TY - JOUR
T1 - Disease and Dissent
T2 - Epidemics as a Catalyst for Social Unrest
AU - Cordell, Rebecca
AU - Wood, Reed M.
AU - Wright, Thorin M.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s) (2023). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Studies Association.
PY - 2023/4/1
Y1 - 2023/4/1
N2 - We identify a set of potential theoretical mechanisms that link the outbreak and spread of communicable diseases to temporal and spatial patterns of social unrest. Despite the proliferation of research since 2020 analyzing the social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we examine the broader relationship between less severe epidemic outbreaks and their social consequences. Epidemics, as well as the policies that governments implement to tackle them, often generate acute grievances among the public and create new opportunities for collective dissent, the combination of which promotes unrest. Nonetheless, perceived opportunities for unrest are influenced by the scale and scope of the disease outbreak, and particularly lethal disease outbreaks may therefore offset the incentives for collective mobilization. We examine these relationships using sub-national data on communicable disease outbreaks and geo-located social unrest events data in 60 African and Latin American countries from 1990 to 2017 and find support for our argument. However, we observe a curvilinear relationships between the severity of the epidemic and the incidence of unrest.
AB - We identify a set of potential theoretical mechanisms that link the outbreak and spread of communicable diseases to temporal and spatial patterns of social unrest. Despite the proliferation of research since 2020 analyzing the social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we examine the broader relationship between less severe epidemic outbreaks and their social consequences. Epidemics, as well as the policies that governments implement to tackle them, often generate acute grievances among the public and create new opportunities for collective dissent, the combination of which promotes unrest. Nonetheless, perceived opportunities for unrest are influenced by the scale and scope of the disease outbreak, and particularly lethal disease outbreaks may therefore offset the incentives for collective mobilization. We examine these relationships using sub-national data on communicable disease outbreaks and geo-located social unrest events data in 60 African and Latin American countries from 1990 to 2017 and find support for our argument. However, we observe a curvilinear relationships between the severity of the epidemic and the incidence of unrest.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85164096693&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85164096693&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/isagsq/ksad031
DO - 10.1093/isagsq/ksad031
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85164096693
SN - 2634-3797
VL - 3
JO - Global Studies Quarterly
JF - Global Studies Quarterly
IS - 2
M1 - ksad031
ER -