Quantitative Assessment of Political Fragility Indices and Food Prices as Indicators of Food Riots in Countries

Natalini, Davide, Jones, Aled and Bravo, Giangiacomo (2015) Quantitative Assessment of Political Fragility Indices and Food Prices as Indicators of Food Riots in Countries. Sustainability, 7 (4). pp. 4360-4385. ISSN 2071-1050

Preview

Text Published Version Available under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution. Download (980kB) | Preview

Abstract

The impact of resources on social unrest is of increasing interest to political leaders, business and civil society. Recent events have highlighted that (lack of) access to critical resources, including food, energy and water, can, in certain circumstances, lead to violent demonstrations. In this paper, we assess a number of political fragility indices to see whether they are good indicators of propensity to food riots. We found that the most accurate is the Political Instability and Absence of Violence Indicator of the Worldwide Governance Indicators by the World Bank. We compute a likelihood of experiencing a food riot for each quartile of this index. We found that the self-sufficiency of food does not seem to affect the likelihood of the occurrence of food riots, but that the level of political stability of a country does have a role. In addition, we identify a monthly and annual threshold for the Food and Agriculture Organisation Food Price Index, above which food riots in fragile states are more likely to occur.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Keywords:	Political Fragility Indices, Food Prices
Faculty:	ARCHIVED Faculty of Science & Technology (until September 2018)
Depositing User:	Repository Admin
Date Deposited:	16 Apr 2015 09:56
Last Modified:	09 Sep 2021 19:01
URI:	https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/550184

Actions (login required)

Edit Item