Marijke Verpoorten
Biographic Data
| ID | 179055 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marijke Verpoorten |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marijke |
| FAMILY NAME | Verpoorten |
| SIGNATURE | VERPOORTEN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Antwerp |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1619-3030 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 190 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Building infrastructure and cohesion through locally embedded institutions
You go, I stay
Presidents and vaccines
Introduction: Vaccine hesitancy, an important threat to global health, has increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public vaccination of high-profile figures, such as heads of state, has been touted as a potential tool for increasing vaccine acceptance among the general population. However, systematic information on such role modelling is lacking and existing studies focus on a small number of high-income countries. We take advant…
Political Institutions and Perceived Political Representation Before, During, and After Identity-based Conflict
We study who perceives gains and losses in political representation in Rwanda and Burundi and why. We do so in the run-up to and during violence, but also in its aftermath characterized by radically different institutional approaches to manage a similar ethnic divide in both countries. We rely on quantitative and qualitative analyses of over 700 coded life histories covering the period 1985-2015. We find convergence in perceived political represe…
Would You Fight? We Asked Aggrieved Artisanal Miners in Eastern Congo
To meet the rising demand for minerals, mining companies have ventured into fragile areas, often at the expense of artisanal miners. This has led to grievances, and at times violence. Who among the aggrieved intend to use violence? How can peace be maintained? This paper uses individual-level data to address these questions. Among a sample of 469 about-to-be-evicted artisanal miners in Eastern Congo, we inquire about the intention to engage in se…
Public Health and Armed Conflict
Armed conflicts are a concern for human development and public health and represent a major impediment for realizing Sustainable Development Goal #3: to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Vaccination programs can be highly politicized and subjected to major security constraints in war zones, reducing their effectiveness. This article studies how armed conflict impacts immunization rates among children, combining two …
Covid-19 vs. Ebola
How Many Died in Rwanda
status: Published
Trust in the aftermath of genocide
We study changes in inter- and intra-ethnic trust in Rwanda. We focus on the impact of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, which is a case of group-selective violence marked by a clear perpetrator-group and victim-group as well as within-group variation with respect to exposure to violence. In our empirical analysis, we rely on more than 400 individual life histories in which intra- and inter-ethnic trust were systematically ranked for all life hist…
Risk, Envy and Magic in the Artisanal Mining Sector of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Scholars largely agree that witchcraft beliefs in sub-Saharan Africa remain virulent. The 'modernity of witchcraft' is said to thrive on friction between the local moral economy and new socio-economic realities. This article focuses on the appeal of witchcraft beliefs in the artisanal mining sector of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. It argues that the 'do-or-die', 'zero-sum' and 'caught-in-the-middle' context of artisanal mining provide…
Family size and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa
Artisanal or industrial conflict minerals? Evidence from Eastern Congo
Only women can whisper to gods
Voodoo, Vaccines, and Bed Nets
We provide the first quantitative analysis to scrutinize the ample ethnographic evidence that magico-religious beliefs affect the demand for conventional health care in sub-Saharan Africa. We rely on the unique case of Benin, where Voodoo adherence is freely reported and varies greatly within villages and even within households yet can be traced to historic events that are arguably exogenous to present-day health-care behavior. These features all…
Aid, trade and the post-war recovery of the Rwandan coffee sector
We investigate the post-war recovery of the Rwandan coffee sector. First, we look at the recovery of export earnings at the national level and show that the role played by the rise in international coffee prices largely outweighed the one played by domestic policies to boost coffee production and quality. Second, we analyze the subnational variation in the recovery of coffee tree investment and reveal the legacy of armed conflict. In 1999–five ye…
When Ethnicity Beats Gender
This article examines the impact of electoral gender quotas in post-war Burundi and Rwanda on women's political representation. First, it looks at the evolution in descriptive representation by studying the number of female representatives and the prestige of their positions in the legislative and executive branches of government. The results show that, in both Rwanda and Burundi, the number of female political representatives significantly incre…
Voodoo versus fishing committees
