







































Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

Zach Wehrli 

1 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy and the Impact of 

U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

 

Zach Wehrli 

 

University of Chicago 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction 

Instances of global conflict have increased dramatically over the last decade.1 As climate 

change, population increase, and globalization continue to proliferate over the next century, it 

will be crucial for stakeholders at every level to reevaluate the best ways to address issues 

pertaining to global conflict, violence, and state stability. Despite many multilateral and non-

profit opportunities for intervention, states will most likely be  tasked with mitigating the worst 

effects of these issues. One way that countries such as the United States (US) can begin to 

combat global conflict and state fragility is by reevaluating existing development strategies, 

policies, and budgets. Even a cursory glance at the US foreign development budget illustrates the 

low priority of current development policies. In fact, despite widespread misinformation among 

the American public, US expenditures for all international development line items constitute less 

than 1% of the total annual US budget.2 Agricultural development policy in particular is an 

underutilized method of preventing conflict, increasing state stability, and advancing US national 

security interests in the process. Existing literature has highlighted the links between food 

insecurity and instability, which means that agricultural development may have the ability to 

simultaneously improve the lives of millions of civilians across the globe and help the US 

advance and protect its strategic national security interests, including the global war on terror.  

 

                                                           
1 Uppsala Conflict Data Program 
2 Center for Global Development 



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The US has many of these vested global interests, but existing foreign and national 

security policy relies heavily on American military presence to engage these interests and actors, 

acting as enforcing agents for US policy and projects throughout the world. This is a costly 

model; not only is it one of the largest (and continually growing) line items in the US federal 

budget — falling behind only healthcare and social security —  but it can also result in immense 

human cost in the form of American casualties.3 Agricultural development may offer an efficient 

alternative to continuous increases in military spending. If used effectively, it can provide 

dynamic new opportunities for the US government to continue advancing its strategic national 

security interests, while simultaneously decreasing state fragility and saving  human lives in the 

process. By reframing agricultural development policy in this context and providing empirical 

evidence to support this assertion, it may be possible to make investment in international 

agricultural development more politically appealing. 

The world of foreign aid and assistance is a complex one. For clarity, itis important to 

parse out the differences within this field, highlighting the aspects of foreign aid addressed in this 

study. The State Department identifies foreign assistance as “the voluntary transfer of resources 

from the government of one country to the government, or people, of another.”4 Within foreign 

assistance, the State Department recognizes three subcategories of aid including security 

assistance, humanitarian assistance, and development assistance – the last of these three is the 

focus of this study. Development assistance is unique because it supports sustainable increases in 

living standards and reduction in poverty through economic and social advancement, whereas 

humanitarian assistance focuses on providing direct assistance to those in crisis. I aim to 

illustrate the importance of continued and increased levels of US spending on agricultural 

development policy as both a humanitarian imperative leading to increased levels of stability and 

a means of increasing US national security in the process. 

Through analysis of current US agricultural development expenditures and levels of state 

fragility provided by the Fund for Peace, I highlight an observable relationship between drastic 

increases in US agricultural development spending and consistent decreases in state fragility. To 

make sense of that relationship, however, it is critical to gain a contextual understanding of the 

existing literature on food insecurity and conflict. First, I synthesize existing spheres of thought 

on the impacts of food insecurity on what I identify as state fragility. By synthesizing existing 

literature on the topic, with a special emphasis on work completed by Cullen Hendrix, I provide 

a theoretical framework through which this real-world data can be analyzed. I then employ 

themes illustrated by existing scholars in both a quantitative and qualitative context, using 

Ethiopia, a state considered fragile by the Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index (FSI), as the 

primary case study. By analyzing the annual fluctuations in stability as evaluated by the Fund for 

Peace’s FSI through the lens of US agricultural development spending, I illustrate that US 

foreign assistance specifically in the form of agricultural development spending can increase 

food security, resulting in decreased levels of state fragility, subsequently impacting US national 

                                                           
3 “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2017-2027,” Congressional Budget Office 
4 Smith, F Bureau Briefing Packet  



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

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security. In order to eventually bring the focus to US strategic interests and national security, I 

highlight the links between state stability and strategic US interests, like global terrorism. 

Ultimately, I conclude with a set of policy recommendations that would serve the national 

security interests of the United States by increasing the stability of states critical to US national 

security priorities by combating food insecurity through agricultural development policy.  

