Ala Alrababah
Biographic Data
| ID | 1146360 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ala Alrababah |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ala |
| FAMILY NAME | Alrababah |
| SIGNATURE | ALRABABAH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | ETH Zurich |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5762-8892 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 193 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Permission to Secede? The Impact of Foreign Endorsements on Attitudes Toward Separatist Movements
How do international endorsements of separatist movements by foreign powers impact popular views toward secession? Much literature on secessionist movements focuses on subnational bargaining between the government and separatist groups. However, these models often neglect international audiences, who offer endorsement and other forms of support for separatist groups. This paper demonstrates that when foreign powers take positions on secessionist …
Reducing attrition in phone-based panel surveys: Best Practices and Semi-Automation for Survey Workflows
Panel surveys and phone-based data collection are essential for survey research and are often used together due to the practical advantages of conducting repeated interviews over the phone. These tools are particularly critical for research in dynamic or high-risk settings, as highlighted by researchers’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, preventing high attrition is a major challenge in panel surveys. Current solutions in political sci…
The Free Movement of People and the Success of Far-Right Parties: Evidence from Switzerland's Border Liberalization
The main theories explaining electoral backlash against immigration focus on citizens' cultural, economic, and security concerns. We test these predictions in Switzerland, which opened its labor market to neighboring countries in the 2000s. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we document a substantial rise in immigrant workers in Swiss border municipalities after the border opened. This was accompanied by a 6-percentage-point (95% confi…
Learning from Null Effects: A Bottom-Up Approach
A critical barrier to generating cumulative knowledge in political science and related disciplines is the inability of researchers to observe the results from the full set of research designs that scholars have conceptualized, implemented, and analyzed. For a variety of reasons, studies that produce null findings are especially likely to be unobserved, creating biases in publicly accessible research. While several approaches have been suggested t…
The Dynamics of Refugee Return: Syrian Refugees and Their Migration Intentions
We study the drivers of refugees' decision making about returning home using observational and experimental data from a survey of 3,003 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We find that the conditions in refugee-hosting countries play a minor role. In contrast, conditions in a refugee's home country are the main drivers of return intentions. Even in the face of hostility and poor living conditions in host countries, refugees are unlikely to return unless …
Authoritarian media and diversionary threats: Lessons from 30 years of Syrian state discourse
Scholars have long argued that leaders manipulate foreign policy, sometimes even initiating wars in order to enhance their domestic political position. But diversionary wars are relatively rare given the high costs of conflict. In this project, we examine data from major Syrian daily newspapers over a 30-year period (1987–2018) to explore how autocratic regimes use diversionary rhetoric. We find that before the 2011 Arab Uprisings, Syria's state-…
Attitudes Toward Migrants in a Highly Impacted Economy: Evidence From the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan
With international migration at a record high, a burgeoning literature has explored the drivers of public attitudes toward migrants. However, most studies to date have focused on developed countries, which have relatively fewer migrants and more capacity to absorb them. We address this sample bias by conducting a survey of public attitudes toward Syrians in Jordan, a developing country with one of the largest shares of refugees. Our analysis indi…
Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes
Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice? To address this question, we study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player. Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control, and Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of p…
Do Donor Motives Matter? Investigating Perceptions of Foreign Aid in the Conflict in Donbas
How do the perceived motives of donor states shape recipient attitudes toward foreign aid in a conflict zone? This research note evaluates the impact of two frames that characterize the motives of foreign powers involved in a civil conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. These frames portray foreign actors as providing aid either to alleviate suffering during conflict (humanitarian frame) or to increase their power and influence in the …
Attitudes Toward Migrants in a Highly Impacted Economy: Evidence From the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan
With international migration at a record high, a burgeoning literature has explored the drivers of public attitudes toward migrants. However, most studies to date have focused on developed countries, which have relatively fewer migrants and more capacity to absorb them. We address this sample bias by conducting a survey of public attitudes toward Syrians in Jordan, a developing country with one of the largest shares of refugees. Our analysis indi…
Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes
Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice? To address this question, we study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player. Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control, and Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of p…
Authoritarian media and diversionary threats: Lessons from 30 years of Syrian state discourse
Scholars have long argued that leaders manipulate foreign policy, sometimes even initiating wars in order to enhance their domestic political position. But diversionary wars are relatively rare given the high costs of conflict. In this project, we examine data from major Syrian daily newspapers over a 30-year period (1987–2018) to explore how autocratic regimes use diversionary rhetoric. We find that before the 2011 Arab Uprisings, Syria's state-…
The Dynamics of Refugee Return: Syrian Refugees and Their Migration Intentions
We study the drivers of refugees' decision making about returning home using observational and experimental data from a survey of 3,003 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We find that the conditions in refugee-hosting countries play a minor role. In contrast, conditions in a refugee's home country are the main drivers of return intentions. Even in the face of hostility and poor living conditions in host countries, refugees are unlikely to return unless …
Learning from Null Effects: A Bottom-Up Approach
A critical barrier to generating cumulative knowledge in political science and related disciplines is the inability of researchers to observe the results from the full set of research designs that scholars have conceptualized, implemented, and analyzed. For a variety of reasons, studies that produce null findings are especially likely to be unobserved, creating biases in publicly accessible research. While several approaches have been suggested t…
Do Donor Motives Matter? Investigating Perceptions of Foreign Aid in the Conflict in Donbas
How do the perceived motives of donor states shape recipient attitudes toward foreign aid in a conflict zone? This research note evaluates the impact of two frames that characterize the motives of foreign powers involved in a civil conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. These frames portray foreign actors as providing aid either to alleviate suffering during conflict (humanitarian frame) or to increase their power and influence in the …
The Free Movement of People and the Success of Far-Right Parties: Evidence from Switzerland's Border Liberalization
The main theories explaining electoral backlash against immigration focus on citizens' cultural, economic, and security concerns. We test these predictions in Switzerland, which opened its labor market to neighboring countries in the 2000s. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we document a substantial rise in immigrant workers in Swiss border municipalities after the border opened. This was accompanied by a 6-percentage-point (95% confi…
Do Donor Motives Matter? Investigating Perceptions of Foreign Aid in the Conflict in Donbas
How do the perceived motives of donor states shape recipient attitudes toward foreign aid in a conflict zone? This research note evaluates the impact of two frames that characterize the motives of foreign powers involved in a civil conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. These frames portray foreign actors as providing aid either to alleviate suffering during conflict (humanitarian frame) or to increase their power and influence in the …
Authoritarian media and diversionary threats: Lessons from 30 years of Syrian state discourse
Scholars have long argued that leaders manipulate foreign policy, sometimes even initiating wars in order to enhance their domestic political position. But diversionary wars are relatively rare given the high costs of conflict. In this project, we examine data from major Syrian daily newspapers over a 30-year period (1987–2018) to explore how autocratic regimes use diversionary rhetoric. We find that before the 2011 Arab Uprisings, Syria's state-…
Attitudes Toward Migrants in a Highly Impacted Economy: Evidence From the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan
With international migration at a record high, a burgeoning literature has explored the drivers of public attitudes toward migrants. However, most studies to date have focused on developed countries, which have relatively fewer migrants and more capacity to absorb them. We address this sample bias by conducting a survey of public attitudes toward Syrians in Jordan, a developing country with one of the largest shares of refugees. Our analysis indi…
Can Exposure to Celebrities Reduce Prejudice? The Effect of Mohamed Salah on Islamophobic Behaviors and Attitudes
Can exposure to celebrities from stigmatized groups reduce prejudice? To address this question, we study the case of Mohamed Salah, a visibly Muslim, elite soccer player. Using data on hate crime reports throughout England and 15 million tweets from British soccer fans, we find that after Salah joined Liverpool F.C., hate crimes in the Liverpool area dropped by 16% compared with a synthetic control, and Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of p…
Learning from Null Effects: A Bottom-Up Approach
A critical barrier to generating cumulative knowledge in political science and related disciplines is the inability of researchers to observe the results from the full set of research designs that scholars have conceptualized, implemented, and analyzed. For a variety of reasons, studies that produce null findings are especially likely to be unobserved, creating biases in publicly accessible research. While several approaches have been suggested t…
The Dynamics of Refugee Return: Syrian Refugees and Their Migration Intentions
We study the drivers of refugees' decision making about returning home using observational and experimental data from a survey of 3,003 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. We find that the conditions in refugee-hosting countries play a minor role. In contrast, conditions in a refugee's home country are the main drivers of return intentions. Even in the face of hostility and poor living conditions in host countries, refugees are unlikely to return unless …
Permission to Secede? The Impact of Foreign Endorsements on Attitudes Toward Separatist Movements
How do international endorsements of separatist movements by foreign powers impact popular views toward secession? Much literature on secessionist movements focuses on subnational bargaining between the government and separatist groups. However, these models often neglect international audiences, who offer endorsement and other forms of support for separatist groups. This paper demonstrates that when foreign powers take positions on secessionist …
Reducing attrition in phone-based panel surveys: Best Practices and Semi-Automation for Survey Workflows
Panel surveys and phone-based data collection are essential for survey research and are often used together due to the practical advantages of conducting repeated interviews over the phone. These tools are particularly critical for research in dynamic or high-risk settings, as highlighted by researchers’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, preventing high attrition is a major challenge in panel surveys. Current solutions in political sci…
The Free Movement of People and the Success of Far-Right Parties: Evidence from Switzerland's Border Liberalization
The main theories explaining electoral backlash against immigration focus on citizens' cultural, economic, and security concerns. We test these predictions in Switzerland, which opened its labor market to neighboring countries in the 2000s. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we document a substantial rise in immigrant workers in Swiss border municipalities after the border opened. This was accompanied by a 6-percentage-point (95% confi…
Economics (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Law (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (3 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (3 works) · Political economy (3 works) · Politics (3 works) · Business (2 works)