E-participation in contemporary China: A comparison with conventional offline participation

Drawing on the resource theory of political participation, we compare the determinants of Internet-based e-participation and conventional offline political participation in China by employing data from an original survey conducted in 2013. We find that e-government and other online platforms provide more equal participation opportunities to Chinese citizens traditionally lacking political resources. Although non-party members and non-elites are disadvantaged in conventional offline participation, they are not in e-participation, especially through using e-government systems. Internet/computer access and Internet skills push individuals away from conventional offline participation, and frequent social media users are more likely to engage in e-participation. Taken together, these results suggest that e-government and other online platforms offer the genuine potential to expand the scope of participation and empowers those traditionally disadvantaged in China

The effects of revealed corruption on voter attitudes and participation: Evidence from Brazil

How do voters respond to information about political corruption? Prior research provides conflicting evidence about whether information about political corruption drives voters to participate or withdraw from electoral politics, and about whether those who participate are able to remove corrupt politicians from office. This three-paper dissertation makes several contributions to this literature. The first chapter studies voters' ability to remove corrupt politicians by reevaluating Ferraz and Finan's (2008) seminal study about the effects of corruption audits in Brazil. By attempting to reproduce their results from the 2004 Brazilian municipal elections and by extending their analysis to the 2008 and 2012 elections, I call into question their well-known result that voters react to information about political corruption by removing incumbent politicians from office. The second chapter questions whether revealing corruption causes voters to withdraw from the political system entirely. Focusing on electoral turnout and the proportion of blank and null votes cast in Brazilian municipal elections, I find that releasing information about high levels of local government corruption actually causes citizens to become more engaged in the political system over time. The third chapter studies voters' political attitudes in order to understand why participation increases following the revelation of corruption. I hypothesize that because the institution that revealed corruption in Brazil was a governmental institution, this information had a positive impact on voters' political attitudes. Using survey data, I find evidence that revealing corruption increases citizens' trust in institutions and their sense of political efficacy, thereby increasing their propensity to participate in elections. Despite discouraging results in the first chapter, my findings in chapters 2 and 3 highlight additional ways in which information about corruption can enhance political accountability by increasing citizen engagement in the electoral process

The effects of revealed corruption on voter attitudes and participation: Evidence from Brazil

How do voters respond to information about political corruption? Prior research provides conflicting evidence about whether information about political corruption drives voters to participate or withdraw from electoral politics, and about whether those who participate are able to remove corrupt politicians from office. This three-paper dissertation makes several contributions to this literature. The first chapter studies voters' ability to remove corrupt politicians by reevaluating Ferraz and Finan's (2008) seminal study about the effects of corruption audits in Brazil. By attempting to reproduce their results from the 2004 Brazilian municipal elections and by extending their analysis to the 2008 and 2012 elections, I call into question their well-known result that voters react to information about political corruption by removing incumbent politicians from office. The second chapter questions whether revealing corruption causes voters to withdraw from the political system entirely. Focusing on electoral turnout and the proportion of blank and null votes cast in Brazilian municipal elections, I find that releasing information about high levels of local government corruption actually causes citizens to become more engaged in the political system over time. The third chapter studies voters' political attitudes in order to understand why participation increases following the revelation of corruption. I hypothesize that because the institution that revealed corruption in Brazil was a governmental institution, this information had a positive impact on voters' political attitudes. Using survey data, I find evidence that revealing corruption increases citizens' trust in institutions and their sense of political efficacy, thereby increasing their propensity to participate in elections. Despite discouraging results in the first chapter, my findings in chapters 2 and 3 highlight additional ways in which information about corruption can enhance political accountability by increasing citizen engagement in the electoral process.LimitedAuthor requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste

Deliver the Vote! Micromotives and Macrobehavior in Electoral Fraud

Most election fraud is not conducted centrally by incumbents but rather locally by a machinery consisting of hundreds of political operatives. How does an incumbent ensure that his local agents deliver fraud when needed and as much as is needed? We address this and related puzzles in the political organization of election fraud by studying the perverse consequences of two distinct incentive problems: the principalagent problem between an incumbent and his local agents, and the collective action problem among the agents. Using the global game methodology, we show that these incentive problems result in a herd dynamic among the agents that tends to either oversupply or undersupply fraud, rarely delivering the amount of fraud that would be optimal from the incumbent’s point of view. This equilibrium dynamic predicts overwhelming victories for incumbents that are punctuated by his rare but resounding defeats and it explains why incumbents who enjoy genuine popularity often engage in seemingly unnecessary fraud. A statistical analysis of anomalies in precinct-level results of Russian legislative and presidential elections supports our key claims

Replication Data for: Maps in People’s Heads: Assessing A New Measure of Context

To understand the relationship between place and politics, we must measure both political attitudes and the ways in which place is represented in the minds of individuals. In this paper, we assess a new measure of mental-representation of geography, in which survey respondents draw their own local communities on maps and describe them. This mapping measure has been used in Canada, the UK, Denmark, and the U.S. so far. We use a panel study in Canada to present evidence that these maps are both valid and reliable measures of a personally relevant geographic area, laying the measurement groundwork for the growing number of studies using this technology. We hope to set efforts to measure ‘place’ for the study of context and politics on firmer footing. Our validity assessments show that individuals are thinking about people and places with which they have regular contact when asked to draw their communities. Our reliability assessments show that people can draw more or less the same map twice, even when the exercise is repeated months later. Finally, we provide evidence that the concept of community is a tangible consideration in the minds of ordinary citizens and is not simply a normative aspiration or motivation