Publications

Behavior Influence Assessment of Impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Unrest and Popular Support Within Egypt

Jeffers, Robert F.; Bernard, Michael L.; Passell, Howard D.; Silver, Emily J.

The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has generated tensions between Egypt and Ethiopia over control of the Nile River in Northern Africa. However, tensions within Egypt have also been pronounced, leading up to and following the Arab Spring uprising of 2011. This study used the Behavior Influence Assessment (BIA) framework to simulate a dynamic hypothesis regarding how tensions within Egypt may evolve given the impacts of the GERD. Primarily, we addressed the interplay between four parties over an upcoming ten-year period: the Egyptian Regime, the Military-Elite, the Militant population, and the non-Militant population. The core tenant of the hypothesis is that rising food prices was a strong driver to the unrest leading up to the Arab Spring events and that this same type of economic stress could be driven by the GERD—albeit with different political undertones. Namely, the GERD offers the Regime a target for inciting nationalism, and while this may buy the regime time to fix the underlying economic impacts, ultimately there exists a tipping point beyond which exponentially increasing unrest is unavoidable without implementing strong measures, such as state militarization.