The first step, identifying existing theoretical frameworks for the relationships between 

food insecurity and everything from poverty to violent conflict, helps to lay the groundwork for 

the high level correlations identify between state fragility and US agricultural development 

spending. There are some important considerations to bear in mind when following this logical 

pathway, however. First, it is virtually impossible to prove causation between development 

policies and outcomes, particularly when the state is the unit of analysis. Although the sheer 

number of variables and factors that contribute to state success or failure make causation 

unachievable, illustrating the correlation between US dollars spent on agricultural development 

in country and state stability, contextualized by the existing literature on food insecurity and 

political instability, will be useful in highlighting agricultural development policies’ role in 

stabilizing fragile states and mitigating the negative repercussions of instability. I am confident 

that this strong correlation paired with the existing literature on the subject will lead to a 

compelling argument in favor of US agricultural development spending and policies.  

 

The Existing Literature 

Authors such as Todd Smith, Cullen Hendrix, and Henk-Jan Brinkman have made 

inimitable contributions to the existing body of literature on food insecurity, state fragility, and 

agricultural development policy. By synthesizing their work to create a foundation for my own 

data analysis, I can utilize the existing logics articulated by these authors to strengthen my claim 

that US agricultural development policy has a direct impact on the stability of states in sub-

Saharan Africa, which can also be interpreted to mean that increased spending on agricultural 

development on behalf of the United States should remain a goal of any comprehensive 

development or national security strategy.  

The mechanisms articulated by these authors, especially the ways in which food 

insecurity results in a variety of destabilizing events, provide the contextual framework 

necessary for understanding the relationship between US agricultural development spending and 

decreases in state fragility score in the case of Ethiopia.  

Henk-Jan Brinkman and Cullen Hendrix authored one of the most seminal works in the 

nascent field of food insecurity in 2010, which was eventually published as a background paper 

in the 2011 World Development Report. In it, Hendrix and Brinkman provide evidence for the 

link between food insecurity and different types of conflicts: civil war, interstate war, regime 

stability, violent rioting, and communal conflict. In one of the most compelling points in the 

paper, the authors study the occurrence of violent rioting in 48 different countries, graphing the 

relationship between these riots and price spikes in agricultural commodities. They find that the 

occurrence of  riots reached its peak during the years with the highest agricultural commodity 



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prices of staple goods such as wheat, maize, and rice according to the FAO.5 Another critical 

takeaway from this working paper is that these riots are most likely to occur in countries without 

the capacity or infrastructure to foster strong government services — what they identify as low 

government effectiveness.6 This concept, that governments must possess the capability to 

respond to agriculture-related issues, is crucial in the analysis of both Ethiopia and anywhere 

where capacity and resilience building are the main development or aid objectives. Without the 

infrastructure to combat political instability as a result of agricultural issues, countries may see 

an exacerbation of other issues, including violence and poverty.  

The conclusions found in the work by Brinkman and Hendrix are important because of 

the problems they identify. While they are not the only academics to highlight the links between 

food insecurity and all manner of violent events, they do coherently articulate a critical point for 

my analysis: food insecurity has the potential to cause violence. For the purposes of this paper, it 

also makes it possible to question whether or not there are policies and programs that could be 

implemented to disrupt this causal chain. Ultimately, Brinkman and Hendrix conclude that in 

order to break the link between food insecurity and conflict, nation-states, multilateral 

institutions, and NGOs should focus on implementing mechanisms that shield food consumers 

and producers from short-term price instability.7 

Here, these authors analyze the cyclical nature of food security and conflict in the Sahel, 

which encompasses a large swath of Northern and sub-Saharan Africa, including the northern 

portions of Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, 

and Eritrea, among others. They posit two important claims: first, they illustrate that violent 

conflict is actually a driver of food insecurity,8 highlighting the hugely undiscussed reality that 

the relationship between acute food insecurity and violent conflict is a circular, self-perpetuating 

one.  

Secondly, they provide evidence that shows how food insecurity can result in popular 

mobilization and be a risk multiplier for conflict. Hendrix and Brinkman, explicitly and 

intentionally, dismiss attempted monocausal explanations for violent conflict, instead choosing 

to argue that food insecurity is a risk multiplier rather than a monocausal explanation for conflict. 

