IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/ubzefd/53721.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gauging the potential for social unrest

Author

Listed:
  • Stark, Oded
  • Hyll, Walter
  • Behrens, Doris A.

Abstract

It stands to reason that social unrest does not erupt out of the blue. Although there are a great many reasons why social dismay might descend into social disorder, only few yardsticks or indices can plausibly be used to gauge the potential for social unrest (PSU). If policy makers want to undertake public action to prevent social dismay escalating into social disruption, they obviously need to draw on practical sensors. This paper assesses critically the adequacy of two such measures, the polarization (P) index, and the total relative deprivation (TRD) index. The paper proposes a tentative guide to selecting between these two measures. A review of three stylized scenarios suggests that, where income redistributions reduce the number of distinct income groups, and when each group is characterized by a strong sense of within-group identity, the P index surpasses the TRD index as a basis for predicting PSU. When the within-group identification is weak, however, it is better to use the TRD index to predict PSU.

Suggested Citation

  • Stark, Oded & Hyll, Walter & Behrens, Doris A., 2009. "Gauging the potential for social unrest," Discussion Papers 53721, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ubzefd:53721
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.53721
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/53721/files/Discussion%20Paper_135.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.53721?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    2. Jean-Yves Duclos & Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2004. "Polarization: Concepts, Measurement, Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(6), pages 1737-1772, November.
    3. Stark, Oded, 2006. "Inequality and migration: A behavioral link," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 146-152, April.
    4. Bossert, Walter & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2006. "Reference groups and individual deprivation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 421-426, March.
    5. Choe, Jongmook, 2008. "Income inequality and crime in the United States," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 31-33, October.
    6. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1979. "Relative Deprivation and the Gini Coefficient," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(2), pages 321-324.
    7. Atin Basuchoudhary & William Shughart, 2010. "On Ethnic Conflict And The Origins Of Transnational Terrorism," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 65-87.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bossert, Walter & D’Ambrosio, Conchita & Weber, Shlomo, 2022. "Distance-based social index numbers: A unifying approach," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    2. Paolo Verme, 2010. "Relative labour deprivation and urban migration in Turkey," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(4), pages 391-408, December.
    3. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 2010. "Is There Room For Polarization?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(1), pages 7-22, March.
    4. Azomahou, Theophile & Diene, Mbaye, 2012. "Income polarization and innovation: Evidence from African economies," MERIT Working Papers 2012-048, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    5. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2004. "Measuring polarization, inequality, welfare and poverty," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2004/75, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    6. Fabio Clementi & Francesco Schettino & Enzo Valentini, 2017. "Squilibri distributivi e criminalità nelle regioni italiane," Working Papers 48-2017, Macerata University, Department of Studies on Economic Development (DiSSE), revised May 2017.
    7. Gordon Anderson & Jasmin Thomas, 2019. "Measuring Multi-group Polarization, Segmentation and Ambiguity: Increasingly Unequal Yet Similar Constituent Canadian Income Distributions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 1001-1032, October.
    8. Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2015. "A Class of Social Welfare Functions That Depend on Mean Income and Income Polarization," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 61(3), pages 422-439, September.
    9. Li, Jing & Wan, Guanghua & Wang, Chen & Zhang, Xueliang, 2019. "Which indicator of income distribution explains crime better? Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 51-72.
    10. Abdelkrim Araar, 2008. "On the Decomposition of Polarization Indices: Illustrations with Chinese and Nigerian Household Surveys," Cahiers de recherche 0806, CIRPEE.
    11. Duclos, Jean-Yves, 1998. "Social evaluation functions, economic isolation and the Suits index of progressivity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 103-121, July.
    12. Duclos, J.Y., 1995. "Economic Isolation, Inequality, and the Suits Index of Progressivity," Papers 9510, Laval - Recherche en Politique Economique.
    13. Jérôme Lefranc, 2012. "Polarisation et déclin de la classe moyenne : le cas de la Russie," Post-Print halshs-00775929, HAL.
    14. Servaas van der Berg & Ronelle Burger & Megan Louw, 2007. "Post-Apartheid South Africa: Poverty and Distribution Trends in an Era of Globalization," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2007-57, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Oded Stark & Franz Rendl & Marcin Jakubek, 2012. "The merger of populations, the incidence of marriages, and aggregate unhappiness," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 331-344, April.
    16. Oded Stark, 2010. "Looking at the Integration of Nations through the Lens of the Merger of Populations: Preliminary Superadditivity and Impossibility Results," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 146(IV), pages 661-675, December.
    17. Paul Collier & Pedro Vicente, 2012. "Violence, bribery, and fraud: the political economy of elections in Sub-Saharan Africa," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(1), pages 117-147, October.
    18. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher Barrett, 2012. "Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 299-342, September.
    19. D'Ambrosio, Conchita & Rodrigues, Rute Imanishi, 2008. "Deprivation in the São Paulo Districts: Evidence from 2000," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1094-1112, June.
    20. Ozan Eksi & Neslihan Kaya, 2017. "Life Satisfaction and Keeping Up with Other Countries," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 199-228, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public Economics;

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ubzefd:53721. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zefbnde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.