‘And Then He Switched off the Phone’: Mobile Phones, Participation and Political Accountability in South Sudan’s Western Equatoria State

Boma	Level of mobile phone coverage	County	Covered in quantitative survey?	Type of qualitative interview
A	Sporadic	Ezo	YES	none
B	General	Ezo	YES	Two-hour community meeting with 40 participants (women, men, youth)
C	Sporadic	Tambura	YES	Community meetings with women, Arrow Boys, Youth, refugees from the Central African Republic, general community meeting with about 200 participants
D	None	Ezo	YES	Community meeting with 50 participants
E	General	Ezo	YES	Three interviews with chief, elders
F	Sporadic	Tambura	YES	Three interviews with residents, interview with group of young men
G	General	Tambura	YES	Interview with chief and elders
H	None	Ezo	YES	Three interviews with elders, women, and Arrow Boys
I	None	Ezo	YES	none
J	None	Ezo	YES	none
K	General	Tambura	NO	9 interviews with spiritual leaders, women, people affected by illness, individuals
L	General	Ezo	NO	16 interviews with individuals, government administrators, chiefs
M	General	Tambura	NO	11 interviews with chief, youth, women’s association, government administrators, individuals

Table 2

Mobile phone coverage and perceived quality of information.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
‘I have good information on what happens in…’	Community	Western Equatoria State	CAR and DRC	Juba and South Sudan	The rest of the world
	ologit	ologit	ologit	ologit	ologit
General phone cover	8.191^***	12.26^***	-3.888^***	15.15^***	16.45^***
	(1.345)	(1.747)	(0.626)	(1.701)	(2.164)
Sporadic phone cover	6.082^***	9.105^***	-0.896^**	10.08^***	11.33^***
	(1.087)	(1.314)	(0.443)	(1.185)	(1.378)
Gender	0.104	0.275	0.387	0.279	0.0536
	(0.245)	(0.316)	(0.273)	(0.267)	(0.295)
Age	-0.00399	-0.0154	-0.00265	-0.00739	0.00227
	(0.00588)	(0.0109)	(0.0105)	(0.00809)	(0.0100)
Education	0.0637	0.0118	-0.00176	-0.00597	-0.00902
	(0.0396)	(0.0421)	(0.0336)	(0.0347)	(0.0414)
# adults in household	-0.135	0.0269	-0.0146	0.165^*	0.132^***
	(0.108)	(0.128)	(0.133)	(0.0864)	(0.0446)
# children in household	0.0978	-0.0177	0.0392	-0.0391	-0.0614^*
	(0.0661)	(0.0798)	(0.0400)	(0.0288)	(0.0369)
# chickens hh owns	0.00977	0.00133	-0.00141	-0.0119	-0.00971
	(0.00764)	(0.00749)	(0.00658)	(0.00829)	(0.00639)
# goats hh owns	-0.0139	-0.0197	-0.0202	-0.0150	0.00567
	(0.0132)	(0.0146)	(0.0172)	(0.00976)	(0.00706)
# bicycles hh owns	-0.153	0.191^*	0.312^**	0.259^*	0.171^**
	(0.137)	(0.109)	(0.123)	(0.134)	(0.0773)
Village hh population	-0.0223^***	-0.0289^***	0.00916^***	-0.0367^***	-0.0423^***
	(0.00352)	(0.00424)	(0.00157)	(0.00413)	(0.00555)
Village on main road	1.811^***	2.352^***	-1.451^***	2.720^***	2.917^***
	(0.362)	(0.357)	(0.293)	(0.369)	(0.362)
Distance to Yambio	40.58^***	51.09^***	-15.52^***	61.54^***	69.63^***
	(6.719)	(7.833)	(2.823)	(7.110)	(8.968)
Distance to Ezo	19.59^***	23.63^***	-8.354^***	30.49^***	34.82^***
	(3.100)	(3.722)	(1.405)	(3.555)	(4.662)
Distance to Tambura	35.57^***	49.37^***	-9.043^***	55.16^***	62.24^***
	(6.428)	(7.580)	(2.570)	(6.459)	(7.753)
Avg. # goats owned in	-3.737^***	-4.608^***	2.516^***	-6.721^***	-6.760^***
Village	(0.623)	(0.775)	(0.301)	(0.758)	(0.986)
Avg. # chicken owned	-0.703^***	-0.816^***	0.143^**	-0.958^***	-1.110^***
in village	(0.107)	(0.125)	(0.0599)	(0.110)	(0.164)
Observations	423	418	391	396	379
Pseudo-R² (McFadden)	0.0488	0.0892	0.0726	0.0951	0.0903

