Replication Data for: From Global to Local, Food Insecurity is Associated with Contemporary Armed Conflicts

Food security has attracted widespread attention in recent years. Yet, scientists and practitioners have predominately understood food security in terms of dietary energy availability and nutrient deficiencies, rather than in terms of food security’s consequential implications for social and political violence. The present study offers the first global evaluation of the effects of food insecurity on local conflict dynamics. An economic approach is adopted to empirically evaluate the degree to which food insecurity concerns produce an independent effect on armed conflict using comprehensive geographic data. Specifically, two agricultural output measures – a geographic area’s extent of cropland and a given agricultural location’s amount of cropland per capita – are used to respectively measure the access to and availability of (i.e., the demand and supply of) food in a given region. Findings show that food insecurity measures are robustly associated with the occurrence of contemporary armed conflict.

近年来，粮食安全问题已引发广泛关注。然而，当前科学家与实务工作者对粮食安全的理解，主要聚焦于膳食能量供给与营养缺乏层面，而非粮食安全对社会及政治暴力所带来的连锁影响。本研究首次针对粮食不安全对地方冲突动态的影响开展全球性评估。本研究采用经济学研究范式，借助全面的地理数据，实证检验粮食不安全关切对武装冲突产生独立影响的程度。具体而言，本研究采用两项农业产出指标——区域耕地总面积与特定农业区位的人均耕地量——分别衡量特定区域的食物获取与供给水平（即食物需求与供给）。研究结果表明，粮食不安全相关指标与当代武装冲突的发生存在稳健显著的相关性。