Do voters differentially punish transnational corruption?

A large literature studies whether, and under what circumstances, voters will electorally punish corrupt politicians. Yet this literature has to date neglected the empirical prevalence of transnational dimensions to real-world corruption allegations, even as corruption studies undergo a ‘transnational turn’. We use a survey experiment in the United Kingdom in 2020 to investigate whether voters differentially punish politicians associated with transnational corruption and test four different potential mechanisms: information salience, country-based discrimination, economic nationalism and expected representation. We find evidence suggesting that voters indeed differentially punish transnational corruption, but only when it involves countries perceived negatively by the public (i.e. a ‘Moscow-based firm’). This is most consistent with a mechanism of country-based discrimination, while we find no evidence consistent with any other mechanism. These results suggest that existing experimental studies might understate the potential for electoral accountability by neglecting real-world corruption allegations’ frequent transnational dimension

Null effects of social media ads on voter registration: three digital field experiments

Civic organisations and progressive campaigns regard digital advertising as an essential method to register to vote low-participation groups, such as ethnic minorities, young voters and frequent home movers like private-sector tenants. Digital strategies appear to be promising in countries like the UK, where the registration process can be completed online, usually in less than 5 minutes, using a web link in the advert. But are typical digital campaigns effective in registering voters? To find out, we provide evidence from three randomised controlled trials: two conducted with advocacy organisations and the third run by the research team, carried out in two types of UK elections (general and local) and assigned either at the aggregate (Study 1 and Study 2) or individual (Study 3) level. Despite wide reach and relatively high rates of engagement, we find that the digital ad campaigns trialed across three studies did not affect under-registered groups’ voter registrations. These null findings raise questions about commonly-used digital advertising strategies to register marginalised groups. They are consistent with other studies that report either null or minimal effects of digital ads on other types of political behaviour

Do text messages increase voter registration? Evidence from RCTs with a local authority and an advocacy organisation in the UK

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, text messages have become an increasingly attractive tool of voter registration. At the same time, in countries without automated registration, advocacy organisations play a more prominent role in supplementing the efforts of official bodies in registering voters. However, most available, robust evidence on whether voter registration campaigns work is based on campaigns conducted by official bodies charged with electoral registration. We present the results of two RCTs that aimed to increase voter registration in the UK using SMS-text messages, relying mainly on behavioural messaging. One was conducted by a local authority, while the other was implemented by an issue advocacy organisation that had no prior involvement in voter registration. In line with previous findings, the local authority's text messages resulted in an increased registration rate of eight percentage-points, which translates into a three percentage-point increase in voter turnout. However, the advocacy organisation's text messages neither increased voter registration, nor turnout, no matter whether the text message offered a personal follow-up conversation, or not. Given that many voter registration campaigns are run by advocacy organisations and text messages are an increasingly important mobilisation tool, this raises questions about the scope conditions of existing findings

Government on the brink: the effects of political crisis on elites and voters

My PhD journey was filled with inspiring experiences that have helped me mature as a person, for which I will be eternally grateful. However, along the way and as part of this journey, I had to say goodbye to a number of essential people in my life. I would like to pay tribute to their lives with this dissertation. My father, Jaime, along with my grandmother Mami, Uncle Toto, and Aunt Tere, are in my heart. Before anything else, I would like to thank my supervisors for their invaluable support throughout my doctoral journey. I am truly fortunate to have Dr Florian Foos as my first supervisor. More significantly, I consider him my mentor in this academic journey that we have chosen as our career. I want to thank him in particular for being such an exemplary model of integrity, rigour, and kindness. This dissertation would not have been possible without his unwavering support and intellectual debate. Dr Foos always encouraged me to strive for excellence. I am also grateful for his guidance in developing different aspects of my character as an academic. He consistently encouraged me to meet and discuss with numerous visiting scholars and guest speakers, experiences that I greatly appreciate and value. I hope we will continue collaborating in the future. I will never be able to thank Florian enough. I am also incredibly grateful to Professor Rafael Hortala-Vallve, my second supervisor. I am grateful to Professor Hortala-Vallve for always encouraging me to aspire for excellence as an academic researcher. He frequently challenged me to think carefully about the bigger questions that I wanted to answer and provided me with novel insights that I had not considered. I am especially grateful for his big-picture perspective, which was invaluable whenever I got entangled in the details. I would like to thank Professor Peter John and Dr Daniel Berliner for believing in me and inviting me as a co-author from the beginning. Furthermore, I would like to cement a political legacy using a novel semi-structured and nationally representative survey of 3,594 bureaucrats. Finally, the third paper looks at how voters respond to heightened political uncertainty and whether they hold politicians accountable. It leverages transnational corruption scandals, and finds that voters punish transnational corruption cases more severely than domestic ones through a country-based discrimination channel. In conclusion, this dissertation provides novel evidence regarding the use of public resources by politicians to safeguard their legacy during times of crisis or heightened political uncertainty induced by constitutional rules. Conversely, it demonstrates under which conditions the electorate holds elected politicians accountable for their involvement in political scandals

