IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hic/wpaper/253.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hunger Games: Food Security and Strategic Preemptive Conflict

Author

Listed:
  • Ore Koren

    (University of Minnesota)

Abstract

A growing number of studies draw linkages between violent conflict and food scarcities. Yet, evidence suggests that at the subnational level conflict is likely to revolve around food resources abundance. In focusing on conflict waged by groups to prevent their rivals from securing food resources, this paper offers a theory to understand the relationship between food security and violent conflict. I develop a formal model that incorporates three actors: civilian producers who grow crops, raiders, and defense forces. Equilibrium and comparative static results show that violent conflict is more likely in regions with an abundance of food resources. The model is validated at the subnational level using new high specificity spatial data on staple crop production for the years 1998-2008, and used to forecast conflict for 2009- 2010. In line with theoretical expectations, food resources have a positive and statistically significant effect on the strategic behaviors of different actors.

Suggested Citation

  • Ore Koren, 2017. "Hunger Games: Food Security and Strategic Preemptive Conflict," HiCN Working Papers 253, Households in Conflict Network.
    • Handle: RePEc:hic:wpaper:253
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hicn.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/HiCN-WP-253.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ore Koren & Benjamin E. Bagozzi, 2016. "From global to local, food insecurity is associated with contemporary armed conflicts," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(5), pages 999-1010, October.
    2. Gerdis Wischnath & Halvard Buhaug, 2014. "On climate variability and civil war in Asia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 122(4), pages 709-721, February.
    3. Deepak K. Ray & Navin Ramankutty & Nathaniel D. Mueller & Paul C. West & Jonathan A. Foley, 2012. "Recent patterns of crop yield growth and stagnation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 3(1), pages 1-7, January.
    4. World Bank, 2012. "World Development Indicators 2012," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6014, December.
    5. Reed M Wood, 2010. "Rebel capability and strategic violence against civilians," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 47(5), pages 601-614, September.
    6. Brian Greenhill & Michael D. Ward & Audrey Sacks, 2011. "The Separation Plot: A New Visual Method for Evaluating the Fit of Binary Models," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 991-1002, October.
    7. Patrick T. Brandt & John R. Freeman & Philip A. Schrodt, 2011. "Real Time, Time Series Forecasting of Inter- and Intra-State Political Conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(1), pages 41-64, February.
    8. Jaafar, Hadi H. & Woertz, Eckart, 2016. "Agriculture as a funding source of ISIS: A GIS and remote sensing analysis," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 14-25.
    9. Cullen S Hendrix & Stephan Haggard, 2015. "Global food prices, regime type, and urban unrest in the developing world," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 52(2), pages 143-157, March.
    10. Carter, David B. & Signorino, Curtis S., 2010. "Back to the Future: Modeling Time Dependence in Binary Data," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 271-292, July.
    11. Marc F. Bellemare, 2015. "Rising Food Prices, Food Price Volatility, and Social Unrest," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 1-21.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Brück, Tilman & d'Errico, Marco, 2019. "Food security and violent conflict: Introduction to the special issue," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 167-171.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin-Shields, Charles P. & Stojetz, Wolfgang, 2019. "Food security and conflict: Empirical challenges and future opportunities for research and policy making on food security and conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 150-164.
    2. Rada, Nicholas E., 2013. "Agricultural Growth in India: Examining the Post-Green Revolution Transition," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 149547, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Eoin McGuirk & Marshall Burke, 2020. "The Economic Origins of Conflict in Africa," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(10), pages 3940-3997.
    4. Jasmien De Winne & Gert Peersman, 2021. "The Impact of Food Prices on Conflict Revisited," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 547-560, March.
    5. Ore Koren & Benjamin E. Bagozzi, 2016. "From global to local, food insecurity is associated with contemporary armed conflicts," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(5), pages 999-1010, October.
    6. Mary, Sébastien & Mishra, Ashok K., 2020. "Humanitarian food aid and civil conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    7. Thibault Lemaire & Paul Vertier, 2023. "International Commodity Prices Transmission to Consumer Prices in Africa," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03944888, HAL.
    8. Nicolas Gatti & Kathy Baylis & Benjamin Crost, 2021. "Can Irrigation Infrastructure Mitigate the Effect of Rainfall Shocks on Conflict? Evidence from Indonesia," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(1), pages 211-231, January.
    9. Justin George & Adesoji Adelaja & Dave Weatherspoon, 2020. "Armed Conflicts and Food Insecurity: Evidence from Boko Haram's Attacks," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(1), pages 114-131, January.
    10. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    11. Desha M. Girod, 2015. "Reducing postconflict coup risk: The low windfall coup-proofing hypothesis," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(2), pages 153-174, April.
    12. Martin Ottmann, 2017. "Rebel constituencies and rebel violence against civilians in civil conflicts," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(1), pages 27-51, January.
    13. Baccini, Leonardo & Dür, Andreas & Elsig, Manfred, 2015. "The politics of trade agreement design: revisiting the depth-flexibility nexus," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 62303, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Ore Koren & Bumba Mukherjee, 2019. "Violent Repression as a Commitment Problem: Urbanization, Food Shortages, and Civilian Killings under Authoritarian Regimes," HiCN Working Papers 296, Households in Conflict Network.
    15. Crost, Benjamin & Duquennois, Claire & Felter, Joseph H. & Rees, Daniel I., 2018. "Climate change, agricultural production and civil conflict: Evidence from the Philippines," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 379-395.
    16. Stijn van Weezel, 2016. "Short term effects of drought on communal conflict in Nigeria," Working Papers 201618, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    17. Pierre-Emmanuel Darpeix, 2019. "Literature review on the consequences of food price spikes and price volatility," PSE Working Papers hal-02072329, HAL.
    18. Süveyda Karakaya, 2018. "Globalization and contentious politics: A comparative analysis of nonviolent and violent campaigns," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(4), pages 315-335, July.
    19. Glen Biglaiser & Hoon Lee & Joseph L Staats, 2017. "The effects of political and legal constraints on expropriation in natural resource and manufacturing sectors," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 20(4), pages 311-333, December.
    20. Smith, Sarah C. & Ubilava, David, 2017. "The El Niño Southern Oscillation and Economic Growth in the Developing World," Working Papers 2017-11, University of Sydney, School of Economics, revised May 2017.

    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:hic:wpaper:253. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Tilman Brück or the person in charge or the person in charge or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hicn.org/ .

    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.