QGIS

23.10.19
 Benutzung von GIS
o Diffusion von Politiken
o Politische und wirtschaftliche Ungleichheiten
o Migrationsbewegungen
o Intensitivitä t von Beziehungen wirschaftlich
o Historische Komponente
o Separatismus
o Klimawandel und Konflikte
o Mobilitä t, mange daran
o Wahlforschung (Gerrymandering)
 Minard
o Hat eine Karte gemacht, die die Einmarschen von Napoleon nach Moscow
beschreibt, 19th cent
 7 Arten von Information drin
 Vektordaten
o Punkte
o Strecke
o Polygon
o Raster

Readings for Session 2:

It’s the Geography, Stupid! Andersen
 Introduction
o GIS allows political science research which is attentive to
 Spatial aspects
 Potential biases resulting formt he dominance of country and indv
based analysis
o Policy authority increasingly devolved from sovereign state, many
governments outside of the West do not hold power over entire territories
o Need to cultivate spatial awareness to address discrepancies
 Locate politics in space, use GIS
 Geographical links between objects, units, and actors of
interest
o GIS can help analyze subnational governments and territories not under
central control
o Spatial awareness can help theory building by making us more aware of
geographical linkages in politics
 Everything is Spatial: GIS in Practice
o GIS help combine otherwise incongruous types of data
o Visualizing data/examining spatial patterns/changes help understanding,
more intuitive
o Easier to recognize and interpret
o GIS helps categorize political objects into spatial data, make connections
o Types of spatial data
 Points (landmarks- churches, battlefields, residences etc)
 Lines (infrastructure networks(roads, railroads, gas pipeplines etc))
 Polygons (connected lines that enclose areas- countries/admin areas)
 Rasters (continuously varying info available for each point in a large
area at a certain resolution, topography, emission of nighttime lights
etc)
o Data is geocoded with GPS coordinates and made into shapefiles used in GIS
software
o Ex: effects of slave trade in afric on present-day economic development,
trust, etc
o Geocoding of data allows computation of relationships
 Geography in Political Science: Then and Now
o Post-war, geography slid out of PS due to systematic collection of data
o The Scramble for Africa and Artificial Borders:
 European borders, colonialism, slave trade causes of Africa’s poverty
and proneness to war/violence
 Berlin Conference 1884-5, arbitrary borders
 Hindered development of cohesive nation states, ethnic strife
 Michalopoulos and Papaoiannou examine conflict in areas of split
ethnic groups, use GIS tools
 First used 19th century data of homelands of ethnic groups
(polygons) and present-day borders (polygons)
o Found 229 of ethnic homelands partitioned by 1 or
more borders , 596 not
o Found that ethnic charactersistics did not influence new
borders, makes sense because Europeans were
arbitrary
 Show that ethnically partitioned country-ethnic areas
experience more battles/violence (40-60% more) than other
full country-ethnic areas in the same country
 Backs up research which shows foreign govs more likely to
invade areas with large pop belonging to ethnic group on other
side of border
  Split groups more likely to be discriminated against, lower
living standards, less access to water/electricity, education
o Found country-ethnic areas of partitioned groups do
not have lower per capita
 Proved theory that border splitting groups explains problems
for Africa, economic effects only impact split groups
 Advancing Political Science: Spatial Awareness and GIS
o Theory Testing, Data and Research Designs
 Political scientists focus on sovereign state and individuals, miss out
on phenomena occurring between them
 GIS can improve quality of analysis and inference
 GIS allows integration of data sources using space as common unit
 Can geocode historical data- city-level, census, borders etc
 GIS allows new research designs to test theories
 Subnational analysis made easier
o Allows to look at unobserved factors
 helps mitigate Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP)
 problem created by aggregation of local data into higher-order
units for statistical analysis
o summary calues for given higher-order units are
influenced by specific choice of boundaries , since areal
units are modifiable
 gerrymandering
 problem b/c borders are human made and often arbitrary
 allows us to perform cross-country analysis holding political units
constant over time
 Problems with GIS analysis
 Subnational analysis, processes of diffusion between units
make assumption of independence of internal causal processes
less tenable
 Difficult to use to analyze higher levels of aggregation
 Difficult when relevant info is outside of geo space
o GIS and Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Public
Administration
 Geographically informed studies of party systems/ethnic relations ,
election fraud, etc
 Relationships of supra-nat orgs to sub-nat, risk of war etc
 Near-absence of research in public admin using GIS
 Ironic
 Conclusion
o All political actors/action grounded in geographical space
 o GIS can test existing theories through new data/research designs, theory-
building
 Questions to Text:
o Was bedeutet es, wenn Daten “geocoded“ sind? Wie kann man das in der
Forschungsrealitä t machen?
 Daten ist erst zum GPS Daten ü besetzt worden und dann zum
shapefiles. Mann kann Daten z.B Volkszä hlung, Grenzen, Demografien
usw mappen und dann als GPS Datei ü bersetzen und vergleichen
o Was ist die Forschungsfrage und das Vorgehen bei Michalopoulous und
Papaoiannou?
 Die Auswirkung von ethnische Aufteilung und europä ische Einfluß auf
Afrika
 Sie haben durch GIS Software sowohl den ethnischer Konflikt in der
Regionen, in den geteilete ethnischen Gruppen sind als auch die
Engagement von diesen Gruppen in den Konflikten untersucht und
zusä tzlich die Lebensstandards und den Bildungsstand der Mitglieder
der ethnischen Gruppen
 Haben Geodaten und historische Grenzen mit moderne
Grenzen vergleicht um rauszufinden, welche ethnischen
Gruppen geteilte werden wurde und die folgende Auswirkung
zu analysieren.
 Country ethnic area
GIS and the Spatial Dimensions of American Politics – Cho and Gimpel
 Analysis of point patterns, cluster detection, diffusion of influence, measurement of
spatial relationships involving proximity, distance, flow, interaction
 Map= graphic representation of all aspects of cultural and physical environment
o Mapping adds sociospatial dimenstion
 Social processes operating in space make patterns
 Colocation
o Offers clues to causes
o Ex: John Snow’s mapping of Cholera deaths in London 1854
 GIS software can manage spatial data, identify spatial relationships, measure spatial
concepts, make spatial predictions
o Analysis measures spatial interaction, flow, density, shape, distance,
proximity
 GIS and Politics
o Depict, define/redefine district boundaries
o Politics inherently spatial, US governing juriscitions are defined by clear geo
boundaries
o People/politics shaped by this geography, influenced by their context
 o can place actions of individuals in the context of neighborhood because
behavior/actions are influenced by it
 Pioneering Efforts and Contextual Theories
o V.O Key mapped local voting allegiances reconstruction south
 Friends and neighbors voting- one gets votes from localities close to
home base , “native son” candidate
o Social theories of behavior shown through mapping
o Individuals limited in social interactions by space
o LISA= local indicators of spatial autocorrelation
o Lottery-state example
 Range of Applications
o International relations subfield leads the way
o Exploratory Spatial Analysis
 Geocoding is the process of attaching GPS coordinates to geographic
data like addresses, zip codes, district numbers, county identifiers etc
 Then can be mapped and understood by GIS software
 Can measure distance and proximity with program
 Choropleth maps
 Thematic maps shaded with different values to indicate
regional variation
o Ex: Presidential election maps
 Helps visualize political landscape , hightlight clusters, show
variability and geographic distribution of data
 Election returns by precinct, residuals from count models,
kriging prediction values and variances, normal votes by
country, sociodemographic variables by tract , coefficients
from geographically weighted regression, campaign
contributions by zip code etc
 Obama Stimulus Pacakage example
o Unemployment, forclosures, spending
o No concentration of funding for areas hit hardest by
recession
 Spatial statistics in GIS software
 I, c , LISA
 Point Pattern Analysis, Getis-Ord Gi
 Similar to I or LISA, asses local clustering of values/spatial
autocorrelation
 Positive Gi cluster of high values, negative cluster of low,
middle random
 K and L
 Test null hypothesis of spatial randomness
 o K calculated by dividing number of observations by
average density of operations in a defined area
 Quantifies concentration/dispersion
o L= normalization of K, preferred b/c easier to interpret
 Including Spatial Constructs in Traditional Analyses
o Use GIS to attch geographic characteristic or construct distance/prozimity to
aspatial models like linear or limited dependent variable models
 Ex: Gimpel and candidate/donors
 Spatial Econometric Analysis
o Geographic data analysis has many successive levels
 Simple description-use GIS to visualize and describe
 Use GIS software for exploratory spatial data analysis, covariation,
colocation, develop theory/hypotheses
 Test hypotheses, use spatial statistical models to explain and predict
spatial outcomes
o Spatial econometric models are different in how they treat spatial units,
recognize that individuals are parts of larger groups
 Focuses on role of spatial processes
o Random coefficient models /multilevel models
o Spatial lag and Spatial error models
 Aim to examine theories which say that context matters in politics,
find unique patterns in geographic units, behavior in geographic units
is related/affected by behavior in nearby areas
 Spatial dependence
 Control for a set of covariates and spatial variable remains
significant then
o Spatial lag models
 pattern observed is consistent with a
neighborhood effect
 used with contagion theories/diffusion
processes
 implies influence of a neighboring unit has direct
effect on an individuals behavior
 indirect
o spatial error model
 or is attributable to an
unobserved/unmeasurable variable
 implies spatial patterning is result of
unmeasured covariates
 modified areal unit problemresults of data analysis are
influenced by number/sizes of georgraphic units used to
organize the data
  Statistically, if spatial processes underlie the behavior of
interest but are not accounted for in the model, inferences will
be inaccurate and coefficient estimates may be biased.
Erroneously ignoring spatial dependence (in the form of a
spatial lag) may create bias and inconsistency in the same way
that we understand the omitted-variable problem to affect
ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates
 If ses ignored, simple inefficiency in the estimates, and biased
standard errors
o Geographically weighted regression models
 Used when one cannot identify a specific geographic range to define
neighborhoods
 Local analysis as a means for understanding spatial effects in greater
detail
 Allows for variance in neighborhood size
 Spatial nonstationarity in coeffictits
 Model heterogeneity in contextual processes, capture different
coefficients
 Capture local variation in effect size
 Semivariograms and kriging
o Kriging= spatial prediction
o Use semivariogram to asses extent of spatial autocorrelation
 (si, s j) = 1 2Var[Z(si) − Z(s j)], where si and sj represent two locations
and Z(si) is some attribute at location sj.
 At close locations attributes similar
 Further apart, less similar attributes, increase in variance
o Kriging is a class of geostatistical methods from earth science and the work of
MAtheron (1963)
 Named after D.G Krige a South African miner/engineer
 Used to predict values at unsampled points based on known values in
surrounding areas
 Has been used to study animal populations, epidemiology,
estimate population, income etc
o Spatially and socially networked phenomena
o Regionalized variable theory suggests that the variation in a spatially
distributed variable can be explained by three components:
 (a) a structural component characterized by a constant mean, or
trend;
 (b) a random but spatially dependent component, which is the
variation of the regionalized variable; and
 c) spatially uncorrelated random error
  Applications
o Policy diffusion
o Friends-and-neighbors voting
o Voter turnout
o Voter geography
o Vote choice
o Donor geography
o Ecological inference
o Campaign strategy
o Origins of racial attitudes
 Future Applications
o Constructs relating to interaction, location, distance, proximity, and scale
o Relationship of behavior to social/political phenomena at multiple scales
o Influence of social networks
o Optimal location of public services
 Questions to text:
o Was ist Colocation?
 Eine rä umliche Beziehung zwischen non spatial und spatial merkmale,
die eine Einfluß auf einander haben z.B Cholera mapping,
wasserquelle hat mit dem Pest zu tun
 Wie covariation aber mit geodaten
 Correlation von punkte die relativ nah bei einander sind, haben
ä hnliche auswirkung
o Welche Entwicklungsbereiche der politikwissenschaftlichen GIS-Analysen
nennt der Text?
 Explorative rä umliche Analysen
 Rä umliche econometric analysen
 Spatial lag oder error models
 Kriging
o Welche GIS-Analysestrategien werden genannt und was ist jeweils deren
Logik?
30/10/2019
 Diffusion in powi, mehr wie policy lernen
 For hw do steps 1-3
6/11/2019
 Presidential election USA 2016
o Land doesnt vote people do
o Traditional election maps show states/counties, not population proportion
o Kartogramme
  Zeigt reales große eines gebeits (distored map)
 Verschiedene ebene um daten zu zeigen oder analysieren
o Purple america
o Dasymetric dot density
 Each dot is a voter
o Value by alpha
 Color based on population concentration from actual voters
 No map can tell whole story, people however take them as whole truth, all maps
show different versions of the truth
 type=’city’
 population > 250000
 Finish second exercises
For 13/11/19
Unmasking geographic polariztion and clustering: a Micro-scalar analysis of partisan voting
behavior- Kinsella et al
 Geographic polarization= spatial concentration of “like” voting behavior, related to
partisan polarization=intensification of diametrically ideological positions
o American electoral behavior
 Electoral geography- geo aspects of org, condut, results of elections
o Divisions in voting behavior/partisanship can be seen in geo of voting
surface
 “voters cannot be regarded as scattered at random over the various constituencies”
 Common to use electoral districts to examine cleavages
 Examination of direct democracy provides insight into voter attitudes in certain
spaces
 Gay rights votes
o Traditionalists vs modernizers
o Traditionalists
 Small town, status quo, blue collar
 Married with kids, manufacturing
o Modernizers
 Urban, higher education, soc and pol change
 Higher soc econ status, younger, service sector
o Analysis Colorado Ammendment 2
 Socio-econ status major predictor of support/opposition to gay rights,
rural/urban divide
o Oregon
 Rural/urban divide
 Relationship between voting against gay rights and for republican
gov/pres
 o Georgia
 Looked first at spatial vote of state house members to put issue on
ballot, then looked at actual vote
 Argue urban/rural divide, but “creative class” areas like atlanta are
best predictor for support of gay rights
o Alabama
 Relig/trad values, and demographics of trad/mod explain ban on gay
marriage
 Debate over geographic polarization
o Clustering of people who are like-minded/similar backgrounds=homophily
 Neighborhood effect, contextual effects
 Explore relationship between homophiliy and partisan concentrations/political
enclvaes in precincts
 The geography of polarization
o Polarization happens when voters adopt diametrically ideological positions
 Centrists diminish, more at extremes
 Result of increasing numbers of polarized political opinions of
individuals
o Geographic polarization says these people over time are increasingly found
in geo concentrations
o Strong relationship between partisanship and ideology if electorate is
spatially sorted based on socio-cultrual demographics and ideologies AND if
partisan concentrations are a sresult of soting
o If geo pol increases, then should find difference in spatial patterns of
persistent partisan voting behavrior
 Socio-eco resdistribution of pop after urbanization
 Geo soting resulting from socio-cult migrations
 Suggests polarization is result of people moving to like-minded
areas, and that it has increased since 1976
 People with choice will find like minded and move
o Gimpel and Schuknecht 2002
 Regional variations of partisan voting behavior, measures spatial
autocorrelation of political party vote percentages in certain
presidential years
 Found spatial patterns prevalent in many states revealed
importance of suburban development alongside concentration
of Dem in urban cores
 Political battlegrounds now in suburbs and smaller cities
 Rep away from urban, dem in core
o Bishop and Cusing and Abramowitz
 Political polarization has not resulted in geo pol
  Argue party registrations and not voting results more accurately
measure political affinity and mitigate appearance of geo pol
o Few studies on geo pol in micro scale
 Could maybe connect metropolitan variation and geo pol and shed
light on spatial voting patterns
o Voter Tabulation Districts show increased in geo pol in Texas 1996-2010,
leads to partisan divisions btwn urban and rural
o Some studies say voters with socio cult similarities clusters, overs that
americans don’t intereact with each other esp in suburbs
o Parties use spatial electoral data when campaigning, reinforces spatial
patterns
o This study finds that American voters are increasingly geographically
polarized in greater Cincinnati metro. Area , suggest large urban cores are
likely to experience similar socio cultural demo shifts
 Found partisan concentrations in political enclaves/neighborhoods
where voters had spatial pattern of like-minded voting
 Longitudinal analysis investigated partisan voting within metro area
at micro scale, shows spatial dynamics of partisan voting, increased
geo pol, development of political enclaves
 Methods and analysis
o Cincinnati metro area, considered rep stronghold 1976-2008, suburban
expansion and pop growth, concentrations of min in urban, econ/racially
diverse neighborhoods
o Precinct =smallest unit, hard to measure because change over time
o 2008 precint boundaries used as precint template for study, historical
electoral results were retrofitted for analysis
 Left blank if not possible
 At end, had 1950 precincts in the 15 counties (880 in Hamilton)
o Looked at 9 pres elections between 1976 and 2008
 Data analysis
o Data temporal and spatial, so created autocorrelation (describes how
elements of a time series correlate, coefficients measure correlations btwn
observations
 Added ljung-box Q stat to test null hypothesis of autocorrelation
 Positive autocorrelation when it has a steady change, if it
fluctuates, then negative
 And I to add spatial correlation and indicate whether neighboring
area units have similar values of a particular attribute resulting in
positive spatial autocorr or vice versa , test null hypo of spatial
randomness
 Findings and discussion
 o Used percentage of rep vote as variable to measure degree to which geo pol
was observable
o If serial autocorrelation positive indicates trending increases/decreases in
value of the percent rep var over time, if negative suggests notable and
frequent movement above and below avg value or that variable over time
o 730 significant autocorrelation, 17 positive, 3 increasing trend, 2 decreasing
(show decrease in % of republican voters)
o Half of all precincts with significant positive serial autocor were in Hamilton
county
o 713 precincts had significant negative autocorrelation, mostly in Hamilton
county, in outer fringes of metro area, could be because urban
development/movement to suburbs, may signifiy weak geo pol
o Global I confirms presence of significant spatial autorcorr
o Local I confirms clusters of republican voters which has increased and spreat
outwardly
 Increase of high-low precincts
 Conclusions
o Micropatterns reveal strong geo pol in growing political enclaves
o Increasing levels of clusters of like-minded political behavior overtime within
metro area
o By 2000 showed urban core of dem oppoisition voting, urban v suburban,
exurban vs rural
o Buffer zones=political battleground
o Suggests relationship between partisan political behavior and population
redistribution b/c of urbanization and/or socio-cult sorting
Spatial and political realignment of the US electorate 1988-2012-Morrill Webster
 Democrats get more votes because have denser urban electorate
o Not whole picture, has to do social as well as city vs country
 Type of change by county
o Increased rep two-party vote shares, decreasing, shift from dem to rep,
increased dem two-party vote shares, decreasing, shift from rep to dem maj
 Look at presidential vote
o Evaluate growth/decline in partisan change, geographic summary of the
evolution of spatial and political realignment
 Almost half of all counties (1,411) dem decline, net rep gain in votes , dem increased
2-party shares in 274 counties but 8.8 mil vote gain (vs. rep 6.1 mil)
 Each county assigned a number for change
o 1=rep vote higher in 2012 than 1988
 Largest= Utah county Utah 161,000 vote difference
o 2= rep vote smaller in 2012 than 1988 but still rep county
  Orange county, cali, 247,000 vote margin decline
o 3=voted dem 1988, rep in 2012
 Westmoreland county, PA 55,4000 votes
o 4=dem higher in 2012 than 1988
 LA 1.2 mil diff
o 5=dem smaller in 2012 than 1988, but still dem
 Allegheny county, PA 27,500
o 6= rep 1988 dem 2012
 San Diego, 286,000
 Rep becoming counties mostly in the plains from Canada to gulf, and non-metro nw,
border from Tx/AK/MO, Appalachia
 Biggest dem gains metro cali/flo, exurban NYC/philly/dc/Chicago N. NE, amenity
rich areas in Idaho/Co / other conservative
 Rep decline dom- great lakes, exurban edges of ny/pa/nj/md/va, rual ares with
enviro/latino, some south
 Dem decline- some urban cores like alleghny, mosly forest/farming areas in upper
Midwest
 Switch dem to rep, mostly Appalachia w pa through WV , VA, TN, AL, also non-metro
areas of TX, OK, AR, LA
 Switch rep to dem- norther NE/NY, MA/CT/NJ/MD/VA/PA, also in CA/Hispanic,
also other urban/uni areas
 Since 1988 move from left and right to conservative vs progressive
o Legal demographic revolutions race, gender, religion, household type,
dominance of metro proffs and enviro concerns
 Al gore anti coal 2000
o Secularization/increase in non-white pop doesn’t help rep
o Local experience also impacts vote
o Increased polarization, purple states cine 1992
