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, Miriam Golden, Simon Hix, and Filip Kostelka, with support by Daniel Urquijo and Pau Grau.
Thursday 04 April 2024 | Seminar Room 2
The ethics of asking about violence: Early evidence from a multisite experiment
Political violence – including civil war, organized crime, and violent extremism – is a major driver of human suffering around the world. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 100 million people, or one in every 78 people on earth, were displaced because of conflict or violence in 2022. Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of research involving human participants on the topic of violence in the social and behavioral sciences. However, we have surprisingly little evidence about how participating in research that asks about violence affects participants and whether we are effectively adhering to principles around respect for persons when doing research on this especially sensitive and high-stakes topic. This talk will present preliminary evidence from a systematic review and multisite experiment to measure the effects of participating in research on violence and develop new methods to maximize adherence to the ethical principles of respect for persons and beneficence.
Thursday 18 April 2024 | Seminar Room 2
Undoing Insulation: Politicization and Revolving Doors in a Closed Weberian Bureaucracy
Academic and policy discussions regarding the bureaucracy often advocate for robust civil service systems, incorporating meritocratic entrance exams, competitive salaries, and lifelong tenure in order to curb political influence and promote effective governance. Using a unique and comprehensive administrative dataset covering the selection and careers of various elite civil service corps in Spain from 1940 to 2023, we unveil striking patterns that challenge conventional wisdom about Weberian bureaucracies. First, our findings reveal that a substantial portion of elite civil servants depart from the corps to pursue roles in the private sector or assume high-level political positions. Second, we identify pronounced partisan patterns in the recruitment of elite civil servants for top-tier political appointments, with certain corps consistently aligned with the left while others lean towards the right. Third, we show that while these elite civil service corps have become more diverse in terms of gender, they remain largely biased in their socioeconomic profile. In summary, our study demonstrates that the formal insulation and meritocratic principles of Weberian bureaucracies can coexist with enduring socioeconomic biases and the integration of bureaucratic, political, and corporate career paths.
Friday 26 April 2024 | Sala del Capitolo
A Rich Woman’s World? Wealth and Gendered Paths to Office
We introduce and seek to explain a new and surprising fact about members of the US Congress: since at least the 1980s, Congresswomen have been substantially wealthier than Congressmen serving in the same party and decade. We articulate three mechanisms that could explain this gender wealth gap, and use new data on the backgrounds and families of members of Congress to evaluate each mechanism. We find no evidence that the wealth gap arises because districts likely to elect women also elect wealthier members, or because women had more lucrative pre-Congressional careers. We do find evidence that the gap can be explained by women facing steeper challenges that wealth helps them overcome—particularly related to caregiving—and by Congresswomen’s spouses earning more money than Congressmen’s spouses. Our analysis sheds light on how obstacles facing ambitious women can lead to apparently counterintuitive advantages among the women who manage to succeed.
Thursday 02 May 2024 | Seminar Room 2
Title TBD
Abstract TBD
Thursday 09 May 2024 | Seminar Room 2
Andrea Vindigni (University of Geneva)
Title TBD
Abstract TBD
Thursday 16 May 2024 | Seminar Room 2
Mutual Knowledge of Social Norms and Political Activism
Social norms are important drivers of human behavior. Problematically, when individuals hold incorrect beliefs about others’ opinions, a norm may be sustained even if a majority is against it (pluralistic ignorance). However, it may not be sufficient to correct such misperceptions as citizens may continue to believe that others do not share the updated beliefs. In this case, creating mutual knowledge about social norms may be necessary to induce behavioral change. We implement a field experiment in Kyrgyzstan to test this hypothesis. We vary i) whether women are provided with information on high social support for female political engagement, and ii) whether women are informed that this information is also provided to other women (“mutual knowledge”). We find that providing information about high societal support has no effect on women’s political engagement. However, women become less engaged when we also experimentally create mutual knowledge about the social norm opposing female engagement. Yet, there is no positive effect on female engagement when providing mutual knowledge about high social support. Using vignette experiments, we show that the asymmetry arises because women fear community punishment—in case they are more active than socially desired—more so than potential community praise when they become active when more engagement is desired.
Thursday 30 May 2024 | Seminar Room 2
Title TBD
Abstract TBD
Thursday 06 June 2024 | TBD
Jacob Nyrup (University of Oslo)
Title TBD
Abstract TBD