Mobile Phones in Conflict-Stressed Environments: Macro, Meso and Microanalysis

Much as Achilles was impervious to war (save his much-discussed heel), mobile phones miraculously seem not only to persist in conflict-stressed environments but also even to flourish. Today’s news has been full of stories as mobile phones somehow survive and thrive in some of the world’s most war-torn countries such as Somalia (Winter 2004) or the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Sullivan 2006). Can we describe these phenomena? What can explain it? In this chapter we examine mobile phones and conflict at three levels of analysis: across the entire globe (macroanalysis), statewide in Iraq (mesoanalysis), and among individuals in Liberia (microanalysis). Across all three of these levels of description we find that mobile phones are flourishing; seem impervious to insecurity and conflict; and provide individuals important security, business, and personal benefit.