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

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.