Matthias Basedau

Guest Researcher

Matthias Basedau
Matthias Basedau left PRIO in 2014. The information on this page is kept for historical reasons. Matthias Basedau is an External Associate at PRIO.

Research Interests

​​Matthias studies the causes of intrastate conflict, in particular natural resources, ethnicity and religion. He also specializes in the analysis of political institutions and their potential to work on conflict.

Other fields of interest include electoral systems, political parties, and democratization as well as multi method designs and comparative area studies.

Background

​​​​​​​Prof. Dr. Matthias Basedau is a lead research fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA)​ in Hamburg. He heads the research programme on "violence and security".

 Read more about him on GIGA's website.​


Publications

​Basedau, Matthias / Pfeiffer, Birte / Vüllers, Johannes (2014), Bad Religion? Religion, Collective Action, and the Onset of Armed Conflict in Developing Countries, in: Journal of Conflict Resolution, forthcoming

Basedau, Matthias / Pierskalla, Jan H. (2013), How Ethnicity Conditions the Effect of Oil and Gas on Civil Conflict: A Spatial Analysis of Africa from 1990 to 2010, in: Political Geography, 38, January 2014; 1-11

Basedau, Matthias / Mähler, Annegret / Shabafrouz, Miriam (2013), Drilling Deeper: A Systematic, Context-Sensitive Investigation of Causal Mechanisms in the Oil–Conflict, in: Journal of Development Studies, online first

Basedau, Matthias / Richter, Thomas (2013), Why Do Some Oil Exporters Experience Civil War but Others Do not?: Investigating the Conditional Effects of Oil, in: European Political Science Review, online first

Basedau, Matthias / Elischer, Sebastian (2013), Auf dem Rückzug in die Kasernen? Autoritäre Herrschaft und das Militär im subsaharischen Afrika, in: Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Sonderheft 47, 354-383.

Wegenast, Tim / Basedau, Matthias (2013), Ethnic Fractionalization, Natural Resources and Armed Conflict, in: Conflict Management and Peace Science, online first

Basedau, Matthias / Vüllers, Johannes / Körner, Peter (2013), What drives Interreligious Violence? Lessons from Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire and Tanzania, in: Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 36, 10, 857-879

Koos, Carlo / Basedau, Matthias (2013), Does Uranium Mining Increase Civil Conflict Risk? Evidence from a Spatiotemporal Analysis of Africa from 1960 to 2008, in: Civil Wars, 15, 3, 306-331

Basedau, Matthias (2013), A Context-sensitive Approach to the Study of Presidentialism and Ethnic Violence, in: Ethnopolitics, 12, 1, 89-92

Basedau, Matthias / Stroh, Alexander (2012), How ethnic are African parties really? Evidence from Francophone Africa, in: International Political Science Review, 33, 1, 5-24

Basedau, Matthias / Moroff, Anika (2011), Parties in Chains – Do Ethnic Party Bans in Africa Promote Peace?, in: Party Politics, 17, 2, 205-225

Basedau, Matthias / Strüver, Georg / Vüllers, Johannes / Wegenast, Tim (2011), Do Religious Factors Impact Armed Conflict? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, in: Terrorism and Political Violence, 23, 5, 752-779

Basedau, Matthias / Stroh, Alexander (2011), Do Party Systems Make Democracy Work? A Comparative Test of Party System Characteristics and Democratization in Francophone Africa, in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 1, 173-200

Basedau, Matthias / Erdmann, Gero / Lay, Jann / Stroh, Alexander (2011), Ethnicity and Party Preferences in sub-Saharan Africa, in: Democratization, 18, 2, 462-489

Becher, Anika / Basedau, Matthias (2010), An effective measure of institutional engineering? Ethnic party bans in Africa, in: Democratization, 17, 4, 666-686

Basedau, Matthias / Lay, Jann (2009), Resource Curse or Rentier Peace? The Ambiguous Effects of Oil Wealth and Oil Dependence on Violent Conflict, in: Journal of Peace Research, 46, 6, 757-776

Basedau, Matthias / Wegenast, Tim (2009), Oil and Diamonds as Causes of Civil War in Sub-Saharan Africa: Under what Conditions?, in: Colombia Internacional, 70, 35-59

Basedau, Matthias (2009), Religion und Gewaltkonflikt im subsaharischen Afrika: Zur Rolle religiöser Faktoren in Benin und der Elfenbeinküste, in: Politische Vierteljahreschrift, PVS Sonderheft, 150-176

Basedau, Matthias (2008), Context Matters. Rethinking the Resource Curse in Sub-Saharan Africa, in: Africa Analyst, 3, 1, 1-17

Erdmann, Gero / Basedau, Matthias (2008), Party Systems in Africa: Problems of categorising and explaining party systems, in: Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 26, 3, 241-258

Basedau, Matthias / Mehler, Andreas / Smith-Höhn, Judy (2007), Public Perceptions of Security in Post-conflict Urban Liberia and Sierra Leone. Part I: Liberia - Caught between International, State and Non-State Actors, in: Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, 3, 2, 84-89

Basedau, Matthias / Köllner, Patrick (2007), Area Studies, Comparative Area Studies, and the Study of Politics: Context, Substance, and Methodological Challenges, in: Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 1, 1, 105-124

All Publications

Peer-reviewed Journal Article

Hegre, Håvard; Marie Allansson; Matthias Basedau; Michael Colaresi; Mihai Croicu; Hanne Fjelde; Frederick Hoyles; Lisa Hultman; Stina Högbladh; Remco Jansen; Naima Mouhleb; Sayyed Auwn Muhammad; Desirée Nilsson; Håvard Mokleiv Nygård; Gudlaug Olafsdottir; Kristina Petrova; David Randahl; Espen Geelmuyden Rød; Gerald Schneider; Nina von Uexkull & Jonas Vestby (2019) ViEWS: A political Violence Early-Warning System, Journal of Peace Research 56(2): 155–174.
Basedau, Matthias; Siri Aas Rustad & Elise​ Must (2018) Do expectations on oil discoveries affect civil unrest? Micro-level evidence from Mali, Cogent Social Sciences 4: 1–19.
Basedau, Matthias (2016) Ideen, Identitäten und Institutionen: Explikation eines multidimensionalen Religionsbegriffs in der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung [Ideas, identities and institutions: Explaining a multidimensional concept of religion in peace and conflict research], Zeitschrift für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (ZeFKo). Special volume: Religion in der Friedens- und Konfliktforschung. DOI: 10.5771/9783845266145-235: 235–265.
Vüllers, Johannes; Birte Pfeiffer & Matthias Basedau (2015) Measuring the Ambivalence of Religion: Introducing the Religion and Conflict in Developing Countries (RCDC) Dataset, International Interactions 41(5): 857–881.
Basedau, Matthias; Jonathan Fox; Jan H. Pierskalla; Georg Struver & Johannes Vüllers (2015) Does discrimination breed grievances—and do grievances breed violence? New evidence from an analysis of religious minorities in developing countries, Conflict Management and Peace Science. DOI: 10.1177/0738894215581329: 1–23.
Basedau, Matthias & Carlo Koos (2015) When Do Religious Leaders Support Faith-Based Violence? Evidence from a Survey Poll in South Sudan, Political Research Quarterly 68(4): 760–772.
Basedau, Matthias; Birte Pfeiffer & Johannes Vüllers (2014) Bad Religion? Religion, Collective Action, and the Onset of Armed Conflict in Developing Countries, Journal of Conflict Resolution 60(2): 226–255.