Cyrus Samii
Biographic Data
| ID | 1032873 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cyrus Samii |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cyrus |
| FAMILY NAME | Samii |
| SIGNATURE | SAMII C |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0823-1319 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 565 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 30 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Seeing like a citizen: Experimental evidence on how empowerment affects engagement with the state
Building a strong and effective state requires revenue. Yet, in many low‐income countries, citizens do not make formal payments to the state or forego engaging with the state altogether due to vulnerability to opportunistic demands by state agents. We study two randomized interventions in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, designed to empower citizens in their negotiations with opportunistic state agents: one provided information about s…
Generalizing Trimming Bounds for Endogenously Missing Outcome Data Using Random Forests
We present a method for narrowing nonparametric bounds on treatment effects by adjusting for potentially large numbers of covariates, using generalized random forests. In many experimental or quasi-experimental studies, outcomes of interest are only observed for subjects who select (or are selected) to engage in the activity generating the outcome. Outcome data are thus endogenously missing for units who do not engage, and random or conditionally…
Can Communities Take Charge? Testing Community-Based Governance to Sustain Schools in War-Affected Afghanistan
Estimating the effect of intergroup contact over years: Evidence from a youth program in Israel
We study how an intervention combining youth intergroup contact and sports affects intergroup relations in the context of an active conflict. We first conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of one-year program exposure in Israel. To track effects of a multiyear exposure, we then use machine-learning techniques to fuse the RCT with the observational data gathered on multiyear participants. This analytical approach can help overcome frequent l…
Democratic Integration of Former Insurgents: Evidence from a Civic Inclusion Campaign in Colombia
We study the effects of a nongovernmental civic inclusion campaign on the democratic integration of demobilized insurgents. Democratic participation ideally offers insurgents a peaceful channel for political expression and addressing grievances. However, existing work suggests that former combatant’s ideological socialization and experiences of violence fuel hard-line commitments that may be contrary to democratic political engagement, threatenin…
Intrinsic Social Incentives in State and Non-State Armed Groups
How do non-state armed groups (NSAGs) survive and even thrive in situations where state armed groups (SAGs) collapse, despite the former's often greater material adversity? We argue that, optimizing under their different constraints, SAGs invest more in technical military training and NSAGs invest more in enhancing soldiers' intrinsic payoffs from serving their group. Therefore, willingness to contribute to the group should be more positively cor…
From Local to Global: External Validity in a Fertility Natural Experiment
We study issues related to external validity for treatment effects using over 100 replications of the Angrist and Evans natural experiment on the effects of sibling sex composition on fertility and labor supply. The replications are based on census data from around the world going back to 1960. We decompose sources of error in predicting treatment effects in external contexts in terms of macro and micro sources of variation. In our empirical sett…
The Effect of Fertility on Mothers’ Labor Supply over the Last Two Centuries
Using a compiled data set of 441 censuses and surveys from between 1787 and 2015, representing 103 countries and 51.4 million mothers, we find that: (i) the effect of fertility on labour supply is typically indistinguishable from zero at low levels of development and large and negative at higher levels of development, (ii) the negative gradient is stable across historical and contemporary data, and (iii) the results are robust to identification s…
Repressed productive potential and revolt: Insights from an insurgency in Burundi
The relationship between participation in revolt and individuals' economic conditions is among the most debated in political science. While conventional economic theory suggests that those who face the poorest economic prospects are most inclined to fight, extant evidence is decidedly mixed. We address this puzzling variation by analyzing the interplay between macro-structural conditions and individuals' micro-level circumstances. Under condition…
Legibility and External Investment: An Institutional Natural Experiment in Liberia
We address a debate over the effects of private versus customary property rights on external investment. Despite political economists’ claims that external investors favor private property rights, other experts argue that customary systems enable large-scale “land grabs.” We organize these competing claims, highlighting trade-offs due to differences in legibility versus the ability to displace existing landholders under both systems. We study a n…
Peacekeeping and development in fragile states: Micro-level evidence from Liberia
Peacekeeping operations are integral to multilateral strategies to help establish stable, self-sustaining peace and development in countries coming out of civil war. While we know, from macro-level empirical studies, that these operations contribute to the durability of peace, the evidence on their effectiveness at the micro level remains scant. Using surveys and administrative data from postwar Liberia, we test the hypothesis that peacekeeping d…
