Amy H Liu
Biographic Data
| ID | 258528 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Amy H Liu |
| GIVEN NAMES | Amy H |
| FAMILY NAME | Liu |
| SIGNATURE | LIU A H |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5380-2849 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 218 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Ignoring Gender Compromises the Comparability of Cross-Cultural Survey Research
Survey measures of intergroup attitudes may not necessarily be comparable across countries. Androcentric bias—the propensity to position men as the universal standard—is more likely to arise among speakers of grammatically gendered languages than among speakers of languages without grammatical gender. When combined with outgroup male target bias—the tendency to evaluate outgroup men more negatively than outgroup women—androcentric bias may distor…
When Bilingual Ballot Designs Promote or Undermine Inclusivity: Evidence from Three Studies
Do bilingual ballot designs promote inclusivity? While ethnic politics scholars have argued about the importance of accommodating minorities, there has been little attention paid to one specific institution: the ballot. Likewise, while we know ballot designs are important, the empirical focus has strictly been on monolingual ballots. In this paper, we identify three designs: (1) single: monolingual ballots; (2) separated: one bilingual ballot wit…
Languages and Linkages: Explaining Diaspora Attitudes Toward the Ancestral Homeland
What explains the attitudes of diasporas toward their ancestral homeland? One answer suggests some pull toward the country of origin (“ancestral homeland”) based on a shared cultural identity. In contrast, another explanation looks at how host country (“contemporary homeland”) politics surrounding the “perpetual foreigners” can push the diaspora toward their ancestral homeland. In this paper, we recognize that the link between the diaspora and th…
Policing Socio-Geographic Boundaries and Inequality
How do patterns of racial inequality shape policing behavior in the United States? We investigate whether police engage in boundary maintenance at geographic points of racial difference. Critical race scholars suggest that police explicitly serve this function. Yet empirical studies are rare and limited to snapshots of a single city, making it hard to distinguish practices employed across departments from agency- and officer-level idiosyncrasies.…
Racial Identities, Linguistic Proficiency, and Public Attitudes Towards Immigrants: Evidence From Two Surveys in Taiwan
Are host populations more accepting of immigrants who are racially similar and/or linguistically proficient in the host vernacular? The empirical focus in the literature has been largely dominated by Western democracies where the host society is white—and therefore the immigrants are often non-white. As such, we lack a theoretical explanation for how race moderates other markers—for example, language—when it comes to immigrant attitudes. To remed…
Representation and resentment: Explaining radical-right electoral success
The radical right succeeds when minorities challenge the societal standing of majorities. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), research often focuses on the political gains of ethnic minorities. We build on this work by differentiating among (1) types of representation; (2) minority mobilization versus ally advocacy; and (3) politically mobilized versus socially marginalized ethnic minorities. First, we introduce a novel measure of representation…
Gender, Ethnicity, and Intersectionality: Double-Minorities in Asian Cabinets
Cultural Constraints and Policy Implementation: Effects of the Beijing License Plate Lottery on the Environment
Can culture constrain policy implementation — and if so, under what conditions and for whom? In this paper, we test to what extent traditional values of numerology in China impeded the environmental benefits of a well-designed license plate policy. We take advantage of two natural experiments in Beijing. First, in 2008 authorities began limiting cars on the road by restricting specific plate numbers each day. Second, in 2011 authorities introduce…
The income effects of minority co-ethnic employment: The case of Hungarians in central and Eastern Europe
What is the effect of minority co-ethnic employment on income? While the business organizations literature argues diversity allows for knowledge accumulation, optimal labour allocation, and efficient interactions, absent is any consideration of language – e.g. language competency or language ideology. We argue when co-ethnic minorities work together, this shared language allows for bounded trust to develop; it also ensures there are preference si…
To Marry or Not to Marry? Gender and Interethnic Group Trust
While there has been work on whether women are more tolerant of outgroups, the ethnic politics literature has generally overlooked the role of gender in explaining interethnic trust. Whatever attention exists often focuses on the gender of the subject—that is, who is doing the trusting—with mixed results. One reason is that the object being entrusted is either not specified or assumed genderless. In this paper, we call attention to the gender of …
Linguistic diversity in media and state language proficiencies: Evidence from Hungarian minority regions in central-Eastern Europe
Can linguistic diversity in the media impede state language proficiency? In this paper, we test the extent to which the availability of minority languages in the media affects state language proficiency for ethnic minorities. We take advantage of an exogeneous development: The rapid expansion of Budapest-originating media outside Hungary in the mid-2000s transformed the media landscape in neighbouring states. Using an original survey data of ethn…
Ethnic Polarization and Human Development: The Conditional Effects of Minority Language Recognition
The literature suggests ethnic diversity has a negative effect on development. Yet, we also know that government policies—e.g., recognizing multiple languages in minority-sizable areas—can attenuate these effects. In this paper, we ask: What are the socioeconomic implications of minority language recognition? We leverage a legal stipulation in Romania as a quasi-experiment: Minority languages are recognized as official in areas where the minority…
Minority Language Recognition and Political Trust in Authoritarian Regimes
While authoritarian regimes are often characterized by their civil liberty restrictions, some dictatorships acknowledge the ethnolinguistic diversity of their population. Are minorities in multiethnic authoritarian states more likely to trust the government when their language is recognized? In this paper, we argue while recognition of a group’s language improves trust in democracies through a substantive representation mechanism, the same cannot…
State Institutions, Civic Associations, and Identity Demands: Regional Movements in Greater Southeast Asia
In a project of this ambition-covering almost twenty regions in eight countries-the thanks spread far and wide.We first want to thank the incountry experts and informants who made each of the individual chapters possible.As a community of scholars, we are constantly reminded that we are students of the citizens and cultures of the countries that we study.We express deep gratitude to them for allowing us access to their worlds and for imparting wi…
Ethnicity and Politics in Southeast Asia
Presidential Electoral Cycles and Corruption Charges
Anti-corruption efforts are inherently political. Corruption charges can be levied against political opponents as an instrument of repression; they can also be used against troublesome allies in the same party coalition to further consolidate power. In this paper, we focus on Indonesia and ask: Do major corruption charges follow a presidential electoral cycle—and if so, how? We contend charges against prominent members of the government coalition…
Response to Nils Ringe’s Review of The Language of Political Incorporation: Chinese Migrants in Europe
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Normalizing Diversity in Merit Review Forms
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Islands Apart: Explaining the Chinese Experience in the Philippines
What explains the general absence of disdain against the Chinese Filipino community in the Philippines? One common answer focuses on the high rates of intermarriage—a legacy of Spanish colonialism. Yet, this explanation ignores how the Chinese were explicitly targeted—culturally during the American occupation and economically in the aftermath of independence. Moreover, it runs against theoretical expectations that when there are national security…
The framing effects of Covid-19 on ethnic intolerance: Evidence from Romania
Studies of tolerance often employ an ethnic lens. Reports of increasing anti-Chinese racism during the pandemic is evidence. Yet, COVID-19 is a global pandemic. How the disease is framed matters. We employ a survey experiment in Romania – where there is a large Chinese population and an even larger Romanian migrant population – to show that when primed about COVID-19, people responded with Chinese exclusion – a result consistent with the ethnic p…
Pronoun Usage as a Measure of Power Personalization: A General Theory with Evidence from the Chinese-Speaking World
How can the growing personalization of power be identified and measured ex ante? Extant measures in the authoritarian literature have traditionally focused on institutional constraints and more recently on individual behaviour – such as purging opposition members from (and packing allies into) government bodies. This article offers a different strategy that examines leaders’ individual rhetoric. It focuses on patterns of pronoun usage for the fir…
A spatial-based explanation for institutional trust in Georgia: Evidence from the maternal healthcare system
When an institution is not easily accessible—for example, it is geographically far—it can be hard for institutional trust to develop. The institution is not only unavailable, but it can also be seen as inappropriate, non-affordable, unapproachable, and unacceptable. In this paper, we examine whether reducing distance to medical facilities and professionals can improve trust in the maternal healthcare system. We do so by focusing on developments i…
The economic effects of the territoriality principle: Evidence from Transylvania, Romania
The territoriality principle stipulates that minority communities in a given territory should be linguistically accommodated. What are the economic effects of this principle? In this paper, we argue that the recognition of multiple languages confers respect on the minority group; it allows people to engage and participate meaningfully in society – thereby facilitating economic well-being. There is, however, a caveat: when recognition happens in a…
