Liberation Technology. Mobile phones and political mobilization in Africa
Can digital information and communication technology 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 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 mobile phones are instrumental to mass mobilization during economic downturns, when reasons for grievance emerge and the cost of participation falls. Estimated effects are if anything larger once we use an instrumental variable approach that relies on differential trends in coverage across areas with different incidence of lightning strikes. The results are in line with insights from a network model with imperfect information and strategic complementarities in protest provision. Mobile phones make individuals more responsive to both changes in economic conditions – a mechanism
that we ascribe to enhanced information – and to their neighbours’ participation – a mechanism that we ascribe to enhanced coordination. Empirically both effects are at play, highlighting the channels through which digital ICT can alleviate the collective action problem.

Written with Andrea Tesei, Queen Mary University of London
Date: 7 March 2018, 12:30 (Wednesday, 8th week, Hilary 2018)
Venue: Manor Road Building, Manor Road OX1 3UQ
Venue Details: Lecture Theatre
Speaker: Marco Manacorda (Queen Mary University of London)
Organising department: Department of Economics
Organisers: Amma Panin (Nuffield College), Rossa O'Keeffe-O'Donovan (Nuffield College), Michael Koelle (Pembroke College)
Organiser contact email address: suzanne.george@economics.ox.ac.uk
Part of: CSAE Lunchtime Seminars
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editors: Anne Pouliquen, Julia Coffey, Suzanne George