Does Information Lead to Emulation? Spatial Dependence in Anti-Government Violence

In this study we ask whether acts of anti-government violence exhibit spatial dependence across state boundaries. In other words, to what extent can acts of antigovernment violence in one country be attributed to violence in neighboring countries? Past research largely focusing on civil war or large-scale conflict contagion finds that geographically proximate states are more likely to experience the cross-boundary diffusion of conflict due to action emulation. However, this assumes that actors are fully aware of conflicts occurring in their neighbors. To address this, we argue that the proliferation of communication technology increases access to information regarding events in neighboring states, thereby allowing emulation to occur and subsequently conditioning the potential for violence to spread. We test this expectation by modeling the effects of a unique spatial connectivity matrix incorporating both state contiguity and access to communication technology. An analysis of all acts of anti-government violence in 44 African countries from 2000 to 2011 supports our argument.