working papers

Do More Disaggregated Electoral Results Deter Aggregation Fraud? (with Miguel Rueda, Shuning Ge). R&R at British Journal of Political Science. drawing

Abstract It has been argued that the level at which electoral results are published can affect the election integrity. Publishing more granular results (e.g., at the polling station level) can allow citizens to verify the vote totals that determine election outcomes, thereby deterring voting aggregation fraud. While this logic undergirds the recommendations of international organizations monitoring elections to publish disaggregated electoral results, to date there have not been systematic assessments of how variation in aggregation is linked to electoral miscounting. We address this lacuna by constructing a new dataset of the level at which electoral results are reported in 125 low- and middle-income countries since 2000. We find a clear negative association between the granularity of published electoral results and perceptions of counting irregularities. We do not observe substitution of election malpractice: increased granularity is not linked to perceptions of other forms of manipulation like electoral violence, opposition harassment, or clientelism.


Calculation and Conscience: Motivations for the Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minorities. (with Apurav Bhatiya, William Dinneen, Stephanie Zonszein). drawing

Abstract A vast body of work shows that ethnic and racial minority legislators are more likely to represent their group’s interests compared to dominant group legislators. However, it is unclear whether this is due to intrinsic motivation or electoral incentives. We argue that previous research designs cannot answer this question. Conversely, we use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to analyze the increase in minority representation in the UK Parliament after 2010. By comparing white MPs who narrowly beat minority candidates to minority MPs who narrowly beat white candidates, the RDD controls for electoral incentives since it holds constant constituency factors correlated with a minority parliamentary win. Analyzing over 1 million parliamentary speeches and questions, we find that minority MPs are more likely than white MPs to discuss issues important to ethnic minorities. Our findings suggest that minority substantive representation is likely driven, at least in part, by minority MPs’ intrinsic motivation.



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Can Community Policing Improve Police - Community Relations in an Authoritarian Regime? (with Rob Blair, Anna Wilke). drawing

Abstract Throughout the developing world, citizens distrust the police and hesitate to bring crimes to their attention — a suboptimal equilibrium that makes it difficult for the police to effectively combat crime and violence. Community policing has been touted as one solution to this problem, but evidence on its efficacy in developing country contexts is sparse. We present results from a large-scale field experiment that randomly assigned a home-grown community policing intervention to police stations throughout rural Uganda. Drawing on administrative crime data and close to 4,000 interviews with citizens, police officers, and local authorities, we show that community policing had limited effects on core outcomes such as crime, insecurity, and perceptions of the police. We attribute these findings to a combination of turnover, treatment non-compliance, and resource constraints. Our study draws attention to the limits of community policing’s potential to reduce crime and build trust in the developing world.