The Comparative Politics Seminar Series in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute is a venue for the presentation of work in progress by scholars from across the subfield of comparative politics.
It usually takes place on Thursdays from 17:00 to 18:30 at Seminar Room 2, in Badia Fiesolana (Fiesole). See below or sync the calendar for the exact location for each meeting. See previous events.
The series is organized by Elias Dinas, Simon Hix, and Filip Kostelka, Sascha Riaz, with support by Paloma Abril Poncelaand Carmen Ramirez Folch.
Thursday 10 October 2024 | Seminar Room 2
The Populist Dynamic: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Countering Populism
We evaluate how traditional parties may respond to populist parties on issues aligning with populist messages. During the 2020 Italian referendum on the reduction of members of Parliament, we conducted a large-scale field experiment, exposing 200 municipalities to nearly a million impressions of programmatic advertisement. Our treatments comprised two video ads against the reform: one debunking populist rhetoric and another attributing blame to populist politicians. This anti-populist campaign proved effective through demobilization, as it reduced both turnout and the votes in favor of the reform. Notably, the effects were more pronounced in municipalities with lower rates of college graduates, higher unemployment, and a history of populist votes. This exogenous influence introduced a unique populist dynamic, observable in the 2022 national election where treated municipalities showed increased support for Brothers of Italy, a rising populist party, and decreased support for both traditional parties and the populists behind the 2020 reform. A follow-up survey further showed increased political interest and diminished trust in political institutions among the residents of municipalities targeted by the campaign.
Thursday 24 October 2024 | Seminar Room 2
Trust the hand that protects you – Do Military Interventions harm Trust for the Government?
Rebuilding state legitimacy is a thorny challenge in the aftermath of civil wars. The international community has stepped in to support states’ recovery, sometimes replacing governments in providing public goods. Research shows that UN peacekeepers often become de facto security providers. The article assesses whether and how external provision of the most basic public good, i.e. security, affects citizens’ trust towards the government. On the one hand, by providing a secure environment, UN peacekeepers may facilitate the functioning of domestic institutions, who could reap the reputational benefit of working with the UN. However, I posit that attribution problems and reputational costs counter the positive impact of UN’s capacity-building efforts. The analysis focuses on the case of the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) exploiting Afrobarometer’s geocoded surveys before and after deployment, combined with subnational deployment data. The article provides insights on how international interventions affect an understudied aspect of state-building – i.e. the legitimacy of institutions they are expected to assist.
Thursday 21 November 2024 | Seminar Room 2
The Luck of the Draw: New Evidence on the Resource Curse From Thousands of Randomized Income Shocks
Much has been written on the “resource curse” in economics and political science. Early work suggested a phenomenon by which countries rich in natural resources and other organizations coming into windfalls often had worse economic and political outcomes. More modern research has sought to differentiate reasons for some countries and organizations being more susceptible to adverse effects while others are able to benefit. While often theoretically sophisticated, the important work on this question suffers from serious problems of endogeneity as well as the fact the population of potential cases is necessarily small. Individual lottery winners have been used as a proxy. However, this data-rich approach moves us too far from the original question. To overcome these problems we analyze thousands of completely randomized, large scale, income shocks to complex organizations. The data come from every third round match in the English Football Association Cup (FA Cup) since the format the tournament was changed in 1952. In this competition smaller, lower league teams are assigned by lottery in the third round to play larger clubs and the clubs share the ticket revenue, creating a potentially massive exogenous economic windfall for small teams. Our results suggest organizations benefit both in the short term and long term from these income shocks and we can precisely estimate the decay of the effect over time. We also provide evidence linking the level of success to the organizational capacity of clubs and their internal (political) decision making institutions. We discuss our findings in relation to the larger resource curse literature and the literature on organizational effectiveness.
Thursday 28 November 2024 | Seminar Room 2
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Thursday 05 December 2024 | Seminar Room 2
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