Gwyneth Mcclendon
Biographic Data
| ID | 4372269 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gwyneth Mcclendon |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gwyneth |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcclendon |
| SIGNATURE | MCCLENDON G |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4371-0363 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 348 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The Effects of Exposure to New Electoral Rules: Field Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone
How do electoral rules influence voters? We build on existing research that has examined voter, rather than elite, reactions to electoral rules and implement a field experiment around a switch from single-member plurality rules to multi-member closed-list proportional rules (PR) in Sierra Leone, expanding the study of electoral rules’ influence on voters further into the Global South. We find that exposure to multimember district/PR increased wom…
Comparing religious and secular interventions to increase young adult political participation: Evidence from WhatsApp‐based civic education courses in Zambia
It is often assumed that, in highly religious environments, religious messages that promote political participation will more effectively influence behavior than nonreligious messages with the same goal. To our knowledge, however, this assumption remains untested. We present results from a community‐collaborative study implemented prior to elections in Zambia, an overwhelmingly Christian country with a youth‐skewed population. We randomized young…
Reducing Gender Gaps in Political Participation with Efficacy Promotion: Evidence from a Civic Education Experiment in Zambia
In many countries, women participate in politics at lower rates than men. This gap is often most pronounced among young adults. Civic education programs that provide non-partisan political information are commonly used to try to close this gender gap. However, information alone rarely reduces the gap and sometimes exacerbates it. We extend the literature emphasizing the psychological resources women need to participate by evaluating whether embed…
When Do Voters Reward Overtly Religious Appeals
Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
Using Sermons to Study Religions’ Influence on Political Behavior
The effects of religion on political behavior are difficult to study for a number of reasons. One difficulty is that “religion” is not a singular entity and is thus unlikely to have a unidirectional effect on political behavior. Another difficulty is that everyone in a particular place and time might be embedded in the same set of religious practices, such that the counterfactual is difficult to assess. In response to these and other challenges, …
When Does Information Influence Voters? The Joint Importance of Salience and Coordination
Scholars argue that access to information about a politician’s programmatic performance helps voters reward good performers and punish poor ones. But in places where resources are made conditional on collective electoral behavior, voters may not want to defect to vote for a strong legislative performer if they do not believe that others will. We argue that two conditions must hold for information about politician performance to affect voter behav…
From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa
Does religion influence political participation? This book takes up this pressing debate using Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa as its empirical base to demonstrate that religious teachings communicated in sermons can influence both the degree and the form of citizens' political participation. McClendon and Riedl document some of the current diversity of sermon content in contemporary Christian houses of worship and then use a combination of la…
Response Bias in Survey Measures of Voter Behavior: Implications for Measurement and Inference
This short report exploits a unique opportunity to investigate the implications of response bias in survey questions about voter turnout and vote choice in new democracies. We analyze data from a field experiment in Benin, where we gathered official election results and panel survey data representative at the village level, allowing us to directly compare average outcomes across both measurement instruments in a large number of units. We show tha…
Books by Our Readers
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Reducing or Reinforcing In-Group Preferences? An Experiment on Information and Ethnic Voting
Social scientists often characterize identity politics as a threat to democracy and growth, and recent scholarship investigates factors that could exacerbate or alleviate it. A dominant view — that shared social identity acts as a heuristic in low-information contexts — implies that information access could reduce social identity voting. But this view contrasts with evidence that identity often conditions information processing, potentially in wa…
Race and Responsiveness: An Experiment with South African Politicians
Do politicians engage in ethnic and racial favoritism when conducting constituency service? This article presents results from a replication field experiment with local South African politicians that tested for racial bias in responsiveness to requests about public goods provision. The experiment represents an adaptation of similar experiments conducted in the United States, extending the design to a different institutional environment, albeit on…
Ethnic Cueing across Minorities: A Survey Experiment on Candidate Evaluation in the United States
Journal Article Ethnic Cueing across Minorities: A Survey Experiment on Candidate Evaluation in the United States Get access Claire L. Adida, Claire L. Adida Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Lauren D. Davenport, Lauren D. Davenport Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Gwyneth McClendon Gwyneth McClendon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scho…
Religion as a Stimulant of Political Participation: Experimental Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya
In this article we explore how certain religious messages may spur or constrain political participation. Specifically, we test whether religious messages that provide individuals a positive self-image can act as stimulants, giving people a sense of internal efficacy to participate in politics. We explore this hypothesis through a novel experimental design in Nairobi, Kenya. We find that exposure to self-affirmation messages typical of Pentecostal…
Individualism and Empowerment in Pentecostal Sermons: New Evidence From Nairobi, Kenya
Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are growing rapidly in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world. This article presents new evidence on the theologies and activities of these popular churches, based on sermon texts and interview data gathered from a random sample of churches in Nairobi, Kenya. It finds that Pentecostal churches in Nairobi are remarkably consistent in the messages they disseminate, despite great variation in c…
Social Esteem and Participation in Contentious Politics: A Field Experiment at an LGBT Pride Rally
