Deprivation and Conflict: A Comparative Analysis of Inequality, Underdevelopment, and Global Food Riots, 2007-2014

• In Event: 257 - Section on Peace, War and Social Conflict Paper Session. Inequality in War and Social Conflict

Abstract

In this paper I examine food riot versus non-food riot countries from a cross-national perspective to determine the factors associated with this form of violent conflict and its relationship to deprivation in many forms. Using data from multiple sources including the UN Development Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, and World Food Programme among others, I connect food riots to the hunger and food insecurity foundation reflected in them. Extending this I find that this form of protest echoes larger patterns of underdevelopment and human insecurity, thus accounting for multiple global inequalities. Whether it is economic opportunity or poverty, population and health, the environment, or politics and human rights among other concerns food riot countries reveal many facets of deprivation and inequality that play out in the political economy of the world system. Thus connected by globalization and viewed on a world stage, food riots and other forms of unrest are certain to garner increased attention to the causes they represent for the world’s poor.

Author

• Stephen J. Scanlan, Ohio University