Carlo M Horz
Biographic Data
| ID | 4371080 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Carlo M Horz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Carlo M |
| FAMILY NAME | Horz |
| SIGNATURE | HORZ C M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Texas A&M University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8354-3769 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 20 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
“I alone can fix it
Politicians want to maintain public support – especially in the context of democratic backsliding. One widely used instrument is the Strongman Narrative (SN): a narrative claiming that a strong leader can improve economic performance. Modeling beliefs about causal processes using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), the authors study the conditions under which the SN shapes citizens’ support decisions. The authors find a form of “authoritarian legacy:…
Community interventions in the administration of justice
In theory, the administration of criminal justice is state business: Defendants are arrested, tried, and punished by state agents. In reality, citizens often attempt to intervene in this process—for example, by imposing their own punishments in lieu of, or in addition to, state penalties. We build a game‐theoretic model to investigate how such behavior affects state justice provision. Illustrating our results with examples from, inter alia, the J…
Access denied
Recent years have seen a surge of politicians campaigning on policies that aim to deter asylum applicants. We present a game-theoretic model in which foreign nationals consider applying for asylum and bureaucrats decide their case if they apply. We show that while policies that make the asylum application less attractive decrease the probability that foreign nationals apply, they also endogenously raise the credibility of applicants’ claims to po…
A visa for a revolution? A theory of anti-authoritarian immigration policy
Sometimes, countries target immigration policies to citizens of authoritarian regimes with the goal of influencing these regimes’ politics. Which kinds of immigration rules are optimal anti-authoritarian policies and which trade-offs do policy-makers face? We analyze a game-theoretic model in which a destination country, an autocrat, and a citizen interact. The citizen can engage in protest and emigrate while the autocrat can redistribute and rep…
Electoral Campaigns and Biased Perceptions of Voter Interests
A standard view of elections is that parties should choose moderate platforms to maximize their probability of winning. However, some parties embrace more extreme positions. These parties often feature an energized activist group that is optimistic about the party's probability of winning – contradicting the standard view. We build and analyze a game‐theoretic model of electoral competition that simultaneously explains the prevalence of extreme p…
Identity Propaganda
Political elites often employ propaganda to affect the behavior of a particular social group by altering its members' social identities. The empirical literature has demonstrated that this kind of ‘identity propaganda’ is generally effective at mobilizing citizens. However, while the consequences of being exposed to propaganda depend on its content, we know little about which factors shape propaganda content. To gain insight into the determinants…
Environmental Pollution and Authoritarian Politics
Authoritarian rulers fend off revolutions by stimulating the economy. However, expanding the economy can also increase environmental pollution. If citizens value clean air and water, worsening pollution has the potential to galvanize large segments of the society against the regime—which increases the risk of a revolution. While the literature has documented how concerns over the environment upend politics in democracies, we know relatively littl…
Political Interventions in the Administration of Justice
Politicians may often be tempted to direct the prosecution of their political opponents. We argue that the informational consequences of prosecution are an important determinant of such interference, because only when a prosecutor is free to follow the evidence can his decisions convey information to the public about an opponent’s likely guilt — or innocence. We build a game-theoretic model to investigate the implications of this effect. We find …
Economic Opportunities, Emigration and Exit Prisoners
How do economic opportunities abroad affect citizens’ ability to exit an authoritarian regime? This article theorizes the conditions under which authoritarian leaders will perceive emigration as a threat and use imprisonment instead of other types of anti-emigration measures to prevent mass emigration. Using data from communist East Germany's secret prisoner database that we reassembled based on archival material, the authors show that as economi…
Propaganda and Skepticism
Existing work on propaganda finds that its extremeness and effectiveness vary in sometimes puzzling ways in response to major environmental factors such as repression, diversion, and crisis. Formal models of propaganda generally examine these factors in isolation, rendering a comprehensive understanding difficult; moreover, they often impose rationality assumptions at odds with experimental findings. I propose a behavioral game‐theoretic model of…
Electoral Manipulation in Polarized Societies
I examine the relationship between democratic viability and polarization using a model of electoral manipulation and focusing on the strategic interaction between a policy-seeking incumbent and opposition. I find that polarization has an ambiguous effect on the incumbent’s use of electoral manipulation. I apply the model to several concrete political processes and show that under these additional assumptions, the relationship between manipulation…
Propaganda and Skepticism
Existing work on propaganda finds that its extremeness and effectiveness vary in sometimes puzzling ways in response to major environmental factors such as repression, diversion, and crisis. Formal models of propaganda generally examine these factors in isolation, rendering a comprehensive understanding difficult; moreover, they often impose rationality assumptions at odds with experimental findings. I propose a behavioral game‐theoretic model of…
Economic Opportunities, Emigration and Exit Prisoners
How do economic opportunities abroad affect citizens’ ability to exit an authoritarian regime? This article theorizes the conditions under which authoritarian leaders will perceive emigration as a threat and use imprisonment instead of other types of anti-emigration measures to prevent mass emigration. Using data from communist East Germany's secret prisoner database that we reassembled based on archival material, the authors show that as economi…
