The Food Crises and Political Instability in North Africa and the Middle East

Social unrest may reflect a variety of factors such as poverty, unemployment, and social injustice. Despite the many possible contributing factors, the timing of violent protests in North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 as well as earlier riots in 2008 coincides with large peaks in global food prices. We identify a specific food price threshold above which protests become likely. These observations suggest that protests may reflect not only long-standing political failings of governments, but also the sudden desperate straits of vulnerable populations. If food prices remain high, there is likely to be persistent and increasing global social disruption. Underlying the food price peaks we also find an ongoing trend of increasing prices. We extrapolate these trends and identify a crossing point to the domain of high impacts, even without price peaks, in 2012-2013. This implies that avoiding global food crises and associated social unrest requires rapid and concerted action. 1 ar X iv :1 10 8. 24 55 v1 [ ph ys ic s. so cph ] 1 1 A ug 2 01 1 In 2011 protest movements have become pervasive in countries of North Africa and the Middle East. These protests are associated with dictatorial regimes and are often considered to be motivated by the failings of the political systems in the human rights arena [1–4]. Here we show that food prices are the precipitating condition for social unrest [5–12] and identify a specific global food price threshold for unrest. Even without sharp peaks in food prices we project that, within just a few years, the trend of prices will reach the threshold. This points to a danger of spreading global social disruption. Historically, there are ample examples of “food riots,” with consequent challenges to authority and political change, notably in the food riots and social instability across Europe in 1848, which followed widespread droughts [13]. While many other causes of social unrest have been identified, food scarcity or high prices often underlie riots, unrest and revolutions [14–20]. Today, many poor countries rely on the global food supply system and are thus sensitive to global food prices [21]. This condition is quite different from the historical prevalence of subsistence farming in undeveloped countries, or even a reliance on local food supplies that could provide a buffer against global food supply conditions. It is an example of the increasingly central role that global interdependence is playing in human survival and well-being [22–24]. We can understand the appearance of social unrest in 2011 based upon a hypothesis that widespread unrest does not arise from long-standing political failings of the system, but rather from its sudden perceived failure to provide essential security to the population. In food importing countries with widespread poverty, political organizations may be perceived to have a critical role in food security. Failure to provide security undermines the very reason for existence of the political system. Once this occurs, the resulting protests can reflect the wide range of reasons for dissatisfaction, broadening the scope of the protest, and masking the immediate trigger of the unrest. Human beings depend on political systems for collective decision making and action and their acquiescence to those systems, if not enthusiasm for them, is necessary for the existence of those political systems. The complexity of addressing security in all its components, from protection against external threats to the supply of food and water, is too high for individuals and families to address themselves in modern societies [25]. Thus, individuals depend on a political system for adequate decision making to guarantee expected standards of survival. This is particularly true for marginal populations, i.e. the poor, whose alternatives are limited and who live near the boundaries of survival even in good times. The dependence