IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/pepspp/v31y2025i2p229-257n1003.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Inequality and Repression Affect the Link Between Food Insecurity and Urban Social Disorder

Author

Listed:
  • Murshed Syed Mansoob

    (ISS, Erasmus University, Den Haag, The Netherlands)

  • Gates Scott

    (University of Oslo and Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo, Norway)

  • Hasan Rashel

    (Bangladesh Bank, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

  • Badiuzzaman Muhammad

    (ISS, Erasmus University, Den Haag, The Netherlands)

Abstract

We examine the relationship between food insecurity and urban social disorder, featuring the degree of inequality and levels of governmental repression. We develop a formal theoretical model, and our empirical results suggest that food price volatility contributes significantly to conflict events as measured by the PRIO Urban Social Disorder data. We measure vertical inequality using the V-DEM egalitarian index, which is negatively significant; greater inequality sparks unrest. Inter-group horizontal inequality is also statistically significantly related to the risk of food riots. Government transfers are weakly associated with reducing conflict incidence. Governmental repression, in contrast, is associated with food riots across our estimations.

Suggested Citation

  • Murshed Syed Mansoob & Gates Scott & Hasan Rashel & Badiuzzaman Muhammad, 2025. "How Inequality and Repression Affect the Link Between Food Insecurity and Urban Social Disorder," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 31(2), pages 229-257.
  • Handle: RePEc:bpj:pepspp:v:31:y:2025:i:2:p:229-257:n:1003
    DOI: 10.1515/peps-2024-0059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2024-0059
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/peps-2024-0059?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    food insecurity; urban unrest; inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • I - Health, Education, and Welfare

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:pepspp:v:31:y:2025:i:2:p:229-257:n:1003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.