The Language of Legacies: The Politics of Evoking Dead Leaders
How can leaders recover public trust and approval when government performance is low? We argue politicians use speeches evoking images of deceased predecessors to reactivate support temporarily. This distracts supporters from the poor performance and arouses empathy and nostalgia among them, causing them to perceive the current leader more favorably. We test this argument by scraping for all speeches by Argentine president Cristina Fernández de K…
How to head count ethnic minorities: Validity of Census Surveys Versus Other Identification Strategies
Censuses ask individuals to identify their own ethnicity. Minorities, however, may be reluctant to self-identify; and thus, censuses may underreport minority populations, raising concerns about measurement validity. We identify and measure the extent of this concern by matching census data on Romas in Romania against a nationwide survey of 2800 municipality experts (SocioRoMap). While not perfect, we find considerable overlap between the two stra…
Linguistic Effects of Political Institutions
What are the linguistic effects of political institutions? Are consensus-building, power-sharing democracies more likely to recognize minority languages? In this article, I argue (1) power-sharing institutions—proportional electoral rules, parliamentary systems, and federalism—are less likely to recognize minority languages than their moderation-inducing, power-concentrating counterparts; but (2) if there is recognition, the level of recognition …
Lingua Mercatoria: Language and Foreign Direct Investment
Does language choice attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and if so, how? We argue that language—a dynamic instrument for reducing transaction costs—can influence investors' decision to allocate capital. Potential host countries attract investments by coordinating their domestic language policies—especially those in education—to match the language of the potential FDI investor. We subject our argument to three different tests: (i) a cross-sec…
Coalitions and Language Politics: Policy Shifts in Southeast Asia
Why is it that some governments recognize only one language while others espouse multilingualism? Related, why are some governments able to shift language policies, and if there is a shift, what explains the direction? In this article, the authors argue that these choices are theproduct of coalitional constraints facing the government during critical junctures in history. During times of political change in the state-building process, the effecti…
Linguistic Recognition as a Source of Confidence in the Justice System
How does linguistic recognition in the courtroom affect popular confidence in the justice system among minorities? The authors argue (a) the recognition of either a minority language and/or a third-party’s language (lingua franca) during judicial proceedings increases confidence levels but (b) the use of a lingua franca is more effective. This is because minorities are more likely to favor an arrangement that levels the playing field by having ev…
Nation-Building, Collective Identity, and Language Choices: Between Instrumental and Value Rationalities
The discussion of the place of language in politics has generally revolved around its relationship to nation-building and ethnic conflict. Yet, these are not always causally connected nor is language easily given up for the sake of a greater national or individual good. Attitudes regarding language can be influenced by anticolonialist resentments, memories of past injustice, status paranoia, xenophobia, collective megalomania, religion, ideology,…
How to head count ethnic minorities: Validity of Census Surveys Versus Other Identification Strategies
Censuses ask individuals to identify their own ethnicity. Minorities, however, may be reluctant to self-identify; and thus, censuses may underreport minority populations, raising concerns about measurement validity. We identify and measure the extent of this concern by matching census data on Romas in Romania against a nationwide survey of 2800 municipality experts (SocioRoMap). While not perfect, we find considerable overlap between the two stra…
Process-Tracing Research Designs: A Practical Guide
Process-tracing has grown in popularity among qualitative researchers. However, unlike statistical models and estimators—or even other topics in qualitative methods—process-tracing is largely bereft of guidelines, especially when it comes to teaching. We address this shortcoming by providing a step-by-step checklist for developing a research design to use process-tracing as a valid and substantial tool for hypothesis testing. This practical guide…
The Language of Economic Growth: A New Measure of Linguistic Heterogeneity
Conventional wisdom holds that languages, as ethnic markers, build communities with shared preferences and strong social networks. Consequently, ethnolinguistic homogeneity can facilitate growth. This article challenges this conception of language as a cultural marker. It argues that language is also a practical vehicle of communication; people can be multilingual, and second languages can be learned. Hence language boundaries are neither (1) con…
The Language of Legacies: The Politics of Evoking Dead Leaders