 Making sense of the shifting US electoral landscape- Barney Warf
o Increasingly neoliberal policies of rep, rising demo diversity, urbanization,
globalization
 More right, defende wealthy
 Redistricting, citizens united decision allows unlimited
campaign contributions
 Rep mobilizae white working class voters , racism
 Tea party=manifestation of elderly white racism
 White voters decline 81% 2000, 75% 2012
 Some states min-maj CA, HI, NM, TX
 Milenials trend dem, 60% under 30 voted Obama 2012
 Urban exposed to more cultures, travel more, increased ed
 o Thinks with new social movements/urbanization, rep will become fewer and
further between
 Regional realignement:Appalachia and the Upper South-Kenneth Martis
o Civil War and Great Depression=voting epochs
o 1988 George HW 53.4% of vote, 5.4% less than Reagan in 84, 1992
problematic, Ross Perot received 20% of vote as 3rd party
o Large pop changes between 1988 and 2012, rep more conserve, dem more
liberal
o 1964-1988 south became more rep, esp Appalachia/upper south, dem gained
in metro areas on e/w coasts, Midwest/N
o Analyzed WV
o 1988-1996 WV v dem, 2000 started to change, confirmed 2004/8, solidified
2012 1988 52.2% dem, 2012 35.5% dem
o Appalachia high percent rural elderly white traditional conservatice
 Changes more due to party/candidate change than population change
o 2000 Al Gore vs Bush, coal and gun control (show econ/social desires)
 Race, Religion, and the polarization of US Politics- Fiona Davidson
o MS 2012 43.5% rep vote, only 11% of whites voted for Obama, lowest in
nation
o Race and religion driving at least part of polarization
o Counties which rep increased, universally older, whiter, less cohabiting,
religious, poorer, less educated, blue collar, rural, transitpoor areas
o Not suburbanization which decreases dem vote, but racial composition
(more whites)
o US becoming more racially diverse, less religious =problem for rep, precense
of tea party/evangelical vote prevent more moderate policies , maybe needs
to split
 Section and Settlement in the 1988 and 2012 Presidential Elections- J. Clark Archer
o Color coded proportional circles on voting map avoids over emphasis
o Persistent geopolitical cleavages between North, South, and West
o 4/5 US pop in metro counties, 1/10 in micropolitan, the rest outside core-
based statistical areas
 Elections, voting, subjectivities, and place in recent US presidential elections
o 1988 height of farm crisis, low commodity prices, low farm incomes, high
levels of debt and dispoessesion , farmers turned against rep
o Changes result of longterm intense political-economic restructuring, multi-
scale neoliberalizations of various kinds and related processes of class, race,
gender, sexual/intersectional reconfiguration
 Ex: Appalachia identity, white, masculine, hetero, coal
 Demography, migration, ethnicity, and ideology: can democrats dominate US
Presidential Elections in the years ahead- Fred Shelly
 o 1992-2012 dem dominance in pres, 4:2, 2000 more pop votes

13/11/2019
 Finish 3a
Candidate localness and voter choice in the 2015 General Election in England-Evans et al
 Said people the closer in distance to a candidate, the more likely they are to vote for
them
o This study looked closer at candidate-voter distance and other mitigating
factors
o Show that candidate-voter distance mattered in election, helps measure
voter information, candidate presence and marginality
 Contiguity mattered, candidates living in non-neighbouring
constituencies had lower likelihood of vote than those who did
 Introduction
o Distance-based models on neighborhood effect have been potentially
wrongly/under-specified because rely on measures of distance rather than
perceptions thereof, candidates location of origin/length of residence in
constituency
o Higher likeliehood of vote at lower distances in several studies in England
o Want to extend analysis to include models with a fuller specification of
perceptions of localness and consider how voter information and party
supply may moderate distance effects
o 2015 General UK election, English constituencies
 Show that although effect size smaller than previous tests, candidate-
voter distance mattered
 Candidate localness and voter knowledge
o Perceptual vs behavioral candidate localness
 Perceptual uses opinion poll and survey data to gauge importance
voters attach to localness , no direct distance test
 Can also account for birthplace/roots/length of time
somewhere
 relies on voters demonstrating/stating importance of
candidate and rep attributes
 behavioral infers importance of localness using ecological models of
vote share and indv voting behavior, testing localness and proximity
 friends and neighbors mechanism
o vs. neighborhood effects which include predominant
political persuasion of the area in question
  assumes conceptual justification from friends and neighbors
argument and empirical support from the perceptual approach
with survey data/artificial election scenarios
o contact with candidate is not necessary or sufficient for assuming knowledge
of their background by the voters , rather this derives from multiple sources
 at a minimum in England during voting because the
address/constitutency of candidate is on the ballot
o incumbency matters but doesn’t necessarily trump distance effect
o perceived localness as control for distance
o need to control for selection by parties of local candidates to ensure high
visibility and contact
o predictions
 controlling for party preference/incumbency, voters will be more
likely to vote for a closer geographic candidate
 location based on territorial contiguity rather than distance, voters
will vote for someone living in their constituency or neighboring more
than non-neighboring
 will vote for candidate with perceived higher localness and for whom
they have more information about or has contacted them
 want to see if party strength account for the distance effect , which
indicates positioning of candidates in areas of previous strength
 Data and Method
o Vote, voter knowledge and party pref collected in two-wave internet panel ,
597 foters in 532 of 533 english constituencies (not Buckingham because
speaker of house of commons)
o Asked 11 thermometer questions on 4 main parties to control for paryy
preference
 Conservative, labour, liberal democrats, UKIP
o Ranked candidates on 4-point localness scale
 Included “don’t know” option to understand if lack of awareness of
localness is worse for a candidate than being perceived as an outsider
nd
o 2 wave was vote results
o Used postal codes to map localness used fractional polynomial
transformation of distance effect in model to see if a log-transformed or
other power-transformed measure fit the data better, but linear was best
o Contiguity measures generated using sdep and spatial packages in R to
identify neighbouring and non-neighbouring constituencies
o Found
 Candidates seen as more local do live closer to the voters, those seen
as “very local” have high levels of localness
  But wide variation, and large lack of awareness for localness of
candidates
 Looked at contact by leaflet
 Weak neg correlation for conserve, labour, lib dems, weak pos
for UKIP
o ran series of alternative-specific multinomial probit models to predict vote
likelihood for each party using both case-specific variables like age/gender
and alternative-specific variables like distance
 difference between mnp and asmp, asmp treats the choices made by
each respondent as obeservations, produes stacked data matrix
thereof
o IIA- irrelevant alternatives
 Odds of preferring party A over B are not affected if new paties added
or old removed
 Violated if party C is perfect substitute
 Should restrict multinomial and conditional logit analysis to when
choices are perceived as distinct by each decision maker
o ASMP as precaution against IIA assumes error terms have joint multivariate
normal distribution
o Model 1a indicates distance matters even controlling for party/incumbency
o Model 1b, voters no more likely to cote for someone in their own
constituency vs the one next door
o Models 2a and 2b add localness variable to distance model
 Clear relationship between perceived localness and distance, other
variables of localness to explain variance
 Candidates ranked as fairly local or very are more likely to be voted
 Not being local or hardly local isn’t more harmful than not knowing
localness
o Model 3a and 3b candidate profile/contact, marginality indices
 Strong covariation between profile/contact/marginality washes out
significane of profile index , reduces explanotry power of candidate
profile index
 Marginality significant esp in close races
 Higher levels of contact increase probability of vote
o Incumbants have built in advantage, stronger campaigning of opponents
does have an effect though
 Discussion
o Distance effect found in 2010 persists in 2015 even accounting for more
variables
o Voters prefer candidates in a more local environment, their constituency or
neighboring , contiguity
 But weaker than distance
 o Candidate origin/roots also worth investigating, probably significant, effects
voter knowledge
o Should explore gender/ethnicity/occupation/attractiveness , don’t think
they impact distance effect though
Politics, Time, Space, and Attitudes toward US-Mexico Border Security-Gravelle
 how have attidues toward border security shifted 2006-2016 in response to
changes in the partisan political climate?
