The article International Interventions to Build Social Capital: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Sudan, written by Alexandra Avdeenko and Michael Gilligan, analyse community driven development (CDD) programs conducted in the post-civil war Sudanese communities. This analysis provides an interesting and relevant analysis of the effects of CDD programs, and more broadly, the effects of developmental aid in areas that have been devastated by civil war. It is important for this type of research to be conducted so that the international community can better apply aid in a meaningful way. In this article, Avdeenko and Gilligan propose the hypothesis that CDD programs encourage and increase social capital, also referred to as prosocial norms,
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For the basic analysis of treatment on social networks the dependent variable was the subject’s network size in relation to the independent variable, the village-specific subject group size (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 435). In the games designed to measure trust, trustworthiness, and altruism the variables become more complex. In the trust game, levels of trust between individuals, trustworthiness and the measure of public goods, was measured in relation to family, friend, neighbour, and mosque relationships (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 439). This is done to measure the “number of [prosocial] networks…relative to subject-group size”, thus gaining a perception of social capital within the community and the scope of said networks (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 439). In the altruism test the dependent variables was the “amount donated to the needy family… the willingness to contribute to a collective good… generalized trust [of the investor], [and] trustworthiness” between the investor and the trustee (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 440). This test provides the researchers with information on the altruistic tendencies of citizens. This allows for a measurement of the prosocial contact citizens have with people outside their immediate networks. For the tests measuring participation in governance there was more simplified ways of measuring the effect of the program. In the data set measuring civic participation and community, the dependent variable varied between 1 or 0 depending on an answer of yes or no to the question, “in the last three years have you done X” allowing for a measurement of participation with governance (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015:
For the basic analysis of treatment on social networks the dependent variable was the subject’s network size in relation to the independent variable, the village-specific subject group size (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 435). In the games designed to measure trust, trustworthiness, and altruism the variables become more complex. In the trust game, levels of trust between individuals, trustworthiness and the measure of public goods, was measured in relation to family, friend, neighbour, and mosque relationships (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 439). This is done to measure the “number of [prosocial] networks…relative to subject-group size”, thus gaining a perception of social capital within the community and the scope of said networks (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 439). In the altruism test the dependent variables was the “amount donated to the needy family… the willingness to contribute to a collective good… generalized trust [of the investor], [and] trustworthiness” between the investor and the trustee (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: 440). This test provides the researchers with information on the altruistic tendencies of citizens. This allows for a measurement of the prosocial contact citizens have with people outside their immediate networks. For the tests measuring participation in governance there was more simplified ways of measuring the effect of the program. In the data set measuring civic participation and community, the dependent variable varied between 1 or 0 depending on an answer of yes or no to the question, “in the last three years have you done X” allowing for a measurement of participation with governance (Avdeenko, Gilligan 2015: