IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/eurjdr/v27y2015i5p650-671.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Food Price Rises and Political Instability: Problematizing a Complex Relationship

Author

Listed:
  • Leila Demarest

    (Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD), University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.)

Abstract

Recent spikes in international food prices and the occurrence of food riots in the period 2007–2008 have led many researchers to investigate more closely the links between rising food prices and conflict or political instability. However, this emerging literature suffers from a number of shortcomings. The objective of this article is to analyze these shortcomings further, highlight their theoretical and empirical implications, and offer ways of addressing them. I focus on three main issues. First, I look at the recurring lack of precision in the use of concepts such as political instability and conflict, and in particular the food riot concept itself. Second, I examine the often uncritical data gathering based on framing by media sources without a closer analysis of the events that took place on the ground. And third, I focus on the issue of presupposed and understudied economic as well as political causal mechanisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Leila Demarest, 2015. "Food Price Rises and Political Instability: Problematizing a Complex Relationship," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 27(5), pages 650-671, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:eurjdr:v:27:y:2015:i:5:p:650-671
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/journal/v27/n5/pdf/ejdr201452a.pdf
    File Function: Link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/journal/v27/n5/full/ejdr201452a.html
    File Function: Link to full text HTML
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

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

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alison Heslin, 2021. "Riots and resources: How food access affects collective violence," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(2), pages 199-214, March.
    2. Jianxing Lyu & Sören Prehn & Yanjie Zhang & Thomas Glauben & Yinchu Zeng, 2021. "Trade creation, political sensitivity and product exclusions: the political economy of agriculture protection in China’s FTAs," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(3), pages 627-657, July.
    3. Hatab, Assem Abu & Hess, Sebastian, 2021. ""Feed the Mouth, the Eye Ashamed": Have Food Prices Triggered Social Unrest in Egypt?," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315082, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Naomi Hossain, 2018. "How the international media framed ‘food riots’ during the global food crises of 2007–12," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 10(3), pages 677-688, June.
    5. Leach, Melissa & Nisbett, Nicholas & Cabral, Lídia & Harris, Jody & Hossain, Naomi & Thompson, John, 2020. "Food politics and development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    6. Mourad Zmami & Ousama Ben-Salha, 2023. "What factors contribute to the volatility of food prices? New global evidence," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 69(5), pages 171-184.

    More about this item

    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:pal:eurjdr:v:27:y:2015:i:5:p:650-671. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.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.