Assessing the Nexus between Food Security and Social Unrest: An Empirical Case Study on Indonesia during the World Food Crisis 2008
Florian C. Feyerabend
Large peaks in global food prices in late 2007 and 2008 coincided with an unprecedented
number of protests and riots around the world. Throughout history, riots appear to have
frequently broken out as a consequence of food insecurity. Therefore, social unrest in
2008 was often explained with the rise in global food prices. Protests and riots in
Indonesia during the world food crisis have been presented as anecdotal evidence to
support the neo-Malthusian nexus between food insecurity and conflict. This paper
examines if food insecurity precipitated social unrest in Indonesia during the 2008 world
food crisis. Reconstruction of the events in Indonesia in 2008, and analysis of quantitative
economic and social data reveals that social unrest can be best explained by the theory of
relative deprivation.