What motivates individuals to participate in contentious, political forms of collective action? In this article, I consider the possibility that the promise of social esteem from an ingroup can act as a powerful selective incentive for individuals to participate in contentious politics. I conducted a field experiment—the first to my knowledge to take place in the context of a political march, rally, or social‐identity event—to isolate this esteem…
The Ethnicity–Policy Preference Link in Sub-Saharan Africa
Scholars have begun to investigate the mechanisms that link ethnic diversity to low levels of public goods provision but have paid only minimal attention to the role of preferences for public policies. Some argue that ethnic groups hold culturally distinctive preferences for goods and policies, and that such differences impede effective policy making, but these studies provide little evidence to support this claim. Others argue that preferences d…
The Ethnicity–Policy Preference Link in Sub-Saharan Africa
Scholars have begun to investigate the mechanisms that link ethnic diversity to low levels of public goods provision but have paid only minimal attention to the role of preferences for public policies. Some argue that ethnic groups hold culturally distinctive preferences for goods and policies, and that such differences impede effective policy making, but these studies provide little evidence to support this claim. Others argue that preferences d…
Race and Responsiveness: An Experiment with South African Politicians
Do politicians engage in ethnic and racial favoritism when conducting constituency service? This article presents results from a replication field experiment with local South African politicians that tested for racial bias in responsiveness to requests about public goods provision. The experiment represents an adaptation of similar experiments conducted in the United States, extending the design to a different institutional environment, albeit on…
Religion as a Stimulant of Political Participation: Experimental Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya
In this article we explore how certain religious messages may spur or constrain political participation. Specifically, we test whether religious messages that provide individuals a positive self-image can act as stimulants, giving people a sense of internal efficacy to participate in politics. We explore this hypothesis through a novel experimental design in Nairobi, Kenya. We find that exposure to self-affirmation messages typical of Pentecostal…
When Does Information Influence Voters? The Joint Importance of Salience and Coordination
Scholars argue that access to information about a politician’s programmatic performance helps voters reward good performers and punish poor ones. But in places where resources are made conditional on collective electoral behavior, voters may not want to defect to vote for a strong legislative performer if they do not believe that others will. We argue that two conditions must hold for information about politician performance to affect voter behav…
Social Esteem and Participation in Contentious Politics: A Field Experiment at an LGBT Pride Rally
What motivates individuals to participate in contentious, political forms of collective action? In this article, I consider the possibility that the promise of social esteem from an ingroup can act as a powerful selective incentive for individuals to participate in contentious politics. I conducted a field experiment—the first to my knowledge to take place in the context of a political march, rally, or social‐identity event—to isolate this esteem…
Reducing or Reinforcing In-Group Preferences? An Experiment on Information and Ethnic Voting
Social scientists often characterize identity politics as a threat to democracy and growth, and recent scholarship investigates factors that could exacerbate or alleviate it. A dominant view — that shared social identity acts as a heuristic in low-information contexts — implies that information access could reduce social identity voting. But this view contrasts with evidence that identity often conditions information processing, potentially in wa…
Ethnic Cueing across Minorities: A Survey Experiment on Candidate Evaluation in the United States
Journal Article Ethnic Cueing across Minorities: A Survey Experiment on Candidate Evaluation in the United States Get access Claire L. Adida, Claire L. Adida Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Lauren D. Davenport, Lauren D. Davenport Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Gwyneth McClendon Gwyneth McClendon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scho…
Using Sermons to Study Religions’ Influence on Political Behavior
The effects of religion on political behavior are difficult to study for a number of reasons. One difficulty is that “religion” is not a singular entity and is thus unlikely to have a unidirectional effect on political behavior. Another difficulty is that everyone in a particular place and time might be embedded in the same set of religious practices, such that the counterfactual is difficult to assess. In response to these and other challenges, …
Response Bias in Survey Measures of Voter Behavior: Implications for Measurement and Inference
This short report exploits a unique opportunity to investigate the implications of response bias in survey questions about voter turnout and vote choice in new democracies. We analyze data from a field experiment in Benin, where we gathered official election results and panel survey data representative at the village level, allowing us to directly compare average outcomes across both measurement instruments in a large number of units. We show tha…
Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
Comparing religious and secular interventions to increase young adult political participation: Evidence from WhatsApp‐based civic education courses in Zambia
It is often assumed that, in highly religious environments, religious messages that promote political participation will more effectively influence behavior than nonreligious messages with the same goal. To our knowledge, however, this assumption remains untested. We present results from a community‐collaborative study implemented prior to elections in Zambia, an overwhelmingly Christian country with a youth‐skewed population. We randomized young…
When Do Voters Reward Overtly Religious Appeals
The Ethnicity–Policy Preference Link in Sub-Saharan Africa
Scholars have begun to investigate the mechanisms that link ethnic diversity to low levels of public goods provision but have paid only minimal attention to the role of preferences for public policies. Some argue that ethnic groups hold culturally distinctive preferences for goods and policies, and that such differences impede effective policy making, but these studies provide little evidence to support this claim. Others argue that preferences d…
Social Esteem and Participation in Contentious Politics: A Field Experiment at an LGBT Pride Rally
