scholarly journals (Successful) Democracies Breed Their Own Support

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu ◽  
Nicolas Ajzenman ◽  
Cevat Giray Aksoy ◽  
Martin Fiszbein ◽  
Carlos Molina
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Instrumental Variables ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Democratic Institutions ◽  
Causal Interpretation ◽  
Large Scale Survey

Using large-scale survey data covering more than 110 countries and exploiting within country variation across cohorts and surveys, we show that individuals with longer exposure to democracy display stronger support for democratic institutions. We bolster these baseline fi?ndings using an instrumental-variables strategy exploiting regional democratization waves and focusing on immigrants' exposure to democracy before migration. In all cases, the timing and nature of the effects are consistent with a causal interpretation. We also establish that democracies breed their own support only when they are successful: all of the effects we estimate work through exposure to democracies that are successful in providing economic growth, peace and political stability, and public goods.

Who’s Tweeting About the President? What Big Survey Data Can Tell Us About Digital Traces?

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 633-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Pasek ◽  
Colleen A. McClain ◽  
Frank Newport ◽  
Stephanie Marken
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Presidential Approval ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Social Media Data ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
Large Scale Survey ◽  
Media Data

Researchers hoping to make inferences about social phenomena using social media data need to answer two critical questions: What is it that a given social media metric tells us? And who does it tell us about? Drawing from prior work on these questions, we examine whether Twitter sentiment about Barack Obama tells us about Americans’ attitudes toward the president, the attitudes of particular subsets of individuals, or something else entirely. Specifically, using large-scale survey data, this study assesses how patterns of approval among population subgroups compare to tweets about the president. The findings paint a complex picture of the utility of digital traces. Although attention to subgroups improves the extent to which survey and Twitter data can yield similar conclusions, the results also indicate that sentiment surrounding tweets about the president is no proxy for presidential approval. Instead, after adjusting for demographics, these two metrics tell similar macroscale, long-term stories about presidential approval but very different stories at a more granular level and over shorter time periods.

Monitoring Soil Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services by Using Large-Scale Survey Data

2015 ◽  
pp. 127-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidan M. Keith ◽  
Robert I. Griffiths ◽  
Peter A. Henrys ◽  
Steve Hughes ◽  
Inma Lebron ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Natural Capital ◽  
Large Scale Survey

Museveni and the 2011 Ugandan election: did the money matter?

2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-655 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz ◽  
Carolyn Logan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Northern Region ◽  
Vote Buying ◽  
Access To Resources ◽  
Study Find ◽  
Resistance Movement

ABSTRACTIn February 2011, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni resoundingly won re-election. In the aftermath of the vote, which many had predicted would be competitive, analysts and opposition supporters ascribed Museveni's victory to massive pre-election spending on public goods, creation of new administrative districts, and vote buying. While the opposition could not compete with Museveni and his National Resistance Movement in access to resources, our analyses of survey data, from two pre-election surveys conducted by Afrobarometer in November/December 2010 and January 2011, and a pre- and post-election panel study, find little evidence that Museveni benefited significantly from public goods outlays, district creation, and vote buying. Additionally, we find little evidence that fear and intimidation were responsible for the results. Instead, the data suggest that Museveni's re-election was driven by an uninspiring opposition slate, widespread satisfaction with macro-economic growth, and an improved security situation, particularly in the Northern Region.

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