Diversity, Violence, and Recognition: How Recognizing Ethnic Identity Promotes Peace
When considering strategies to address violent conflict, an enduring debate concerns the wisdom of recognizing versus avoiding reference to ethnic identities. This book asks: Under what conditions do governments manage internal violent conflicts by formally recognizing different ethnic identities? Moreover, what are the implications for peace? Introducing the concept of “ethnic recognition,” and building on a theory rooted in ethnic power configu…
Wartime ties and the social logic of crime
While ex-combatant reintegration is vital to successful transitions from war to peace, some former fighters turn to crime following demobilization. Such criminality undermines the consolidation of political order. Leading theories of crime participation emphasize the role of both individual economic opportunities and factors related to social ties. Yet, we still know little about the social logic of ex-combatant criminality and how social and eco…
Reasons for policy experimentation that have nothing to do with selection bias
International Institutions and Political Liberalization: Evidence from the World Bank Loans Program
How do international institutions affect political liberalization in member states? Motivated by an examination of the World Bank loans program, this article shows that institutions can incentivize liberalization by offering opportunities for countries to become associated with advanced, wealthy members. In the World Bank, when a loan recipient reaches a specified level of economic development, it becomes eligible to graduate from borrower status…
Minorities and mistrust: On the adoption of ethnic recognition to manage conflict
An enduring debate in the conflict management literature concerns the wisdom of recognizing versus avoiding reference to ethnic identities in institutions to manage ethnic conflict. Understanding why ethnic recognition occurs is crucial for informing this debate. We develop a theory based on functional and political mobilization effects of recognizing ethnic groups. Contrary to reasoning that minority leaders would be most interested in recogniti…
The impact of land property rights interventions on investment and agricultural productivity in developing countries: A systematic review
Addressing Violent Intergroup Conflict from the Bottom Up
How might interventions that engage ordinary citizens in settings of violent conflict affect broader conflict dynamics? Given the volume of resources committed every year to citizen‐oriented programs that attempt to promote peace, this is an important question. We develop a framework to analyze processes through which individual‐level interventions could mitigate violent conflict escalation more broadly. Individual‐level interventions may increas…
Promoting Democracy in Fragile States: Field Experimental Evidence from Liberia
Can intergroup contact affect ingroup dynamics? Insights from a field study with Jewish and Arab-Palestinian youth in Israel
How can intergroup contact programs affect conflict-ridden communities besides improving the outgroup attitudes of participating individuals? We address this question by examining the effects of an intergroup contact intervention on ingroup dynamics that may mitigate intergroup conflict. We also examine how outgroup attitudes and psychological resources mediate such effects. We present the results from a difference-in-differences design with 149 …
Causal Empiricism in Quantitative Research
Quantitative analysis of causal effects in political science has trended toward the adoption of "causal empiricist" approaches. Such approaches place heavy emphasis on causal identification through experimental and natural experimental designs and on characterizing the specific subpopulations for which effects are identified. This trend is eroding the position of traditional regression studies as the prevailing convention for quantitative causal …
Retrospective Causal Inference with Machine Learning Ensembles: An Application to Anti-recidivism Policies in Colombia
We present new methods to estimate causal effects retrospectively from micro data with the assistance of a machine learning ensemble. This approach overcomes two important limitations in conventional methods like regression modeling or matching: (i) ambiguity about the pertinent retrospective counterfactuals and (ii) potential misspecification, overfitting, and otherwise bias-prone or inefficient use of a large identifying covariate set in the es…
Does Regression Produce Representative Estimates of Causal Effects
With an unrepresentative sample, the estimate of a causal effect may fail to characterize how effects operate in the population of interest. What is less well understood is that conventional estimation practices for observational studies may produce the same problem even with a representative sample. Causal effects estimated via multiple regression differentially weight each unit's contribution. The “effective sample” that regression uses to gene…
Promoting Democracy in Fragile States: Insights from a Field Experiment in Liberia
A field experiment in rural Liberia is \n used to study democratic participation in fragile states. \n Fragile states are marked by political fragmentation, local \n patronage systems, and voter vulnerability. To understand \n the effects of such conditions on democratic expression \n through elections, the experiment introduced new forms of \n interaction between rural citizens and third-party actors: \n (i) civic education and town hall worksho…
Cluster–Robust Variance Estimation for Dyadic Data
