Between fallacy and feasibility? Dealing with the risk of ecological fallacies in the quantitative study of protest mobilization and conflict

In recent years, the quantitative study of conflict has increasingly focused on small-scale and/or localized conflicts in the developing world. In this paper, we analyze and critically reflect upon a major methodological shortcoming of many studies in this field of research. We argue that by using group- or macro-level empirical data and modelling techniques, while at the same time theoretically underpinning observed empirical associations with individual-level mechanisms, many of these studies risk committing an ecological fallacy. The individual-level mechanism on which many studies rely concerns the presence of grievances which mobilize people to participate in contentious politics. This motivational approach was also present in early studies on protest mobilization in Western societies, which often relied on similar research designs. However, subsequent advances in this literature and the use of methods that were targeted more directly at the individual level uncovered that grievances alone cannot explain mobilization and that organizational capabilities and complex psychological mechanisms of belonging also form part of the puzzle. While drawing on conflict events as well as survey data from Africa, we demonstrate empirically that here, as well, inferring micro-level relations and dynamics from macro-level empirical models can lead to erroneous interpretations and inferences. Hence, we argue that to improve our understanding of conflict mobilization in the developing world, especially for conflicts with low levels of violence, it is necessary to substantially expand our methodological toolbox beyond macro-level analyses

Conflict In Africa: The Cost of Peaceful Behaviour

aid, conflict, natural resources, sub-Saharan Africa

How Culture Drives Economic Behavior in Cooperatives

The core cognitive foundation of cooperative values, norms and beliefs can need updating and refurbishing just like the hard economic assets of plant and equipment that maintain their visible, outward structure. Import competition, agricultural industrialization, and market failure have led cooperatives to question beliefs which put the survival of the farm above the cooperative. Jeffersonian agrarian values contributed to a culture where cooperatives were run for the needs of farmers, not consumers. This led cooperatives to over-expand into commodity areas that were not economically sustainable. Or, cooperatives compensated growers for poor production decisions at a cost to other members. These values were based on a cultural model that "cooperatives were like a family." Trying to provide a small town personal ambiance and the efficiencies of large scale production within the same organization is a cultural model that cooperatives used to "be all things to all people". Farmer attrition has forced cooperatives into adopting a core business focus where co-ops shed all businesses except those they can do very well. This cultural transition has been aided by agricultural industrialization's focus on the farmer as individual "farm manager", in contrast to the idealized Jeffersonian farm family. Cooperatives are now seen as separate and independent of the farmer, not as an extension of the farm, giving co-ops greater latitude to be more market driven.Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Land, Economic Change, and Agricultural Economics

This paper analyzes in three contexts the effects of changing economic conditions and varying economic perspectives on the way land is considered in economic doctrine. The first considers agricultural land use where agriculture is connected to the rest of the economy exclusively through input and commodity markets, and when all other parts of the economy are assumed to remain constant. The second connects agriculture to the remainder of the economy by virtue of a shared natural environment, facilitating a discussion of natural resource and environmental economics in relation to agricultural, institutional, and land economics. The third context permits economic change in the entire economy with particular attention given to population density, space, and distance. Private and public decision making are discussed with attention to federal, state, and local division of powers.Land Economics/Use,

Bling without blood? The role of natural resources in civil war

This study answers the research question: what factors determine the onset and duration of civil wars involving natural resources? This case study analysis uses determinants extracted from several quantitative studies to examine the role of natural resources in civil war. This study compares resource politics in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Botswana from independence to the early 2000s. The Congo officially became embroiled in a civil war in 1996 and then in 1998. During this same period another resource-rich country, Botswana was able to parlay resource abundance into positive development indicators. However, Botswana\u27s political and economic weaknesses help exclude some of the factors commonly associated with the role of resources in civil war. For example, Botswana depended heavily upon resource exports. It also failed to develop sectors outside of the mining sector. In addition, it was a de facto single-party country.Still, Botswana remained peaceful. Scholars believe that at the end of the Cold War rebels had to seek their own funding sources since superpower assistance was no longer available. This discourse suggests that we can understand more about rebel mobilization since the story is no longer clouded by Cold War politics. The findings in this study suggest that the discourse has not moved as rapidly as previously thought. The discourse is now in its second generation. The first generation was characterized by economic explanations (as a departure from a history of political explanations). The second generation has come full circle, back to political explanations. Despite these developments, a number of operationalization problems inhibit a clear understanding of causality. This study recommends new approaches to understanding the role of resources in conflicts. Currently, scholars over-determine the role of natural resources in civil war.For example, a set of unique historical circumstances merged to create the conditions for civil wars in the Congo in 1996 and 1998. The distinctions between resource conflicts and conflicts caused by other political reasons are not clear in some of the quantitative studies

