Terrorism and land use in agriculture: A response to a replication attempt and additional insights on replication guidelines

Abstract

Replication studies are intended to enhance confidence in research findings by ground-truthing previous studies and/or fact-checking their errors. Drawing on existing literature, this study reiterates guidelines to ensure sound and value-adding replication efforts, including (1) using appropriate data-management processes, (2) an accurate and error-free replication attempt, and (3) clear understanding of the research problem at hand. Using these standards, this study compares the 2019 Land Use Policy (LUP) article titled “Terrorism and land use in agriculture: The case of Boko Haram in Nigeria” by Adelaja & George, to its 2023 replication attempt by Ölkers, Kirchner, & Mußhoff in LUP. We identify numerous errors, miscalculations and misreporting, suggesting a very limited understanding of databases used and the context of the original study. We conclude that the inability of Ölkers et al. (2023) to meet the standards implied by these guidelines might have led to findings that are drastically different from the original study. This study further undergirds the importance of guidelines for replication studies and offers other suggestions for promoting high quality replication studies.