 How does spatial context (proximity to us-mexico border) shape attitudes toward
proposed border wall?
 Find that time and space along with individual-level political attitudes key factors to
shaping attitudes toward us-mexico border security
 Introduction
o Borders shape social phenomena within which they occur
o Debate over relevance of borders in time of globalization
o Study of American politics shows borders do matter
 After 9/11 closed borders airspace disrupted trade
 Secure fence act of 2006, built 700 miles of fencing along us-mex
border to protect against human traffickers and drug smugglers
o Us-mex border in 2016 election , executive order to build in 2017, used in
negotiations against DACA
o Want to fill gap on study of public support for specific border security
initiatives
 Use data 20006-2016 to explore political factors like party id and
ideology, time, and space inclufence attitudes toward wall
 Public Opinion and Border Issues
o 2000 survey showed 18% of americans in favor of doing away with Mexican
border, 42% with Canadian , post 9-11 found 69% wanted common border
security policy with Canada
o Eu studies, if closer to border, more in favor of eu
o Proximity to us canda border shapes attitudes towards us-canada relations,
cloer proximity increasing support among supporters of right of center
parties, decrease support for leftist
o Residents of us-mex border states, more likely to say immigration is most
important problem
 Democrats near border more likely to support anti-immigrant
legislation than those far away , republicans support regardless
 Proximity to us-mex border amplifies partisan divide on issue of
illegal immpgration
 Dems close to border increases support for allowing
undocumented to stay, rep decreases
 Theory and Hypothesis
o Out-group derogation, distinguish self from other group (rep vs dem)
o Most recent border policy was advance/identified as rep/right-wing admins
 Dems see as pointless/pernicious
o Reps more likely to support more security/ conservatives, restrictionist
policy, higher defense spending
o H1: rep more likely to support us-mex border fence/wall than dems
o H2: ideological libs less likely to support us-mex border fence/wall than
conservatives
o Expects magnititude of cleavage to increase over time b.c pol polarization
o 2006 support from dems mixed, Clinton, Obama, biden voted for secure fence
, 2016 trumped stoked anti-im sentiment , anxieties about illegeal im
o H3: partisan differences between reps and dems in support a us-mex border
fence/wall will be greater when border security is more salient
o H4: Ideological differences between conservatives and libs in support a us-
mex border fence/wall will be greater when border security is more salient
o Expect effects of partisanship/ideology to vary overtime, interactive
relationship between party id and time and ideology and time
o Proximity to us-mex border, aspect of space, likely plays role in shaping
attitudes toward security issues
 Space vs place
 Space location or area on eaeth, place unique locales with
distinctive characteristics
o In border zone, militarization, checks, apprehensions lead to seeing border as
threat
 Border research studies area as places not spaces
o indv near border more likely to represent it in terms of concrete aspects,
increase sense of threat , local media environment more cofused
o indv further from border more likely to represent it abstractly in regard to
polcieis about immigration
o H5: Individuals living closer to us-mex border, more likely to support border
fence/wall, further away less likely
 Data and Methods
o Used surveys conducted over the years about attitudes toward
border/immigration
 Asked if in favor of border/fence/wall
o Used data from lower 48 and DC
o from 2006-2015 46-49% americans supported, 43-48% opposed , 2016 only
36-40%
o took demographic variables into account, as well as wording of question
fence vs wall
 o used zip codes to perform approximate or areal geocoding of respondents ,
assigned approx. lat-long coordinates, accounted for distance decay function ,
effects of proximity-distacne to salient geographic features diminish as
distance increases
o positive correlation between proximity to border and Hispanic
concentration, include measures of loval ethnic context as covariates in
regression analyses
o binary logistic regression as modeling approach, fit to the multiply imputed
data
 Results and Discussion
o Framing question with wall vs fence didn’t influence support
o Support for increased border infra higher among men, older people, those
without college education
o Support lower among women, young americans, college ed
o No difference between ethnicities/races but Hispanics less likely to favor
construction of wall
o No effects for county-level concentration of Hispanic pop or change in
Hispanic concentration over time
o Predictors say that less support for border fence/wall as one moves fro the
east to the west of the us
o Rep more likely to support than dems, same with conservatives , support H1
and H2
o Partisan gap widened over time, 2016 dems became even less likely to
support wall , support H3, rep and dem identifiers became more polarized
but only more recently
o Moderates less likely to support fence/wall in 2016 than any other time ,
change little before , support H4
o Further from border, less support for fence/wall, closer, more
o Support H5
o Residents near border have more visual cues in physical environment, more
contact , increase feeling of threat and thus support, and vice versa
 Conclusion
o American attitudes toward border more recently polarized
reps/conservatives stable over past decade in support, dems from
ambivalence to rejecting
o Proximity to border increases support for border fence or wall regardless if
dem or rep
 Probs b/c visual cures and local media
What about those also near Canada esp in 100km zone, compared to those outside
those areas?
