IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/u3mvf.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Crowdseeding in Eastern Congo: Using Cell Phones to Collect Conflict Events Data in Real Time

Author

Listed:
  • van der Windt, Peter Cornelis
  • Humphreys, Macartan

Abstract

Poor-quality data about conflict events can hinder humanitarian responses and bias academic research. There is increasing recognition of the role that new information technologies can play in producing more reliable data faster. We piloted a novel data-gathering system in the Democratic Republic of Congo in which villagers in a set of randomly selected communities report on events in real time via short message service. We first describe the data and assess its reliability. We then examine the usefulness of such "crowdseeded" data in two ways. First, we implement a downstream experiment on aid and conflict and find evidence that aid can lead to fewer conflict events. Second, we examine conflict diffusion in Eastern Congo and find evidence that key dynamics operate at very micro levels. Both applications highlight the benefit of collecting conflict data via cell phones in real time.

Suggested Citation

  • van der Windt, Peter Cornelis & Humphreys, Macartan, 2020. "Crowdseeding in Eastern Congo: Using Cell Phones to Collect Conflict Events Data in Real Time," SocArXiv u3mvf, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:u3mvf
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/u3mvf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5e1d7e45855d4c0121b7346c/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/u3mvf?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hegre, Håvard, 2001. "Toward a Democratic Civil Peace? Democracy, Political Change, and Civil War, 1816–1992," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 33-48, March.
    2. Eli Berman & Jacob N. Shapiro & Joseph H. Felter, 2011. "Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(4), pages 766-819.
    3. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    4. de Nicola, Francesca & Giné, Xavier, 2014. "How accurate are recall data? Evidence from coastal India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 52-65.
    5. de Ree, Joppe & Nillesen, Eleonora, 2009. "Aiding violence or peace? The impact of foreign aid on the risk of civil conflict in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 301-313, March.
    6. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    7. Autesserre, Séverine, 2009. "Hobbes and the Congo: Frames, Local Violence, and International Intervention," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(2), pages 249-280, April.
    8. Thomas Barrios & Rebecca Diamond & Guido W. Imbens & Michal Kolesár, 2012. "Clustering, Spatial Correlations, and Randomization Inference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(498), pages 578-591, June.
    9. Andrew Beath & Fotini Christia & Ruben Enikolopov, 2011. "Winning Hearts and Minds through Development Aid: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan," Working Papers w0166, New Economic School (NES).
    10. Anselin, Luc, 2002. "Under the hood : Issues in the specification and interpretation of spatial regression models," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 247-267, November.
    11. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    12. Benjamin Crost & Joseph Felter & Patrick Johnston, 2014. "Aid under Fire: Development Projects and Civil Conflict," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1833-1856, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Peter Van der Windt & Macartan Humphreys, 2016. "Crowdseeding in Eastern Congo," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 60(4), pages 748-781, June.
    2. Crost, Benjamin & Felter, Joseph H. & Johnston, Patrick B., 2016. "Conditional cash transfers, civil conflict and insurgent influence: Experimental evidence from the Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 171-182.
    3. Koppenberg, Maximilian & Mishra, Ashok K. & Hirsch, Stefan, 2023. "Food Aid and Violent Conflict: A Review of Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 16574, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Travers Barclay Child & Elena Nikolova, 2017. "War and Social Attitudes: Revisiting Consensus Views," HiCN Working Papers 258, Households in Conflict Network.
    5. Heidi Kaila & Saurabh Singhal & Divya Tuteja, 2017. "Do fences make good neighbours?: Evidence from an insurgency in India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-158, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Eugen Dimant & Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2024. "Paying Them to Hate US: The Effect of US Military Aid on Anti-American Terrorism, 1968–2018," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(663), pages 2772-2802.
    7. Roxana Guti'errez-Romero, 2020. "Conflict in Africa during COVID-19: social distancing, food vulnerability and welfare response," Papers 2006.10696, arXiv.org.
    8. Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza & Lessmann, Christian & Markwardt, Gunther, 2018. "Natural resource rents and internal conflicts: Can decentralization lift the curse?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 186-205.
    9. Tillman Hönig, 2019. "The Impact of Peace: Evidence from Nigeria," HiCN Working Papers 293, Households in Conflict Network.
    10. Daniel Karell & Sebastian Schutte, 2018. "Aid, exclusion, and the local dynamics of insurgency in Afghanistan," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 55(6), pages 711-725, November.
    11. Richard Bluhm & Martin Gassebner & Sarah Langlotz & Paul Schaudt, 2021. "Fueling conflict? (De)escalation and bilateral aid," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 244-261, March.
    12. Wong, Pui-Hang, 2017. "How development aid explains (or not) the rise and fall of insurgent attacks in Iraq," MERIT Working Papers 2017-006, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    13. M. Christian Lehmann, 2020. "Aiding refugees, aiding peace?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1687-1704, September.
    14. Bosker, Maarten & de Ree, Joppe, 2014. "Ethnicity and the spread of civil war," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 206-221.
    15. Jean-François Maystadt & Olivier Ecker, 2014. "Extreme Weather and Civil War: Does Drought Fuel Conflict in Somalia through Livestock Price Shocks?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1157-1182.
    16. Vincent A. Floreani & Gladys López-Acevedo & Martín Rama, 2021. "Conflict and Poverty in Afghanistan’s Transition," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(10), pages 1776-1790, October.
    17. Benjamin Crost & Joseph H Felter, 2020. "Export Crops and Civil Conflict," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 1484-1520.
    18. Carmignani, Fabrizio & Kler, Parvinder, 2016. "The geographical spillover of armed conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 109-119.
    19. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    20. Beath,Andrew & Christia,Fotini & Enikolopov,Ruben & Beath,Andrew & Christia,Fotini & Enikolopov,Ruben, 2012. "Winning hearts and minds through development ? evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6129, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:u3mvf. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.