Dyadic data are common in the social sciences, although inference for such settings involves accounting for a complex clustering structure. Many analyses in the social sciences fail to account for the fact that multiple dyads share a member, and that errors are thus likely correlated across these dyads. We propose a non-parametric, sandwich-type robust variance estimator for linear regression to account for such clustering in dyadic data. We enum…
Civil War and Social Cohesion: Lab‐in‐the‐Field Evidence from Nepal
We study effects of wartime violence on social cohesion in the context of Nepal's 10‐year civil war. We begin with the observation that violence increased levels of collective action like voting and community organization—a finding consistent with other recent studies of postconflict societies. We use lab‐in‐the‐field techniques to tease apart such effects. Our causal‐identification strategy exploits communities' exogenous isolation from the unpr…
Causal Empiricism in Quantitative Research
Quantitative analysis of causal effects in political science has trended toward the adoption of "causal empiricist" approaches. Such approaches place heavy emphasis on causal identification through experimental and natural experimental designs and on characterizing the specific subpopulations for which effects are identified. This trend is eroding the position of traditional regression studies as the prevailing convention for quantitative causal …
Cluster–Robust Variance Estimation for Dyadic Data
Dyadic data are common in the social sciences, although inference for such settings involves accounting for a complex clustering structure. Many analyses in the social sciences fail to account for the fact that multiple dyads share a member, and that errors are thus likely correlated across these dyads. We propose a non-parametric, sandwich-type robust variance estimator for linear regression to account for such clustering in dyadic data. We enum…
Reintegrating Rebels into Civilian Life: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Burundi
Considerable resources are devoted to ex-combatant reintegration programs in current peace processes, but evidence on their effectiveness remains thin. We use original survey data to study an ex-combatant reintegration program implemented after Burundi's 1993-2004 civil war. Previous quantitative studies have found reintegration programs to be ineffective, but only ex-combatants who self-selected into programs were studied. We avoid such selectio…
Perils or Promise of Ethnic Integration? Evidence from a Hard Case in Burundi
A central question in the study of political development is how conflict between ethnic groups might be transcended. Findings from social psychology suggest that ethnically integrating institutions such as militaries or representative bodies may remove prejudices and exclusionary behavior that perpetuate interethnic animosity. Political scientists have tended to be skeptical, arguing that such processes may actually intensify or "freeze" conflict…
Does Regression Produce Representative Estimates of Causal Effects
With an unrepresentative sample, the estimate of a causal effect may fail to characterize how effects operate in the population of interest. What is less well understood is that conventional estimation practices for observational studies may produce the same problem even with a representative sample. Causal effects estimated via multiple regression differentially weight each unit's contribution. The “effective sample” that regression uses to gene…
Promoting Democracy in Fragile States: Field Experimental Evidence from Liberia
Who wants to forgive and forget? Transitional justice preferences in postwar Burundi
While transitional justice interventions are common in current post-conflict transitions, recent surveys in such settings suggest that public opinions often vary in their levels of support for such policies. Understanding such opinions is crucial for designing post-conflict policies that properly reflect public interests. This study uses original survey data from Burundi to interpret public opinions toward transitional justice policies in a post-…
Can intergroup contact affect ingroup dynamics? Insights from a field study with Jewish and Arab-Palestinian youth in Israel
How can intergroup contact programs affect conflict-ridden communities besides improving the outgroup attitudes of participating individuals? We address this question by examining the effects of an intergroup contact intervention on ingroup dynamics that may mitigate intergroup conflict. We also examine how outgroup attitudes and psychological resources mediate such effects. We present the results from a difference-in-differences design with 149 …
Fast-Track Institution Building in Conflict-Affected Countries? Insights from Recent Field Experiments
This paper synthesizes evidence from four recent “community-driven development” field experiments undertaken in countries affected by violent conflict and assesses prospects for “fast-track” institution building. Conflict-affected environments are presumed to be settings that combine extraordinary need and opportunity for building institutions. The substantive and methodological consistency of the field experiments (Afghanistan, DRC, Liberia, and…
Addressing Violent Intergroup Conflict from the Bottom Up
How might interventions that engage ordinary citizens in settings of violent conflict affect broader conflict dynamics? Given the volume of resources committed every year to citizen‐oriented programs that attempt to promote peace, this is an important question. We develop a framework to analyze processes through which individual‐level interventions could mitigate violent conflict escalation more broadly. Individual‐level interventions may increas…
Wartime ties and the social logic of crime