Threatening Events and Anti-refugee Violence…Jä ckle and Kö nig
 Violence against refugees in Germany 2015-2016
 Test if 3 events prompt violence
o Violence/crime committed by refugees
o Police raids against Islamic fundamentalists
o Terrorist attacks in Germany/neighboring countries
 Investigates whether violence is mobilized through public statements by politicians
of anti-imm parties
o Results suggest yes
o Statements seem to be prompted by preceding threatening events
 Terrorist attacks in neighboring countries most significant
 Introduction
o Large gap between xenophobic sentiment (high) and violent actions (low)
o Structural factors help explain spatial/temporal distribution of violence
o Social disorganization but not econ deprivation leads to more xenophobic
violence
o Occurrence of xeno violence indicates likelihood of more to follow esp
nearby
o Mass media can have an impact, as well as publicly visible events like terror
attacks
o Types of events have potential to associate refugees with threat to people or
social cohesion
o Multi-level logistic regression along with model specifications, district-days
on lowest level, districts on second, german laender on highest level
 Attacks on Refugees in Germany in the Past Years
o 890,000 refugees arrived in 2015 in Germany
o Attacks on refugees x5 increase 2015-16
o Chronik fluechtlingsfeindlicher Vorfaelle
 Personal injuries
 Arson attacks on refugee accommodations
 Other attacks on accommodations
 Hostile demonstrations against refugees
o Group first 3 types together, ignore demos
o Major increase in level of violence against refugees during 2015 and 2016,
berlin, hamburg, munich stand out
 Also eastern Germany, esp Saxony
 Theoretical Assumptions and hypotheses
o Violence against refugees proportionally rare
o Shed light on why violence against refugees takes place more often at certain
times/places
 o Outgroups can be seen as threats if seen as competitors for scarce econ
resources or cultural/identity based motives
o Size of outgroup/increase can impact
 But contact theory says repreated interaction with out-group
members reduces fear increases tolerance
o Terrorist attacks, even far away lead to more negative opinion on immigrants
and support of restrictive immigrant policy
 Existential threat prompts need for feeling of control, thus emphasize
important ingroup identity
 Retribution
o H1: When a threatening event takes place, the probability of attacks on
refugees temporarily rises
 Terrorist attacks, criminal acts by refugees, police raids against
islamists
 Proximity as strong indicator of perceived social releance
o Terrorism in neighboring countries likely to have
similar effect as domestic
o H2: When politicians of anti-immigration parties depict refugees as
threatening in media reporting, the probability of attacks on refugees
temporarily increases
 Data and Method
o Binary dependent variable from Chronik… indicates whether on a given day
between 1.1.2015-31.12.2016 one of the following 3 types of attacks on
refugees took place in 1/402 german districts
 Personal industries
 Arson attacks on refugee accommodations
 Other attacks on accommodations
 293,862 observations, 4,098 attakcks
o Used Spiegel online to find info about independent variables attacks
 1,269 articles screen for relevant events, 861 from Die Welt
 Also added warnings of terror attacks in addition to actual
attacks
o Day with attack score is increased by 1, reduced by ¾ every succeeding day
o 1,008 articles from search refugee+AfD/CSU
o Days coded with 1 if there is an article, 86 days, reduce by ¾ the next day
o Structural variables
 Unemployment rates, education attainment, election turnout , people
with immigrant bacgrkound , number of official recipients of asylum
benefits , party variable 2013/14 elections
 Controls for number of inhabitants, number of males, summer period,
and work day
 o Multilevel logistic model for analysis
 Empirical Analysis
o Effect for police raids against Islamic fundamentalists is negligible
o Incidents of violence and crime from refugees and terror attacks in
neighboring countries strongly spark attacks on refugees in following days ,
but not german terror attacks at all
 Attacks in Germany complicated, also usually smaller
o Statements by politicians encourages as well
 Public statements by anti-imm parties matter the most, followed by
more attacks on refugees, statements induced in part by preceding
incidents of violence and crimes by refugees
o Distance of closest attack/demo in preceding period has a highly significant
negative effect, cumulated number of attacks in a district highly significant
positive effect
o Unemployment on district level unexpected negative significant effect
 Greater economic deprivation in a distrct lowers probability of attacks
 Contradicts theory of competition
o Contact theory confirmed
o More fatalities increases probability of attack
o No localized radiating effect
o Effect from negative cueing/terror in neighboring countries is strongest for
days, for terror attacks/warnings in Germany 1 day
 Conclusion
o Variable for threatening events consistently influential-terro
attacks/warnnings, gravity of attack not much impact
o Media statements by politicians about refugees lead to increase of attacks on
refs in following days
Do 3b for 27.11
The Legacy of Historical Conflict: Evidence from Africa-Besley
 Variation between and within countries, compare legacy of recorded conflicts in
Africa with the precolonial period (1400-1700)
o Show historical conflict correlated with more postcolonial conflict, lower
levels of trust, higher sense of ethnic identity, weaker national identity
o Historical conflict negativel correlated with patterns of development
 Introduction
o Conflicts most prevalent in poor weakly inst. Countries
o Conflict prev high in Africa 8.5% of years since 1950 conflict, vs 5% in the
world
o Conflict in af not only post-col phenomenon
 o Before col, Africa divided into tribes/kingdoms
o Indirect rule colonial period
 But created new borders
o Located 91 conflicts in af between 1400-1700
 Persistent conflict after could be do to above, or intereaction btwn
geography, natural resources, and patterns of settlements, no link
with weak inst. At country level
o Use data on conflicts subnat level between 1997-2010 to show historical
conflict leads to more recent conflict and lower econ devel
o Precolonial continuity in form of political organization
 Political Violence
o 4 main typical hypotheses for why afr conflict prone
 Natural resource dependent
 Weak and poorly functioning pol inst
 Ethnic fragmentation/polarization
 Ethnic polarization more positively correlated with conf
 Endemic poverty
 Reduces opportunity cost of fighting
o Trend over time to move away from small group identities to national
 Historical Legacies
o Hist conf have determinants in soc, pol, geo, eco context of regions at the time
of conf
 Geography /land can be reason for conf, nat. resources
o Measure physical geo at grid cell level, geo of pol org in old kingdoms of afr
o Conf can affect ev of eco, pol, soc outcomes
 Distrust btwn social groups, poorer regions, choice of pol inst
 Data and Measurement
o Hist conf in afr from conflict catalogue of Brecke, from 3 main sources
 32 or more deaths
o Identified modern country of hist confli and specific geo location
o Between-country analy
 Variable =prev of confl btwn 1400-1700, # of years
 Ex: mean 5.13 years, range 0-91 years, stand. Dev 15.17 years
 Dummy variable=1 if country had any violent confl
o 3546 country-grid cells across 49 countries in Africa, 1 if confl 0 is no
 GIS code each confl w/ modern country
 Size of dots=# of conflicts at each location if more than 1
o Match data with info from Armed Confl Location Event Data
 Gives GIS codes for afr conflict 1997-2010
o Post-indep conflict mean of 2.4 years between countries who had had hist
confl
 o Hist confli occurred in places more densely pop in 1400
o Hist confl more likely in capital city modern /where cities were in 1400
 Conflict and Political Development in the History of Africa
o Civil wars common
o Process of territorial consolidation led to emergence of afr kingdoms
 23
 Found hard to consolidate power over wide areas, borders
porous, conflict
o Conflicts x2 likely to occur in grids of hist king
 Between Country Evidence
o yj = α + βcj + γxj + εj ,
 where yj is the outcome of interest in country j, α is the intercept, cj is
the historical conflict variable, and xj are other controls whichwe
describe aswe go.
o Each additional year of hist conflc=.12 years (2months) of confl post-col (10
years more of postcol confl)
o Dummy variable sfor yellow fever and ruggedness of terrain?
o Add in repression as measurement, purges
 Countries with hist of confl more likely to have
o Slave trade variable/pop dens 1400
 Slavery does not disrupt corr with war preve btwn 1400-1700
o Angola and Ethopia as outliers
o Countrywith hist conflict 5% lower gdp per cap in 2000
o No corr with expropriation risk/strength of checks/balances
o Afrobaramoter
 Attitudinal questions
 2008, 18 countries , 25,397 respondents
 Not administered in countries w/ ongoing conflict
 Asked about trust between groups, self-ascribed identiy
 Pos and sig corr between only a sense of ethnic id and hist confl in
country
 Within Country Evidence
o Look at level of devel and nat pol inst
o Corr between hist confl and more recent conflict/levels of econ devel
o Our core empirical specification is: yj _ = μj + βdj _ + γxj _ + εj _, (1)
 where yj _ is the outcomemeasure in grid cell _ in country j , μj is a
country fixed effect, dj _ is either our old conflict dummy which is
equal to 1 if there was historical conflict in grid cell _ in country j , and
xj _ are other grid cell controls.
