Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Evidence in the Resource Curse and democratic instability in Africa

A note: I made a couple of small edits without logging in, my apologies, I believe the activity from 144.82.9.211 is me. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 11:36, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Discussion Notes from 20/11/2020 Wikichapter Workshop:

Approaches to evidence in abortion.

- discipline 1: Theology / Biblical Studies
 * Morality drawn from religious scripture
 * A qualitative approach to evidence

- discipline 2: Biology
 * Gathers empirical evidence, controlled experiments
 * Scientific data indicates fetuses aren't immediately sentient
 * A quantitative approach to evidence

Potential issues to discuss? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 14:00, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Definitions of life
 * Legality of abortions in different countries & reasoning behind the laws
 * What does the pope say? What do other priests say?
 * Access to the different kinds of evidence that support/prohibit abortion
 * How does studying different disciplines help with being able to think about both qualitative & quantitative evidence

Theological approach to evidence vs religious opinion
Hi guys, hope your research is all going well I was looking at the theological side of the abortion debate, but I'm finding it hard to find information on the actual approach of theology as a discipline (a lot of it is religious opinion rather than theological study of abortion) Is there any way we could get around this problem? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:13, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I have been able to find theological evidence, for example analysis of interpretations of updates and statements from religious institutions (mostly Roman Catholic, Vatican church) in response to the issue of abortion throughout modern history. I think that there is a good case for theological evidence on a disciplinary level in this topic, but I am open to changing if everyone is more comfortable with another discipline. I think the main thing is that within the issue of Evidence, it's really important to acknowledge the incompatibility of qualitative and quantitative evidence - something that an interdisciplinary approach really lends itself to. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If you're interested, one of the resources I was looking at - a Georgia Law Review (specifically the abortion part): https://heinonline.org/HOL/SearchVolumeSOLR?view=stp&collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/geolr25&div=33&terms=abortion . Another one was this: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3510981, to quote the abstract "This study examined the relationship of religion and beliefs about the beginning of life to the decision for or against abortion among 58 women with problem pregnancies." It was quite interesting. I think it might be straying out of theology as a discipline and is more about the individuals and the impacts of their religious faith (but the study of how people experience religion is also a topic in theology the discipline so?). A decent amount of my research has also led more to information surrounding the religious impacts in laws / the political realm. Not sure how well that plays into the discipline of theology.Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:31, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That sounds good, but as you mentioned that seems to be more about the individuals and not theology as a discipline. I do think the qualitative vs quantitative evidence is worth exploring though, because this week in my ecology module we learned about how different types of evidence can lead to different conclusions on issues such as the "resource curse", and whether wealth from oil(and other natural resources) hinders democracy. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 18:08, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Moving to another topic after some research on the previous one
Discussions note for the 27/11/2020:

After discussing our research made on the topic of abortion, but also more broadly in the conflict on the definition of life between religion and science, we realize that topic such as abortion or euthanasia were quite complicated to approach in an interdisciplinary way since the line between fact/ evidence and individual opinion was too complicated to draw. Therefore, one member suggested from her geography course to work on the problem of resource in Africa. After discussing that, we ended up talking about instability in Africa. Finally, one other member talks about a book she read on the evidence of political instability in Africa. This book talked about a sociologist tried to prove how this instability was related to petrol by trying to use quantitive evidence. We brainstormed for another discipline to offer a qualitative approach to evidence on this issue, and settled for history. Historical research shows factors like British imperialism plays an important role in the current political instability. Thus, we decided to work on the conflict between History and Sociology to try to explain the political instability in Africa. We came up to the title: Evidence in the resource curse and democratic instability in Africa. Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)
 * Question, since the case study we refer to with the calculations about the oil is purely mathematical, should we further define the discipline we're dealing with as Applied Mathematics (in Sociology)? I know the approach he takes a sociological approach in terms of the variables he factors in, I'm just wondering if the actual evidence he produces falls more into the category of maths. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 23:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Good point but I think it would fall more into the category of statistics than applied mathematics through the methods and tools he uses to calculate those different variables.
 * I see where you're coming from about the maths, but I don't think we should classify the discipline as mathematics, just because of the use of quantitative evidence. Many scientific disciplines focus on quantitative, statistical evidence such as biology, but we don't say the discipline is mathematics, right? If we are talking about Michael L Ross, he refers to himself as a political scientist and carries out his research in line with the methods adopted by his discipline, so I think this is the discipline we should focus on. What are your thoughts? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 13:36, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * To try to clarify my point: if we were to use the discipline of Applied Maths, we would have to talk about the tension between the way evidence is generated in Applied maths, vs in history. Looking at evidence which is simply quantitative in nature, does not mean that it has followed the methodological approach of generating evidence in applied maths, and does not mean it must belong to the discipline of maths. Does that make sense? It is a fine line I think; the idea of mathematical evidence vs. maths as a discipline. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 13:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