Civil war, social capital and resilience in Uganda
We show that armed conflict in Uganda affects social capital as measured by trust and associational membership. Relying on three rounds of nationally representative individual-level data bracketing a large number of violent events, we find that self-reported generalized trust and associational membership decreased during the conflict in districts in which violent events took place. But we also find evidence for a rapid recovery of social capital …
The Impact of Armed Conflict on Economic Performance
Important gaps remain in the understanding of the economic consequences of civil war. Focusing on the conflict in Rwanda in the early 1990s, and using micro data, this article finds that households and localities that experienced more intense conflict are lagging behind in terms of consumption six years after the conflict, a finding that is robust to taking into account the endogeneity of violence. Significantly different returns to land and labo…
Civil War and Political Participation
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 differe…
The Unintended Consequence of an Export Ban
Self-reported food insecurity in Africa during the food price crisis
Detecting hidden violence
Leave none to claim the land
More than 200 years after its first publication, the Malthusian thesis is still much debated, albeit in a modified form. Rather than predicting a global catastrophe, most neo-Malthusians stress the local character of the relationship between population pressure, natural resource scarcity, and conflict as well as its dependency on the socio-political and economic context. This softened version of Malthus's thesis has received little empirical supp…
Household coping in war- and peacetime
The Impact of Armed Conflict on Economic Performance
Important gaps remain in the understanding of the economic consequences of civil war. Focusing on the conflict in Rwanda in the early 1990s, and using micro data, this article finds that households and localities that experienced more intense conflict are lagging behind in terms of consumption six years after the conflict, a finding that is robust to taking into account the endogeneity of violence. Significantly different returns to land and labo…
Household coping in war- and peacetime
Civil War and Political Participation
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 differe…
Leave none to claim the land
More than 200 years after its first publication, the Malthusian thesis is still much debated, albeit in a modified form. Rather than predicting a global catastrophe, most neo-Malthusians stress the local character of the relationship between population pressure, natural resource scarcity, and conflict as well as its dependency on the socio-political and economic context. This softened version of Malthus's thesis has received little empirical supp…
Self-reported food insecurity in Africa during the food price crisis
The Death Toll of the Rwandan Genocide
Le coût en vies humaines du génocide rwandais reste une question très controversée. L’estimation souvent avancée de 500 000 Tutsis assassinés est fondée sur le recensement de 1991. Mais deux questions non résolues mettent en doute ce chiffre. D’abord, combien y avait-il de Tutsis au Rwanda avant le génocide ? Ensuite, combien ont survécu ? En ce qui concerne la première question, certains observateurs avancent que le recensement de 1991 sous-esti…
Detecting hidden violence
Artisanal or industrial conflict minerals? Evidence from Eastern Congo
Would You Fight? We Asked Aggrieved Artisanal Miners in Eastern Congo
To meet the rising demand for minerals, mining companies have ventured into fragile areas, often at the expense of artisanal miners. This has led to grievances, and at times violence. Who among the aggrieved intend to use violence? How can peace be maintained? This paper uses individual-level data to address these questions. Among a sample of 469 about-to-be-evicted artisanal miners in Eastern Congo, we inquire about the intention to engage in se…
Covid-19 vs. Ebola
When Ethnicity Beats Gender
This article examines the impact of electoral gender quotas in post-war Burundi and Rwanda on women's political representation. First, it looks at the evolution in descriptive representation by studying the number of female representatives and the prestige of their positions in the legislative and executive branches of government. The results show that, in both Rwanda and Burundi, the number of female political representatives significantly incre…
Public Health and Armed Conflict
Armed conflicts are a concern for human development and public health and represent a major impediment for realizing Sustainable Development Goal #3: to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Vaccination programs can be highly politicized and subjected to major security constraints in war zones, reducing their effectiveness. This article studies how armed conflict impacts immunization rates among children, combining two …
Trust in the aftermath of genocide
We study changes in inter- and intra-ethnic trust in Rwanda. We focus on the impact of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, which is a case of group-selective violence marked by a clear perpetrator-group and victim-group as well as within-group variation with respect to exposure to violence. In our empirical analysis, we rely on more than 400 individual life histories in which intra- and inter-ethnic trust were systematically ranked for all life hist…