o Luminosity at night for proxy for devel from NOAD
o Confl in cell 15% more likely confl in 1997-2010
 o Pop dens pos corr with confl
o More confl on rough terrain
o Pos corr hist confl and modern confl
o Neg corr econ devel
o Robustness/Controls
 Hist confl around urban centers, increases likelihood of confl by 14%
 No corr between ethn diversity and confl
 Slave pos corr but not sig
 Cap city in cell, recent confl 15% more likely
 With all controls, having confl in cell precol, 8% more likely postcol
 Conclusions
o Is corr between hist confli and recent confl
o Country-level attitudes infl by conflict
o Regional pattern of devel corr with pattern of hist conf

Accounting for Scale:Measuring Geography in Quantitative Studies of Civil War- Buhaug,

Lujala 2005
 Argue that it’s a problem that analysis of civil wars focuses on country-level data,
when they are often geographically limited
 Use GIS to generate precise measures of space-varying factors at confl scales
o Demonstrate that country stats =poor approx. of conflict zones
 Introduction
o Geo factors long through of as important for study of war
 Esp: terrain, subsoil assets, pop distr, eth div
o Typically, risk/duration of civil war thought to be higher in remote, rural
districts with an eth/relig min, rough mountainous/forested terrain and with
valued natural resources
o Most studies ignore local conditions and use country data instead
 Argue that this doesn’t work when conflict is unit of observation esp if
confl spatially limited/simultaneously occurring within a country
o Use GIS to generate geo measures unique to each confl zone
 Compare sample means for several indicators of terrain/nat
resources
 T-test shows that all conflict-specific variables differ
significantly from corresponding variables at country level
 Conduct analy of duration of cw
 Presence of gemstones/coca cultivation increases length of
conflict, although not shown at country level
 Add variable of capital difference
 Further confl from capital=longer
 Previous Studies of Geography and Civil War
 o Civil dominant form of conlf, but hist polt geo research focused on int confl
o Natural resource dependent as newly seen important aspect of geo
 May increase econ opp and cw, neg impact regime stability and econ
growth
 But findings differ , mostly weak
o Terrain measures don’t produce consistent results
o Size/ethnic groups, also conflicting results
o Distance may play a role
o Spatial autocorr and spillover effects of civil wars
 Unit of analysis: Country or Conflict?
o Most studies fail to account for that
 Cw are subnational event, rarely in whole county
 Terrain/natural resources, pop distr, eth comp, substantial sub-nat
variation
 GIS and Studies of CW
o Global and local indicators of spatial assoc, variance pattern exploration,
distance analysis
o Cw rarely spatially contiguous
 Data Generation
o Armed Conflict dataset , all interstate/internal conflicts since 1946
 Each conflict assigned circular zone with conlf center point, radius
variable
 Could exaggerate area of confl
 Can measure distance to capital city or neighboring countries
 Look at cap dist
o Further from cap, more diff and exp for gov to control
o May view remote events as less pressing, less resources
to fix
o UNEP-WCMC, gridded mountain dataset, 1 mountain, 0 no mountain
 India 19% mountain, conflict zones 49%
o FAO forest data
o No info really on nat resources , use preliminary database for info on
gemstones, coca, cannabis, opium poppy
 Country-level var, and confl level var
o Center for Int. Earth Science Info Network at Columbia, girdded pop dens for
1990s, lack of temporal/global coverate
 Used for eth comp/pop dens
o Rainfall data from Global Precipitation Climatology Project
 Empirical test: comparison of sample means
o T-test for 2 samples
  Null hyp: ean values of country var are equal to means of
corresponding conflict var
o 252 civil conflicts between 1946-2001
o Run test for rel small conflicts where deviation to country aggregates is
presumably most evident
 <10% of country , 40% of sample conflicts
o Most conflict zones don’t mirror geo char of country
 Conflict zones less mountainous and forested than country, most don’t
overlap with lootable resources , smaller conflicts esp more likely to
have dif char than counry
 Empirical analysis: duration of civil war
o Positive coefficient increases length of war
o Multivariate regression analysis
 Var: country size, pop size, issue of incompatibility, binary indicator of
initial intensity (1 if >/=1,000 deahts within first year)
o Mountains increase, forests decrease, rain increases, more violent longer,
gemstones longer, coca longer, relative location most important-futher from
cap longer
 Future Research
Local determinants of African civil wars 1970-2001-buhuag 2006
 cw usually studied and understood at country level, but explanantions refer to
factors like eth discim, wealth inequal, access to contrabands, peripheral havens
o vary geographically within states
 disagg country , use 100x100km grid cells as units of obs
 use GIS to determine areas of peace/conflict, generate subnat measure of key
explanatory var
 African cw 1970-2001 show spatial clustering of conflict covaries with spatial distr
of several factors
o Territorial conflict more likely in sparsely pop regions by border, far from
capital, without sig rough terrain
o Confl over state governance, more likely in densely pop regions, near
diamond fields, near cap
 Introduction
o Insurgency favored by sparse pop hinterlands, support of local pop,
underdevel infra, cross-border sanctuaries, valuable contrabands, rough
terrain
 Have veen aggregated to country level
 also helped by new inst. Inconsistent poor, resource dependent,
corrupt, discrim regimes
 some consistent with countries, others not
 o ex: eth div, eco/soc inequal, unemploy, ed levels vary
throughout country
o most stat investigations done at country level but hypo pertain to sub-nat
conditions
o tendency to neglect spatial context of social phenomena
o want to look at if geo features popularly associated with insurgency can
explain onset of domestic conflict ona sub-nat scale
o used GIS version of Uppsala/PRIO dataset, conflicts represented by polygons
to reflect the geo scope of battle zones, grid cells which overlap are coded as
having cw
 assigned additional numbers for other variables
 distance from state center, share of rough terrain, pop dens,
prox to resource production, level of infrastructure, min lang
 influence of local factors vary with type of conflict
 separatist more likely in remote regions, gov conflict higher in
urban regions with majority group, diamonds
 Why previous work has failed to account for local conditions
o Data limitations
o Unrealistic assumptions
o Country as unit of observation, not conflict
 Widely used data sets lack info for below country level
 Little spatial info on cw datasets
 Almost all conflict-promoting factors measured at state levels—
primary info providers
 Analysis of conflict needs null cases (no conflict) countries good
measure
 But here use geometric units to do that
 Local determinants of Civil War
o Guerillas exploit sparse areas
o Conditions which favor insurgency favor cw
o Low pop dens, low urbanization, dispersed pop inhibit gov capability,
facilitate rebellion
o H1: Distnce from the Capital is positively associated with the risk of
civil war
o H2: Proximity to the state border is positively associated with the risk
of cw
o H3: Local pop dens is negatively associated with risk of cw
o Also look at level of development
 Theories vary on effects of wealth/state wealth on rebellion
 But poorer regions probs more likely
o H4: Local road density is negatively associated with risk of cw
  Road density as measure of devel/gov involvement/control/funding
o Rough terrain believed to help rebels
o H5: Local extent of rough terrain positively associated with risk of cw
