Abstract A common understanding emphasizes the destructive effects of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) on social cohesion and community life. Stressing the agency of survivors, we present an alternative argument. Our theory predicts that survivors seek to counteract the stigma attached to CRSV by contributing to the community in the form of civic engagement. Drawing on three original surveys from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, and Sri Lanka and relying on list experiments to reduce underreporting bias, we find that survivors of CRSV indeed show increased levels of civic en ..read more

Abstract Despite record numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs) globally, we know little about the causal effects of intergroup contact between migrants and locals in active conflict settings. We conduct a randomized controlled trial of a vocational skills-training program implemented by Mercy Corps that enrolled 2597 locals and migrants in near equal numbers in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where IDPs face daily prejudice and discrimination. Courses lasting up to 6 months emphasized collaborative learning and soft skills development. We surveyed participants at endline and followed up 8 month ..read more

Abstract How do UN peacekeeping missions enforce peace agreements, and what effect do higher rates of enforcement have on agreement implementation and conflict termination? Peace agreement enforcement forms a central component of peacekeeping effectiveness, yet missions are often mandated to enforce a minority of agreement provisions, and they vary across both time and space in the ways in which they do so. I identify the three dimensions along which enforcement operates—the proportion and type of provisions that missions are mandated to enforce, alongside their mandated level of involvement i ..read more

Abstract Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A's chances of obtaining the good, we reduce B's chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Noncompetitive Affirmative Action. The latter has to do with noncompetitive goods, for example, being granted early parole or free ..read more

American Journal of Political Science, Volume 68, Issue 2, Page 335-338, April 2024 ..read more

Abstract When grievance shocks have heavy tails, large sudden increases in grievances coordinate behavior far more effectively into protests than a sequence of small grievance shocks that generate the same final distribution of grievances in society. That is, society as a whole behaves like the legendary boiling frog, even though each individual does not. An implication is a strong form of path-dependence in collective action. To assess a society's potential for protest, it is not enough to know the current distribution of antiregime sentiments; we also need to know how they came about: sudden ..read more

Abstract Viewing the relationship between politicians and voters as a principal–agent interaction afflicted by moral hazard, we examine how political careers are shaped by the incentives that voters provide incumbents to work in the public interest. When moral hazard binds, the optimal way for voters to hold politicians accountable is to provide re-election incentives that evolve dynamically over their careers in office. Under these incentives, first-term politicians are among the most electorally vulnerable and the hardest-working; politician effort rises with electoral vulnerability; elector ..read more

Abstract An extensive literature links the rise of populist radical right (PRR) parties to immigration. We argue that another demographic trend is also significant: emigration. The departure of citizens due to internal and international emigration is a major phenomenon affecting elections via two complementary mechanisms. Emigration alters the composition of electorates, but also changes the preferences of the left behind. Empirically, we establish a positive correlation between PRR vote shares and net-migration loss at the subnational level across Europe. A more fine-grained panel analysis of ..read more

Abstract According to many, the US Congress desperately needs reform because its capacity to govern has declined. Congressional capacity cannot be understood without examining how the expertise available to members is fostered or discouraged. We present a theory of expertise acquisition and apply it to the problem of overseeing the Executive. We use this theory to organize a dataset of congressional staff employment merged with new records of invitations, applications, and attendance at training sessions produced by three nonprofit organizations in Washington, DC. We find that staffers are mor ..read more

Abstract Housing policy is one of the most important areas of local politics. Yet little is known about how local legislatures and executives make housing policy decisions and how their elections shape policy in this important realm. We leverage housing policy data and a new data source of 15,621 city council elections and 3,261 mayoral elections in large cities in the United States and a regression discontinuity design to examine partisan divides in housing policy among the mass public as well as the impact of local leaders’ partisanship on housing policy. We provide robust evidence that elec ..read more