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Contemporary Famine Analysis

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Olivier Rubin

    1. Dept of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

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  • Introduces new advances in contemporary famine analysis
  • Addresses the political dimension of contemporary famines
  • Discusses different famine frameworks to asses how well they capture the dynamics of contemporary famines
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Political Science (BRIEFSPOLITICAL)

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Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Olivier Rubin
    Pages 1-5

  3. Understanding Famine

    • Olivier Rubin
    Pages 7-19

  4. Classical Famine Approaches

    • Olivier Rubin
    Pages 21-36

  5. The Entitlement Approach

    • Olivier Rubin
    Pages 37-55

  6. The Political System

    • Olivier Rubin
    Pages 57-71

  7. The Political Accountability Approach

    • Olivier Rubin
    Pages 73-99
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Keywords

About this book

This Brief provides some answers as to why famines continue to torment humankind here in the 21st century despite all our progress in food production, logistics, information dissemination and relief work. Contemporary famines are inherently political, and so the interesting question is not how famines can be prevented, but why they are allowed to develop in the first place; only by understanding the latter, is there hope to eradicate major famines. 

The Brief assesses the various analytical approaches to the understanding of famine, from the classical approaches inspired by Thomas Malthus to the newer economic approaches based on Amartya Sen. While all approaches contribute with important insights on famine dynamics, they also struggle to capture the political dimension of contemporary famines. The Brief develops a political approach capable of addressing this important but messy political dimension of contemporary famines. The approach builds on principles of humanitarian accountability (the moral responsibility to alleviate suffering from famine) as well as political accountability (the interests and power relations involved in famine outcomes).   


         

Authors and Affiliations

  • Dept of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

    Olivier Rubin

About the author

Olivier Rubin
Associate Professor of Disasters and Global Politics 
Department of Society and Globalisation 
Roskilde University
Denmark


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