How can leaders recover public trust and approval when government performance is low? We argue politicians use speeches evoking images of deceased predecessors to reactivate support temporarily. This distracts supporters from the poor performance and arouses empathy and nostalgia among them, causing them to perceive the current leader more favorably. We test this argument by scraping for all speeches by Argentine president Cristina Fernández de K…
Linguistic Origins of Gender Equality and Women's Rights
In this article, we examine how the language spoken in a country can affect individual attitudes about gender equality and subsequently the level of legal rights afforded to women. This is because the feature of a language-specifically whether it requires speakers to make gender distinctions-can perpetuate popular attitudes and beliefs about gender inequality. To test this argument, we first identify a correlation between the gender distinction o…
The Hanification of Xinjiang, China: The Economic Effects of the Great Leap West
In 1999, the Chinese government launched the Great Leap West – an ambitious economic undertaking to develop China's western frontier. The strategy was to use increasing wealth to abate historical ethnic tensions. And while provinces like Xinjiang have experienced impressive growth, relations between the Han‐dominated Beijing and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang have remained unchanged, if not worsened. The former claims the economic benefits have been enj…
Pronoun Usage as a Measure of Power Personalization: A General Theory with Evidence from the Chinese-Speaking World
How can the growing personalization of power be identified and measured ex ante? Extant measures in the authoritarian literature have traditionally focused on institutional constraints and more recently on individual behaviour – such as purging opposition members from (and packing allies into) government bodies. This article offers a different strategy that examines leaders’ individual rhetoric. It focuses on patterns of pronoun usage for the fir…
The Effects of Foreign Language Proficiency on Public Attitudes: Evidence From the Chinese-Speaking World
What explains public attitudes towards a former aggressor state? Conventional wisdom would suggest the prevalence of negative sentiments rooted in historical hatred. In this article we contend that when individuals are proficient in a foreign language—e.g. a lingua franca—they have an alternative channel through which they are exposed to positive narratives put forth by other parties regarding the former aggressor state. And as a result, their at…
Public Attitudes and the Chinese Migrants in Central‐Eastern Europe
The Chinese are one of the largest migrant groups in Central‐Eastern Europe. While governments have welcomed these newcomers, we do not know whether locals share this sentiment. This is because we have not had the requisite data. In this article, I address this shortcoming. I draw on two oft‐cited explanations in the migration literature to examine public attitudes toward the Chinese. The first is about competition over scarce economic resources;…
The economic effects of the territoriality principle: Evidence from Transylvania, Romania
The territoriality principle stipulates that minority communities in a given territory should be linguistically accommodated. What are the economic effects of this principle? In this paper, we argue that the recognition of multiple languages confers respect on the minority group; it allows people to engage and participate meaningfully in society – thereby facilitating economic well-being. There is, however, a caveat: when recognition happens in a…
Minority Languages in Dictatorships: A New Measure of Group Recognition
What explains minority language recognition in dictatorships? In this paper, we argue that minority language groups in authoritarian regimes are morelikelyto have their languages recognized when their interests are represented by a party in the legislature. Moreover, thelevelof recognition is greater. We test this argument using original group-level and time-variant measures of minority party in legislatureandminority language policies for all As…
Islands Apart: Explaining the Chinese Experience in the Philippines
What explains the general absence of disdain against the Chinese Filipino community in the Philippines? One common answer focuses on the high rates of intermarriage—a legacy of Spanish colonialism. Yet, this explanation ignores how the Chinese were explicitly targeted—culturally during the American occupation and economically in the aftermath of independence. Moreover, it runs against theoretical expectations that when there are national security…
The framing effects of Covid-19 on ethnic intolerance: Evidence from Romania
Studies of tolerance often employ an ethnic lens. Reports of increasing anti-Chinese racism during the pandemic is evidence. Yet, COVID-19 is a global pandemic. How the disease is framed matters. We employ a survey experiment in Romania – where there is a large Chinese population and an even larger Romanian migrant population – to show that when primed about COVID-19, people responded with Chinese exclusion – a result consistent with the ethnic p…
Ethnic identity and attitudes toward state institutions: Evidence of judicial legitimacy among the indigenous in Latin America
How does ethnic identity affect how an individual evaluates state institutions? Drawing on the US courts and political psychology literatures, we argue politically marginalized groups (e.g., the indigenous in Latin America) are more likely to emphasize the what – are the outcomes satisfactory – but less likely to value the how –are the procedures fair – than their politically powerful (e.g., the whites in Latin America) counterparts. This is beca…
