Hunger to Violence: Explaining the Violent Escalation of Nonviolent Demonstrations

Daniel Gustafson

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2020, vol. 64, issue 6, 1121-1145

Abstract: Under what conditions do nonviolent demonstrations escalate to violence? I answer this question using a novel theory of individual impatience in protests that begin peacefully. Rather than considering protest groups as unitary actors, I present a theory of collective action in which a group’s decision over whether or not to engage in anti-government violence is the product of individual preferences. Individuals involved in a nonviolent demonstration use the immediacy of their needs and the sustainability of collective action to decide whether or not to initiate violence against the state. Specifically, I hypothesize that the likelihood of violent escalation will increase when the food price increases and unemployment rate is high or when the event is spontaneous. Analysis of a Bayesian multilevel model of 2,405 nonviolent demonstrations from 1991 to 2017 in Africa and Latin America supports my expectations.

Keywords: nonviolence; protest; escalation; food security (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022002719890669 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:64:y:2020:i:6:p:1121-1145

DOI: 10.1177/0022002719890669

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Conflict Resolution from Peace Science Society (International)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().