Can poor public service provision lead to a crisis of legitimacy and subsequent social turmoil?

05 August 2017 6 8K Report

As far as I know, there is a growing literature, which discusses the potential of public service delivery to contribute to peace-building via increasing the legitimacy of service providers (often assumed to be governmental agencies), but what about the other way around? Are there situations where poor public service provision leads to a crisis of legitimacy and subsequent political instability? Are there major differences with regard to different types of services, modalities of service provision and contexts (e.g. during humanitarian emergencies)? Is there a literature that discusses these questions, in particular with reference to water services?

Any leads will be highly appreciated.

Martin Joseph Gallagher

Hi Adrien,

Maybe looking at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina would be a good starting point, and although not water related coverage of the Grenfell Tower fire in London?

Regards,

Martin

Helen R Finn

There are a number of projects in natural resource rich countries that would fall in this category : limited or absence of public consultation, mass population displacement, abuse, contaminated water and fields etc. The international justice court case involving the Saan people in Africa was particularly bad. The United nations has produced a whole series of guides on the various types of natural resource development issues, as well as public consultation guides. The world bank and all development banks now use the guidelines .

Victor Ogharanduku

Try looking at the research projects by the Secure Livelihood Research Consortium (SLRC) at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), they have being working in this area since 2012 and have produced several publications on social protection and basic service delivery in fragile and conflict affected situation in different countries. i could forward some of them if you want to take a look.

Mohamed Fareed

legitimacy does not depend only on poor or good services, also having poor services for citizens reflects problems in many other sectors, which olso reflects that the government has a problem. This problem that causes poor services provision is going to cause the government to lose it's legitimacy sooner or later unless it solves it quickly other wise it threatens the stability of the country

Adrien Detges

Thank you all for your suggestions. I will definitively have a look at the work of the SLRC, thank you Victor.

Eberhard Weber

I also would include examples of food riots, but of course the analysis needs to work out, if these riots happened when sufficient food was available, but did not reach all sections of societies. Some literature on this:

Bush, Ray; Martiniello, Giuliano

Food Riots and Protest: Agrarian Modernizations and Structural Crises

Elsevier

World Development

Year:2017

Volume:91

Issue:

First page:193

Last page:207

John Walton, David Seddon

Free Markets and Food Riots: The Politics of Global Adjustment (Studies in Urban and Social Change) [1 ed.]

Wiley-Blackwell

1994

John Bohstedt

The Politics of Provisions: Food Riots, Moral Economy, and Market Transition in England, c. 1550-1850

Ashgate

2010

Lauren Q. Sneyd, Alexander Legwegoh, Evan D. G. Fraser

Food riots: Media perspectives on the causes of food protest in Africa

Springer-Verlag

Food Security

Year:2013

Volume:5

Issue:4

First page:485

Last page:497

Berazneva, Julia; Lee, David R.

Explaining the African food riots of 2007–2008: An empirical analysis

Elsevier

Food Policy

Year:2013

Volume:39

First page:28

Last page:39

Anthony James Coles

The Moral Economy of the Crowd: Some Twentieth-Century Food Riots

JSTOR

Journal of British Studies

Year:1978

Volume:18

Issue:1

First page:157

Last page:176

Sergio Serulnikov

Social Movements and Political Change in Latin America: 2 || When Looting Becomes a Right: Urban Poverty and Food Riots in Argentina

JSTOR

Latin American Perspectives

Year:1994

Volume:21

Issue:3

First page:69

Last page:89

Lynne Taylor

Food Riots Revisited

JSTOR

Journal of Social History

Year:1996

Volume:30

Issue:2

First page:483

Last page:496

R. Bin Wong

Food Riots in the Qing Dynasty

JSTOR

The Journal of Asian Studies

Year:1982

Volume:41

Issue:4

First page:767

Last page:788

Alan Booth

Food Riots in the North-West of England 1790-1801

JSTOR

Past & Present

Year:1977

Volume:

Issue:77

First page:84

Last page:107

Manfred Gailus

Food Riots in Germany in the Late 1840s

JSTOR

Past & Present

Year:1994

Month:11

Day:

Volume:

Issue:145

First page:157

Last page:193

Javier Auyero and Timothy Patrick Moran

The Dynamics of Collective Violence: Dissecting Food Riots in Contemporary Argentina

JSTOR

Social Forces

Year:2007

Volume:85

Issue:3

First page:1341

Last page:1367

Bohstedt, John

Food Riots and the Politics of Provisions in World History

Wiley Blackwell (Blackwell Publishing)

IDS Working Papers

Year:2014

Volume:2014

Issue:444

First page:1

Last page:31

Frieburger, William

War prosperity and hunger: The New York food riots of 1917

Informa UK (Taylor & Francis)

Labor History

Year:1984

Volume:25

Issue:2

First page:217

Last page:239

Wischnath, Gerdis; Buhaug, Halvard

Rice or riots: On food production and conflict severity across India

Elsevier

Political Geography

Year:2014

Month:11

Day:

Volume:43

Issue:

First page:6

Last page:15

McCurry, S.

Women Numerous and Armed: The Confederate Food Riots in Historical Perspective

Oxford University Press

OAH Magazine of History

Year:2013

Volume:27

Issue:2

First page:35

Last page:39

Bartolovich, Crystal

A Natural History Of 'Food Riots'

Lawrence and Wishart

New Formations

Year:2010

Volume:69

Issue:1

First page:42

Last page:61

O'Brien, Thomas

Food riots as representations of insecurity: examining the relationship between contentious politics and human security

Informa UK (Taylor & Francis)

Conflict Security & Development

Year:2012

Volume:12

Issue:1

First page:31

Last page:49

Bohstedt, John

Food riots and the politics of provisions from early modern Europe and China to the food crisis of 2008

Informa UK (Taylor & Francis)

Journal of Peasant Studies

Year:2016

Month:08

Day:18

First page:1

Last page:33

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