World Handbook of Political Indicators IV

1. World Handbook of Political Indicators IV J. Craig JenkinsOhio State UniversityCharles Lewis TaylorVirginia Polytechnic & State UniversityMarianne AbbottOhio State University Objective: Computer coding of 51 contentious politics events Method: Frame parsing using Virtual Research Associates KnowledgeManager™ applied to lead lines of Reuters international newswire (1990-2004) Products: 1. Global event data set covering all countries and major territories 2. Summary indicators of contentious politics: contentiousness, contentious violence, conflict carrying capacity • Additional Parsing Issues • Why lead lines? Main event focus • Identify & remove duplicates • Passive voice • Temporality (present, past, future) • Compound actors, targets & verbs • Inter-state vs. intra-state events • Metaphorical language (e.g. “The stock market exploded today”) • Imputation of actor/target country identity • Imputation of location • Exclude dependent clauses (e.g. “after a U.S. military plane was fired on as it landed at a Pakistan airfield used as a logistics base for the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.”) Major Event Forms Civil Protest: Protest, protest demonstration, protest obstruction, protest procession, protest defacement, protest altruism, support rally Civil Violence: Riot, strikes & boycotts, abductions, hijacking, hostage seizures & kidnapping, physical assaults, beatings, sexual assault, assassinations, coups & mutinies, suicide bombing, mine explosion, vehicle bombing State Sanction: Covert monitoring, impose restriction, censorship, armed force mobilization, armed force activation, armed force blockade State Violence: Exile, seize, seize possession, military occupation, political arrest, corporal punishment, armed action, torture, small arms attack, missileattack, crowd control Political Relaxation: Ease sanctions, observe truce, relax censorship, relax administrative sanction, demobilize armed force, relax curfew, release/return persons, release/return property Contentious Politics in Turkey, 1990-2004 Basics of Frame Parsing Noun = Actor or Event Source Verb + verb complements = Event Form Direct Object = Target Indirect Object = Location Examples: ”Scores of Japanese anti-nuclear campaignersstaged a sit-in on Friday near Hiroshima's atom-bomb memorialto protestFrance's decision to resume testing nuclear weapons. “ ”Russian nationalistsdesecrated a Jewish cemeteryin St Petersburg on the eve of the Orthodox Easter, a duty police officer in Russia's second city said on Sunday. “ ” Police said they have arrestedeight people after a U.S. military plane was fired on as it landed at a Pakistan airfield used as a logistics base for the war in neighbouring Afghanistan.” Contentious Politics in Israel/Palestine, 1990-2004 Conflict Carrying Capacity Objective: Dynamic Early Warning Index for Civil War & State Failure Formula: CCC = 100 - (CC * SR * CV) CCC = Conflict Carrying Capacity CC = % Civil Contentious Actions SR = % State Contentious Actions CV = % Contentious Violence