Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T10:26:20.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Risk Factors and Predictability of Famine in Ethiopia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Theodore M. Vestal
Theodore M. Vestal*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma 74078-0220
Get access

Abstract

Famine, a complex phenomenon with multifactorial causes, produces starvation and associated diseases resulting in unusually high mortality from a lack of food. Devastating famines in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1980s may have provided an impetus for scholars to find additional analytical tools for predicting famines. Two predominant theories of famines causality are (1) food availability decline (FAD), a supply failure; and (2) the entitlement approach based on a demand failure. Findings from both theories are applied to specific examples from Ethiopian famines to analyze the composition and effects of famine. The limited success of contemporary famines studies in anticipating famine suggests the need for improved analytical tools. Risk factor analysis, used successfully in the social sciences and the medical sciences to predict the occurrence of complicated phenomena, is developed to identify controllable, uncontrollable, and contributing factors to famine. Based on the experience of Ethiopia in 1983-86, categorical cutoff values for identifying a high risk of developing famine are formulated.

Type
Articles and Commentaries
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , February 1991 , pp. 187 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Africa Today. (1985). “Africa Rights Monitor, African Refugees: Patterns and Policy.” 32: 71–78.Google Scholar
American Heart Association. (1985). 1986 Heart Facts. Dallas.Google Scholar
Aston, C. (1989). “Why Ethiopia's Famine Persists.” Christian Science Monitor. 27 November 1989.Google Scholar
Ball, N. (1976). “Understanding the Causes of African Famine.” Journal of Modern African Studies 14: 517–22.Google Scholar
Bezuneh, M. and Mabbs-Zeno, C. C.. (1984). “The Contribution of the Green Revolution to Social Change in Ethiopia.” Northeast African Studies 6: 9–17.Google Scholar
Bhatia, B. M. (1967). Famines in India 1860-1965. Bombay: Asia.Google Scholar
Borton, J. (1984). Disaster Preparedness in Botswana. London: Relief and Development Institute.Google Scholar
Chicago Tribune. (1990). “Ethiopia Seeks Food Aid, Says 4 Million Face Famine.” 2 March 1990.Google Scholar
Clapham, Christopher. (1988). Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clay, J. W. and Holcomb, B. K.. (1986). Politics and the Ethiopian Famine 1984-1985. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. M. and Lewis, D. B.. (1987). “Role of Government in Combatting Food Shortages: Lessons from Kenya 1984-85.” in Glantz, M. H., ed. Drought and Hunger in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Costelli, W. P. (1983). “Cardiovascular Disease and Multi-factorial Risk: Challenge of the 1980s.” American Heart Journal 106: 1191–1200.Google Scholar
Dando, W. A. (1980). The Geography of Famine. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Dilby, D. et al., eds. (1977). Drought in Africa. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Early Warning and Planning Services. (1985). Belg (Small) Crop Season Synoptic Report. (July 1985). Addis Ababa: Relief and Rehabilitation Commission.Google Scholar
Ethiopian Perspective. (1985). “The Derg's Agricultural Politics: The Making of a Disaster.” No. 3 (March): 1–4. FAO and World Food Programme Special Task Force (1983).Google Scholar
“Exceptional International Assistance Required in Food Supplies, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry for African Countries in 1983-84.” Rome. September 30, 1983.Google Scholar
Flood, G. (1975). “Nomadism and Its Future: The Afar.” Royal Anthropological Institute News January-February 1975:5–9.Google Scholar
Gill, P. (1986). A Year in the Death of Africa. London: Paladin-Grafton Books.Google Scholar
Giorgis, D. W. (1989). Red Tears: War, Famine, and Revolution in Ethiopia. Trenton, N. J.: Red Sea Press.Google Scholar
Government of Ethiopia. Central Statistical Office. (1974). The Demography of Ethiopia: Results of the National Sample Survey. Addis Ababa: Government of Ethiopia.Google Scholar
Griffin, K. and Gurley, J.. (1985). “Radical Analyses of Imperialism, the Third World, and the Transition to Socialism.” Journal of Economic Literature 23: 1089–14.Google Scholar
Griffin, K. and Hay, R. W.. (1985). “Problems of Agricultural Development in Socialist Ethiopia: An Over-view and a Suggested Strategy.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 13: 37–66.Google Scholar
Hay, R. W. (1986). Food Aid and Relief-Development Strategies. World Food Programme/African Development Bank Seminar on Food Aid for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Occasional Papers 8. (September 1986).Google Scholar
Hay, R. W. (1988). “Famine Incomes and Employment: Has Botswana Anything to Teach Africa?” World Development 16: 1113–25.Google Scholar
Hay, R. W. and Clay, E. J.. (1986). Food Aid and the Development of Human Resources. World Food Programme/African Development Bank Seminar. Food Aid for Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Occasional Papers 7. (8-11 September 1986).Google Scholar
Hay, R. W. and Rukuni, M.. (1988). “SADCC Food Security Strategies: Evolution and Role.” World Development: 16: 1013–24.Google Scholar