While ex-combatant reintegration is vital to successful transitions from war to peace, some former fighters turn to crime following demobilization. Such criminality undermines the consolidation of political order. Leading theories of crime participation emphasize the role of both individual economic opportunities and factors related to social ties. Yet, we still know little about the social logic of ex-combatant criminality and how social and eco…
International Institutions and Political Liberalization: Evidence from the World Bank Loans Program
How do international institutions affect political liberalization in member states? Motivated by an examination of the World Bank loans program, this article shows that institutions can incentivize liberalization by offering opportunities for countries to become associated with advanced, wealthy members. In the World Bank, when a loan recipient reaches a specified level of economic development, it becomes eligible to graduate from borrower status…
Peacekeeping and development in fragile states: Micro-level evidence from Liberia
Peacekeeping operations are integral to multilateral strategies to help establish stable, self-sustaining peace and development in countries coming out of civil war. While we know, from macro-level empirical studies, that these operations contribute to the durability of peace, the evidence on their effectiveness at the micro level remains scant. Using surveys and administrative data from postwar Liberia, we test the hypothesis that peacekeeping d…
Minorities and mistrust: On the adoption of ethnic recognition to manage conflict
An enduring debate in the conflict management literature concerns the wisdom of recognizing versus avoiding reference to ethnic identities in institutions to manage ethnic conflict. Understanding why ethnic recognition occurs is crucial for informing this debate. We develop a theory based on functional and political mobilization effects of recognizing ethnic groups. Contrary to reasoning that minority leaders would be most interested in recogniti…
Retrospective Causal Inference with Machine Learning Ensembles: An Application to Anti-recidivism Policies in Colombia
We present new methods to estimate causal effects retrospectively from micro data with the assistance of a machine learning ensemble. This approach overcomes two important limitations in conventional methods like regression modeling or matching: (i) ambiguity about the pertinent retrospective counterfactuals and (ii) potential misspecification, overfitting, and otherwise bias-prone or inefficient use of a large identifying covariate set in the es…
Intrinsic Social Incentives in State and Non-State Armed Groups
How do non-state armed groups (NSAGs) survive and even thrive in situations where state armed groups (SAGs) collapse, despite the former's often greater material adversity? We argue that, optimizing under their different constraints, SAGs invest more in technical military training and NSAGs invest more in enhancing soldiers' intrinsic payoffs from serving their group. Therefore, willingness to contribute to the group should be more positively cor…
Legibility and External Investment: An Institutional Natural Experiment in Liberia
We address a debate over the effects of private versus customary property rights on external investment. Despite political economists’ claims that external investors favor private property rights, other experts argue that customary systems enable large-scale “land grabs.” We organize these competing claims, highlighting trade-offs due to differences in legibility versus the ability to displace existing landholders under both systems. We study a n…
The Effect of Fertility on Mothers’ Labor Supply over the Last Two Centuries
Using a compiled data set of 441 censuses and surveys from between 1787 and 2015, representing 103 countries and 51.4 million mothers, we find that: (i) the effect of fertility on labour supply is typically indistinguishable from zero at low levels of development and large and negative at higher levels of development, (ii) the negative gradient is stable across historical and contemporary data, and (iii) the results are robust to identification s…
Repressed productive potential and revolt: Insights from an insurgency in Burundi
The relationship between participation in revolt and individuals' economic conditions is among the most debated in political science. While conventional economic theory suggests that those who face the poorest economic prospects are most inclined to fight, extant evidence is decidedly mixed. We address this puzzling variation by analyzing the interplay between macro-structural conditions and individuals' micro-level circumstances. Under condition…
Reasons for policy experimentation that have nothing to do with selection bias
Estimating the effect of intergroup contact over years: Evidence from a youth program in Israel
We study how an intervention combining youth intergroup contact and sports affects intergroup relations in the context of an active conflict. We first conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of one-year program exposure in Israel. To track effects of a multiyear exposure, we then use machine-learning techniques to fuse the RCT with the observational data gathered on multiyear participants. This analytical approach can help overcome frequent l…
Reintegrating Rebels into Civilian Life: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Burundi
Considerable resources are devoted to ex-combatant reintegration programs in current peace processes, but evidence on their effectiveness remains thin. We use original survey data to study an ex-combatant reintegration program implemented after Burundi's 1993-2004 civil war. Previous quantitative studies have found reintegration programs to be ineffective, but only ex-combatants who self-selected into programs were studied. We avoid such selectio…
Who wants to forgive and forget? Transitional justice preferences in postwar Burundi
While transitional justice interventions are common in current post-conflict transitions, recent surveys in such settings suggest that public opinions often vary in their levels of support for such policies. Understanding such opinions is crucial for designing post-conflict policies that properly reflect public interests. This study uses original survey data from Burundi to interpret public opinions toward transitional justice policies in a post-…
Perils or Promise of Ethnic Integration? Evidence from a Hard Case in Burundi
A central question in the study of political development is how conflict between ethnic groups might be transcended. Findings from social psychology suggest that ethnically integrating institutions such as militaries or representative bodies may remove prejudices and exclusionary behavior that perpetuate interethnic animosity. Political scientists have tended to be skeptical, arguing that such processes may actually intensify or "freeze" conflict…
Fast-Track Institution Building in Conflict-Affected Countries? Insights from Recent Field Experiments
This paper synthesizes evidence from four recent “community-driven development” field experiments undertaken in countries affected by violent conflict and assesses prospects for “fast-track” institution building. Conflict-affected environments are presumed to be settings that combine extraordinary need and opportunity for building institutions. The substantive and methodological consistency of the field experiments (Afghanistan, DRC, Liberia, and…
Civil War and Social Cohesion: Lab‐in‐the‐Field Evidence from Nepal
We study effects of wartime violence on social cohesion in the context of Nepal's 10‐year civil war. We begin with the observation that violence increased levels of collective action like voting and community organization—a finding consistent with other recent studies of postconflict societies. We use lab‐in‐the‐field techniques to tease apart such effects. Our causal‐identification strategy exploits communities' exogenous isolation from the unpr…
Promoting Democracy in Fragile States: Insights from a Field Experiment in Liberia
A field experiment in rural Liberia is \n used to study democratic participation in fragile states. \n Fragile states are marked by political fragmentation, local \n patronage systems, and voter vulnerability. To understand \n the effects of such conditions on democratic expression \n through elections, the experiment introduced new forms of \n interaction between rural citizens and third-party actors: \n (i) civic education and town hall worksho…
Cluster–Robust Variance Estimation for Dyadic Data
Dyadic data are common in the social sciences, although inference for such settings involves accounting for a complex clustering structure. Many analyses in the social sciences fail to account for the fact that multiple dyads share a member, and that errors are thus likely correlated across these dyads. We propose a non-parametric, sandwich-type robust variance estimator for linear regression to account for such clustering in dyadic data. We enum…
Can intergroup contact affect ingroup dynamics? Insights from a field study with Jewish and Arab-Palestinian youth in Israel
How can intergroup contact programs affect conflict-ridden communities besides improving the outgroup attitudes of participating individuals? We address this question by examining the effects of an intergroup contact intervention on ingroup dynamics that may mitigate intergroup conflict. We also examine how outgroup attitudes and psychological resources mediate such effects. We present the results from a difference-in-differences design with 149 …
Causal Empiricism in Quantitative Research
Quantitative analysis of causal effects in political science has trended toward the adoption of "causal empiricist" approaches. Such approaches place heavy emphasis on causal identification through experimental and natural experimental designs and on characterizing the specific subpopulations for which effects are identified. This trend is eroding the position of traditional regression studies as the prevailing convention for quantitative causal …
Retrospective Causal Inference with Machine Learning Ensembles: An Application to Anti-recidivism Policies in Colombia
We present new methods to estimate causal effects retrospectively from micro data with the assistance of a machine learning ensemble. This approach overcomes two important limitations in conventional methods like regression modeling or matching: (i) ambiguity about the pertinent retrospective counterfactuals and (ii) potential misspecification, overfitting, and otherwise bias-prone or inefficient use of a large identifying covariate set in the es…
Does Regression Produce Representative Estimates of Causal Effects
With an unrepresentative sample, the estimate of a causal effect may fail to characterize how effects operate in the population of interest. What is less well understood is that conventional estimation practices for observational studies may produce the same problem even with a representative sample. Causal effects estimated via multiple regression differentially weight each unit's contribution. The “effective sample” that regression uses to gene…
The impact of land property rights interventions on investment and agricultural productivity in developing countries: A systematic review
Addressing Violent Intergroup Conflict from the Bottom Up
How might interventions that engage ordinary citizens in settings of violent conflict affect broader conflict dynamics? Given the volume of resources committed every year to citizen‐oriented programs that attempt to promote peace, this is an important question. We develop a framework to analyze processes through which individual‐level interventions could mitigate violent conflict escalation more broadly. Individual‐level interventions may increas…