Oil in Venezuela: Triggering Violence or Ensuring Stability? A Context-sensitive Analysis of the Ambivalent Impact of Resource Abundance

This paper studies the causal factors that make the oil-state Venezuela, which is generally characterized by a low level of violence, an outlier among the oil countries as a whole. It applies a newly elaborated “context approach” that systematically considers domestic and international contextual factors. To test the results of the systematic analysis, two periods with a moderate increase in internal violence in Venezuela are subsequently analyzed, in the second part of the paper, from a comparative-historical perspective. The findings demonstrate that oil, in interaction with fluctuating non-resource-specific contextual conditions, has had ambiguous effects: On the one hand, oil has explicitly served as a conflict-reducing and partly democracy-promoting factor, principally through large-scale socioeconomic redistribution, widespread clientelistic structures, and corruption. On the other hand, oil has triggered violence—primarily through socioeconomic causal mechanisms (central keywords: decline of oil abundance and resource management) and secondarily through the long-term degradation of political institutions. While clientelism and corruption initially had a stabilizing effect, in the long run they exacerbated the delegitimization of the traditional political elite. Another crucial finding is that the impact and relative importance of oil with respect to the increase in violence seems to vary significantly depending on the specific subtype of violence.Venezuela, natural resources, oil, political economy, violence, contextual sensitivity

An empirical investigation of the resource curse theory and economic growth, panel data analysis

The economics of natural resources has been a subject of discussion for a number of years. One of the problems that natural resources economics studies is Resource Curse Theory, which refers to the situation where a number of natural resource exporting countries are negatively affected in terms of various economic, political, and social factors. This theory refers to an observed negative correlation between natural resource exports and the economic growth of countries engaging in these exports. This study empirically investigates the Resource Curse Theory. Applying panel data of oil rents share of GDP as different natural resource measurements, various econometric techniques were used in order to obtain robust results. Using panel data fixed effect estimator, a significant positive correlation between oil rents share of GDP and GDP growth rate is found. When using the two-stage least square approach, positive significant results are also found between oil rents share of GDP and GDP growth rate.The economics of natural resources has been a subject of discussion for a number of years. One of the problems that natural resources economics studies is Resource Curse Theory, which refers to the situation where a number of natural resource exporting countries are negatively affected in terms of various economic, political, and social factors. This theory refers to an observed negative correlation between natural resource exports and the economic growth of countries engaging in these exports. This study empirically investigates the Resource Curse Theory. Applying panel data of oil rents share of GDP as different natural resource measurements, various econometric techniques were used in order to obtain robust results. Using panel data fixed effect estimator, a significant positive correlation between oil rents share of GDP and GDP growth rate is found. When using the two-stage least square approach, positive significant results are also found between oil rents share of GDP and GDP growth rate

The Discourse of Digital Dispossession: Paid Modifications and Community Crisis on Steam

This article is a chronicle and analysis of a community crisis in digital space that took place on Valve Corporation’s digital distribution platform, Steam. When Valve and Bethesda (publisher and developer of Skyrim) decided to allow mods to be sold by mod makers themselves, there ensued a community revolt against the commodification of leisure and play. I put this crisis of play and work in dialogue with Harvey’s concept of “accumulation by dispossession,” firmly placing it within a longer history of disruptive capital accumulation strategies. I then conduct a discourse analysis of community members on reddit, as they make sense of and come to terms with this process of dispossession. Arising in the discourse was not class consciousness per se, but instead a pervasive feeling of helplessness and frustration as games, play, and leisure began to feel like work