In this article, the authors present evidence for a link between war, violence and increased individual political participation and leadership among former combatants and victims of violence, and use this link to understand the deeper determinants of individual political behavior.
Abstract:
What is the political legacy of violent conflict? This paper presents evidence for a link between war, violence and increased individual political participation and leadership among former combatants and victims of violence, and uses this link to understand the deeper determinants of individual political behavior. The setting is northern Uganda, where rebel recruitment methods generated quasi-experimental variation in who became a rebel conscript and who did not. Original survey data shows that the exogenous element of conscription (by abduction) leads to significantly greater political participation later in life. The principal determinant of this increased political participation, moreover, appears to be war violence experienced. Meanwhile, abduction and violence do not appear to affect multiple non-political types of community participation. I show that these patterns are not easily explained by models of participation based on simple rational preferences, social preferences, mobilization by elites, or information availability. Only 'expressive' theories of participation appear consistent with the patterns observed, whereby exposure to violence augments the value a person places on the act of political expression itself. The implications for general theories of political participation are discussed.
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TL;DR: This article examined the case of Uganda, where rebel recruitment methods provided exogenous variation in conscription and found that schooling falls by nearly a year, skilled employment halves, and earnings drop by a third.
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TL;DR: Downs presents a rational calculus of voting that has inspired much of the later work on voting and turnout as discussed by the authors, particularly significant was his conclusion that a rational voter should almost never bother to vote.
Q1. What contributions have the authors mentioned in the paper "From violence to voting: war and political participation in uganda" ?
For example, this paper found evidence for a link from past violence to increased political engagement among ex-combatants.
Q2. What are the main factors that may have led to the positive political engagement in Uganda?
Several aspects of Ugandan institutions and culture may have led to the generally positive political engagement the authors see: a functioning, relatively democratic government at the national and local level, vigorous and open local political systems that are inclusive of youth, and a society that generally welcomed former abductees back into the community.
Q3. What is the relationship between abduction and resilience?
16 Also, although abduction is associated with greater control over the present and future, an absence of past control is associated with resilience.
Q4. What is the reason for abductees’ leadership?
That is, in addition to a change in selfregard, abductees may have acquired leadership skills in the bush, and so they lead at home because they are more able (rather than simply more optimistic or confident).
Q5. How much more likely are youth to be a community mobilizer?
Youth whose family experiences an additional act of violence are also 1.9 percentage points more likely to be a community mobilizer.
Q6. What is the effect of a systematic error on the violence coefficient?
Such systematic error would increase standard errors and bias the violence coefficient toward zero, in which case the Table 4 estimates should be considered a lower bound on the influence of violence on participation.
Q7. What is the relationship between self-blame and psychological resilience?
An absence of self-blame was strongly associated with psychological resilience, as was an ability to “forget” bad experiences and focus on the future (Annan et al. 2008).
Q8. What is the second possible interpretation of the passage?
A second possible interpretation come from “expressive” theories of participation, where individuals are presumed to value the act of political expression itself (Downs 1957; Fiorina 1976; Riker and Ordeshook 1968).
Q9. What does the study show about the abduction of youth?
The authors do observe some evidence of elevated aggression in abductees in the form of threats (although not in reports of fighting or asocial behavior).
Q10. Why is the significance of the data driven by households greater than 25?
The significance is driven by households greater than 25 in number, perhaps because small bands of raiders were hesitant to raid large, difficult-to-control groups.