Ryan Jablonski
Biographic Data
| ID | 1324010 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ryan Jablonski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ryan |
| FAMILY NAME | Jablonski |
| SIGNATURE | JABLONSKI R |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7344-6738 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 345 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
How to Distinguish Human Error From Election Fraud
Voters and politicians often blame tallying irregularities on fraud, undermining perceptions of democratic and electoral credibility. Yet such irregularities also result from capacity failures and human error. We introduce several methods to assess competing causes of tallying irregularities leveraging the quasi-random administration of polling stations. Using these methods, we revisit the case of the 2019 Malawian presidential election which was…
What Politicians Do Not Know Can Hurt You
Do well-informed politicians make more effective spending decisions? In experiments with 70% of all elected politicians in Malawi ($ N=460 $), we tested the effects of information on public spending. Specifically, we randomly provided information about school needs, foreign aid, and voting patterns prior to officials making real decisions about the allocation of spending. We show that these information interventions reduced inequalities in spendi…
Individualized Text Messages about Public Services Fail to Sway Voters
Mobile communication technologies can provide citizens access to information that is tailored to their specific circumstances. Such technologies may therefore increase citizens’ ability to vote in line with their interests and hold politicians accountable. In a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Uganda (n = 16,083), we investigated whether citizens who receive private, timely, and individualized text messages by mobile phone about public …
How information about foreign aid affects public spending decisions
Surviving Elections
It is often assumed that government-sponsored election violence increases the probability that incumbent leaders remain in power. Using cross-national data, this article shows that election violence increases the probability of incumbent victory, but can generate risky post-election dynamics. These differences in the consequences of election violence reflect changes in the strategic setting over the course of the election cycle. In the pre-electi…
The Tortuga Disease
Transnational crime brings substantial foreign capital into a number of fragile and developing states. Yet the economic and political impacts of such capital have rarely been studied, due to the challenges of obtaining accurate data on illicit activities. We overcome this challenge by compiling a dataset on the amount and disbursement dates of ransom payments made by ship owners and insurers to Somali pirates from 2005 to 2012, along with sub-nat…
Did Aid Promote Democracy in Africa? The Role of Technical Assistance in Africa’s Transitions
How Aid Targets Votes
Despite allegations that foreign aid promotes corruption and patronage, little is known about how recipient governments' electoral incentives influence aid spending. This article proposes a distributional politics model of aid spending in which governments use their informational advantages over donors in order to allocate a disproportionate share of aid to electorally strategic supporters, allowing governments to translate aid into votes. To eva…
When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence
When are governments most likely to use election violence, and what factors can mitigate government incentives to resort to violence? How do the dynamics of election violence differ in the pre- and post-election periods? The central argument of this article is that an incumbent's fear of losing power as the result of an election, as well as institutionalized constraints on the incumbent's decision-making powers, are pivotal in her decision to use…
The Political Economy of Plunder
Maritime piracy is a growing scourge on the international community—imposing large costs on maritime states and the shipping industry, as well as potentially undermining state capacity and funding terrorism. Using original data on over 3,000 pirate attacks, the authors argue that these attacks are, in part, a response to poor labor market opportunities. To establish this, the authors take advantage of the strong effect of commodity prices on labo…
When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence
When are governments most likely to use election violence, and what factors can mitigate government incentives to resort to violence? How do the dynamics of election violence differ in the pre- and post-election periods? The central argument of this article is that an incumbent's fear of losing power as the result of an election, as well as institutionalized constraints on the incumbent's decision-making powers, are pivotal in her decision to use…
How Aid Targets Votes
Despite allegations that foreign aid promotes corruption and patronage, little is known about how recipient governments' electoral incentives influence aid spending. This article proposes a distributional politics model of aid spending in which governments use their informational advantages over donors in order to allocate a disproportionate share of aid to electorally strategic supporters, allowing governments to translate aid into votes. To eva…
Surviving Elections
It is often assumed that government-sponsored election violence increases the probability that incumbent leaders remain in power. Using cross-national data, this article shows that election violence increases the probability of incumbent victory, but can generate risky post-election dynamics. These differences in the consequences of election violence reflect changes in the strategic setting over the course of the election cycle. In the pre-electi…
Did Aid Promote Democracy in Africa? The Role of Technical Assistance in Africa’s Transitions
The Political Economy of Plunder
