Riots and resources: How food access affects collective violence
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343319898227 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Regular Articles
Riots and resources: How food access affects
collective violence
Alison Heslin
Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University
Abstract
How does food access affect the mobilization of collective violence? The upsurge in rioting in 2008 drew broad
attention to the relationship of food and conflict, as scholars and policymakers sought to understand the mobilization
and variation of rioting events. Studies have shown a robust relationship between conflict and food prices, noting an
increase in incidents of violent conflict during times of high global prices. This study furthers the theory on the role
of food access in riot mobilization, investigating the mechanisms by which changes in food access translate into
collective violence. Using detailed, first-hand accounts of rioting in 2007 and 2008, this study investigates the
motives and grievances of the community members where riots occurred and the relationship of those grievances to
food access, while contrasting these accounts to communities that did not engage in rioting. In the cases presented, a
change in food access motivated protest and violence involving existing grievances rather than explicitly addressing
food access. In this way, food changed the meaning and severity of existing grievances. The cases studied add to our
understanding of concurrent upsurges in food riots by outlining the ways that food access interacts with local
contexts to initiate violent conflict, stressing the presence of existing actors who use decreased food access to mobilize
resources to address existing grievances. While media accounts highlighted food access as the primary concern of food
rioters, this study argues that many ‘food riots’ were not, in fact, directly motivated by food access. Rather, changes to
food access can aid in mobilizing protests around a range of grievances, some unrelated to food access. Efforts to
address the causes of food-related instability will be unsuccessful if they focus solely on food access without addressing
the primary motivating grievance and understanding how food access relates to that grievance.
Keywords
collective violence, food riots, food security, resource mobilization
Introduction
From late 2007 through early 2008 and again in 2011,
the world witnessed dramatic rioting from Madagascar
and Burkina Faso to Mexico and Bangladesh. These
events, often termed ‘food riots’, occurred primarily in
the Global South including countries in Asia, Africa,
South America, and the Caribbean (Schneider, 2008)
and coincided with sharp increases in the global price
of many staple agricultural products (Arezki & Bruckner,
2011; Lagi, Bertrand & Bar-Yam, 2011; Bellemare,
2015). Yet, while the riots were widespread, they did
not occur in all countries, prompting inquiry into factors
that determine the location and timing of food-related
violence and the processes by which these factors culmi-
nate in conflict. Understanding why and how events
occurred is critical to address populations’ grievances and
also to identify locations in need of policy change to
address grievances without violent conflict. Existing
studies have found that, in addition to food access, urba-
nization, poverty, and regime type correlate with riot
events (Berazneva & Lee, 2013; Bellemare, 2015; Hen-
drix & Haggard, 2015), thereby identifying potential
pathways by which decreased food access may result in
conflict. This study focuses specifically on these path-
ways, seeking to advance the theory of food riot mobili-
zation to understand how riots mobilize and how best to
address them.
Corresponding author:
ah3684@columbia.edu
Journal of Peace Research
2021, Vol. 58(2) 199–214
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0022343319898227
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Through a comparative study of two sets of rioting
events, this study identifies the role of food in mobilizing
violence in different contexts. Using detailed, first-hand
accounts of rioting in rural West Bengal, India in 2007
and urban Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2008, we can recognize
patterns in the processes by which violence mobilized,
identify potential differences in vulnerability in urban
and rural settings, and propose effective responses to
food rioting.
The relationship of food and unrest: Supply,
price, volatility
Media, researchers, and policymakers have sought to
understand the causes and variation of the 2007–08 and
2011 riots, as they represent an example of the potential
interconnection of resource access and social stability.
International media coverage attributed many riots to
hunger caused by high food prices with headlines such
as ‘Riots, instability spread as food prices skyrocket’
(CNN, 2008) and ‘Surging food prices are sparking riots
all around the world’ (Wyler, 2011). Some went on to
link food prices and riots to government failure saying
‘Rising food prices can topple governments, too’ (NPR,
2011), attributing rising costs to population growth, cli-
mate change, and biofuel consumption (Macfarquhar,
2009; Gillis, 2011; Walsh, 2011; Ahmed, 2013). The
linking price and unrest was logical given the sharp
increases in food prices, which coincided with riots
worldwide. The global price of wheat, for example, was
$195.72 per metric tonne (MT) in May of 2007 and by
March 2008, that number had increased to $439.72/
MT (IMF, 2016). Similarly, from June of 2010 through
May of 2011, the price of wheat increased from
$157.67/MT to $355.28/MT (IMF, 2016). Figure 1
shows the monthly food price index from 1990 until
2018, with two clear peaks in the global price of food
in 2007–08 and 2011. Other officials and organizations,
including the World Bank, stressed the importance of
price volatility in sparking unrest (outlined in Barrett &
Bellemare, 2011), explaining that ‘volatile prices lead to
food insecurity that can, in turn, lead to conflict’ (Bora
et al., 2010: 5).
Academic studies have tested these claims regarding
the relationship of food security and unrest, operationa-
lizing food security in various ways to measure the ‘rela-
tionship of persons to the commodity’ (Sen, 1981: 1),
which determines one’s ability to access adequate food.
In seeking to measure this relationship, studies include
measures of food production, price, price volatility, and
poverty levels. Berazneva & Lee (2013), in their analysis
of African food riots, operationalize food access through
levels of poverty and domestic food production, finding
higher poverty levels and decreased food production per
capita are associated with an increased likelihood of riots.
Other studies use the price of food to capture food
access, finding increased conflict associated with
increases in global food prices (Arezki & Bruckner,
2011; Lagi, Bertrand & Bar-Yam, 2011; Bellemare,
2015; Hendrix & Haggard, 2015), as well as domestic
and local prices (Smith, 2014; Raleigh, Choi & Knive-
ton, 2015). Additionally, with contemporary food prices
marked by increased instability (Winders et al., 2016),
studies have addressed the potential importance of price
fluctuations rather than exclusively price levels. In this
regard, the relationship is less consistent: Bellemare
(2015) finds that from 1990 to 2011, global price vola-
tility did not affect conflict, while Weinberg & Bakker
(2015) find that from 1970 to 2007, domestic price
fluctuation had a significant impact on civil conflict
while food price alone did not.
Despite some inconsistencies between studies on the
way that food access influences conflict, there is relative
agreement in the literature that the price of food corre-
lates positively with the occurrence of conflict events.
However, food price increases have not resulted in
equally distributed riots between and within countries,
implying that including additional factors can strengthen
our understanding of the spatial and temporal variation
in conflict occurrence. In investigating relevant contex-
tual factors across countries, the story becomes more
complex. Arezki & Brukner (2011) find that higher
international food prices increase conflict in low income
Figure 1. Monthly Global Food Price Index (2002–04 ¼100)
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(2018)
200 journal of PEACE RESEARCH 58(2)
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