The Hunger Project. (1985). Ending Hunger; An Idea Whose Time Has Come. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Hussein, A. M. (1976a). Drought and Famine in Africa. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hussein, A. M. (1976b). Rehabilitation: Drought and Famine in Ethiopia. African Environment Special Report No. 2. London.Google Scholar
Kannel, W. B. et al. (1976). “A General Cardiovascular Risk Profile: The Framingham Study.” The American Journal of Cardiology, 38: 46–51.Google Scholar
Kaplan, R. D. (1988). Surrender or Starve: The Wars Behind the Famine. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Kobrin, S. J. (1984). “Expropriation as an Attempt to Control Foreign Firms in LDCs: Trends from 1960 to 1979.” International Studies Quarterly, 28: 329–348.Google Scholar
Kobrin, S. J. (1982). Managing Political Risk Assessment; Strategic Response to Environmental Change. Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Korn, D. A. (1986). “Ethiopia: Dilemma for the West.” The World Today 42: 4–7.Google Scholar
LaPalombara, J. (1982). “Assessing the Political Environment for Business: A New Role for Political Scientists?” PS (Spring 1982).Google Scholar
Lappe, F. M. and Collins, G.. (1979). Food First, Beyond the Myth of Scarcity. New York: Ballantine Books.Google Scholar
Lofchie, M. F. (1975). “Political and Economic Origins of African Hunger.” Journal of Modern African Studies 13: 551–67.Google Scholar
Mabbs-Zeno, C. C. (1987). Long-Term Impacts of Famine: Enduring Disasters and Opportunities for Progress. International Economics Division, Economic Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.Google Scholar
Malthus, T. R. (1798). Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society.Google Scholar
Mariam, M. W. (1984). Rural Vulnerability to Famine in Ethiopia; 1958-1977. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House.Google Scholar
Mayer, J. (1974). “Coping with Famine.” Foreign Affairs 53: 98–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, J. (1987). 15th McDougall Memorial Lecture. 9 November 1987. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Reprinted in U. S. Response to Relief Efforts in Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique. Select Committee on Hunger and the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. House of Representatives. 100th Cong. 2nd sess. (10 March 1988).Google Scholar
Minor, M. (1988). “LDCs, TNCs and Expropriation in the 1980s.” CTC Reporter. United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations. New York: United Nations (Spring 1988).Google Scholar
Ottaway, M. (1986). “Drought and Development in Ethiopia.” Current History 85: 217–220.Google Scholar
Pankhurst, R. (1985). The History of Famine and Epidemics in Ethiopia Prior to the Twentieth Century. Addis Ababa: RRC.Google Scholar
Picardi, A. C. and Seifert, W. W.. (1977). “A Tragedy of the Commons in the Sahel.” Ekistics 43: 297–304.Google Scholar
Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (1984). Review of the Current Drought Situation in Ethiopia. Addis Ababa. December 1984.Google Scholar
Reutlinger, S. (1986). Poverty and Hunger. Washington, D. C.: World Bank.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. (1981). Poverty and Famines. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. (1978). “Food Entitlements and Economic Chains.” in LeMay, B. W. J. (ed.), Science, Ethics, and Food. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Sen, et al. (1987). The Standard of Living. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shepard, J. (1985). “Ethiopia; The Use of Food as an Instrument of U. S. Foreign Policy,” Issue 14: 4–9.Google Scholar
Shepard, J. (1975). The Politics of Starvation. Washington, D. C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Shindo, E. (1985). “Hunger and Weapons: The Entropy of Militarisation.” Review of African Political Economy 33: 6–22.Google Scholar
Survival International. (1986). Ethiopia's Bitter Medicine: Settling for Disaster. London.Google Scholar
Timberlake, L. (1985). Africa in Crisis: The Causes, the Cures of Environmental Bankruptcy. Washington, D. C.: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Torry, W. I. (1984). “Social Science Research on Famine; A Critical Evaluation.” Human Ecology 12: 227–52.Google Scholar
United Nations Center for Economic and Social Information (CESI) (1978). United Nations Conference on Desertification: Round-Up, Plan of Action and Resolution. New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
U. S. Agency for International Development (1985). Briefing Book. Addis Ababa. (August 1985).Google Scholar
U. S. Senate. (1986a). Committee on Foreign Relations. 99th Cong. 2nd Sess. Ethiopia Update: Forced Population Removal and Human Rights. (6 March).Google Scholar
U. S. Senate (1986b). Committee on the Judiciary. Sub-committee on Immigration and Refugee Policy. 99th Cong. 2nd Sess. Ethiopia and Sudan One Year Later: Refugee and Famine Recovery Needs. (April).Google Scholar
Vestal, T. M. (1985). “Famine in Ethiopia: Crisis of Many Dimensions.” Africa Today 32:7–28.Google Scholar
Wade, N. (1974). “Sahalian Drought: No Victory for Western Aid.” Science 185: 234–37.Google Scholar
Walls, J. (1980). Land, Man, and Sand. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Watts, M. (1983). Silent Violence; Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wolpert, J. (1980). “The Dignity of Risk,” Transactions 5: 391–401.Google Scholar
Yared, M. (1986). “Political Motives Seen Behind Relocation Program.” Jeune Afrique (January 15, 1986): 38–40.Google Scholar
Zolberg, A. R. et al. (1989). Escape From Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar