Premium
Liberation Technology: Mobile Phones and Political Mobilization in Africa
Author(s) -
Manacorda Marco,
Tesei Andrea
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
econometrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 16.7
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1468-0262
pISSN - 0012-9682
DOI - 10.3982/ecta14392
Subject(s) - politics , mobile phone , argument (complex analysis) , scrutiny , mobilization , mobile telephony , critical mass (sociodynamics) , political science , business , political economy , economics , computer science , telecommunications , mobile radio , microeconomics , law , biochemistry , chemistry
Can digital information and communication technology foster mass political mobilization? We use a novel georeferenced data set for the entire African continent between 1998 and 2012 on the coverage of mobile phone signal together with georeferenced 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 occurrence. 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 .