Maritime piracy is a growing scourge on the international community—imposing large costs on maritime states and the shipping industry, as well as potentially undermining state capacity and funding terrorism. Using original data on over 3,000 pirate attacks, the authors argue that these attacks are, in part, a response to poor labor market opportunities. To establish this, the authors take advantage of the strong effect of commodity prices on labo…
How information about foreign aid affects public spending decisions
Individualized Text Messages about Public Services Fail to Sway Voters
Mobile communication technologies can provide citizens access to information that is tailored to their specific circumstances. Such technologies may therefore increase citizens’ ability to vote in line with their interests and hold politicians accountable. In a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Uganda (n = 16,083), we investigated whether citizens who receive private, timely, and individualized text messages by mobile phone about public …
The Tortuga Disease
Transnational crime brings substantial foreign capital into a number of fragile and developing states. Yet the economic and political impacts of such capital have rarely been studied, due to the challenges of obtaining accurate data on illicit activities. We overcome this challenge by compiling a dataset on the amount and disbursement dates of ransom payments made by ship owners and insurers to Somali pirates from 2005 to 2012, along with sub-nat…
What Politicians Do Not Know Can Hurt You
Do well-informed politicians make more effective spending decisions? In experiments with 70% of all elected politicians in Malawi ($ N=460 $), we tested the effects of information on public spending. Specifically, we randomly provided information about school needs, foreign aid, and voting patterns prior to officials making real decisions about the allocation of spending. We show that these information interventions reduced inequalities in spendi…
The Political Economy of Plunder
Maritime piracy is a growing scourge on the international community—imposing large costs on maritime states and the shipping industry, as well as potentially undermining state capacity and funding terrorism. Using original data on over 3,000 pirate attacks, the authors argue that these attacks are, in part, a response to poor labor market opportunities. To establish this, the authors take advantage of the strong effect of commodity prices on labo…
How Aid Targets Votes
Despite allegations that foreign aid promotes corruption and patronage, little is known about how recipient governments' electoral incentives influence aid spending. This article proposes a distributional politics model of aid spending in which governments use their informational advantages over donors in order to allocate a disproportionate share of aid to electorally strategic supporters, allowing governments to translate aid into votes. To eva…
When Do Governments Resort to Election Violence
When are governments most likely to use election violence, and what factors can mitigate government incentives to resort to violence? How do the dynamics of election violence differ in the pre- and post-election periods? The central argument of this article is that an incumbent's fear of losing power as the result of an election, as well as institutionalized constraints on the incumbent's decision-making powers, are pivotal in her decision to use…
Did Aid Promote Democracy in Africa? The Role of Technical Assistance in Africa’s Transitions
The Tortuga Disease
Transnational crime brings substantial foreign capital into a number of fragile and developing states. Yet the economic and political impacts of such capital have rarely been studied, due to the challenges of obtaining accurate data on illicit activities. We overcome this challenge by compiling a dataset on the amount and disbursement dates of ransom payments made by ship owners and insurers to Somali pirates from 2005 to 2012, along with sub-nat…
Surviving Elections
It is often assumed that government-sponsored election violence increases the probability that incumbent leaders remain in power. Using cross-national data, this article shows that election violence increases the probability of incumbent victory, but can generate risky post-election dynamics. These differences in the consequences of election violence reflect changes in the strategic setting over the course of the election cycle. In the pre-electi…
How information about foreign aid affects public spending decisions
Individualized Text Messages about Public Services Fail to Sway Voters
Mobile communication technologies can provide citizens access to information that is tailored to their specific circumstances. Such technologies may therefore increase citizens’ ability to vote in line with their interests and hold politicians accountable. In a large-scale randomized controlled trial in Uganda (n = 16,083), we investigated whether citizens who receive private, timely, and individualized text messages by mobile phone about public …
What Politicians Do Not Know Can Hurt You
Do well-informed politicians make more effective spending decisions? In experiments with 70% of all elected politicians in Malawi ($ N=460 $), we tested the effects of information on public spending. Specifically, we randomly provided information about school needs, foreign aid, and voting patterns prior to officials making real decisions about the allocation of spending. We show that these information interventions reduced inequalities in spendi…
How to Distinguish Human Error From Election Fraud
Voters and politicians often blame tallying irregularities on fraud, undermining perceptions of democratic and electoral credibility. Yet such irregularities also result from capacity failures and human error. We introduce several methods to assess competing causes of tallying irregularities leveraging the quasi-random administration of polling stations. Using these methods, we revisit the case of the 2019 Malawian presidential election which was…
Economics (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · Business (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (4 works) · International Development and Aid (3 works) · International economics (3 works) · Market economy (3 works)