This morning I woke up to news of the deadly assault on a bus in southern Israel. The BBC quotes Israel officials saying Gaza militants entering from Egypt. Hamas denies the assertion.
Coincidentally, last night before I went to bed, I had teed up this analysis of “political violence” in England, from the Guardian, because it made me think about Gaza. Just compare the austerity percentage that the scholars by Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim Vothsay produces unrest, 3 percent, with the choke collar that is on Gaza. As I wrote last night, it’s amazing there isn’t even more violence in Gaza…
To construct our measure of unrest, we looked at five indicators: riots, anti-government demonstrations, general strikes, political assassinations, and attempted revolutions. In a typical year and country, there are about 1.5 incidents of this type. The more you cut, the more incidents you get. By the time austerity measures hit 3% or more, the number of incidents has doubled. Interestingly, for the UK, the pattern is even stronger: for every percentage point of cut-backs, instability surges by more than it does on average in the rest of the countries. Importantly, these effects are in addition to the well-known relationship between lower growth (associated with more unemployment) and higher instability.
Oh to be clear: we’re against violence here; that’s why we are generally so supportive of the boycott campaign, it’s nonviolent.
