Local wealth inequality linked to political protests across the Global South

The political consequences of inequality have become a matter of mounting concern. Relative deprivation theory posits that frustration arising from comparisons with proximate reference groups can fuel protests. Yet research has concentrated overwhelmingly on the Global North, notwithstanding the acute wealth disparities experienced by the majority of the world’s population in the Global South. To address this gap, we assemble novel, fine-grained estimates of relative wealth at the 2.4 km × 2.4 km grid level to derive measures of local wealth inequality, which we link to over 645,000 georeferenced protest events recorded from 2014 to 2018. Exploiting variation within subnational regions, we document a robust, positive association between local wealth inequality and protest incidence. We show that the inequality–protest relationship is anchored in individuals’ immediate surroundings. As the spatial radius defining ‘local’ expands, the association weakens, highlighting the primacy of experienced inequality. We also find that the inequality-protest link is mediated by national characteristics. The study advances the social sciences by furnishing novel empirical evidence on the micro-geographic underpinnings of political instability, demonstrating that inequality’s political effects hinge on proximity, local class structure and national institutional environment.