o Rebels with econ objective not pol , countries with previous sontes, minerals,
drugs more at risk maybe , oil as well
o H6: Proximity to valuable resource deposits is positively associated
with the risk of cw
o Ethnicity factor, many conflicts between ethno-national groups , 2/3 all
conflicts between 1960-1999 identity conflicts
 Ethnic fractionalization adverse effect on econ policies, indirectly
conflict
o H7: Local dominance of a minority language is positively associated
with risk of cw
o Distinguish between territorial conflicts and governance confli
 Data
o Grid cells, more stable measure of obs than admin regions
o Points/lines/polygons: diamond sites, main roads, language, raster (pop
dens)
o Modifiable areal unit problem
o 100x100, even smallest countries at least 1 cell
 If overlap, then assigned to country at center
 3206 cross-sectional units
o ACD database
 Confli betweenstate gov and org opp with at least 25 deaths per year
 Each conflict assigned circular zone of conflict
o Switch to gis polygons
o Covariates
 Relative location , km to nearest borders
 If no borders, then 1000km arbitrary
 Changes to borders Namibia from s afr, eritreat from eth,
walvis bay back to nam
o Thus 4 grid rep of afr for distances
o Pop dens indicator
 UNEP-GRID
 Raster rep of pop for afr at res of 2.5 arc minutes
o Aggregated to grid, applied linear interop;ation to fill in
info
o Nat log of measure to reduce outlier bias
o Most pop unit is cell with cairo 15 mill in 2000, 1500
people per km2
o Level of infrastructure
  Local econ dev
 Ease of gov reachability
 Road data from ESRI’s Digital Chart of the World
 Total length of roads in each cell
o Mountain data
 Unep
o Forests
 FAO
o Avg afr cell, 19% forested, 14% mountains
o Valuable commodities- distance from center of cell to nearest secondary
diamond/oil deposit
 NTNU and PRIO
o Minority language
 Research Design
o Two parts empirical
 Results from stat anal of assoc btwn rel loc, pop, infra, terrain,
resources lang, and two types of interstate confl
 Time irrelevant
 3206 observations, use 2885 for sample for regression analy
o 321 cells randomly exlucded, reserced for second part,
cross-sample validation test
 0=peace, 1=conflict
 If time vary eg Pop dens, resources, use cell mean values
 Showed strong cross-sectional corr, likeliehood of confl for one cell,
conditional on conflict involvement of nearby cells
 Generated country-level spatially lagged dependent variable to
account for spatial autocorr
 Measures #of years with conflict in any part of the country,
divided by the total number of years of obvs for the cell , 0-1
 Cross-sectional heteroscedasticity cluster units on countries with
robust cluster option in stata
 Used ArcGIs 9 to generate grid-specific measures and create maps
 StatTransfer 7 to convert GIS to Stata
 Logit regression models estimated with Stata 8
 Results
o Grid cells with terr confl on average
 Closer to border
 Further from capital, petro/diamond areas
 Less pop
 Less rugged
 Less dev road network
 More likely to contain min lang
 o With more gov confl
 Closer to cap
 Further from neighboring countries
 More densely pop
 Higher than avg road coverage
 More rough terrain
 Closer to diamonds
 Less min pop
o Spatial lags v powerful
 Ex: if no confl in country, to 5 years in a cell in a country 1970-2001,
x2 likely for terr confl, x7 separatist
o Clustering
o Distance from cap, strongest
o Unpaved roads, more likely confl
o Pop dens decreases gov confl
o Confl more likely in sparsely wooded lowlands
o Oil, weak positive effect for sep
o Proximity to diamonds, strong deterrent effect on secessionism
 No diamonds, 10x more likely to rebel
o Min lang x2 terr confl
o Gov conflicts mostly urban, 5x more likely in developed areas
o Resource curse only for diamonds
 More likely to have gov war
o Min lang lowers risk of gov confl
o Tested with cross-validation
 41 terr cells, 110 gov cells predicted
 53 and 100 actually
 Conclusion
4/12
 Greed and grievances, Collier and Hoeffler
 Omitted variable bias
o Y=dauer des Krieges
o X= country size, population size, issue of incompatibility, initial intensity
o Regression geht davon aus, dass alle ein eifluß auf Y haben
o Wenn zum Beispiel hat keine initial intensity drin, denn wü rde die
Ergebnisse falsch
 Multikolliertivitä t
 Degrees of freedom
o Berechnet sich auf Fallzahl
o N-1-Anzahl b (variabeln)
 o Sollte 10 ingesamt, oder 10 pro UV
o

Come rain, or come wells: How access to groundwater affects communal violence

 1) Was ist die generelle Fragestellung des Artikels?

o Relationship between groundwater scarcity and incidences of communal
violence in Africa and the Middle East
 2) Wie hä ngt Wasserknappheit laut dem Autor mit Gewalt zusammen?
o Lack of water leads to disputres among farmers
o Water omportant to farming, rural communities rely on groundwater for
farm/drinking
o Land use conflict
o Scarcity induced suffering aggrevates already existing incompatibilities and
thereby enables violent behavior
o Water scarcity impairs living conditions and poses a serious threat to all
forms of subsistence by diminishing access to nutrition and sanitation
o Migration, state presence, lowered adaption opportunities
 3) Zu welchen Hypothesen fü hren diese theoretischen Annahmen?
o Areas with limited groundwater access are more likely to experience
communal violence
o The effect of groundwater access on communal violence is larger in areas
experiencing drought
o The effect of groundwater access on communal violence is larger in areas
with high population density
o The effect of groundwater access on communal violence is smaller in areas
with high state presence
 4) Wie ist das Forschungsdesign aufgebaut?
o a. Was ist die AV was ist die zentrale UV?
 AV: communal conflict incidence
 Groundwater
 Rainfall and rivers
 State capacity and population
o b. Operationalisierung und Messung der Variablen
 Cci, 1 if at least 1 conflict in grid cell in a year, 0 if not… at least 1 death
 1990-2014
 Groundwater access depths in meters
 Value 1 if average depth exceeds 250m or over 75m
 Rainfall and rivers
  GPCP v.2.2 Combined precipitation data set
 Binary measure for drought, 1 with drought 0 without
 Dummy variable 1 if grid has at least one major perennial river,
or reservoir of dams and lakes
 Only variable without time
 State capacity and population
 State presence
o Night time light emissions from Varieties of democracy
project
o Property rights, 0-1, higher score, more rights
 Control variables
 Civil war, 1 if ongoing civil war, or neighboring
 Gdp per grid cell
 Excluded groups 1
o c. Analyseebene
 Subsaharan africa, all of Africa, Africa and middle east
 5) Wie lassen sich die Ergebnisse interpretieren?
o a. In Tabelle 1 (Modell 1: 1,362*** bei Groundwater ln)
 probability of communal violence increases in cells with deeper
groundwater head tables all else equal
 every extra meter to gig or drill for water increases violence
likliehood
o b. Figure 2b
 shows the average probability on conflict for different values of Groundwater
overlaid with the sample distribution; other covariates are held at their mean.
o c. Figure 6a und 6b  welche Hypothese wird hier getestet?
 show the average marginal effects for conflict as a function of groundwater
access and state presence, measure as nightlight emission and V-DEMs measure
for property rights. Both figures show the effects for the full sample. The
subplots show the distribution of the variables
 The effect of groundwater access on communal violence is smaller in
areas with high state presence
 Lack of groundwater access increases violence
 Sub-saharan Africa, low rainfall and low access to groundwater, increase violence (not afr or
m.e)
 Increased with low groundwater access and high pop density
 State presence and provision of public goods lessen effect of lack of groundwater on violence