paper

Food Policy 46 (2014) 106–115

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Food Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foodpol

Does food security matter for transition in Arab countries?
Jean-François Maystadt a,b,⇑, Jean-François Trinh Tan b, Clemens Breisinger b a b

Center for Institutions and Economic Performance (LICOS), KU Leuven, Belgium
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Development Strategy and Governance Division, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 25 June 2012
Received in revised form 13 June 2013
Accepted 13 January 2014

Keywords:
Conflict
Food security
Transition
Arab awakening

a b s t r a c t
Expectations are high that transition in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen will bring about more freedom, justice, and economic opportunities. However, experiences from other world regions show that countries in transition are at high risk of entering conflicts, which often come at large economic, social and political costs. In order to identify options on how conflict may be prevented in Arab transition countries, this paper assesses the key global drivers of conflicts based on a dataset from 1960 to 2010 and improved cross-country regression techniques. Results show that unlike in other studies where per capita incomes, inequality, and poor governance, among other factors, emerge as the major determinants of conflict, food security at macro and household-levels emerges as the main cause of conflicts in the Arab World. The high exposure of Arab countries to global food price variations proves to be an important source of vulnerability for a peaceful Arab transition. If history is also a guide to the future, improving food security is not only important for improving the lives of rural and urban people; it is also likely to be the key for a peaceful transition. The paper concludes with a set of policy options on how to improve food security at macro and

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