What motivates individuals to participate in contentious, political forms of collective action? In this article, I consider the possibility that the promise of social esteem from an ingroup can act as a powerful selective incentive for individuals to participate in contentious politics. I conducted a field experiment—the first to my knowledge to take place in the context of a political march, rally, or social‐identity event—to isolate this esteem…
Religion as a Stimulant of Political Participation: Experimental Evidence from Nairobi, Kenya
In this article we explore how certain religious messages may spur or constrain political participation. Specifically, we test whether religious messages that provide individuals a positive self-image can act as stimulants, giving people a sense of internal efficacy to participate in politics. We explore this hypothesis through a novel experimental design in Nairobi, Kenya. We find that exposure to self-affirmation messages typical of Pentecostal…
Individualism and Empowerment in Pentecostal Sermons: New Evidence From Nairobi, Kenya
Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are growing rapidly in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the developing world. This article presents new evidence on the theologies and activities of these popular churches, based on sermon texts and interview data gathered from a random sample of churches in Nairobi, Kenya. It finds that Pentecostal churches in Nairobi are remarkably consistent in the messages they disseminate, despite great variation in c…
Race and Responsiveness: An Experiment with South African Politicians
Do politicians engage in ethnic and racial favoritism when conducting constituency service? This article presents results from a replication field experiment with local South African politicians that tested for racial bias in responsiveness to requests about public goods provision. The experiment represents an adaptation of similar experiments conducted in the United States, extending the design to a different institutional environment, albeit on…
Ethnic Cueing across Minorities: A Survey Experiment on Candidate Evaluation in the United States
Journal Article Ethnic Cueing across Minorities: A Survey Experiment on Candidate Evaluation in the United States Get access Claire L. Adida, Claire L. Adida Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Lauren D. Davenport, Lauren D. Davenport Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Gwyneth McClendon Gwyneth McClendon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scho…
Reducing or Reinforcing In-Group Preferences? An Experiment on Information and Ethnic Voting
Social scientists often characterize identity politics as a threat to democracy and growth, and recent scholarship investigates factors that could exacerbate or alleviate it. A dominant view — that shared social identity acts as a heuristic in low-information contexts — implies that information access could reduce social identity voting. But this view contrasts with evidence that identity often conditions information processing, potentially in wa…
Books by Our Readers
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa
Does religion influence political participation? This book takes up this pressing debate using Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa as its empirical base to demonstrate that religious teachings communicated in sermons can influence both the degree and the form of citizens' political participation. McClendon and Riedl document some of the current diversity of sermon content in contemporary Christian houses of worship and then use a combination of la…
Response Bias in Survey Measures of Voter Behavior: Implications for Measurement and Inference
This short report exploits a unique opportunity to investigate the implications of response bias in survey questions about voter turnout and vote choice in new democracies. We analyze data from a field experiment in Benin, where we gathered official election results and panel survey data representative at the village level, allowing us to directly compare average outcomes across both measurement instruments in a large number of units. We show tha…
When Does Information Influence Voters? The Joint Importance of Salience and Coordination
Scholars argue that access to information about a politician’s programmatic performance helps voters reward good performers and punish poor ones. But in places where resources are made conditional on collective electoral behavior, voters may not want to defect to vote for a strong legislative performer if they do not believe that others will. We argue that two conditions must hold for information about politician performance to affect voter behav…
Using Sermons to Study Religions’ Influence on Political Behavior
The effects of religion on political behavior are difficult to study for a number of reasons. One difficulty is that “religion” is not a singular entity and is thus unlikely to have a unidirectional effect on political behavior. Another difficulty is that everyone in a particular place and time might be embedded in the same set of religious practices, such that the counterfactual is difficult to assess. In response to these and other challenges, …
Increasing Youth Political Engagement with Efficacy Not Obligation: Evidence from a Workshop-Based Experiment in Zambia
When Do Voters Reward Overtly Religious Appeals
Comparing religious and secular interventions to increase young adult political participation: Evidence from WhatsApp‐based civic education courses in Zambia
It is often assumed that, in highly religious environments, religious messages that promote political participation will more effectively influence behavior than nonreligious messages with the same goal. To our knowledge, however, this assumption remains untested. We present results from a community‐collaborative study implemented prior to elections in Zambia, an overwhelmingly Christian country with a youth‐skewed population. We randomized young…
Reducing Gender Gaps in Political Participation with Efficacy Promotion: Evidence from a Civic Education Experiment in Zambia
In many countries, women participate in politics at lower rates than men. This gap is often most pronounced among young adults. Civic education programs that provide non-partisan political information are commonly used to try to close this gender gap. However, information alone rarely reduces the gap and sometimes exacerbates it. We extend the literature emphasizing the psychological resources women need to participate by evaluating whether embed…
The Effects of Exposure to New Electoral Rules: Field Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone
How do electoral rules influence voters? We build on existing research that has examined voter, rather than elite, reactions to electoral rules and implement a field experiment around a switch from single-member plurality rules to multi-member closed-list proportional rules (PR) in Sierra Leone, expanding the study of electoral rules’ influence on voters further into the Global South. We find that exposure to multimember district/PR increased wom…
Political science (14 works) · Politics (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (9 works) · Social Psychology (9 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Economics (6 works)