Campaign shocks and party support: evidence from Brazil’s 2014 presidential election

This article investigates the effect of exogenous shocks during an election cycle on electoral outcomes. Specifically, we examine the impact of the unexpected death of a prominent candidate, Eduardo Campos, in the 2014 Brazilian presidential election on support levels for the three main parties. Did the effects die out relatively quickly, providing only a temporary “bounce” or dip in support levels? Or did they alter the fundamentals of the campaign environment and produce a lasting change or “bump” in support levels that lasted until the election? Our results show that while the shock did have short-term effects on all parties’ support, it was only the party that lost its leading candidate where any longer lasting shift in support is detected; we estimate that the party received around 11 percentage points more support than they would otherwise have garnered, had Campos not died. While this was not enough to secure victory, it shows that individual candidates should be understood as a “fundamental” feature of the campaign environment, any change in which is likely to have a lasting effect on voter behavior.     

Real Solutions for Fake News? Measuring the Effectiveness of General Warnings and Fact-Check Tags in Reducing Belief in False Stories on Social Media

Political Behavior - Social media has increasingly enabled “fake news” to circulate widely, most notably during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. These intentionally false...     

Increasing Community College Completion Rates Among Low-Income Students: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluation of a Case-Management Intervention

Community college completion rates are low, especially among low-income students. The existing policy and research attention has primarily focused on academic and financial challenges, but there is ample reason to think that non-academic obstacles might be key drivers of dropout rates for low-income students. This study focuses on the role of “life barriers” and investigates the effectiveness of intensive case-management services for low-income community college students. We evaluate the impact of the Stay the Course (STC) intensive case-management program through a multi-armed randomized controlled trial evaluation conducted between 2013 and 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. Analysis of administrative records indicates that STC significantly increased persistence and degree completion for women; estimates for the full sample are imprecise. The statistically significant estimates for women imply that STC tripled associate's degree receipt by 31.5 percentage points. We find no difference in outcomes between students in an emergency financial assistance (EFA) only treatment arm and the control group. Given program costs of $4,343 per person, the implied cost per additional associate's degree is $27,140. This study complements existing literature on financial and informational interventions designed to increase completion rates and is most closely related to the smaller literature examining coaching and mentoring interventions.     

The hegemonic work of automated election technology in the Philippines

This article addresses the political role of information technology in the Philippines. It uses a theoretical framework inspired by Antonio Gramsci to examine the discourse surrounding automated elections in two major daily papers, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Business World Philippines. It argues that this discourse strengthens current conceptions of the development process by appealing to the interests not only of the dominant fraction of capital in the country today, but also to the middle class. Such operations are essential for the creation of an historic bloc capable of exercising hegemony.