Democracy and minority language recognition: Tyranny of the Majority and the Conditional Effects of Group Size
What explains minority language recognition? Why are some governments more responsive than others to minority linguistic demands? While there are reasons to believe democracies – as protectors of civil liberties – are generally more likely to recognize minority demands, I argue only those without a sizable majority extend such recognition to the highest levels. This is because the dominance of one large linguistic group electorally impedes a demo…
Immigrant threat and national salience: Understanding the “English official” movement in the United States
The passage of (and debate over) immigration laws in Arizona highlights the increasing linguistic diversity of the US. To date, 31 states have passed an English-official bill. In this paper, we test several hypotheses concerning the adoption of such legislation across the states. Using data spanning the past three decades, we present event history models on the timing of adoption since the start of the modern movement in 1980. Like previous works…
Incorporating Native American History into the Curriculum: Descriptive Representation or Campaign Contributions
Objectives What explains (1) the adoption of these inclusive educational policies, and (2) the timing of the passage of these educational policies? The objective of this study is to examine two competing hypotheses: the first has to do with descriptive representation; the second has to do with Native American nations acting as interest groups. Methods We use a newly constructed data set to estimate logistic regression, difference in difference, a…
Linguistic diversity in media and state language proficiencies: Evidence from Hungarian minority regions in central-Eastern Europe
Can linguistic diversity in the media impede state language proficiency? In this paper, we test the extent to which the availability of minority languages in the media affects state language proficiency for ethnic minorities. We take advantage of an exogeneous development: The rapid expansion of Budapest-originating media outside Hungary in the mid-2000s transformed the media landscape in neighbouring states. Using an original survey data of ethn…
Ethnic Polarization and Human Development: The Conditional Effects of Minority Language Recognition
The literature suggests ethnic diversity has a negative effect on development. Yet, we also know that government policies—e.g., recognizing multiple languages in minority-sizable areas—can attenuate these effects. In this paper, we ask: What are the socioeconomic implications of minority language recognition? We leverage a legal stipulation in Romania as a quasi-experiment: Minority languages are recognized as official in areas where the minority…
Minority Language Recognition and Political Trust in Authoritarian Regimes
While authoritarian regimes are often characterized by their civil liberty restrictions, some dictatorships acknowledge the ethnolinguistic diversity of their population. Are minorities in multiethnic authoritarian states more likely to trust the government when their language is recognized? In this paper, we argue while recognition of a group’s language improves trust in democracies through a substantive representation mechanism, the same cannot…
Linguistic Effects of Political Institutions
What are the linguistic effects of political institutions? Are consensus-building, power-sharing democracies more likely to recognize minority languages? In this article, I argue (1) power-sharing institutions—proportional electoral rules, parliamentary systems, and federalism—are less likely to recognize minority languages than their moderation-inducing, power-concentrating counterparts; but (2) if there is recognition, the level of recognition …
Nation-Building, Collective Identity, and Language Choices: Between Instrumental and Value Rationalities
The discussion of the place of language in politics has generally revolved around its relationship to nation-building and ethnic conflict. Yet, these are not always causally connected nor is language easily given up for the sake of a greater national or individual good. Attitudes regarding language can be influenced by anticolonialist resentments, memories of past injustice, status paranoia, xenophobia, collective megalomania, religion, ideology,…
Coalitions and Language Politics: Policy Shifts in Southeast Asia
Why is it that some governments recognize only one language while others espouse multilingualism? Related, why are some governments able to shift language policies, and if there is a shift, what explains the direction? In this article, the authors argue that these choices are theproduct of coalitional constraints facing the government during critical junctures in history. During times of political change in the state-building process, the effecti…
Linguistic Recognition as a Source of Confidence in the Justice System
How does linguistic recognition in the courtroom affect popular confidence in the justice system among minorities? The authors argue (a) the recognition of either a minority language and/or a third-party’s language (lingua franca) during judicial proceedings increases confidence levels but (b) the use of a lingua franca is more effective. This is because minorities are more likely to favor an arrangement that levels the playing field by having ev…
Linguistic competition and education spending in Spain 1992–2008
Linguistic competition occurs when two or more linguistic groups vie against each other for resources from the same state. What are the effects of this competition on education spending? In this paper, we examine two competing explanations. On the one hand, there is the claim that increasing levels of ethno-linguistic diversity can decrease education spending. On the other hand, there is also the argument that education spending is higher when th…
Immigrant threat and national salience: Understanding the “English official” movement in the United States
The passage of (and debate over) immigration laws in Arizona highlights the increasing linguistic diversity of the US. To date, 31 states have passed an English-official bill. In this paper, we test several hypotheses concerning the adoption of such legislation across the states. Using data spanning the past three decades, we present event history models on the timing of adoption since the start of the modern movement in 1980. Like previous works…
Standardizing Diversity: The Political Economy of Language Regimes
Using a newly assembled dataset and drawing on fieldwork data from Malaysia and Singapore, Liu finds that how linguistic power is distributed—specifically whether a lingua franca is recognized exclusively or above all others—can generate social trust, attract foreign investment, and therefore indirectly promote economic growth.
Incorporating Native American History into the Curriculum: Descriptive Representation or Campaign Contributions
Objectives What explains (1) the adoption of these inclusive educational policies, and (2) the timing of the passage of these educational policies? The objective of this study is to examine two competing hypotheses: the first has to do with descriptive representation; the second has to do with Native American nations acting as interest groups. Methods We use a newly constructed data set to estimate logistic regression, difference in difference, a…
Lingua Mercatoria: Language and Foreign Direct Investment
Does language choice attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and if so, how? We argue that language—a dynamic instrument for reducing transaction costs—can influence investors' decision to allocate capital. Potential host countries attract investments by coordinating their domestic language policies—especially those in education—to match the language of the potential FDI investor. We subject our argument to three different tests: (i) a cross-sec…
Ethnic identity and attitudes toward state institutions: Evidence of judicial legitimacy among the indigenous in Latin America
How does ethnic identity affect how an individual evaluates state institutions? Drawing on the US courts and political psychology literatures, we argue politically marginalized groups (e.g., the indigenous in Latin America) are more likely to emphasize the what – are the outcomes satisfactory – but less likely to value the how –are the procedures fair – than their politically powerful (e.g., the whites in Latin America) counterparts. This is beca…
Using Linguistic Networks to Explain Strength of Intellectual Property Rights
Democracy and minority language recognition: Tyranny of the Majority and the Conditional Effects of Group Size
What explains minority language recognition? Why are some governments more responsive than others to minority linguistic demands? While there are reasons to believe democracies – as protectors of civil liberties – are generally more likely to recognize minority demands, I argue only those without a sizable majority extend such recognition to the highest levels. This is because the dominance of one large linguistic group electorally impedes a demo…
The Hanification of Xinjiang, China: The Economic Effects of the Great Leap West
In 1999, the Chinese government launched the Great Leap West – an ambitious economic undertaking to develop China's western frontier. The strategy was to use increasing wealth to abate historical ethnic tensions. And while provinces like Xinjiang have experienced impressive growth, relations between the Han‐dominated Beijing and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang have remained unchanged, if not worsened. The former claims the economic benefits have been enj…
The Isolation of Chinese Migrants in Eastern Europe (东欧华人移民的隔离)
Eastern Europe has witnessed an influx of Chinese newcomers. Yet this region is often-overlooked by scholars of overseas Chinese. Similarly, the Chinese remain largely absent from European migration studies. In the work that has been done, the Chinese are often depicted as a community that keeps to itself. I examine this claim by highlighting the results of surveys conducted in Bulgaria, Croatia, and Hungary. These surveys, the largest ever done …
Minority Languages in Dictatorships: A New Measure of Group Recognition
What explains minority language recognition in dictatorships? In this paper, we argue that minority language groups in authoritarian regimes are morelikelyto have their languages recognized when their interests are represented by a party in the legislature. Moreover, thelevelof recognition is greater. We test this argument using original group-level and time-variant measures of minority party in legislatureandminority language policies for all As…
