The hunger games: Food prices, ethnic cleavages and nonviolent unrest in Africa

Luke Abbs
Additional contact information
Luke Abbs: ESRC Business and Local Government Data Research Centre, University of Essex

Journal of Peace Research, 2020, vol. 57, issue 2, 281-296

Abstract: Nonviolent movements are more successful when mobilizing large and diverse numbers of participants. However, while there has been considerable research on the outcomes of nonviolent campaigns, far less is known about the initial emergence of nonviolent action. A growing literature suggests ethnic divisions may undermine the ability of activists to engage in mass nonviolent mobilization across diverse social lines. Yet many large and diverse nonviolent movements have successfully emerged in various ethnically divided societies across the world. I argue that nonviolent mobilization is made possible in ethnically polarized contexts when broader cross-cutting grievances are present as they enable local activists to widen their appeal across social lines. I focus on food price spikes as an example of a cross-cutting issue that is likely to affect consumers from different ethnic groups. The unique and symbolic nature of food price spikes facilitates nonviolent mobilization across ethnic lines and provides clear short-term incentives for many people to participate in protests against the government. Using new spatially disaggregated data on government targeted nonviolent action, I analyse grid-cell years across 41 African countries (1990–2008). I find strong evidence that food price spikes increase the likelihood of nonviolent action in politically excluded and ethnically diverse locations.

Keywords: ethnicity; food insecurity; food prices; nonviolent action; spatial analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022343319866487 (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:joupea:v:57:y:2020:i:2:p:281-296

DOI: 10.1177/0022343319866487

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Peace Research from Peace Research Institute Oslo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().