文章基本信息

标题：Liberation technology: mobile phones and political mobilization in Africa
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作者：Marco Manacorda ; Andrea Tesei
期刊名称：CEP Discussion Paper
出版年度：2016
卷号：2016
语种：English
出版社：Centre for Economic Performance
摘要：Can digital information and communication technology (ICT) foster mass political mobilization? We use a novel geo-referenced dataset for the entire African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone signal together with geo- referenced data from multiple sources on the occurrence of protests and on individual participation in protests to bring this argument to empirical scrutiny. We find that while mobile phones are instrumental to mass mobilization, this only happens during economic downturns, when reasons for grievance emerge and the cost of participation falls. The results are in line with insights from a network model with imperfect information and strategic complementarities in protest occurence. Mobile phones make individuals more responsive to both changes in economic conditions - a mechanism that we ascribe to enhanced information - and to their neighbors' participation - a mechanism that we ascribe to enhanced coordination.
关键词：protests;politics;Africa;mobile phones