By adapting their logic here, it is possible to make strong corollary claims for the impact of food 

insecurity and subsequently the implementation of agricultural development policy, while still 

recognizing the limitations of causal explanations for violent conflict more generally. The 

concept of risk multipliers is of particular importance when viewed through the perspective of 

US policy making. Policy makers and elected representatives constrained by the political 

realities of a democratic system — especially the continuous election cycles of the American 

democratic system — have a difficult time endorsing policy decisions that lack short-term 

gratification or success guarantees. Instead of making false claims about direct causation, 

                                                           
5 “Food Insecurity and Conflict,” Hendrix and Brinkman, Pg. 5 
6 Ibid.,Pg. 6 
7 “Food and Insecurity and Conflict,” Hendrix and Brinkman, Pg. 6  
8 Ibid.,Pg. 1 



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

Zach Wehrli 

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academics and policy professionals should embrace this concept of risk multiplication in an 

attempt to preemptively combat the disastrous effects of under-funded agricultural development 

policy. In addition to these main points, they provide evidence to suggest that participating in 

food security interventions or development can help decrease possibilities of conflict, 

contributing to more stable environments. Hendrix and Brinkman’s rejection of monocausal 

explanations of conflict (an important deviation in conflict literature in the policy space) and 

claims regarding the benefits of outside intervention provide crucial contextual evidence for 

claims about the effects of state stability that I make through analysis of the Fund for Peace’s 

FSI.9 

“When Hunger Strikes” is a more recent piece by Cullen Hendrix, taking the form of a 

report commissioned by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs through their Global Food and 

Agriculture Program. Hendrix provides evidence that suggests political instability is a direct 

cause of food insecurity. In this study, Hendrix analyzes the relationship between food-price 

shocks in the global south and the occurrence of non-violent and armed conflict.10 Using the 

food-price related government overthrows in Madagascar, Haiti, and the Arab Spring as starting 

points, he finds that food-related protests and riots were directly correlated with price spikes 

occurring to the FAO Food Price index. 

 With the support of these case studies and data from multilateral institutions like the 

World Bank and the United Nations, Hendrix engages in a variety of policy recommendations 

for donors of international development and food security aid, including: the elimination of 

export bans, further research on the relationship between food insecurity and political instability, 

advocacy for the use of regional food balance sheets, the creation of new programs to assist 

governments in the transition from food subsidies to more sustainable types of aid, and direct US 

development involvement in the most food insecure regions of the planet —namely sub-Saharan 

Africa. 

Rabah Arezki and Markus Bruckner look at the effects of food prices on democracy and 

intra-state conflict in over 120 countries from 1970 – 2007.  To do so, they: 

“... conduct country-specific food price index that is driven by the variation in the 

international food prices for a panel of over 120 countries during the 1970-2207. [They] 

use rigorous panel data techniques that account for both unobservable cross-country 

heterogeneity and common year shocks, and we identify the effects that international 

food price variations have on political and social stability from the within-country 

variation of the data.”11 

Using this methodology, Arezki and Bruckner analyze polity scores and food price 

indexes according to the FAO and ultimately conclude that increases in food prices in low 

income countries (LICs), dramatically deteriorate the standing of democratic institutions, while 

                                                           
9 “Food and Security and Conflict,” Hendrix and Brinkman, Pg. 6  
10 Ibid 
11“Food Prices and Political Instability,” Rabah Arezki and Markus Bruckner, Pg. 6 



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simultaneously increasing the occurrence of anti-government demonstrations and other forms of 

civil conflict. In short, they find that food prices impact social and political stability.  

 Again, we see existing authors completing important and compelling work that highlights 

the observable relationship between food insecurity and volatile and political stability and civil 

conflict. With the exception of Cullen Hendrix’s “When Hunger Strikes,” however, none of these 

authors provide potential policy applications or study the impact that existing agricultural 

development policies have had on preventing the types of conflict observed in this study and so 

many others.  