[i] Robust (clustered) standard errors in parentheses ^*** p<0.01, ^** p<0.05, ^* p<0.1.

Table 3

Mobile phone coverage and voting.

	(1)	(2)	(3)
DEPENDENT:
Voted / plans to vote in…	2010 elections	2011 referendum	Next national elections
	logit	logit	logit
General phone cover	-20.92^***	-18.88^***	-8.044^***
	(3.022)	(2.914)	(2.026)
Sporadic phone cover	-22.59^***	-22.46^***	21.50^***
	(0.470)	(0.647)	(0.467)
Constant	118.73	102.21	-91.76
Observations	429	426	405
Pseudo-R² (McFadden)	0.3264	0.2466	0.3023

[i] Robust (clustered) standard errors in parentheses. All control variables are included; coefficients are omitted for brevity.

^*** p<0.01, ^** p<0.05, ^* p<0.1.

Table 4

Mobile phone coverage and (direct) political accountability.

PANEL A	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Trust in…	Payam Administrator	Payam Chief	Boma Administrator	Boma Chief	Satisfaction Juba government
	ologit	ologit	Ologit	ologit	ologit
General phone cover	2.834^**	1.814^**	1.920	9.449^***	13.74^***
	(1.160)	(0.902)	(1.362)	(0.839)	(1.509)
Sporadic phone cover	1.814^**	0.919	1.225	5.690^***	8.833^***
	(0.835)	(0.627)	(0.875)	(0.555)	(1.129)
Observations	425	428	415	430	396
Pseudo-R² (McFadden)	0.1242	0.1094	0.1187	0.1346	0.0862
PANEL B	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)
In the last year, has reported issue to…	Payam Administrator	Payam Chief	Boma Administrator	Boma Chief
	logit	logit	Logit	logit
General phone cover	12.05^***	-18.97^***	-0.112	12.03^***
	(0.974)	(1.142)	(0.677)	(0.912)
Sporadic phone cover	5.441^***	-27.09^***	0.679	6.541^***
	(0.906)	(0.696)	(0.481)	(0.695)
Constant	-121.10	202.92	-2.011	-78.77
Observations	433	433	433	433
Pseudo-R² (McFadden)	0.1824	0.1735	0.1103	0.0459
PANEL C	(10)	(11)
Dissatisfaction with response of authority	Strong	Strong or moderate
	logit	logit
General phone cover	-19.01^***	14.20^***
	(1.020)	(2.986)
Sporadic phone cover	-11.15^***	4.75^***
	(0.662)	(1.670)
Indicator reporting	1.541^***	2.53^***
	(0.378)	(0.338)
Constant	98.42	-62.467
Observations	433	433
Pseudo-R² (McFadden)	0.2125	0.2797

[i] Robust (clustered) standard errors in parentheses. All control variables are included; coefficients are omitted for brevity.

^*** p<0.01, ^** p<0.05, ^* p<0.1.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/sta.ew | Journal eISSN: 2165-2627

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Language: English

Published on: Mar 9, 2015

Published by: Department of Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

mobile phones,

political participation,

voting,

© 2015 Mareike Schomerus, Anouk S. Rigterink, published by Department of Peace Studies and International Development, University of Bradford
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 4 (2015): Issue 1