For those who were curious about what I discussed with USAID's Office on Conflict Management and Mitigation on September 4, wonder no more. TechChange's video guru got me on camera to record the presentation - hopefully it's useful (or leads to some good arguments at least).
TC-109: Technology for Conflict Management and Peacebuilding
I'll be teaching a course for TechChange on ICTs and peacebuilding next month. I'm really excited to be facilitating it, and I was really thrilled to see the final cut of the course introduction video we produced today: Hopefully you'll join us, it's going to be a lot of fun and some awesome guests will … Continue reading TC-109: Technology for Conflict Management and Peacebuilding
Big News: The GDELT Global Dashboard
GDELT just released their new Global Visualization dashboard, and it's pretty cool. It blinks and flashes, glows and pulses, and is really interesting to navigate. Naturally, as a social scientist who studies conflict, I have some thoughts. 1) This is really cool. The user interface is attractive, it's easy to navigate, and it's intuitive. I … Continue reading Big News: The GDELT Global Dashboard
Putting the ‘political’ back in political economy
I stumbled across an article in the New York Times a few days ago by Tyler Cowen of George Mason University and a regular contributor to the blog Marginal Revolution. Entitled "Income Inequality Is Not Rising Globally. It's Falling.", it takes a crack at attempting to indicate that while country-level income inequality is increasing the overall effects … Continue reading Putting the ‘political’ back in political economy
Quick thoughts from the #Tech4PP Twitter chat
I followed (and even participated!) in NDI's Twitter chat today on using technology to increase political party and electoral participation. If you're interested you can find the thread by searching the hashtag '#Tech4PP'. There were a lot of good examples of tech being used to increase participation, make processes more transparent, and boost inclusion in the … Continue reading Quick thoughts from the #Tech4PP Twitter chat
Rigor Versus Reality: Balancing the field with the lab
I am finally able to respond (add) to a post by Chris Moore about the problem of mathematicization and formalization of political science, and social science more generally, as it relates to how the social sciences inform real policy issues. As I'm finishing a Fulbright fellowship in Samoa, where I worked specifically on research supporting policy … Continue reading Rigor Versus Reality: Balancing the field with the lab
MCIT/NUS ICTs in Emergency Survey: Replication data
I spent the last two months managing a research collaboration between Samoa's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the National University of Samoa, collecting nation wide data on how people use information and information technology to respond to natural disasters. This data will feed into my dissertation, as well as be useful to … Continue reading MCIT/NUS ICTs in Emergency Survey: Replication data
Poverty (and Social Development Writ Large) is Not an Innovation Problem
I came across an article a friend posted on Facebook yesterday about the work that the MasterCard Foundation is doing to reduce poverty in Africa. Since some of my work is in the 'techno-innovation 4 development' sector, I was curious to give it a read. It was everything that makes me *sigh* and/or *shake my … Continue reading Poverty (and Social Development Writ Large) is Not an Innovation Problem
Call for abstracts! Proposed ISA panel on Crowdsourcing and Violence
My colleague Dr. Pamina Firchow and I are organizing a panel for next year's ISA meeting in New Orleans (Feb. 15-21, 2015) on crowdsourcing and the study of violence and violence prevention. Below you'll find our panel description, and instructions for submitting an abstract to us. We'll need them by May 23 so we can make … Continue reading Call for abstracts! Proposed ISA panel on Crowdsourcing and Violence
When Radio Goes Bad: RF communications and the increased violence in South Sudan
I was reading an update about the increasing ethnic violence in South Sudan forwarded to me by a colleague, and noted the fact that radio is being used to organize and encourage violence in South Sudan. For those who have studied or read about the genocide in Rwanda, radio was one of the key mediums employed by … Continue reading When Radio Goes Bad: RF communications and the increased violence in South Sudan
Charles P. Martin-Shields 