June 9, 13.30–14.30
Room: Europa
Chaired by
Fabio Angiolillo
Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Gothenburg
Presenter
Cecilia Borella
PhD Student, The University of Hong Kong
Co-Author
Enze Han
Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong
Title
Civil Conflict and Malaria Infection: Evidence from Myanmar’s Borders with Neighboring States
Armed conflicts profoundly impact health and mortality, with both immediate and lasting consequences. While conflicts often cause direct fatalities and injuries, they also create significant indirect health risks, driven by population displacement, weakened health and social services, and heightened disease transmission risks. This paper explores these indirect health effects by examining how conflicts contribute to the spread of infectious diseases, particularly through increased displacement and cross-border refugee movements. Focusing on the civil conflicts in Myanmar, which has intensified since the military coup in 2021, we investigate how they have affected malaria transmission in border regions with its neighboring countries, including Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand. We hypothesize that such spread of malaria across borders is due to intensified population movements during civil conflicts, which disrupt local health services and displace people across national borders. Our empirical analysis relies on data from the World Health Organization’s Mekong Malaria Elimination Programme (MME) to track malaria cases and uses the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) to measure conflict events. This research will contribute to the growing body of literature on the indirect health impacts of conflicts, with particular attention to the role of forced migration in disease spread.
Presenter
Kyle Marquardt
Professor, University of Bergen
Title
Ethnicity and Public Opinion in Autocracies: Evidence from Russia
Scholarship on contemporary authoritarian regimes highlights the role of popularity in regime stability. Authoritarian leaders often attempt to control the information available to their citizens. In doing so, they endeavor to maintain a positive image and thereby popular support. Members of ethnic minority groups may be particularly resistant to such regime messaging. Members of groups that have faced past or present identity-based repression may find pro-regime information less credible than members of groups who have not. Furthermore, resistance to a central state and its narratives may be central to the identity of groups whose history involves autonomy or independence from the state.
In this paper, I use UCDP and V-Dem data to contextualize my case: contemporary Russia. I examine interethnic variation in public opinion in Russia, using both regionally-representative data from 2022 surveys of two regions and nationally-representative data from 2024. I focus on support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, analyzing both direct and indirect (list experiment) indicators of this concept to account for preference falsification. These analyses provide substantial evidence of interethnic variation in support for Putin, as well as evidence that institutions of territorial autonomy correlate with lower support for the regime.
Presenter
Steven Wilson
Associate Professor, Brandeis University
CTO, Demscore
Co-Authors
Valeriya Mechkova (University of Gothenburg)
Daniel Pemstein (North Dakota State University)
Brigitte Seim (University of Minnesota)
Steven Lloyd Wilson (Brandeis University)
Title
Disinformation & Democracy
This paper introduces the Digital Society Project indicators for various dimensions of disinformation online, including the country and time coverage, the question design, and the aggregation methodology. In addition, it surveys time trends in the data, and analyzes key findings in terms of geographic patterns worldwide. The paper concludes with a regression analysis testing whether disinformation on social media is associated with a decline in liberal democracy. We find that over the last decade, disinformation online in a country has a substantially statistically significant effect on the decrease in the country’s Liberal Democracy Index from 2011 to 2021. That effect is substantively large: with movement from the minimum to maximum values on our aggregated disinformation index representing a 0.21 to 0.26 point drop on the 0 to 1 Liberal Democracy Index, depending on model specification.
Demscore Conference 2025