 

The Existing Literature – Summary 

These studies and pieces of literature are instrumental in creating the foundation for my 

analysis as they provide causal mechanisms and explanations for the relationships that I highlight 

between US agricultural development expenditures and state fragility levels in sub-Saharan 

Africa. Despite the great work that has already been completed by these authors, agricultural 

development and its impact on conflict, violence, and state stability is still an extremely nascent 

field. By building on the existing literature and engaging with these topics on an analytical level, 

I hope to fill the important gaps in the literature. In summary, there is little work that has been 

done on how existing agricultural development policies have already helped contribute to state 

stability, and there is a dearth of research on how agricultural development spending actually 

works to mitigate the well-documented negative effects of acute food insecurity highlighted by 

authors like Hendrix and Henk-Jan Brinkman. By using the existing literature as a foundation 

and starting point for my analysis of US spending on agricultural development, I hope to engage 

the literature in a new way, discussing not how food insecurity causes conflict but how the 

conflict caused by food insecurity discussed in the aforementioned papers is addressed by US 

agricultural development policy. With this, I articulate an explicitly policy-driven final 

argument: not only does the data show that these types of policies can work, but they already are, 

which means that US agricultural development policy in particular should be continued and 

expanded. It stands to reason that if food insecurity is causally linked to outbreaks of violent 

conflicts, implementing policy that decreases food insecurity and its effects (like food price 

spikes) can decrease the likelihood of these events. More generally, however, I link the existing 

strands of thought on this issue. By combining the aforementioned impacts of food insecurity on 

a variety of different factors and indicators, I paint a more comprehensive picture of its effect on 

state stability, emphasizing the importance of using agricultural development policy as a 

diplomatic strategy and foreign policy tool over the next century. 

 

Quantitative Analysis – Ethiopia 

With this literature in mind, it is possible to analyze a real world example, which 

highlights the positive impact of US agricultural development expenditures. To engage in a 

comprehensive analysis of this impact, a variety of different data sets are necessary to analyze 

the impact of US spending on agricultural development projects. The first data-set utilized is the 



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

Zach Wehrli 

7 

 

Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index (FSI), which uses a variety of different indicators to 

measure the fragility of more than 170 states relative to one another, including the primary case 

study in this paper: Ethiopia. The indicators used by FSI fall into four categories: Cohesion 

(Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites, Group Grievance), Economic (Economic Decline, 

Uneven Economic Development, Human Flight and Brain Drain), Political (State Legitimacy, 

Public Services, Human Rights and Rule of Law), and Social (Demographic Pressures, Refugees 

and IDPs, External Intervention). For consistency, I use the aggregate rating of these 12 

indicators to highlight the relationship between state stability and US agricultural development 

expenditures. Further research could analyze other indicators such as state legitimacy, levels of 

political opposition such as riots and uprisings, the occurrence of political violence in the forms 

of armed insurgents, terrorism, and political assassinations, or overall confidence in the 

government. For the purpose of illustrating a high-level relationship between US agricultural 

development spending and state stability, however, the aggregate rating proves most useful 

because of its generalizability.12 By looking at this yearly analysis of individual countries, it is 

possible to see how state fragility has fluctuated over time, which enables the identification of 

correlations between decreases in state fragility (practically known as increases in state stability), 

and American spending on agricultural development projects.  

 The Fund for Peace data is not without criticism, however, and it is important to address 

some of the most compelling critiques of this database before engaging in a quantitative analysis 

of the relationship between this data and US agricultural development expenditures. One of the 

main critiques of this data is articulated well by Bridget Coggins, an Associate Professor of 

Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Coggins argues that many 

concepts in the ranking remained undefined – from the sources of data for the 12 indicators of 

fragility itself – making an in-depth analysis of its contents difficult, if not impossible.13 

Additionally, the relationships between the indicators are not defined or explored, and are 

weighted equally. This makes it difficult to identify differences between types of governance 

relative to one another. While these criticisms are well-founded, the macro-scale lessons from 

the index still stand: generally speaking, states at the bottom of the list (determined to have lower 

levels of state fragility) are typically safer and better governed than those at the top. Therefore, 

witnessing a state’s descent down the list of fragile states is still important to recognize and 

understand, regardless of the values, scoring, or mechanisms that allowed it to decline in score 

more generally.  

In addition to utilizing Fund for Peace’s FSI, data sets provided by the Office of US 

Foreign Assistance Resources (F Bureau) at the US Department of State are used to investigate 

the relationship between US government spending and state fragility.  Their influence comes 

from their aggregate nature; they include all US government spending on foreign development, 

including data on spending on behalf of all agencies. To illustrate the high-level relationship 

                                                           
12 Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 
13 “Fragile is the New Failure,” Bridget Coggins 



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between agricultural development implementation on behalf of the United States and state 

fragility, I utilize the total annual “spent” funds on U.S. Foreign Assistance, Economic 

Development, Agriculture.14 Other authors, particularly Cullen Hendrix and Henk-Jan Brinkman, 

have offered important insight into the types of agricultural development policies that might be 

most effective. This is an important question to explore, especially when creating potential 

agricultural development policies. For the purposes of this paper, however, I am more concerned 

with highlighting the general trends related to US agricultural development overall, making this 

aggregate number the most representative indicator. 

The office of US Foreign Assistance Resources identifies agriculture as: 

“The science and practice of food, feed, and fiber production (including forestry, 

wildlife, fisheries, aquaculture and floriculture) and its relationships to natural resources, 

processing, marketing, distribution, utilization (including nutrition), and trade.”15 

Functionally, this broad definition means that this indicator capture any US funds allocated 

towards to the production and management of natural resources (oil, diamonds, etc.), agricultural 

commodities (wheat, corn, maize, etc.), and livestock (fish, cattle, pigs, goats, etc.). With this 

information in mind, here is the quantitative data analysis of US agricultural development 

spending in Ethiopia.  

 In 2006, the first year that the Fund for Peace began compiling its FSI, Ethiopia had a 

raw FSI score of 91.9, which steadily increased every year until 2010, when it stayed relatively 

even at 98.8, at the time making Ethiopia the 17th most fragile state in the world.16 In 2013, 

however, things began to change, with three subsequent years of decline in Ethiopia’s fragility 

score (also known as an increase in state stability) after nearly a decade of steady increases in 

state fragility, due in no small part to the fractured elites and lack of state capacity mentioned 

earlier.  

Figure 1 illustrates this relationship, demonstrating the relationship between total US 

expenditures and state fragility score on the USAID indicator “US Foreign Assistance: 

Economic Development: Agriculture: Spent.” The United States spent almost nothing on 

agricultural development projects and assistance in Ethiopia prior to 2013. This changed when 

the Obama administration increased agricultural development spending in-country from merely 

$48,324 to  $31,000,000. The results of this upsurge in spending, which would have begun to 

take effect after the end of FY 2013 in October of that calendar year, occurred in tandem with 

Ethiopia’s first extended decrease in state fragility score since the beginning of the Fund for 

Peace’s record of state fragility. As state fragility in Ethiopia continued to decrease in 2014 and 

2015, US investment in agricultural development and assistance in the region grew to new 

heights, reaching 69.155 million in 2014 and 67.198 Million in 2015. Ethiopia’s FSI score 

matched this through an inverse relationship, declining through 2016. Assistance in the region 

                                                           
14 Foreign Assistance Tracker 
15 Ibid. 
16 The Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

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grew to unprecedented levels, reaching 69.155 million in 2014 and 67.198 million in 2015. 

Ethiopia’s FSI score matched this through an inverse relationship, declining through 2016. 

 

Figure 1 

U.S. Department of State, Foreign Assistance  

Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 



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What was responsible for this decline, and what explains the 2017 increase in state 

fragility? One answer may lie in the amount of US foreign assistance spending that was 

occurring at the same time as these fluctuations.  

The United States has complex spending patterns and projects, but there was almost no 

spending on agricultural development projects or assistance in Ethiopia on behalf of US 

government agencies including the State Department, the Department of Defense, USAID, and 

the United States Department of Agriculture. US policy in the region changed in 2013, when the 

Obama administration increased agricultural development spending in-country from nearly zero 

to 31.47 million.17 This increase in spending occurred in tandem with Ethiopia’s first decrease in 

state fragility score since the beginning of the Fund for Peace’s record of state fragility. As state 

fragility in Ethiopia continued to decrease in 2014 and 2015, US investment in agricultural 

development and assistance in the region peaked reaching 69.155 million in 2014 and 67.198 

Million in 2015. Ethiopia’s FSI score matched this through an inverse relationship, declining at 

faster rate in 2014 and 2015. While it is impossible to prove direct causation — and if Cullen and 

Hendrix’s well-reasoned argument against mono-causal explanations are to be accepted, there 

never can and never will be just one cause — it is clear that there is a direct correlation between 

the amount of significant agricultural development spending in the region and decreased levels 

of state fragility. 

