Noah L Nathan
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 1130264 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Noah L Nathan |
| NOMBRES | Noah L |
| APELLIDO | Nathan |
| FIRMA | NATHAN N L |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Michigan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3681-4925 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 19 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 579 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 19 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2012 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 11 |
Vernacular Architecture and Grassroots Urban Politics
The physical structures in which urban life occurs are an underappreciated determinant of how grassroots urban politics unfolds. In many rapidly growing cities, housing scarcity forces residents into multifamily buildings that create daily exposure to neighbors. We argue that these exposures affect political behavior by shaping residents’ access to political information and capacity for collective action. We focus on the informal, vernacular arch…
Do grids demobilize? How street networks, social networks, and political networks intersect
Amid rapid urbanization in the developing world, there is growing interest in the effects of urban context on political behavior. An underexplored element of urban context is the built environment itself—the physical architecture and design of urban space—which can structure how residents interact both with each other and with the state. Drawing on street network data and an original survey from urban Ghana, I suggest that more gridded, orderly n…
Explaining Urban Order
This article connects the political incentives of state leaders to the physical geometry of urban built environments. Drawing on a novel combination of street network data, archival maps, and satellite imagery, the author builds on classic claims that autocratic regimes order urban space, rendering society more legible through the production of gridded streets. Backdating the construction of 1.5 million streets across a sample of African cities, …
The Scarce State
States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State reframes our understanding of the political economy of hinterlands through a multi-method study of Northern Ghana alongside shadow cases from other world regions. Drawing on a historical natural exp…
Context and Contact
A growing literature explores how local environments, or contexts, affect political behavior, especially by shaping interpersonal contact with social out-groups. While many studies still draw directly on long-standing hypotheses from contact theory, this research agenda increasingly focuses on new research questions, beyond the classic social psychology literature, and new empirical cases, including from across the lower- and middle-income world.…
Motivating the Machine
Parties rely on brokers to win elections in much of the developing world. How do parties use compensation to motivate these grassroots agents? Parties often decentralize broker payment decisions to local party elites. In addition to helping their party win elections, local elites seek personal career advancement. Because local elites typically rely on brokers' support to advance, they have an incentive to use payments to strengthen their ties to …
Channels for Influence or Maps of Behavior? A Field Experiment on Social Networks and Cooperation
Communities in developing countries often must cooperate to self‐provide or co‐produce local public goods. Many expect that community social networks facilitate this cooperation, but few studies directly observe real‐life networks in these settings. We collect detailed social network data in rural Northern Ghana to explore how social positions and proximity to community leaders predict donations to a local public good. We then implement a field e…
Democratizing the Party
The recent expansion of the primary electorate by one of Ghana's major parties offers a rare opportunity to assess the effects of franchise extensions in contemporary new democracies. Using an original dataset on candidate entry and nominations, this article shows that expanding the primary electorate opened paths to office for politicians from social groups that were previously excluded, such as women and ethnic groups outside the party's core n…
The Connections of Party Brokers
Seminal models of clientelism assert that parties value brokers for their strong downward ties to voters. Despite its dominance, scholars have not empirically scrutinized key assumptions of this theory due to the challenges of measuring brokers' network connections. We analyze unique data from three sources—Ghana's voter register, a handmade catalog of local elites, and a large-scale survey of aspiring party brokers. We show that the observable i…
Clientelism's Red Herrings
Research on clientelism often starts from a shared puzzle: How can clientelism be a viable electoral strategy if voters can renege on their commitments to politicians? The standard solution proposed is that politicians resolve this commitment problem with voters through monitoring and enforcement. But there has been startlingly little evidence of individual-level monitoring and enforcement in the recent literature, and many studies now document t…
Electoral Politics and Africa's Urban Transition
Two aspects of contemporary urban life in Africa are often described as sources of political change: the emergence of a large urban middle class and high levels of ethnic diversity and inter-ethnic social contact. Many expected that these factors would help spark a transition away from ethnic competition and clientelism toward more programmatic elections. Focusing on urban Ghana, this book shows that the growing middle class and high levels of et…
Electoral Consequences of Colonial Invention
This article studies the effects of traditional chiefs—a common type of broker—on voters’ ability to extract state resources from politicians. Using original data from Northern Ghana, the author shows that chieftaincy positions invented by colonial authorities are especially prone to capture, leaving voters worse off compared both to more accountable chiefs whose authority dates to the precolonial period and to voters who lack formal chiefs who c…
Does Participation Reinforce Patronage? Policy Preferences, Turnout and Class in Urban Ghana
Political competition is expected to become less particularistic as prosperity rises and a middle class emerges. But particularistic linkages persist despite rising wealth in urban Ghana. Politicians are unable to commit to campaign promises with voters who want large-scale public policies, many of whom are in the middle class. This creates incentives to avoid mobilizing many of these voters and to ignore their preferences. As a result, voters wh…
Local Ethnic Geography, Expectations of Favoritism, and Voting in Urban Ghana
African democracies are increasingly urban. While ethnicity is generally correlated with vote choice, recent research suggests there may be less ethnic voting in cities. But I show that voting for ethnically affiliated parties is as common in some neighborhoods in urban Ghana as in rural areas, while virtually non-existent in other neighborhoods elsewhere within the same city. This intra-urban variation is not explained by differences in the sali…
What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials
Do street-level bureaucrats discriminate in the services they provide to constituents? We use a field experiment to measure differential information provision about voting by local election administrators in the United States. We contact over 7,000 election officials in 48 states who are responsible for providing information to voters and implementing voter ID laws. We find that officials provide different information to potential voters of diffe…
Do Primaries Improve Electoral Performance? Clientelism and Intra‐Party Conflict in Ghana
We consider the effect of legislative primaries on the electoral performance of political parties in a new democracy. While existing literature suggests that primaries may either hurt a party by selecting extremist candidates or improve performance by selecting high valence candidates or improving a party’s image, these mechanisms may not apply where clientelism is prevalent. A theory of primaries built instead on a logic of clientelism with intr…
Primaries on Demand? Intra-Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana – Corrigendum
Crossing the Line
Theories of instrumental ethnic voting in new democracies propose that voters support co-ethnic politicians because they expect politicians to favor their co-ethnics once in office. But many goods that politicians deliver to voters are locally nonexcludable in rural areas, so the local presence of an ethnic group associated with a politician should affect a rural voter's assessment of how likely she is to benefit from that politician's election. …
Primaries on Demand? Intra-Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana
In new democracies, why do political party leaders relinquish power over nominations and allow legislative candidates to be selected by primary elections? Where the legislature is weak and politics is clientelistic, democratization of candidate selection is driven by local party members seeking benefits from primary contestants. Analysis of an original dataset on legislative nominations and political interference by party leaders for the 2004 and…
What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials
Do street-level bureaucrats discriminate in the services they provide to constituents? We use a field experiment to measure differential information provision about voting by local election administrators in the United States. We contact over 7,000 election officials in 48 states who are responsible for providing information to voters and implementing voter ID laws. We find that officials provide different information to potential voters of diffe…
Crossing the Line
Theories of instrumental ethnic voting in new democracies propose that voters support co-ethnic politicians because they expect politicians to favor their co-ethnics once in office. But many goods that politicians deliver to voters are locally nonexcludable in rural areas, so the local presence of an ethnic group associated with a politician should affect a rural voter's assessment of how likely she is to benefit from that politician's election. …
Clientelism's Red Herrings
Research on clientelism often starts from a shared puzzle: How can clientelism be a viable electoral strategy if voters can renege on their commitments to politicians? The standard solution proposed is that politicians resolve this commitment problem with voters through monitoring and enforcement. But there has been startlingly little evidence of individual-level monitoring and enforcement in the recent literature, and many studies now document t…
Local Ethnic Geography, Expectations of Favoritism, and Voting in Urban Ghana
African democracies are increasingly urban. While ethnicity is generally correlated with vote choice, recent research suggests there may be less ethnic voting in cities. But I show that voting for ethnically affiliated parties is as common in some neighborhoods in urban Ghana as in rural areas, while virtually non-existent in other neighborhoods elsewhere within the same city. This intra-urban variation is not explained by differences in the sali…
Do Primaries Improve Electoral Performance? Clientelism and Intra‐Party Conflict in Ghana
We consider the effect of legislative primaries on the electoral performance of political parties in a new democracy. While existing literature suggests that primaries may either hurt a party by selecting extremist candidates or improve performance by selecting high valence candidates or improving a party’s image, these mechanisms may not apply where clientelism is prevalent. A theory of primaries built instead on a logic of clientelism with intr…
Primaries on Demand? Intra-Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana
In new democracies, why do political party leaders relinquish power over nominations and allow legislative candidates to be selected by primary elections? Where the legislature is weak and politics is clientelistic, democratization of candidate selection is driven by local party members seeking benefits from primary contestants. Analysis of an original dataset on legislative nominations and political interference by party leaders for the 2004 and…
The Connections of Party Brokers
Seminal models of clientelism assert that parties value brokers for their strong downward ties to voters. Despite its dominance, scholars have not empirically scrutinized key assumptions of this theory due to the challenges of measuring brokers' network connections. We analyze unique data from three sources—Ghana's voter register, a handmade catalog of local elites, and a large-scale survey of aspiring party brokers. We show that the observable i…
Does Participation Reinforce Patronage? Policy Preferences, Turnout and Class in Urban Ghana
Political competition is expected to become less particularistic as prosperity rises and a middle class emerges. But particularistic linkages persist despite rising wealth in urban Ghana. Politicians are unable to commit to campaign promises with voters who want large-scale public policies, many of whom are in the middle class. This creates incentives to avoid mobilizing many of these voters and to ignore their preferences. As a result, voters wh…
Context and Contact
A growing literature explores how local environments, or contexts, affect political behavior, especially by shaping interpersonal contact with social out-groups. While many studies still draw directly on long-standing hypotheses from contact theory, this research agenda increasingly focuses on new research questions, beyond the classic social psychology literature, and new empirical cases, including from across the lower- and middle-income world.…
Electoral Consequences of Colonial Invention
This article studies the effects of traditional chiefs—a common type of broker—on voters’ ability to extract state resources from politicians. Using original data from Northern Ghana, the author shows that chieftaincy positions invented by colonial authorities are especially prone to capture, leaving voters worse off compared both to more accountable chiefs whose authority dates to the precolonial period and to voters who lack formal chiefs who c…
Democratizing the Party
The recent expansion of the primary electorate by one of Ghana's major parties offers a rare opportunity to assess the effects of franchise extensions in contemporary new democracies. Using an original dataset on candidate entry and nominations, this article shows that expanding the primary electorate opened paths to office for politicians from social groups that were previously excluded, such as women and ethnic groups outside the party's core n…
Channels for Influence or Maps of Behavior? A Field Experiment on Social Networks and Cooperation
Communities in developing countries often must cooperate to self‐provide or co‐produce local public goods. Many expect that community social networks facilitate this cooperation, but few studies directly observe real‐life networks in these settings. We collect detailed social network data in rural Northern Ghana to explore how social positions and proximity to community leaders predict donations to a local public good. We then implement a field e…
Motivating the Machine
Parties rely on brokers to win elections in much of the developing world. How do parties use compensation to motivate these grassroots agents? Parties often decentralize broker payment decisions to local party elites. In addition to helping their party win elections, local elites seek personal career advancement. Because local elites typically rely on brokers' support to advance, they have an incentive to use payments to strengthen their ties to …
Explaining Urban Order
This article connects the political incentives of state leaders to the physical geometry of urban built environments. Drawing on a novel combination of street network data, archival maps, and satellite imagery, the author builds on classic claims that autocratic regimes order urban space, rendering society more legible through the production of gridded streets. Backdating the construction of 1.5 million streets across a sample of African cities, …
Primaries on Demand? Intra-Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana
In new democracies, why do political party leaders relinquish power over nominations and allow legislative candidates to be selected by primary elections? Where the legislature is weak and politics is clientelistic, democratization of candidate selection is driven by local party members seeking benefits from primary contestants. Analysis of an original dataset on legislative nominations and political interference by party leaders for the 2004 and…
Do Primaries Improve Electoral Performance? Clientelism and Intra‐Party Conflict in Ghana
We consider the effect of legislative primaries on the electoral performance of political parties in a new democracy. While existing literature suggests that primaries may either hurt a party by selecting extremist candidates or improve performance by selecting high valence candidates or improving a party’s image, these mechanisms may not apply where clientelism is prevalent. A theory of primaries built instead on a logic of clientelism with intr…
Primaries on Demand? Intra-Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana – Corrigendum
Crossing the Line
Theories of instrumental ethnic voting in new democracies propose that voters support co-ethnic politicians because they expect politicians to favor their co-ethnics once in office. But many goods that politicians deliver to voters are locally nonexcludable in rural areas, so the local presence of an ethnic group associated with a politician should affect a rural voter's assessment of how likely she is to benefit from that politician's election. …
What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials
Do street-level bureaucrats discriminate in the services they provide to constituents? We use a field experiment to measure differential information provision about voting by local election administrators in the United States. We contact over 7,000 election officials in 48 states who are responsible for providing information to voters and implementing voter ID laws. We find that officials provide different information to potential voters of diffe…
Local Ethnic Geography, Expectations of Favoritism, and Voting in Urban Ghana
African democracies are increasingly urban. While ethnicity is generally correlated with vote choice, recent research suggests there may be less ethnic voting in cities. But I show that voting for ethnically affiliated parties is as common in some neighborhoods in urban Ghana as in rural areas, while virtually non-existent in other neighborhoods elsewhere within the same city. This intra-urban variation is not explained by differences in the sali…
Electoral Politics and Africa's Urban Transition
Two aspects of contemporary urban life in Africa are often described as sources of political change: the emergence of a large urban middle class and high levels of ethnic diversity and inter-ethnic social contact. Many expected that these factors would help spark a transition away from ethnic competition and clientelism toward more programmatic elections. Focusing on urban Ghana, this book shows that the growing middle class and high levels of et…
Electoral Consequences of Colonial Invention
This article studies the effects of traditional chiefs—a common type of broker—on voters’ ability to extract state resources from politicians. Using original data from Northern Ghana, the author shows that chieftaincy positions invented by colonial authorities are especially prone to capture, leaving voters worse off compared both to more accountable chiefs whose authority dates to the precolonial period and to voters who lack formal chiefs who c…
Does Participation Reinforce Patronage? Policy Preferences, Turnout and Class in Urban Ghana
Political competition is expected to become less particularistic as prosperity rises and a middle class emerges. But particularistic linkages persist despite rising wealth in urban Ghana. Politicians are unable to commit to campaign promises with voters who want large-scale public policies, many of whom are in the middle class. This creates incentives to avoid mobilizing many of these voters and to ignore their preferences. As a result, voters wh…
Clientelism's Red Herrings
Research on clientelism often starts from a shared puzzle: How can clientelism be a viable electoral strategy if voters can renege on their commitments to politicians? The standard solution proposed is that politicians resolve this commitment problem with voters through monitoring and enforcement. But there has been startlingly little evidence of individual-level monitoring and enforcement in the recent literature, and many studies now document t…
The Connections of Party Brokers
Seminal models of clientelism assert that parties value brokers for their strong downward ties to voters. Despite its dominance, scholars have not empirically scrutinized key assumptions of this theory due to the challenges of measuring brokers' network connections. We analyze unique data from three sources—Ghana's voter register, a handmade catalog of local elites, and a large-scale survey of aspiring party brokers. We show that the observable i…
Motivating the Machine
Parties rely on brokers to win elections in much of the developing world. How do parties use compensation to motivate these grassroots agents? Parties often decentralize broker payment decisions to local party elites. In addition to helping their party win elections, local elites seek personal career advancement. Because local elites typically rely on brokers' support to advance, they have an incentive to use payments to strengthen their ties to …
Channels for Influence or Maps of Behavior? A Field Experiment on Social Networks and Cooperation
Communities in developing countries often must cooperate to self‐provide or co‐produce local public goods. Many expect that community social networks facilitate this cooperation, but few studies directly observe real‐life networks in these settings. We collect detailed social network data in rural Northern Ghana to explore how social positions and proximity to community leaders predict donations to a local public good. We then implement a field e…
Democratizing the Party
The recent expansion of the primary electorate by one of Ghana's major parties offers a rare opportunity to assess the effects of franchise extensions in contemporary new democracies. Using an original dataset on candidate entry and nominations, this article shows that expanding the primary electorate opened paths to office for politicians from social groups that were previously excluded, such as women and ethnic groups outside the party's core n…
The Scarce State
States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce can have outsize, long-lasting effects on society. The Scarce State reframes our understanding of the political economy of hinterlands through a multi-method study of Northern Ghana alongside shadow cases from other world regions. Drawing on a historical natural exp…
Context and Contact
A growing literature explores how local environments, or contexts, affect political behavior, especially by shaping interpersonal contact with social out-groups. While many studies still draw directly on long-standing hypotheses from contact theory, this research agenda increasingly focuses on new research questions, beyond the classic social psychology literature, and new empirical cases, including from across the lower- and middle-income world.…
Do grids demobilize? How street networks, social networks, and political networks intersect
Amid rapid urbanization in the developing world, there is growing interest in the effects of urban context on political behavior. An underexplored element of urban context is the built environment itself—the physical architecture and design of urban space—which can structure how residents interact both with each other and with the state. Drawing on street network data and an original survey from urban Ghana, I suggest that more gridded, orderly n…
Explaining Urban Order
This article connects the political incentives of state leaders to the physical geometry of urban built environments. Drawing on a novel combination of street network data, archival maps, and satellite imagery, the author builds on classic claims that autocratic regimes order urban space, rendering society more legible through the production of gridded streets. Backdating the construction of 1.5 million streets across a sample of African cities, …
Vernacular Architecture and Grassroots Urban Politics
The physical structures in which urban life occurs are an underappreciated determinant of how grassroots urban politics unfolds. In many rapidly growing cities, housing scarcity forces residents into multifamily buildings that create daily exposure to neighbors. We argue that these exposures affect political behavior by shaping residents’ access to political information and capacity for collective action. We focus on the informal, vernacular arch…
Political science (17 obras) · Politics (15 obras) · Law (13 obras) · Law (11 obras) · Economics (10 obras) · Political economy (8 obras) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (7 obras) · Sociology (7 obras) · Democracy (6 obras) · Political Conflict and Governance (6 obras)