Food riots and food rights: the moral and political economy of accountability for hunger

这项研究的主题是资源短缺、增长和减贫，解决了如何在贫穷和粮食不安全的国家减轻围绕资源短缺的社会和政治冲突风险的问题。世界饥饿的挑战不仅仅是用更少的资源为更多的人生产更多的粮食，还包括确保人们能够获得这些粮食。这意味着要确保政府在未能保护人民获得所需粮食时能够作出回应。但是，如何才能使政府对饥饿问题更负责任呢？本研究旨在回答这个问题。2007年后，食品价格开始上涨并变得更加不稳定；与此同时，发展中国家的人民采取了两种不同的方法，使他们的政府对粮食安全更负责。一个是食物权运动——人权和反贫困活动家为确保和实现合法的食物权所做的努力，在2000年代在20个国家开始兴起。​他们导致一些政府垮台，其他政府采取行动保护人们获得食物的机会。一些人认为阿拉伯之春是由对食品价格的愤怒引发的。欧洲的历史表明，类似的食品骚乱往往能成功地让政府承担起一种粗暴的责任。但它也表明，人们很少因为饥饿而抗议：他们通常对自己获得充足食物的权利有自己的想法，并认为政府有责任保护他们——这是一套被称为“道德经济”的想法。这项研究计划研究这些骚乱和食物权运动是否以及如何在最近的粮食危机中发挥作用。我们的意思是，它们是否触发了政府采取行动，保护人们现在和将来的食物权。这项研究将在存在严重贫困和饥饿问题的发展中国家进行，这些国家包括孟加拉国、印度、肯尼亚和莫桑比克。这些国家也一直在努力促使政府对人们对食品价格的担忧作出回应。为了回答这些努力是否以及如何使政府更负责任，该研究将提出三个问题：1)官员和政策制定者是否完全了解食品价格上涨对人们的影响？具体来说，他们是否了解食品价格上涨如何影响生活质量、压力和养家糊口所需的工作（主要是女性）？2)人们是否认为“道德经济”意味着他们认为政府应该把人们获得负担得起的食物放在第一位？如果是这样，当食品价格上涨是因为国际因素而不由政府控制时，政府能做些什么？3)在什么条件下暴动和食物权运动才能真正使政府对饥饿问题更负责？这项研究将在两个层面上进行。首先，它将通过密切关注粮食危机（2007- 2012年）期间的此类事件，并与活动家、抗议者和受影响群体（特别是低收入妇女）进行访谈和焦点小组讨论，研究抗议和其他直接行动的动机。其次，它将研究官方声明和政策变化，并采访主要官员和政策制定者。它将结合这两个层面的调查结果，分析抗议或运动是否奏效，以及民众动员可能增加对饥饿的问责的一般条件。这项研究将帮助决策者和捐助机构了解粮食价格上涨的全面影响，以便他们能够更好地预测和监测其影响，并保护人们免受其害。它还将为争取食物权的活动人士创造机会，与政策制定者和政府官员进行更有建设性的会面和交流。

This research falls within the theme of Resource Scarcity, Growth and Poverty Reduction, addressing the question of how to mitigate the risk of social and political conflict around resource scarcity in poor and food insecure countries. The challenge of world hunger is not only about growing more food for more people with fewer resources: it is also about making sure people can access that food. This means ensuring that governments can be made to answer when they fail to protect people's access to the food they need. But how can governments be made more accountable for hunger? This research aims to answer this question. Food prices began to rise and became more erratic after 2007; at the same time, people in developing countries have taken two different approaches to making their governments more accountable for food security. One is right-to-food movements - efforts by human rights and antipoverty activists to secure and realise a legal right to food which have taken off in 20 countries over the 2000s. The second is food riots, mostly unorganised protests over sharp rises in food prices, which were seen in 60 developing countries in 2008 and others in 2011. They led to several governments falling and others acting to protect people's access to food. Some people argue that the Arab Spring was triggered by fury over the cost of food. European history shows that similar food riots have often succeeded in holding governments to a rough kind of account. But it has also shown that people rarely protest out of sheer hunger: they usually have ideas about their rights to adequate provisions, and hold government responsible for protecting them - a set of ideas known as the 'moral economy'. This research plans to look at whether and how these riots and right-to-food campaigns actually worked in this recent food crisis. By this we mean whether they triggered government action to protect people's rights to food, now and in the future. The study will take place in developing countries with large problems of poverty and hunger - Bangladesh, India, Kenya and Mozambique - where there have also been efforts to get governments to respond to people's concerns about the cost of food. To answer whether and how these efforts work to make governments more accountable, the research will ask three questions: 1) do officials and policymakers fully understand how food price rises affect people? Specifically, do they understand how quality of life, stress and the work (mainly by women) needed to keep families fed is affected by food price rises? 2) Do people hold ideas about the 'moral economy' that mean they think governments should put people's access to affordable food first? If so, what can governments do when food prices rise because of international factors not in their control? And 3) under what conditions do riots and right-to-food campaigns actually work to make governments more accountable for hunger?The research will work at two levels. First, it will study what motivates protests and other direct actions, by looking closely at such events over the food crisis (2007-12), and holding interviews and focus group discussions with activists, protestors and affected groups (particularly women on low incomes). Second it will study official statements and policy changes, and interview key officials and policymakers. It will combine findings from these two levels in an analysis of whether the protests or campaigns worked and the general conditions under which popular mobilisation is likely to increase accountability for hunger.The research will help policymakers and donor agencies understand the full impact of food price rises so that they can do better at anticipating and monitoring their effects, and protecting people against them. It will also create opportunities for activists fighting for the right to food to meet and communicate more constructively with policymakers and government officials.