The jury consisting of Nils B. Weidmann (University of Konstanz), Hanne Fjelde (Uppsala University) and Michael D. Ward (Duke University) has awarded the sixth JPR Best Visualization Award to Carl Müller-Crepon (ETH Zurich) and Philipp Hunziker (now at Google). The prize-winning article is a Special Data Feature titled 'New spatial data on ethnicity: Introducing SIDE' and was published in the September issue, Journal of Peace Research 55(5): 687–698. The article introduces a new dataset on the spatial distribution of ethnic groups ('SIDE'), which was derived from survey results. Graphical illustrations are used to show the overall geographic coverage of the dataset, the creation of the estimates, and the results from different validation exercises. Due to the spatial nature of the data, the authors use a number of carefully-crafted maps. These maps nicely illustrate the main information in the dataset (the local population share of particular ethnic groups, or the extent of the settlement region in the country), but also demonstrate how this information can be used to generate, for example, estimates of local fractionalization. The authors include a number of graphics to validate their data against other datasets on ethnicity. This is again done with the help of maps (to compare their estimates to the spatial GeoEPR data on group settlement regions), but also using scatter plots for comparison with demographic statistics. The result is an article that not only delivers a useful public good to the research community, but also communicates the creation and the quality of these data in an effective manner using graphical means.
The award is USD 500.