Family size and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa
Le coût en vies humaines du génocide rwandais
Le coût en vies humaines du génocide rwandais reste une question très controversée. L’estimation souvent avancée de 500 000 Tutsis assassinés est fondée sur le recensement de 1991. Mais deux questions non résolues mettent en doute ce chiffre. D’abord, combien y avait-il de Tutsis au Rwanda avant le génocide ? Ensuite, combien ont survécu ? En ce qui concerne la première question, certains observateurs avancent que le recensement de 1991 sous-esti…
How Many Died in Rwanda
status: Published
Risk, Envy and Magic in the Artisanal Mining Sector of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Scholars largely agree that witchcraft beliefs in sub-Saharan Africa remain virulent. The 'modernity of witchcraft' is said to thrive on friction between the local moral economy and new socio-economic realities. This article focuses on the appeal of witchcraft beliefs in the artisanal mining sector of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. It argues that the 'do-or-die', 'zero-sum' and 'caught-in-the-middle' context of artisanal mining provide…
Only women can whisper to gods
Aid, trade and the post-war recovery of the Rwandan coffee sector
We investigate the post-war recovery of the Rwandan coffee sector. First, we look at the recovery of export earnings at the national level and show that the role played by the rise in international coffee prices largely outweighed the one played by domestic policies to boost coffee production and quality. Second, we analyze the subnational variation in the recovery of coffee tree investment and reveal the legacy of armed conflict. In 1999–five ye…
The Unintended Consequence of an Export Ban
Political Institutions and Perceived Political Representation Before, During, and After Identity-based Conflict
We study who perceives gains and losses in political representation in Rwanda and Burundi and why. We do so in the run-up to and during violence, but also in its aftermath characterized by radically different institutional approaches to manage a similar ethnic divide in both countries. We rely on quantitative and qualitative analyses of over 700 coded life histories covering the period 1985-2015. We find convergence in perceived political represe…
What are all the soldiers going to do?' demobilisation, reintegration and employment in Rwanda
Western donors are heavily engaged in Rwanda's Demobilisation and Reintegration Programme for former combatants. This engagement reflects the commitment of the donors to implement a new post‐conflict agenda in a very difficult situation. When this agenda goes beyond mere economic development, we argue that donors should not drift too far away from their first task: combating poverty. More often than not, development and security are two sides of …
What are all the soldiers going to do?' demobilisation, reintegration and employment in Rwanda
Western donors are heavily engaged in Rwanda's Demobilisation and Reintegration Programme for former combatants. This engagement reflects the commitment of the donors to implement a new post‐conflict agenda in a very difficult situation. When this agenda goes beyond mere economic development, we argue that donors should not drift too far away from their first task: combating poverty. More often than not, development and security are two sides of …
The Death Toll of the Rwandan Genocide
Le coût en vies humaines du génocide rwandais reste une question très controversée. L’estimation souvent avancée de 500 000 Tutsis assassinés est fondée sur le recensement de 1991. Mais deux questions non résolues mettent en doute ce chiffre. D’abord, combien y avait-il de Tutsis au Rwanda avant le génocide ? Ensuite, combien ont survécu ? En ce qui concerne la première question, certains observateurs avancent que le recensement de 1991 sous-esti…
Le coût en vies humaines du génocide rwandais
Le coût en vies humaines du génocide rwandais reste une question très controversée. L’estimation souvent avancée de 500 000 Tutsis assassinés est fondée sur le recensement de 1991. Mais deux questions non résolues mettent en doute ce chiffre. D’abord, combien y avait-il de Tutsis au Rwanda avant le génocide ? Ensuite, combien ont survécu ? En ce qui concerne la première question, certains observateurs avancent que le recensement de 1991 sous-esti…
Household coping in war- and peacetime
Detecting hidden violence
Leave none to claim the land
More than 200 years after its first publication, the Malthusian thesis is still much debated, albeit in a modified form. Rather than predicting a global catastrophe, most neo-Malthusians stress the local character of the relationship between population pressure, natural resource scarcity, and conflict as well as its dependency on the socio-political and economic context. This softened version of Malthus's thesis has received little empirical supp…
Self-reported food insecurity in Africa during the food price crisis
The Unintended Consequence of an Export Ban
Civil war, social capital and resilience in Uganda
We show that armed conflict in Uganda affects social capital as measured by trust and associational membership. Relying on three rounds of nationally representative individual-level data bracketing a large number of violent events, we find that self-reported generalized trust and associational membership decreased during the conflict in districts in which violent events took place. But we also find evidence for a rapid recovery of social capital …
