shock
Relatively Richer Groups
Relatively Poorer Groups
Richer Groups X Food Price Shock
Model 6
Model 7
Unrest
Unrest
1.397
2.832**
(1.114)
(1.041)
0.118
0.209*
(0.130)
(0.101)
0.060
0.070
(0.111)
(0.125)
1.686
(1.228)
Poorer Groups X Food Price Shock
38.5%
-0.312
(0.797)
Results IV – Control Variables
 GCP Wealth
POSITIVE
 Grid population
POSITVE
 Freedom House
POSITIVE
 Elections
POSITIVE
 Regime Type
POSITIVE
 Resource rents (% of GDP)
NO EFFECT
 Peace years
NO EFFECT
 National population Size
NEGATIVE
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
Thank you for your attention!