The main goal of this project is to gather data that helps us understand the political effects of cash transfers. For this purpose, we designed a survey to be administered in the Brazilian municipality of Maricà. We target Maricà specifically to evaluate a unique policy, the Renda Bàsica de Cidadania (RBC). The RBC is a monthly cash transfer of approx. R$170 (US$31) per person. All households with an income below 3 times the minimum wage (3 × R$ 1100) are eligible. We are specifically interested in how the program changed the citizen-government relationship. On the one hand cash transfers which reduce vulnerability are expected to decrease clientelism on the other hand other corrupt activities may replace clientelism when people have more cash on hand. Importantly, perceptions on corruption in general relate to political participation and public support for democracy, which is historically low in Brazil, especially among the poor and vulnerable. Yet, successful programmatic social policies can raise participation and democratic support. Political effects of cash transfers are generally difficult to estimate, since most transfer programs are transitory not permanent like the RBC. We leverage the the eligibility threshold of the RBC, a quasi-exogenous cut-off, which allows us to apply causal inference methods. Since the RBC is financed through oil royalties our research will be informative for the prominent “resource-curse” literature. In this respect we will be able to provide tangible policy conclusions on whether the RBC is feasible model for spending resource revenues.
India is home to some of the most glaring forms of social, economic and political inequalities. Despite the constitutional commitment to address these inequalities, the inadequate provision of public services in terms of quality, efficiency and scale has led to a lack of even the most basic level of livelihood support, social security and opportunity for large parts of the population. In Delhi, the relatively novel Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has made public service provision a political priority. This has not only contributed to its electoral success in India’s capital in three consecutive elections, but its “Delhi governance model” is now also a selling point in other states. The wide, cross-class support for the AAP and its public service reforms in Delhi is somewhat puzzling: To date, research on Indian middle classes suggests that firstly, from a self-interested point of view, these groups are often sceptical with regard to the often-low-quality services provided by the public sector and tend to rather “exit” to private provision than use their “voice” to improve public services. Secondly, allyship with lower classes to combat inequality by vying for more redistribution and better public services via a political party has so far been rather unknown in the political arenas of the Indian north. In this project, I explore 1) under which circumstances the middle classes in India support reforms to increase the quality of public service provision, 2) how the distributional effects of increased quality public services materialise across social classes and 3) how this affects the social and political attitudes and behaviours of urban middle-class Indians. To examine these issues in more detail, I will use a mixed-methods approach based on both ethnographic and survey data collection, as well as qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Does terrorism affect citizens' preference for democracy? I study the effect of terrorist attacks on preference for democracy in an event-study-like setting, by comparing reported preference for democracy shortly before and after terrorist attacks in several African countries. Alleviating the general concern that experiencing terrorism compromises preference for democracy, I document an average increase in preference for democracy. About 8% of those not preferring democracy are persuaded in favor of democracy. I find that the effect is particularly pronounced among individuals who evaluate their state as undemocratic. For individuals perceiving their state as democratic I find no adverse reaction to democracy. The empirical results are robust to a number of tests, including a correction for spatial confounding, which is a so far unaddressed issue in similar empirical setups. Preference change can be seen as a mechanism in the economic theory of political transition.