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Paper

The Varying Role of Voter Information across Democratic Societies Sekhon, Jasjeet Uploaded 07-26-2004 Keywords Voter Information Elections Causal Inference Matching Propensity Score Matching Robust Estimation Democratization Survey Data Abstract Using new robust matching methods for making causal inferences from survey data, I demonstrate that there are profound differences between how voters behave in mature democracies versus how they behave in new ones. The problems of voter ignorance and inattentiveness are not as serious in mature democracies as many analysts have suggested but are of grave concern in new democracies. Citizens in mature democracies are able to accomplish something that citizens in fledgling democracies are not: inattentive and poorly informed citizens are able to vote like their better informed compatriots and hence need to pay little attention to political events such as election campaigns in order to vote as if they were attentive. The results from the U.S. (which rely on various National Election Studies) and Mexico (2000 Panel Study) are reported in detail. Results from other countries are briefly reported.

2

Paper

Ecological Inference with Covariates Park, Won-ho Uploaded 07-08-2008 Keywords ecological inference Thomsen voter transition South Korean democratization Abstract The building block of ecological inference strategies is to construct a two-by-two table that describes the individual-level relationship from aggregate information. Extensions to this baseline model, whichever particular technique is employed, have been developed in the context of constructing bivariate R-by-C tables. However, another important and substantively interesting extension is a model that would let the researcher include additional covariates into the model and is yet to be fully discussed and developed. In the paper, I propose a method of moment estimator that incorporates covariates into the ecological inference process by extending Thomsen (1987)'s voter transition model. I apply the developed model to estimate the impact of demographic variables on turnout in South Korean voters over time, especially around democratization, using precinct-level electoral returns and census records.

3

Paper

Opium for the Masses: How Foreign Media Can Stabilize Authoritarian Regimes Kern, Holger Hainmueller, Jens Uploaded 04-11-2007 Keywords instrumental variables causal inference local average response function LATE media effects East Germany democratization regime legitimacy Abstract In this case study of the impact of West German television on public support for the East German communist regime, we evaluate the conventional wisdom in the democratization literature that foreign mass media undermine authoritarian rule. We exploit formerly classified survey data and a natural experiment to identify the effect of foreign media exposure using instrumental variable estimators. Contrary to conventional wisdom, East Germans exposed to West German television were more satisfied with life in East Germany and more supportive of the East German regime. To explain this surprising finding, we show that East Germans used West German television primarily as a source of entertainment. Behavioral data on regional patterns in exit visa applications and archival evidence on the reaction of the East German regime to the availability of West German television corroborate this result.

4

Poster

Political Regimes and Infant Death: Democratization and Its Consequences for Infant Mortality, 1970-2008. Ramos, Antonio Pedro Uploaded 04-10-2013 Keywords child mortality democratization longitudinal models random effects models bent lines Abstract In this study, I investigate the causal linkage between political regimes and health outcomes over 180 countries between 1970 and 2010. While there are a number of previous empirical studies on this topic, the results of those studies are mixed and even contradictory. Missing data and measurement error present a major challenge. The main outcome of interest---child mortality--was until very recently poorly measured or unmeasured for many countries, specially for dictatorships and low-income countries. A lack of comparable measures of political regimes across time periods and countries also contributes to the contradictory findings in the existing literature. Finally, new statistical techniques that capture the important over-time dynamics that we expect to find in the translation of regime type into health outcomes have not previously been applied. Thus, though there are many examples of wealthy democracies with low infant mortality and high infant mortality countries are disproportionally autocratic, it remains unclear whether regime type causes lower levels of child mortality. Recently a group of health scholars compiled a high resolution data set based on 16,174 measurements of mortality rate of children younger than 5 years old for 187 countries from 1970 to 2009. There measurements are based upon information from all available sources, including vital registration systems, summary birth histories in censuses and surveys, and complete birth histories ([CITE]). I revisit the connection between regime type and infant mortality using this data set and flexible Bayesian statistical techniques that are specially tailored for the problem. To gain greater leverage on the causal effect of political regime on health outcomes, I focus on democratization episodes occurring since 1970. I present hierarchical longitudinal models tracking over-time changes in mean child mortality and investigate whether democratization episodes are followed by systematics changes from previous trend in infant mortality. I also apply matching techniques to compare changes in infant mortality following democratization episodes to change in infant mortality in similar countries which did not democratized during the same period. I find that there is little if any effect of democracy on health outcomes.