Civil war and political participation: Evidence from Uganda

We show that armed conflict in Uganda affects civic participation, measured by the frequency of political discussion and local meeting attendance. Relying on four rounds of nationally representative individual-level data on civic participation bracketing a large number of battle events, we find that civic participation increases in districts in which battle events took place. Evidence from a variety of identification strategies, including difference-in-difference and IV estimates, suggest that the relationship is causal. However, unlike previous studies, we find that experiencing violence does not affect formal electoral participation.