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1. Viewing society from space: Image-based sociocultural prediction models

Author:
John M. Irvine, Richard J. Wood, and Payden McBee
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Afrobarometer
Abstract:
Applying new analytic methods to imagery data offers the potential to dramatically expand the information available for human geography. Satellite imagery can yield detailed local information about physical infrastructure, which we exploit for analysis of local socioeconomic conditions. Combining automated processing of satellite imagery with advanced modeling techniques provides a method for inferring measures of well-being, governance, and related sociocultural attributes from satellite imagery. This research represents a new approach to human geography by explicitly analyzing the relationship between observable physical attributes and societal characteristics and institutions of the region. Through analysis of commercial satellite imagery and Afrobarometer survey data, we have developed and demonstrated models for selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe). The findings show the potential for predicting people’s attitudes about the economy, security, leadership, social involvement, and related questions, based only on imagery-derived information. The approach pursued here builds on earlier work in Afghanistan. Models for predicting economic attributes (presence of key infrastructure, attitudes about the economy, perceptions of crime, and outlook toward the future) all exhibit statistically significant performance. Although these results are encouraging, several avenues for advancement and improvement are proposed. Initial analysis of new methods for image processing and feature extraction have identified several avenues for promising enhancements.
Topic:
Sociology and Geography
Political Geography:
Kenya, Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana

2. Dowry and Division: Youth and State Building in South Sudan

Author:
Marc Sommers and Stephanie Schwartz
Publication Date:
11-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
Most South Sudanese youth are undereducated and underemployed, and their priorities and perspectives are largely unknown. To address this critical knowledge gap, the authors conducted field research between April and May 2011 with youth, adults, and government and nongovernment officials in Juba and two South Sudanese states. The increasing inability of male youth to meet rising dowry (bride price) demands was the main research finding. Unable to meet these demands, many male youth enlist in militias, join cattle raids, or seek wives from different ethnic groups or countries. Skyrocketing dowry demands have negatively and alarmingly affected female youth. They are routinely viewed as property that can generate family wealth. Potent new postwar identities involving youth returning from Khartoum, refugee asylum countries, and those who never left South Sudan, are stimulating hostility and conflict. Excess demand on government jobs, widespread reports of nepotism in government hiring practices, cultural restrictions against many kinds of work, and a general lack of entrepreneurial vision are fueling an exceptionally challenging youth employment situation. Gang activities continue to thrive in some urban centers in South Sudan. They are reportedly dominated by youth with connections to government officials and by orphans. While most undereducated youth highlighted dowry and marriage as their primary concerns, members of the elite youth minority emphasized vocational training and scholarships for higher education. While South Sudanese youth view their government as the primary source of education, jobs, and hope, the government of South Sudan does not appear poised to provide substantial support to vital youth priorities related to dowry, employment, education, and training. The government of South Sudan and its international partners need to proactively address nonelite youth priorities. They must find ways to cap dowry demands, protect female youth, and support orphan youth, in addition to expanding quality education, job training, and English language training.
Topic:
Demographics, Development, Gender Issues, Political Economy, Sociology, and Youth Culture
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

3. The Iron Cage of Democracy: Institutional Similarity and Stasis in African Political Party Systems

Author:
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper asks (a) how to understand the development of new institutions in nascent democracies, and (b) what explains the persistence of institutional forms that do not conform to rationalist expectations of competitive efficiency. Much scholarship focuses on the power of strategic coordination under formal rules to shape democratic institutions, such as the form of the party system. This article contends that strict rationalist explanations of party systems leave unexplored the ways in which individual politician's and voter's strategic calculations are bounded by the organizational imperatives of systemic competition. Sociological theories of institutional development better explain the organizational logic driving party system origin and endurance in new democracies. The article uses original interview data from three contrasting cases of party system development in Africa to highlight the empirical puzzle that drives this conclusion: despite seemingly analogous democratic origins, largely similar conditions of low economic development, high ethnic heterogeneity, and weak state capacity, as well as comparable formal electoral rules in pairwise combinations, the party systems across Africa demonstrate incredible cross-national variation in the ways in which political parties organize and compete for power. Additionally, party systems maintain these varied forms over time rather than converging on a “most efficient” model. A focus on the particular mechanisms of reproduction through institutional isomorphism contributes to the research agenda of explaining institutional development, change, and stability.
Topic:
Democratization, Political Theory, and Sociology
Political Geography:
Africa

4. Culture, Agency and Power: Theoretical Reflections on Informal Economic Networks and Political Process

Author:
Kate Meagher
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Do network theory really offer a suitable concept for the theorization of informal processes of economic regulation and institutional change? This working paper challenges both essentialist and skeptical attitudes to networks through an examination of the positive and negative effects of network governance in contemporary societies in a range of regional contexts. The analysis focuses on three broad principles of non-state organization – culture, agency and power – and their role in shaping processes of economic and political governance. It will be shown that the effective theorization of informal regulatory processes requires attention to the specific interaction of culture, agency and power in particular social contexts. Emphasizing a grounded theory approach, this article draws on cutting-edge network research from East Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and Western societies to develop theoretical tools for the comparative study of non-state governance and its impact on wider processes of institutional change.
Topic:
Political Theory, Sociology, Governance, and Culture
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and East Asia

5. From Network to Class? Towards a more complex Conception of Connection and Sociability

Author:
France Bourgouin
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The notion of networks is frequently used by social science scholars in order to explain various forms of social and economic linkages. In this Working Paper, I question why it is that we have replaced older notions of sociality such as culture, community, or group with network, and what the analytical gains are if any. Building upon recent ethnographic fieldwork conducted with foreign African businessmen and women employed in Johannesburg's tertiary sector multinational corporate, I argue that the network approach is too narrow a way for conceiving the linkages and connections between individuals; the processes and institutional channels that connect individuals may not be so apparent and “mappable” but rather much more diffuse and context-based.
Topic:
Political Theory, Sociology, and Culture
Political Geography:
Africa

6. Regulating Reciprocal Distances: House construction projects as inverse governmentality in Maputo, Mozambique

Author:
Morten Nielsen
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Although reciprocal relationships with neighbours and local-level civil servants are of paramount importance to people living on the outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique, they also harbour destructive potentials. In an unstable urban environment built on a presumption of malice, it is consequently important only to reveal what needs to be seen while concealing those facets which might awaken unwanted desires. This working paper examines how residents in a periurban area seek to position themselves at appropriate distances to important but potentially dangerous others. It is argued that house-building constitutes a potent medium for proportioning viable distances so that reciprocal exchanges can be realized without being harmed by presumed greedy and envious others. In particular, the paper explores how house-builders imitate urban norms which state and municipality claim to be using but which they are incapable of implementing. Through such processes of inverse governmentality, illegal occupancy acquires a form of pragmatic legitimacy when appearing to materialise state-defined urban norms.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Sociology
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

7. Police Corruption, Crime and Crime Reporting: A Simultaneous Equations Approach

Author:
Omar Azfar and Tugrul Gurgur
Publication Date:
09-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
We study the causal relationship between police corruption, crime and crime reporting, using data from the International Crime Victimization Survey. Using a simultaneous equations approach we find a number of intuitive relationships, which are statistically significant. The clearest of these is that crime reporting reduces police corruption.
Topic:
Security, Crime, Economics, and Sociology
Political Geography:
Africa