Promoting Democracy in Fragile States: Field Experimental Evidence from Liberia
Minorities and mistrust: On the adoption of ethnic recognition to manage conflict
An enduring debate in the conflict management literature concerns the wisdom of recognizing versus avoiding reference to ethnic identities in institutions to manage ethnic conflict. Understanding why ethnic recognition occurs is crucial for informing this debate. We develop a theory based on functional and political mobilization effects of recognizing ethnic groups. Contrary to reasoning that minority leaders would be most interested in recogniti…
Reasons for policy experimentation that have nothing to do with selection bias
International Institutions and Political Liberalization: Evidence from the World Bank Loans Program
How do international institutions affect political liberalization in member states? Motivated by an examination of the World Bank loans program, this article shows that institutions can incentivize liberalization by offering opportunities for countries to become associated with advanced, wealthy members. In the World Bank, when a loan recipient reaches a specified level of economic development, it becomes eligible to graduate from borrower status…
Diversity, Violence, and Recognition: How Recognizing Ethnic Identity Promotes Peace
When considering strategies to address violent conflict, an enduring debate concerns the wisdom of recognizing versus avoiding reference to ethnic identities. This book asks: Under what conditions do governments manage internal violent conflicts by formally recognizing different ethnic identities? Moreover, what are the implications for peace? Introducing the concept of “ethnic recognition,” and building on a theory rooted in ethnic power configu…
Wartime ties and the social logic of crime
While ex-combatant reintegration is vital to successful transitions from war to peace, some former fighters turn to crime following demobilization. Such criminality undermines the consolidation of political order. Leading theories of crime participation emphasize the role of both individual economic opportunities and factors related to social ties. Yet, we still know little about the social logic of ex-combatant criminality and how social and eco…
From Local to Global: External Validity in a Fertility Natural Experiment
We study issues related to external validity for treatment effects using over 100 replications of the Angrist and Evans natural experiment on the effects of sibling sex composition on fertility and labor supply. The replications are based on census data from around the world going back to 1960. We decompose sources of error in predicting treatment effects in external contexts in terms of macro and micro sources of variation. In our empirical sett…
The Effect of Fertility on Mothers’ Labor Supply over the Last Two Centuries
Using a compiled data set of 441 censuses and surveys from between 1787 and 2015, representing 103 countries and 51.4 million mothers, we find that: (i) the effect of fertility on labour supply is typically indistinguishable from zero at low levels of development and large and negative at higher levels of development, (ii) the negative gradient is stable across historical and contemporary data, and (iii) the results are robust to identification s…
Repressed productive potential and revolt: Insights from an insurgency in Burundi
The relationship between participation in revolt and individuals' economic conditions is among the most debated in political science. While conventional economic theory suggests that those who face the poorest economic prospects are most inclined to fight, extant evidence is decidedly mixed. We address this puzzling variation by analyzing the interplay between macro-structural conditions and individuals' micro-level circumstances. Under condition…
Legibility and External Investment: An Institutional Natural Experiment in Liberia
We address a debate over the effects of private versus customary property rights on external investment. Despite political economists’ claims that external investors favor private property rights, other experts argue that customary systems enable large-scale “land grabs.” We organize these competing claims, highlighting trade-offs due to differences in legibility versus the ability to displace existing landholders under both systems. We study a n…
Peacekeeping and development in fragile states: Micro-level evidence from Liberia
Peacekeeping operations are integral to multilateral strategies to help establish stable, self-sustaining peace and development in countries coming out of civil war. While we know, from macro-level empirical studies, that these operations contribute to the durability of peace, the evidence on their effectiveness at the micro level remains scant. Using surveys and administrative data from postwar Liberia, we test the hypothesis that peacekeeping d…
Democratic Integration of Former Insurgents: Evidence from a Civic Inclusion Campaign in Colombia
We study the effects of a nongovernmental civic inclusion campaign on the democratic integration of demobilized insurgents. Democratic participation ideally offers insurgents a peaceful channel for political expression and addressing grievances. However, existing work suggests that former combatant’s ideological socialization and experiences of violence fuel hard-line commitments that may be contrary to democratic political engagement, threatenin…
Political science (20 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (18 works) · Economics (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (15 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Mathematics (8 works)