Academics and policy makers should both be asking the same question: is the decrease in 

fragility score observed after the increase in American aid a statistically significant one? In order 

to explore the statistical significance of these shifts in fragility score, I used a one-sample t-test 

to determine whether or not the final fragility score, 97.2 was a statistically significant distance 

from the average fragility score over a given period of years. In the event that the final recorded 

fragility score was a statistically significant distance from the mean, it would indicate that the 

impact of US agricultural development spending was a statistically significant one. 

 First, I ran a one-sample t-test of the fragility score after recorded US agricultural 

development aid had been implemented in large numbers (97.2) against the average fragility 

score over the 11 years that the Fund for Peace has been recording this information (97.14). The 

resulting p-value from that test .93, which means that the final fragility score is not a statistically 

significant distance from the average fragility score over the entire 11 years. This is likely 

because of the outlier fragility score in 2006, when the Fund for Peace scored Ethiopia at 91.9. I 

have included a visual representation of the one-sample t-test, which can be seen in Figure 2. 

                                                           
17 Foreign Assistance Tracker 



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

Zach Wehrli 

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Figure 2, STATACorp 

U.S. Department of State, Foreign Assistance  

Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 

 

The purpose of this study, however, is to identify the impact of increased levels of 

American food aid on state stability rather than analyzing levels of state stability independent of 

other factors. To reflect this , I ran the final state fragility score of 97.2 against the mean of 

Ethiopia’s fragility scores from 2011-2016, or the only years for which data on U.S. food aid to 

the country exists. This test resulted in a mean of 98.8 and a p-value of .0196 — well within the 

range required to indicate that the decrease in state stability found in the years following 

substantial increases in American agricultural aid to Ethiopia was a statistically significant 

distance away from the mean over this same period of time. This test indicates that the observed 

shift over this period of time had a significant impact.  



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Figure 3, STATACorp 

U.S. Department of State, Foreign Assistance  

Fund for Peace, Fragile States Index 

 

When taken together, the combination of the easily observable relationship between US 

agricultural development expenditures and the statistical significance of the decrease in fragility 

score offers important insight into the effectiveness of US agricultural development policy as a 

whole.  

 

Qualitative Analysis -Ethiopia 

In order to fully understand the impact of US agricultural investment in Ethiopia, it is 

helpful to gain some insight into the country’s economic, political, social, and historical contexts. 

Ethiopia has a total GDP of $47.5 billion with an average per capita income of $505. Ethiopia’s 

population hit a staggering 94,100,756 in 2013 with an annual population growth rate of 

2.55%.18 Its urban population in the same year rested at 18.59%, which means that large swaths 

of the country still remain classified as rural land. A majority of these rural areas are farming 

communities. These numbers have likely increased since the World Bank’s analysis in 2013.19 

Between 1998 and 2001, Ethiopia experienced over 80,000 deaths as a result of state based 

violence during the Eritrean–Ethiopian War.20 As a result of this tumultuous start to the 21st 

century, Ethiopia’s standing in the international community as seen through the perspective of 

state fragility was bleak, and the country was plagued by continued violence, fractured elites, and 

                                                           
18 World Bank Group  
19 Ibid. 
20 Uppsala Conflict Data Program 



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

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a lack of state capacity even after the cessation of hostilities in 2000. Although Fund for Peace 

did not officially begin tracking and ranking fragile states until 2006, it is easy to identify a clear 

pattern from that point onward, allowing for educated hypotheses about what the start of the new 

millennium would have had in store for Ethiopia if the Fund for Peace had been tracking FSI 

data at the time. Fractured elites, limited state capacity, and vast human rights abuses as a result 

of the end of the Eritrean-Ethiopian War resulting in Ethiopia climbing to the top  of the fragile 

states list. In 2006, Ethiopia found itself fairly high on the list as the 26th most fragile state in the 

world. Pre-Eritrean-Ethiopian War, however, it is likely that Ethiopia would have found itself 

even further from the list of the World’s most fragile states. As the first decade of the 21st 

century marched onward, Ethiopia saw steep increases in its total fragility index score.  

Ethiopia is a particularly helpful example for another reason as well: its location in the 

horn of Africa means that it is experiencing the same weather conditions currently faced by 

Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan, and northeastern Nigeria.21 As of October 2017, a total of 20 

million people in all of these countries were on the brink of famine (with the exception of 

Somalia, which has already declared a famine), making it the largest humanitarian crisis in terms 

of the number of people involved since World War II.22 Not only has the drought put these 

countries on the brink of famine, but terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda have been able to take 

advantage of the opportunity, gaining ground against weakened state governments. This is a 

particularly important factor when evaluating the usefulness of agricultural development 

spending through the perspective of increasing US national security. If agricultural development 

spending is found to increase resilience to droughts and prevent governments from weakening 

further and potentially giving ground to armed insurgents, it could be used as an effective 

strategy to limit the reach or terrorist organizations, particularly in the global south. In addition, 

more than 5.3 million children are undernourished, with 1.4 million of them at risk of death from 

severe malnutrition and more than 600,000 of them are at imminent risk of death from 

starvation.23 Ethiopia, due in no small part to immense agricultural development investment over 

the last decade, has been able to maintain its food security and keep famine at bay, while 

Somalia has already officially declared a famine. Because of continued investment in the region 

on behalf of the United States and other actors, Ethiopia has been able to continue building its 

resilience – in and of itself an important aspect of global agricultural development policy. 

 One of USAID’s core principles is mitigating violence and conflict, and it achieves this 

predominately through agricultural development policies that aim to increase resiliency. 

Resiliency is defined as, “the ability of people, households, communities, countries, and systems 

to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic 

vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.”24 This is an important concept to consider when 

                                                           
21 The Chicago Council on Global Affairs 
22 Ibid. 
23 The Chicago Council on Global Affairs 
24  Resilience in the Face of Drought in Ethiopia: New Evidence 



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evaluating Ethiopia’s ability to respond to the drought as a result of US agricultural development 

policy. To evaluate Ethiopia’s resiliency as a result of USAID’s programs, it collected data from 

the same households, all of which were reached by USAID’s Pastoralist Area Resilience 

Improvement through Market Expansion (PRIME) project, repeatedly during the drought. By 

controlling for factors like household size, food assistance, education, assets, and the gender of 

the head of household, USAID was able to identify that households directly benefited from 

PRIME: they only saw a 4% decrease in food security as opposed to the 30% decrease observed 

in  households that were not reached by PRIME.25 This is important for two reasons: first it 

illustrates that there are ways to isolate the impact of US agricultural development policies and 

spending. Secondly, building resilience through agricultural development is crucial in keeping 

state fragility low. 

First, the level of state fragility found throughout the region makes it possible to illustrate 

the potential and demonstrate the  impact of US spending on agricultural development policy. 

Secondly, similarities in climate, GDP, population, and religions make it possible to control for 

some variables, strengthening the validity of the argument as a whole. While these countries are 

still incredibly diverse, with huge variations in ethnic makeup, GDP, and internal domestic and 

political factors, any small steps that help control for the massive number of potential 

confounding variables contribute to the accuracy of the analysis.  

 

Policy Applications and Implications 

Agricultural development is an effective way of increasing state stability. Not only does it 

decrease levels of poverty, conflict, gender inequality, thereby increasing the stability of states, 

but it can also play a direct role in improving America’s national security. The links between 

radicalism, violent extremism, terrorism, and food insecurity are stark. Ertharin Cousin, 

previously an Executive Director of the World Food Programme, excellently articulated the 

reality that when young men are jobless and hungry, they turn to radical groups capable of 

providing those services in exchange for their support.26 The United States is still engaged in the 

global war on terror, with many trials and tribulations to come.. In order to effectively end this 

global counterinsurgency and combat expansive terrorist networks made more powerful by the 

global interconnectedness of our world, national security policy must look beyond traditional 

military strength and formulate dynamic new policies capable of striking one of the core causes 

of terrorism. Agricultural development can play a strategic role in US counterterror policy, 

making its investment even more important, as if it were not important enough already. If the 

United States is serious about finishing the global war on terror, engaging in agricultural 

development policy and other development diplomacy strategies will be integral to success. 

