Last updated on March 23, 2011
As the title of this post indicates, confirmation bias may well be getting the better of me, but the main thesis of this Foreign Policy article by Annia Ciezadlo coincides with the findings of the empirical work I have been doing recently:
“Change is sweeping through the Middle East today, but one thing remains the same: the region once known as the Fertile Crescent is now the world’s most dependent on imported grain. Of the top 20 wheat importers for 2010, almost half are Middle Eastern countries. The list reads like a playbook of toppled and teetering regimes: Egypt (1), Algeria (4), Iraq (7), Morocco (8), Yemen (13), Saudi Arabia (15), Libya (16), Tunisia (17).
For decades, many of these regimes relied on food subsidies to ensure stability (…). But over the past several years, grain prices reached record levels, and these appeasement policies lost their luster. In Tunisia, pro-democracy demonstrations began in late December 2010 with protesters brandishing baguettes.”
To be clear, I don’t think food prices are the sole determinant of political instability in the Arab world. Rather, I think that food prices are likely to have been the spark that set fire to the powder keg in Algeria and Tunisia. The events in Tunisia might have then set in motion a chain of events by inspiring further protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world.
Because we will never observe the counterfactual, we will never know for sure whether rising food prices caused political unrest in the Arab world. So far, however, I have not heard a good argument to the contrary. I would seriously love to hear such arguments in the comments.
One counter-argument could be that we have seen food riots before (quite recently) that have not led to revolution/change in political leadership.
Taking the example of the 2007-2008 price increase the list is quite long: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Yemen… Noteworthy in this list are a number of countries that are currently experiencing protest but whose governments did not fall the last time we had food riots.
For myself I haven’t seen an argument that clearly explains why high food prices (which is clearly a factor in the past few months unrest) should be given primacy over other factors. What is the critical difference between the spark and the keg? Both are necessary for the figurative explosion.
I think Tunisia was a deciding factor in sparking political change in Egypt, and unrest/rebellion in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain etc. But as to whether high food prices was the most important factor (and not simply a factor or even a less important factor) I do not know, and I haven’t been convinced by anyone else that they know… yet! I look forward to seeing a blog post on your findings!
Thanks for your comment, Viktor. I agree with you that not all food riots like to regime change and that it is probably the interaction between a bad set of initial conditions (e.g., living in a dictatorship) and rising food prices that explains it.
In this sense, the keg is the extant level of political discontent, the spark is a sharp rise in food prices. The difference between now and summer 2008, of course, is that prices have never been this high. I, too, look forward to writing up my findings and having them ready for dissemination!
I’ve continued thinking about this issue and what I do not particularly like is to match the very general situation of high commodity prices to the very specific situation in Tunisia, Egypt etc. I can agree with your description to some extent, and even the dichotomy of spark and keg. But I still feel that something is missing. In continuing with our analogy I’m essentially looking for the fuse, something that explains in more detail how high commodity prices influenced Tunisia and Egypt.
I believe the fuse, i.e. the set of specific conditions which primed Tunisia or Egypt for revolt as a result of rising commodity prices, is to be found in the agricultural policies of these countries and in the exporter influence. The article you quoted (Let them eat bread) already talks about the influence of IMF structural adjustment. To this we should add the U.S. Grains Council, who seem to have been pushing rather hard to build export markets for U.S. grains (I’m sure there are other similar organizations, but none that does as good PR). We must also ask ourselves the questions: why are they not growing more wheat, corn etc? Is Egypts inability to feed itself a result of population increase or decreased production? Is it technically impossible to saturate the market with domestic production? What is the price relationship between domestically produced wheat and imported subsidized wheat?
India is a good country to contrast with. They have taken a different track in light of the past few years commodity boom. In the case of sugar they have instituted very heavy-handed restrictions on exports etc. All to protect their domestic markets and domestic consumers. Apparently (and somewhat amusingly) commodity prices, and especially the price of onions, have a history of influencing Indian election politics.
Almost makes me wish I was still doing research. But it turns out that answering questions is less fun than trying to change the questions themselves… so I do farming now.