Do text messages increase voter registration? Evidence from RCTs with a local authority and an advocacy organisation in the UK

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, text messages have become an increasingly attractive tool of voter registration. At the same time, in countries without automated registration, advocacy organisations play a more prominent role in supplementing the efforts of official bodies in registering voters. However, most available, robust evidence on whether voter registration campaigns work is based on campaigns conducted by official bodies charged with electoral registration. We present the results of two RCTs that aimed to increase voter registration in the UK using SMS-text messages, relying mainly on behavioural messaging. One was conducted by a local authority, while the other was implemented by an issue advocacy organisation that had no prior involvement in voter registration. In line with previous findings, the local authority’s text messages resulted in an increased registration rate of eight percentage-points, which translates into a three percentage-point increase in voter turnout. However, the advocacy organisation’s text messages neither increased voter registration, nor turnout, no matter whether the text message offered a personal follow-up conversation, or not. Given that many voter registration campaigns are run by advocacy organisations and text messages are an increasingly important mobilisation tool, this raises questions about the scope conditions of existing findings

Register to Vote '21 - Digital field experiment

The aim of this online field experiment is to test if digital ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat positively affect voter registrations and turnout in the 2021 English local elections

Null effects of social media ads on voter registration: three digital field experiments

Civic organisations and progressive campaigns regard digital advertising as an essential method to register to vote low-participation groups, such as ethnic minorities, young voters and frequent home movers like private-sector tenants. Digital strategies appear to be promising in countries like the UK, where the registration process can be completed online, usually in less than 5 minutes, using a web link in the advert. But are typical digital campaigns effective in registering voters? To find out, we provide evidence from three randomised controlled trials: two conducted with advocacy organisations and the third run by the research team, carried out in two types of UK elections (general and local) and assigned either at the aggregate (Study 1 and Study 2) or individual (Study 3) level. Despite wide reach and relatively high rates of engagement, we find that the digital ad campaigns trialed across three studies did not affect under-registered groups’ voter registrations. These null findings raise questions about commonly-used digital advertising strategies to register marginalised groups. They are consistent with other studies that report either null or minimal effects of digital ads on other types of political behaviour.</p

Replication Data for: Null Effects of Social Media Ads on Voter Registration: Three Digital Field Experiments

Replication data for the article “Null Effects of Social Media Ads on Voter Registration: Three Digital Field Experiments” by Asli Unan, Peter John, Florian Foos and Vanessa Matsuno-Cheng, forthcoming in Research Politics. For questions about the replication material, please reach out to [email protected]

Using the Party as a Shield? How British MPs Explain Policy Positions to Constituents

How do legislators respond to constituents' requests? Recent studies showcase that US legislators are particularly responsive to their voters, even tailoring their messages toward them. But little research investigates if these findings hold for parliamentary systems which are characterized by high party discipline forcing legislators to fall in line. We theorize that in such systems legislators use their party as a shield if their opinion contradicts their constituents' positional wishes. We test our argument in an audit study involving both legislators and actual voters during the Brexit negotiations in 2019 in the United Kingdom. Contrary to conventional wisdom about party-dominated systems we find no evidence that MPs are less responsive to correspondence from party-incongruent constituents nor that they use their party as a shield. These null findings have important implications for our understanding of how legislative behavior in parliamentary systems is (not) constrained by party discipline

Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), Far Detector Technical Design Report, Volume I Introduction to DUNE

International audienceThe preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe, the dynamics of the supernovae that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and whether protons eventually decay—these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our universe, its current state, and its eventual fate. The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is an international world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions as it searches for leptonic charge-parity symmetry violation, stands ready to capture supernova neutrino bursts, and seeks to observe nucleon decay as a signature of a grand unified theory underlying the standard model. The DUNE far detector technical design report (TDR) describes the DUNE physics program and the technical designs of the single- and dual-phase DUNE liquid argon TPC far detector modules. This TDR is intended to justify the technical choices for the far detector that flow down from the high-level physics goals through requirements at all levels of the Project. Volume I contains an executive summary that introduces the DUNE science program, the far detector and the strategy for its modular designs, and the organization and management of the Project. The remainder of Volume I provides more detail on the science program that drives the choice of detector technologies and on the technologies themselves. It also introduces the designs for the DUNE near detector and the DUNE computing model, for which DUNE is planning design reports. Volume II of this TDR describes DUNE's physics program in detail. Volume III describes the technical coordination required for the far detector design, construction, installation, and integration, and its organizational structure. Volume IV describes the single-phase far detector technology. A planned Volume V will describe the dual-phase technology