Research trends on the main threats to food security in international relations scholarship

Abstract

After a slow and steady decrease in global food insecurity, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have undone much of these gains. This intervention aims to shed light on whether academic research on food security is currently focused on the most food-insecure countries and whether equal attention has been devoted to the biggest threats to food security: economic shocks, extreme weather, and armed conflict. We find that only 37% of countries in a state of crisis, emergency, or famine have been the focus of published research in food security. Moreover, our analysis shows that, when combined, 53% of all academic publications addressed at least one of the key drivers of food insecurity, yet possible biases and gaps emerge when these results are disaggregated by each specific driver of food insecurity.