The Language of Economic Growth: A New Measure of Linguistic Heterogeneity
Conventional wisdom holds that languages, as ethnic markers, build communities with shared preferences and strong social networks. Consequently, ethnolinguistic homogeneity can facilitate growth. This article challenges this conception of language as a cultural marker. It argues that language is also a practical vehicle of communication; people can be multilingual, and second languages can be learned. Hence language boundaries are neither (1) con…
Process-Tracing Research Designs: A Practical Guide
Process-tracing has grown in popularity among qualitative researchers. However, unlike statistical models and estimators—or even other topics in qualitative methods—process-tracing is largely bereft of guidelines, especially when it comes to teaching. We address this shortcoming by providing a step-by-step checklist for developing a research design to use process-tracing as a valid and substantial tool for hypothesis testing. This practical guide…
Linguistic Origins of Gender Equality and Women's Rights
In this article, we examine how the language spoken in a country can affect individual attitudes about gender equality and subsequently the level of legal rights afforded to women. This is because the feature of a language-specifically whether it requires speakers to make gender distinctions-can perpetuate popular attitudes and beliefs about gender inequality. To test this argument, we first identify a correlation between the gender distinction o…
Education prioritization and language spread
Given the importance of language for state building, many governments undertake language planning efforts to ensure their citizens can speak an – if not, the – official language. Yet the mere act of designating a language as official is not sufficient for the language to be widely spoken across the population. In this paper we ask, what explains official language spread? We argue whether citizens can speak an official language – either as a first…
Public Attitudes and the Chinese Migrants in Central‐Eastern Europe
The Chinese are one of the largest migrant groups in Central‐Eastern Europe. While governments have welcomed these newcomers, we do not know whether locals share this sentiment. This is because we have not had the requisite data. In this article, I address this shortcoming. I draw on two oft‐cited explanations in the migration literature to examine public attitudes toward the Chinese. The first is about competition over scarce economic resources;…
The Effects of Foreign Language Proficiency on Public Attitudes: Evidence From the Chinese-Speaking World
What explains public attitudes towards a former aggressor state? Conventional wisdom would suggest the prevalence of negative sentiments rooted in historical hatred. In this article we contend that when individuals are proficient in a foreign language—e.g. a lingua franca—they have an alternative channel through which they are exposed to positive narratives put forth by other parties regarding the former aggressor state. And as a result, their at…
The economic effects of the territoriality principle: Evidence from Transylvania, Romania
The territoriality principle stipulates that minority communities in a given territory should be linguistically accommodated. What are the economic effects of this principle? In this paper, we argue that the recognition of multiple languages confers respect on the minority group; it allows people to engage and participate meaningfully in society – thereby facilitating economic well-being. There is, however, a caveat: when recognition happens in a…
The Language of Legacies: The Politics of Evoking Dead Leaders
How can leaders recover public trust and approval when government performance is low? We argue politicians use speeches evoking images of deceased predecessors to reactivate support temporarily. This distracts supporters from the poor performance and arouses empathy and nostalgia among them, causing them to perceive the current leader more favorably. We test this argument by scraping for all speeches by Argentine president Cristina Fernández de K…
How to head count ethnic minorities: Validity of Census Surveys Versus Other Identification Strategies
Censuses ask individuals to identify their own ethnicity. Minorities, however, may be reluctant to self-identify; and thus, censuses may underreport minority populations, raising concerns about measurement validity. We identify and measure the extent of this concern by matching census data on Romas in Romania against a nationwide survey of 2800 municipality experts (SocioRoMap). While not perfect, we find considerable overlap between the two stra…
Explaining identity formation in Asia
What explains why some identities in a country become politically salient while others do not? This Special Issue crafts a research design to address two core assumptions in the literature on identity formation in select Asian countries. The first is that the area where ethnic groups reside is exogenously demarcated. Yet, the boundaries to any region are inherently political—for example, they can be endogenous to the same processes that drive ide…
Political science (39 works) · Law (29 works) · Law (27 works) · Sociology (26 works) · Politics (21 works) · Linguistics (20 works) · Argument (complex analysis (15 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Ethnic group (14 works) · Economics (13 works)