Political Interventions in the Administration of Justice
Politicians may often be tempted to direct the prosecution of their political opponents. We argue that the informational consequences of prosecution are an important determinant of such interference, because only when a prosecutor is free to follow the evidence can his decisions convey information to the public about an opponent’s likely guilt — or innocence. We build a game-theoretic model to investigate the implications of this effect. We find …
Environmental Pollution and Authoritarian Politics
Authoritarian rulers fend off revolutions by stimulating the economy. However, expanding the economy can also increase environmental pollution. If citizens value clean air and water, worsening pollution has the potential to galvanize large segments of the society against the regime—which increases the risk of a revolution. While the literature has documented how concerns over the environment upend politics in democracies, we know relatively littl…
Electoral Manipulation in Polarized Societies
I examine the relationship between democratic viability and polarization using a model of electoral manipulation and focusing on the strategic interaction between a policy-seeking incumbent and opposition. I find that polarization has an ambiguous effect on the incumbent’s use of electoral manipulation. I apply the model to several concrete political processes and show that under these additional assumptions, the relationship between manipulation…
Propaganda and Skepticism
Existing work on propaganda finds that its extremeness and effectiveness vary in sometimes puzzling ways in response to major environmental factors such as repression, diversion, and crisis. Formal models of propaganda generally examine these factors in isolation, rendering a comprehensive understanding difficult; moreover, they often impose rationality assumptions at odds with experimental findings. I propose a behavioral game‐theoretic model of…
Political Interventions in the Administration of Justice
Politicians may often be tempted to direct the prosecution of their political opponents. We argue that the informational consequences of prosecution are an important determinant of such interference, because only when a prosecutor is free to follow the evidence can his decisions convey information to the public about an opponent’s likely guilt — or innocence. We build a game-theoretic model to investigate the implications of this effect. We find …
Economic Opportunities, Emigration and Exit Prisoners
How do economic opportunities abroad affect citizens’ ability to exit an authoritarian regime? This article theorizes the conditions under which authoritarian leaders will perceive emigration as a threat and use imprisonment instead of other types of anti-emigration measures to prevent mass emigration. Using data from communist East Germany's secret prisoner database that we reassembled based on archival material, the authors show that as economi…
Environmental Pollution and Authoritarian Politics
Authoritarian rulers fend off revolutions by stimulating the economy. However, expanding the economy can also increase environmental pollution. If citizens value clean air and water, worsening pollution has the potential to galvanize large segments of the society against the regime—which increases the risk of a revolution. While the literature has documented how concerns over the environment upend politics in democracies, we know relatively littl…
A visa for a revolution? A theory of anti-authoritarian immigration policy
Sometimes, countries target immigration policies to citizens of authoritarian regimes with the goal of influencing these regimes’ politics. Which kinds of immigration rules are optimal anti-authoritarian policies and which trade-offs do policy-makers face? We analyze a game-theoretic model in which a destination country, an autocrat, and a citizen interact. The citizen can engage in protest and emigrate while the autocrat can redistribute and rep…
Electoral Campaigns and Biased Perceptions of Voter Interests
A standard view of elections is that parties should choose moderate platforms to maximize their probability of winning. However, some parties embrace more extreme positions. These parties often feature an energized activist group that is optimistic about the party's probability of winning – contradicting the standard view. We build and analyze a game‐theoretic model of electoral competition that simultaneously explains the prevalence of extreme p…
Identity Propaganda
Political elites often employ propaganda to affect the behavior of a particular social group by altering its members' social identities. The empirical literature has demonstrated that this kind of ‘identity propaganda’ is generally effective at mobilizing citizens. However, while the consequences of being exposed to propaganda depend on its content, we know little about which factors shape propaganda content. To gain insight into the determinants…
Community interventions in the administration of justice
In theory, the administration of criminal justice is state business: Defendants are arrested, tried, and punished by state agents. In reality, citizens often attempt to intervene in this process—for example, by imposing their own punishments in lieu of, or in addition to, state penalties. We build a game‐theoretic model to investigate how such behavior affects state justice provision. Illustrating our results with examples from, inter alia, the J…
Access denied
Recent years have seen a surge of politicians campaigning on policies that aim to deter asylum applicants. We present a game-theoretic model in which foreign nationals consider applying for asylum and bureaucrats decide their case if they apply. We show that while policies that make the asylum application less attractive decrease the probability that foreign nationals apply, they also endogenously raise the credibility of applicants’ claims to po…
“I alone can fix it
Politicians want to maintain public support – especially in the context of democratic backsliding. One widely used instrument is the Strongman Narrative (SN): a narrative claiming that a strong leader can improve economic performance. Modeling beliefs about causal processes using directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), the authors study the conditions under which the SN shapes citizens’ support decisions. The authors find a form of “authoritarian legacy:…
Political science (9 works) · Economics (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (5 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Authoritarianism (4 works)