(For further notice we are talking about the essay "Does oil hinder democracy?" by Michael L Ross.) Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 13:27, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Just to clarify, we're specifically talking about the issues with how democracy was introduced in Africa during colonial periods right? I'm not sure we can comprehensively cover the impacts of colonialism as a whole, even if it it does all relate back to the current political instability. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 13:58, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Colonial history
Hello guys, I have noticed that the two parts of our book are not very balanced out. Should we not merge together the first 2 paragraphs in the history section as they generally have the same idea? We could also develop on the Berlin Conference in the introduction as a general contextualisation rather than in the history section. Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 09:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hey! I agree, yes I think that is a good idea! I have a bit more to write for the political section so hopefully it will be more balanced then. We could all expand on the introduction a little? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 11:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree, since the resource curse is introduced in the beginning, so should the main argument from the history perspective. @onchesilbeach I'll add a couple lines as well, I found a good link I shared on the doc Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 22:22, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay I have just rearranged a paragraph within the history section. However, I still feel like the Berlin Cnference paragraph should be part of the introduction rather than of the history section, but I would like to know what you guys think about it...Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 15:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

History subsection
Hi guys, looks like it's coming together well! I just wanted your opinions on whether "history" is the best description of the 2nd discipline.

In this subsection, it is stated that the evidence comes from a "sociological point of view", and I agree that the type of evidence mentioned here is more in line with sociology as a discipline. (the content is fine, just the name of the section basically) I know that perhaps sociology and political science may seem very similar, however we just need to focus on their ultimately different ways of generating and using evidence. What does everyone think? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 14:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I personally think that the main discipline concerned is history. It's like how in the political science section the way they generate the evidence is through the use of applied mathematics, but the driving discipline is political science. I do, however, see where you're coming from, and if others think it's more appropriate to label it as sociology then I'm happy with that change. I might also be biased because I've taken history but not sociology, so I might not be as familiar as others as to what it entails. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 22:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd rather agree with BLacklipstick, throughout this section we mainly explore the historical factors (events, customs, etc...) which induced socio-political consequences. Therefore, to me, the name History makes more sense than sociology. However, I do get that the phrase you mentioned may cause a bit of confusion so I'll try to reformulate it. Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 15:10, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep, I agree with you guys! I think the explanation about how evidence is used in history really helped to clarify this! Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I've pulled this sentence from the history section because it doesn't fit with the rest of the paragraph: It has been observed that natural resources encourage and increase the likelihood of corruption among the elite of the concerned countries. This corruption led to an indeferrence of pro-growth initiatives. Also, natural resource, which creates profit, can obviously create some conflict between groups of people which can lead to an over-armed population. Should this be in the introduction? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:16, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay sure that's fine, we need to cut things down anyway. We mentioned conflict as an indicator of the resource curse, which I think is fine since we are focusing on the democracy aspect of the resource curse. Do you think we need more detail?Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I've spliced most of the paragraphs together so it should read more cohesively @onchesilbeach, but I'm struggling with where to put the information in the 2nd to last paragraph. Relatively important information but I don't know where it would fit best, thoughts? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:51, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the 2nd to last paragraph in the Political science section? I think I have moved it to the intro, as further explanation of the resource curse. Is that okay? Happy to hear your thoughts! Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi guys, I've edited down the history section but having read through it, I think we could have a greater focus on how the evidence was generated to reach those conclusions such as about colonialism and instability. What do you think, is there anything you've come across in the research which could be added? I will have a look myself as well. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 13:18, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Political aspect
Hey guys, I found a great article that has a lot of information that would fit in our wiki chapter, here is an abstract:

The fact that oil wealth and authoriatrism are tied together can be explained through 3 mechanisms: a “rentier effect” which comprehend ‘taxation effect” and “spending effect”, through which governments use low tax rates and high spending to use as a argument in order to keep the people on their side, a “repression effect”, by which governments build up their own military forces forces; and a “modernization effect”, in which the failure of the population to undergo certain social changes renders them less likely to push for democracy.

The “taxation effect” suggests that when governments earn enough revenues from oil, they are likely to tax their populations less heavily. Thus, the population will be less likely to demand accountability and representation to the government. The argument on the “spending effect” is that oil wealth may lead to more spending on patronage, which diminished the pressures for democratization. Democracy is wanted in all countries but citizens in oil-rich states allow their governments to spend more on internal security and so can block the populations’ democratic aspirations, for example, the Nigerian army is 34% of the country’s total budget. compare to 2,2% in the UK.

