Finally, we use a causal discovery framework and the quasi-random assignment of voters to polling places to provide evidence that these are not just correlates but that at least some elements of the built environment have a plausibly causal effect on voter turnout 4/5

We use explainable AI tools to identify exactly what features visible in imagery seem to improve turnout: green space, tree cover, official locations, and spacious/breezy buildings -- possibly because they mitigate voting barriers like heat, insecurity, and social distancing fears 3/5

Do the physical characteristics of the polling places to which citizens are assigned affect voter turnout? We use a convolutional neural network applied imagery of every polling place in Mexico to show that building imagery is highly predictive of turnout, over and above standard predictors 2/5

Do architecture and urban planning affect political behavior? Happy to share a paper that @tesaliarizzo.bsky.social and I have coming out at the APSR which uses computer vision to investigate how the built environment shapes inequalities in civic participation in Mexico: osf.io/preprints/so.... 🧵1/5

Came across a cool paper on how false beliefs are sustained in equilibrium. In Murcia, prayers for rain appear to work - because they are timed to occur when rain is increasingly likely. Praying for rain globally is only found where rainfall is predictable with time: www.nber.org/papers/w31411

This book is relevant to thinking about the present constitutional moment in the US. Constitutional and federal mythology aside, the US has always had some elements of extreme political centralization in the hands of the presidency that go back to a desire to create an electoral monarchy

Come check out our panel on Bureaucratic Performance in the Developing World at APSA (Thu, September 11, 12:00 to 1:30pm PDT in East Meeting Level, East 12. I'll be presenting some new work on how farmers and officials in India learned to game satellite-based environmental enforcement.....

The rest

Teaching a new class on technology and politics this fall — which tries to think about contemporary tech governance issues via the historical experience of past technological revolutions (IR, atom bomb, printing press, automobile, etc) Sharing the syllabus in case it is of interest..!

In a polarized climate, nothing the president does is a bridge too far for co-partisans. Worth reading this article: muse.jhu.edu/article/729166

A great review essay from Avinash Dixit on why government should not / cannot be run like a business: www.edegan.com/pdfs/Dixit%2...

Re-reading this classic, its central thesis — bureaucracies gain autonomy from politicians on the basis of their popularity/reputation — does not seem to hold up very well in the current era. Agencies with stellar reputations (Post Office, NASA, NIH, etc) have been carved up just the same?

A really great paper on market power providing evidence that competition between agricultural middle-men results in better prices for farmers. The setting is rural India, but the principle is of course generally relevant: pages.jh.edu/schatt20/pap...

if Kafka's "The Trial" were written today, it would take the form of mandatory corporate trainings 😤

A recent paper for reference: www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

interesting claim that political centralization (in ancient Egypt) wasn’t driven by centralized irrigation as often thought by social scientists (Wittfogel hypothesis also revived by recent empirical work). I do think we lean toward ecological determinism because it makes for clean identification..

Been doing some archival research on the English civil war — amusing to come across what looks like a bored secretary’s doodle from 1645? From the order book of the “committee on plundered ministers” (which evicted ministers suspected of royalist sympathies) so may be some kind of religious hat…

This is precisely why scholars argue that Africa’s political development was different (due to land abundance/population scarcity). See two great books below:

Perhaps he is referring to the insane diagrams that everyone has to suffer though in comparative politics seminars. If so, he’s not wrong: