Urdal & Hoelscher: Urban Youth Bulges and Social Disorder age and gender structure in the context of crucial intervening factors like poverty, democracy, education, employment and urban population growth.

This study, which we believe is the first cross-sectional time-series study to address political instability and violence at the city level, is a correlational and exploratory exercise aimed at trying to identify potential statistical relationships for further study. The current analysis is considerably restricted by the availability of reliable time-series data on the city level. The only major source to compare city-specific social and economic indicators, the UN Habitat’s Global Urban Observatory, only provides data from two collection efforts conducted in 1993 and 1998. Although the database covers around 200 cities, only 24 of the cities included in this analysis are represented both years<sup>2</sup> . Certain indicators were also not collected in both rounds. Due to the lack of city-specific data, we have had to rely on age structure data for the entire urban population at the national level. Similarly, for political, economic and education variables we have used national-level data. These limitations illustrate the need for additional collection of comparable city-specific data in a situation where the monitoring of urban development becomes ever more important, and call for considerable caution in the interpretation of the results. Keeping this in mind, the current study suggests that increasing congregation of young males in urban centers may not affect the risk of social disorder, whether nonviolent or violent. Furthermore, contextual factors such as low secondary education levels, expansions in tertiary education, high levels of informal employment, male gender imbalances, and low economic growth do not appear to affect the relationship between large urban youth bulges and social disturbance. Among the factors that clearly do correlate with social disturbance are regime type, economic growth, ongoing armed conflict, and prior disturbance.

# **2. Theoretical framework**

Over the past decade, much of the developing world has experienced a significant mortality decline, while fertility typically has remained high for some time. These changes, broadly referred to as the ‘demographic transition’, have greatly affected age structures and produced youthful populations, or ‘youth bulges’, in many countries. Often, great shifts in the age structure overall has led to particularly strong increases in urban youth populations due to migration of young people from rural areas into cities in search of education and jobs (Lee, 1966; McKenzie, 2008; Homer-Dixon, 1999: 157). Sometimes, age selection in migration can be considerable given that young people are more likely to have higher future earning potential and also less likely to have investments in a family or other local interests which would prevent them from moving (Lundborg, 1991).

The literature on youth bulges and political violence has in particular focused on spontaneous and low-intensity disturbance and violence similar to what we may expect to find in urban settings. Youth bulges arguably provide both opportunities and motives for social disturbance and political violence. According to what is generally referred to as the ‘opportunity perspective’, engagement in political violence is seen as a rational economic calculation of potential benefits over expected costs. The presence of relatively large youth cohorts is a factor that generally can be argued to reduce the opportunity cost of young persons (Collier, 2000: 94;

> 2 A total of 42 cities are represented in either 1993 or 1998.

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