In 2013, a Kaiser Foundation poll found that, on average, Americans believe that the 

federal government spends 28% of the total budget on foreign aid. In reality, the U.S. 

government spends less than 1% of the budget on foreign aid. Meanwhile, defense spending 

                                                           
25 Ibid. 
26 “Food Aid Cuts ‘Making Refugees Targets for ISIS Recruitment’”, Kareem Shaheen.  



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

Zach Wehrli 

15 

 

accounts for more than 16% of the federal budget, totaling $646 million. By investing in 

agricultural development policy, not only could the United States decreased levels of state 

fragility, but it could also directly combat IS recruitment and Islamic extremism, which has been 

linked to food insecurity.27 The argument for agricultural development can be sold to lawmakers 

and the public the same way that seemingly uncontroversial increases in military spending are 

sold: it is an investment in US national security. In addition to increasing our national security, 

agricultural development policy also contributes the vital tenets of humanitarian aid that runs 

central to US engagement with the world – saving millions of lives in the process and making the 

entire international community safer. The US also stands to gain vital new partners and allies, 

resulting in economic and diplomatic boons that no amount of military intervention can achieve. 

Finally the salience of food security issues to countries where the US has vested strategic 

interests. The following is a direct statement from The Office of the Director of National 

Intelligence from a 2016 report on Global Food Security: 

 

“We judge that the overall risk of food insecurity in many countries of strategic 

importance to the United States will increase during the next 10 years because of 

production, transport, and market disruptions to local food availability, declining 

purchasing power, and counterproductive government policies. Demographic shifts and 

constraints on key inputs will compound this risk. In some countries, declining food 

security will almost certainly contribute to social disruptions or large-scale political 

instability or conflict, amplifying global concerns about the availability of food.’28 

 

If agricultural development is not effective, it is still vital to US national security interests 

to begin addressing these issues, particularly as climate change and population increase 

continues to dramatically alter the political situations in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and 

Sub-Saharan Africa. Agricultural development efforts have a unique ability to advance strategic 

US interests.Compounded by its effects on stabilizing food insecure regions and increasing state 

stability, agricultural development is a powerful, and drastically underutilized, weapon in the 

foreign policy and national security arsenals of the United States. 

Conclusion 

There is much progress to be made in the fight against global conflict, poverty, and 

instability. There is ample literature to support the claim that strong links exist between food 

insecurity and increased levels of conflict and state fragility. If that theoretical framework holds, 

it stands to reason that investing in effective agricultural development policies would result in 

decreased levels of conflict and state fragility. This logical reasoning is already at play in sub-

Saharan Africa, where US agricultural development policy has played an important role in 

                                                           
27 Kareem Shaheen, The Guardian 
28 Intelligence Community Assessment (Pg. 1) 



IJOIS Spring 2018 Volume IV 

Program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security 

16 

 

stabilizing countries. By comparing annual US agricultural spending and annual fragility score 

from the Fund for Peace’s  (FSI), the correlation between US agricultural development policy 

and decreased levels of state fragility becomes clear. Through statistical analysis, I have also 

demonstrated that the decreases in state fragility seen in Ethiopia as a result of  agricultural 

development spending are not insignificant, making the potential investment in these types of 

agricultural development policies even more worthwhile. 

 Ethiopia is just one example of the beneficial impacts that robust agricultural 

development policy can have. Not only did it play a role in increasing  state stability,  it also 

helped advance strategic US national security interest in the region. Through continued funding 

of international development programs and initiatives, the US is poised to make the world a 

safer, more stable place, while simultaneously advancing its national security. Because of the 

strong links between violent extremism and food insecurity, the prevalence on food insecurity in 

countries vital to US interests, and the assured exacerbation of these issues over the next century 

as a result of climate change and population increase, the US would be wise to engage in 

agricultural development efforts at a greater scale. Successful, long-term national security 

strategy should take all of this into account when evaluating its priorities in the global south, 

particularly when it comes to the horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. If the US, other 

countries, multilateral institutions, nonprofits, and NGOs do not begin investing in capacity and 

resilience building now, especially in the vulnerable and volatile agricultural sector, the 

likelihood that stability will decrease in large swaths of the global south is virtually assured.   

My findings suggest that American disengagement from the international community is  

dangerous . If the US does not take advantage of its position as a global leader in international 

development and agricultural technology, the result will be a world with greater political 

instability.29 By taking advantage of this opportunity and leveraging the immense power of 

foreign investment and agricultural development in particular, the United States can save money 

and lives, both at home and abroad. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                           
29 Reforming and Reorganizing U.S. Foreign Assistance, Conor Savoy and Erol Yayboke 



Planting the Seeds for Stability: The Power of Development Diplomacy  

and the Impact of U.S. Agricultural Development Policy on Fragile States 

Zach Wehrli 

17 

 

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