According to the “modernization effect”, the government will use the oil profits to prevent the formation of social groups which are independent of the state and hence which may be inclined to demand political rights from the government. In the latter case, oil inhibits democratization by retarding certain social changes that tend to produce a more accountable government. The modernization argument suggests that democratization comes about when a society is transformed by higher education levels, urbanization, the development of modern communications, and greater occupational specialization. If oil wealth inhibits these social changes, it could also impede the democratization process.

Here is the full article: https://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/Documents/Publications/Working_Paper_184_-_Does_Oil_Wealth_Affect_Democracy_in_Africa.pdf Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)


 * That's great, I was actually just reading the same one! It provides a good summary of the quantitative evidence that has been produced on the issue, and some interesting conclusions as well! I like what you've added to the page about it, and I'll see if theres anything I could add. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea to put it in the intro. It gives a general idea on how does oil have an impact on democracy, but I feel like it's not what our essay is about, since we want to focus on the conflict of evidence. Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)

Introduction
Quick question, why does the resource curse have it's own title? I think we should either do the same for the Berlin Conference, or leave them both in the introduction. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 22:28, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I put the resource curse as its own title, because our chapter is about the Resource Curse, so I thought it needed a brief outline. But the facts about the resource curse/ where it came from, is not to do with either of the specific disciplines. We could move it back to the intro, I don't think we need to do the same for the Berlin conference since our chapter focuses is on the resource curse.Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:21, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think we'd be better off merging resource curse and introduction paragraphs together so the subsequent paragraphs clearly show the 2 confronting disciplines. We could go half way and call the 1st paragraph "introduction to the Resource curse" in the case of Africa or something along the same lines...Romarinlavende (discuss • contribs) 14:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm struggling a bit with this short paragraph that was in the introduction: In fact, oil-rich dictators have more to lose when giving up that just power. Wealth is a big factor generated by oil profits only the elite benefit and use the money to cement their power by controlling government and its bureaucracy. This draws evidence that the resource wealth prevent any prospects for democracy. I tried to re-write it so it was at least grammatically correct, but I'm not entirely sure what the original author was trying to say. Are "the elite" owners of IOCs or local oil companies? I went to check the source but I can't seem to access more than the abstract, my apologies. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:51, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think this is mainly about the rentier and repression effect, and was part of the paragraph about possible causal mechanisms for how oil wealth impacts democracy. But since we decided we didn't have the word count to go into detail about the causes, we could remove this paragraph too? I didn't write this part though, so what are the thoughts of the author? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 12:57, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I see. If we want to keep it, I reckon we should elaborate that, it seems slightly disconnected.Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 13:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

The second paragraph that makes up a large portion of the introduction mostly references a single source. I'll find others that support the statements as well so it's clear this is a widely accepted idea. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 13:09, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Question: I don't disagree with this line from the introduction "authoritarian governments will be less able to resolve domestic conflicts" but can we make this statement without elaborating? Why are authoritarian govs necessarily bad at conflict resolution? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 14:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Editing
Most of our main information is in, we have around 1900 words so we need to cut about 40%. I have a thought: since @romarinlavende and I have done most of the History, and @onchesilbeach and @hudsonvalley12 have done most of the political science part, we should swap for the editing. That way we can make sure that we don't delete any background context that's necessary for a newcomer to understand the topic. What do you guys think? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 16:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yep that sounds like a good plan! We have quite a few small paragraphs in the sections, maybe we could integrate them together more, so the structure is clearer? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 16:43, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Sounds great to me! Hudsonvalley12 (discuss • contribs)

Images
I don't know if this is true for everyone else, but I haven't really thought about images yet. Is there anything you guys think we should include to facilitate readers? For the history section I was thinking about at least adding a map that compares Africa's pre-colonial ethnographic map and post-colonial borders, just for clarity. For the political science, are there any statistics or graphs from the main oil/democracy study that reiterate the quantitative quality of the research? Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 14:35, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi! Hope working on this is going well! Me and Hudsonvalley had a brief discussion about this, and were thinking perhaps we could use one of the graphs which best illustrate the conclusions of the quantitative studies. Although maybe we should confirm if have the word space, as any figures need to be captioned and described etc. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 21:15, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh ignore what I was saying! Image captions don't count in the word count so I reckon we should go for it, and chooses ones which help illustrate our points. Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 18:16, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

If you need help putting the graphs in, I can help. We just have to make sure it isn't copyright, like I got mine from wikimedia commons. Blacklipstick (discuss • contribs) 12:22, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Content for Introduction
Hi guys, the page is looking good! I just edited the paragraph about the causal mechanisms for oil wealth on democracy, in the introduction.(Please feel free to make further edits) Do you think we should also include a brief outline on the tensions between the disciplines? I know we already introduce this in the subsections, but might be good so we are clear about the interdisciplinary tensions from the start? Onchesilbeach (discuss • contribs) 23:28, 11 December 2020 (UTC)