Deliverable 2
Outcome Variable name: Political Violence Events
(PolticalViolenceEvents)
Level of measurement: Interval
Explanation: While the Codebook didn’t specifially
say what the measurement is, I assume it is simply the number of
political violence events that occur in each country. I chose this as my
outcome variable as I want to determine what effects the frequency of
policital violence events in a country making the dependent variable of
which I want to find the causes of.
Deliverable 3
Explanatory Variable 1.: Political Rights
(fh_pr)
Level of measurement: Ordinal
Explanation: Countries with higher poltical rights such as voting
can effect the happiness of the citizens and thus the number of
political violence events. Citizens in countries with higher political
rights would be able to actively excerise them in advocacy for change,
such as voting, peaceful protests and ect. While those who live in
countries with low political rights would feel no choice but to resort
to political violence and terroristic political events to get their
voice heard.
Explanatory Variable 2.: Rule of Law
(rule_of_law)
Level of measurement: Ordinal
Explanation: Rule of law is an index that measures
how well countries adhere to 8 factors: Constraints on
Government Powers, Absence of corruption, Open Government, Fundamental
Rights, Order and Security, Regulatory Enforcement, Civil Justice, and
Criminal Justice. A higher Rule of Law index indicates better
or higher approval in governance by their citizens, which effects the
amount of political violence events. If the citizens of the country
believe that their government is doing a good job, they are less likey
to orgainze political events that become violent. While citizens who
believe the latter are more likely to organize violent political
events.
Explanatory Variable 3.: Government Debt
(govt_debt)
Level of measurement: Interval
Explanation: This variable tells indicates how mcuh
debt the central government of a country has. Central government debt is
the total amount of outstanding borrowing by the central government of a
country. This is also known as National Debt. The more debt a country
owes, I belive the higher the taxes may be and that their citizens will
be unhappier thus feeling the need to organize more political event that
may be violent so that a change can occur.
My sources include:
Lacroix, J. (2022). Ballots instead of bullets? the effect of the
Voting Rights Act on political violence. Journal of the European
Economic Association, 21(2), 764–813. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac048