Individualized text messages about public services fail to sway voters: Evidence from a field experiment on Ugandan elections

Ryan Jablonski, Mark T. Buntaine, Daniel L. Nielson, and Paula M. Pickering We used SMS messages about public services to help Ugandans make informed voting decisions, but find no effect on voting. Here is why information alone is sometimes insufficient to affect political behavior. Like in many countries, citizens’ ability to access quality services from … Read more

Teargas and Selfie Cams: Foreign Protests and Media in the Digital Age

Naima Green-Riley, Dominka Kruszewska-Eduardo, and Ze Fu More and more in the current age, protesters in cities around the world are making international headlines.  For international relations scholars, this raises an interesting question: how do foreign audiences react to footage of protests overseas? Do certain types of videos garner greater support for foreign policy actions … Read more

How Accurate Are Beliefs About the Politics of Others?

Taylor N. Carlson and Seth J. Hill In a June 23, 2016 referendum, citizens of the United Kingdom voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the European Union. The result surprised pundits and journalists who, supported by contemporaneous opinion surveys, had been confident that remain would win. The result surprised many voters, too. Anecdotes … Read more

How Bad Is It? Elite Influence and the Perceived Seriousness of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Philip Moniz Though the coronavirus pandemic has killed over 500,000 people in the United States and 2.5 million worldwide, some people take it more seriously than others. Some perceive the death toll as an outrage and a failure of government leadership; others regard the toll as unfortunate but unavoidable; still others see it as tolerable, … Read more

If We Build It, Only Some Will Come: An Experimental Study of Mobilization for Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program

Geoffrey Henderson and Hahrie Han A decade on from the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the American campaign finance system remains deeply undemocratic. Fewer than one in four campaign dollars in the 2020 election came from people giving $200 or less, allowing wealthy Americans disproportionate influence over the outcome. Seattle, Washington’s innovative … Read more

Through Their Own Eyes: The Implications of COVID-19 for PhD Students

Nicholas Haas, Aida Gureghian, Cristel Jusino Díaz, and Abby Williams Has COVID-19 made doctoral students more receptive to non-academic careers? Economic fallout from the pandemic has exacerbated problems with an already-precarious job market, upending expectations for post-graduate employment – particularly among PhD students. News of university budget shortfalls, hiring freezes, and furloughs have in turn … Read more

The Effect of Geostrategic Competition on Public Attitudes to Aid

Terence Wood, Christopher Hoy, and Jonathan Pryke China’s rise as an aid power is changing the way political elites and policymakers in OECD countries think about aid. Responding to the perceived geostrategic leverage that China gains from its aid, decisionmakers have increasingly viewed their country’s aid as a means of advancing foreign policy goals overseas. … Read more

Women Want an Answer! Field Experiments on Elected Officials and Gender Bias

Gabriele Magni and Zoila Ponce de Leon The effect of gender in the response rate of politicians to inquiries about healthcare and unemployment support Women politicians are more responsive than men when people come to them seeking health care and economic support, our newly published study on gender and government responsiveness reveals. Our research, conducted in 2017, … Read more

How to Survey Citizens’ Compliance with COVID-19 Public Health Measures: Evidence from Three Survey Experiments

Jean-François Daoust, Richard Nadeau, Ruth Dassonneville, Erick Lachapelle, Éric Bélanger, Justin Savoie, and Clifton van der Linden Mass compliance with recently enacted public health measures such as social distancing or lockdowns can have a definitive impact on coronavirus transmissions and, by extension, the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations and deaths. It is thus fundamental to understand … Read more

Political Accountability and Democratic Institutions: An Experimental Assessment

José Gabriel Castillo and John Hamman Does a democratic election confer legitimacy to the elected authority?  Does this, in turn, improve collective action? In other words, does democracy, by itself, lead to higher economic growth and development? Despite the abundance of social science research on this topic, we still lack a definite answer to such … Read more