Out now:
The Fear Factor is a Main Thing: How Radio Influences Anxiety and Political Attitudes
Anouk S. Rigterink and Mareike Schomerus
Journal of Development Studies 2016
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We investigate how being exposed to media influences levels of anxiety and political attitudes in conflict-affected areas. Exploiting exogenous variation in signal strength of a radio station in South Sudan's Western Equatoria State, we compare original qualitative and quantitative data from areas with differing radio coverage. Civilians living in areas with more exposure to radio are more afraid of attacks the by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). This anxiety means civilians rely more on a civilian militia, the arrow boys, and less on the state army. Hence media, through fear, can contribute to changing social and political attitudes.
Probing for Proof, Plausibility, Principle and Possibility: A New Approach to Assessing Evidence in a Systematic Evidence Review
Anouk S. Rigterink and Mareike Schomerus
Development Policy Review, 2016, 34 (1): 5-27
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This article proposes a new approach to assessing evidence during a systematic evidence review aiming to inform international development policy. Drawing lessons from a number of social science systematic evidence reviews, the article identifies how the method’s limiting perspective on evidence (including the exclusive focus on ‘gold standard’ empirical information) has serious disadvantages for the usability of evidence reviews for policy. This article aims to provide an alternative framework that allows for a less exclusionary, yet policy-practical, way of assessing evidence. We propose four perspectives on evidence, appropriate for different stages in the policy process: principle when setting or prioritising broad policy goals, plausibility when assessing specific future policies, proof when evaluating past policies and possibility when striving for innovation and allowing exchange of ideas.
Evidence-based policymaking in Myanmar? Considerations of a post-conflict development dilemma
Mareike Schomerus* and Hakan Seckinelgin
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With a few months to go to Myanmar’s national elections, a further spotlight has been shone
on the country’s political transition and developments since the groundbreaking national
elections of 2010. The past five years have seen a tremendous change in the country, leaving
citizens and analysts both hopeful and sceptical about the direction and sustainability of such
rapidly-paced change (Jones 2014, Cheesman, Skidmore, and Wilson 2010). How to support
what is perceived as positive change is a concern within the international development
community now increasingly engaged in Myanmar, often operating with extremely limited
information. This means that assumptions on how Myanmar’s path might look are often
based on seemingly similar experiences elsewhere. However, what is made less explicit is
that international actors contribute to the changing political landscape in many ways. One
topic of discussion that has been made more prominent through the increased presence of
international development actors and their experiences and foci elsewhere has been how to
approach issues of transition and development through evidence-based policies. Implicit in
this is an expression of the need for more information; further, basing policies on evidence is
broadly expected to lead to improvement and transparency. But is pushing for better evidence
in the policy-making process an obviously beneficial approach for Myanmar?