The Impact of Armed Conflict on Economic Performance
Important gaps remain in the understanding of the economic consequences of civil war. Focusing on the conflict in Rwanda in the early 1990s, and using micro data, this article finds that households and localities that experienced more intense conflict are lagging behind in terms of consumption six years after the conflict, a finding that is robust to taking into account the endogeneity of violence. Significantly different returns to land and labo…
Civil War and Political Participation
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 differe…
Voodoo versus fishing committees
Aid, trade and the post-war recovery of the Rwandan coffee sector
We investigate the post-war recovery of the Rwandan coffee sector. First, we look at the recovery of export earnings at the national level and show that the role played by the rise in international coffee prices largely outweighed the one played by domestic policies to boost coffee production and quality. Second, we analyze the subnational variation in the recovery of coffee tree investment and reveal the legacy of armed conflict. In 1999–five ye…
When Ethnicity Beats Gender
This article examines the impact of electoral gender quotas in post-war Burundi and Rwanda on women's political representation. First, it looks at the evolution in descriptive representation by studying the number of female representatives and the prestige of their positions in the legislative and executive branches of government. The results show that, in both Rwanda and Burundi, the number of female political representatives significantly incre…
Family size and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa
Artisanal or industrial conflict minerals? Evidence from Eastern Congo
Only women can whisper to gods
Voodoo, Vaccines, and Bed Nets
We provide the first quantitative analysis to scrutinize the ample ethnographic evidence that magico-religious beliefs affect the demand for conventional health care in sub-Saharan Africa. We rely on the unique case of Benin, where Voodoo adherence is freely reported and varies greatly within villages and even within households yet can be traced to historic events that are arguably exogenous to present-day health-care behavior. These features all…
Covid-19 vs. Ebola
How Many Died in Rwanda
status: Published
Trust in the aftermath of genocide
We study changes in inter- and intra-ethnic trust in Rwanda. We focus on the impact of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, which is a case of group-selective violence marked by a clear perpetrator-group and victim-group as well as within-group variation with respect to exposure to violence. In our empirical analysis, we rely on more than 400 individual life histories in which intra- and inter-ethnic trust were systematically ranked for all life hist…
Risk, Envy and Magic in the Artisanal Mining Sector of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
Scholars largely agree that witchcraft beliefs in sub-Saharan Africa remain virulent. The 'modernity of witchcraft' is said to thrive on friction between the local moral economy and new socio-economic realities. This article focuses on the appeal of witchcraft beliefs in the artisanal mining sector of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. It argues that the 'do-or-die', 'zero-sum' and 'caught-in-the-middle' context of artisanal mining provide…
Would You Fight? We Asked Aggrieved Artisanal Miners in Eastern Congo
To meet the rising demand for minerals, mining companies have ventured into fragile areas, often at the expense of artisanal miners. This has led to grievances, and at times violence. Who among the aggrieved intend to use violence? How can peace be maintained? This paper uses individual-level data to address these questions. Among a sample of 469 about-to-be-evicted artisanal miners in Eastern Congo, we inquire about the intention to engage in se…
Public Health and Armed Conflict
Armed conflicts are a concern for human development and public health and represent a major impediment for realizing Sustainable Development Goal #3: to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Vaccination programs can be highly politicized and subjected to major security constraints in war zones, reducing their effectiveness. This article studies how armed conflict impacts immunization rates among children, combining two …
Presidents and vaccines
Introduction: Vaccine hesitancy, an important threat to global health, has increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public vaccination of high-profile figures, such as heads of state, has been touted as a potential tool for increasing vaccine acceptance among the general population. However, systematic information on such role modelling is lacking and existing studies focus on a small number of high-income countries. We take advant…
Political science (22 works) · Economics (21 works) · Law (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Geography (10 works) · Development economics (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Medicine (8 works) · Demographic economics (6 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (6 works)