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X-WR-CALNAME;VALUE=TEXT:Political Economy Workshop (Gov 3007)
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SUMMARY:Political Economy Workshop (Gov 3007)
DESCRIPTION:-------- DATE:  -------------------------------------------------------------    12:00pm to 2:00pm    -------- LOCATION:  ---------------------------------------------------------    K354  Presentations given by Pamela Ban, Jim Snyder, and Andrew Hall    First, Pamela Ban will conduct a brainstorming session for her paper (joint   with Andrew Hall and Jim Snyder) \'How Newspapers Reveal Political Power,\'   with Becca Goldstein as discussant.      Second, Raphael Bruce will present his paper \'Mandatory Voting and Political   Interest in Brazil,\' with Prof. Thomas Fujiwara as discussant.         *Abstract for \'How Newspapers Reveal Political Power\'*      Power is difficult to measure. We propose using press coverage -- the   relative amount of space devoted to different political actors -- to measure   the relative power of these actors. The logic is straightforward. Newspapers   will cover an actor or group more if that actor has more power. Actors or   collective groups with more power generate newsworthy events when they try to   exercise their power, when they send signals that they might exercise their   power, or even when they simply meet to discuss the use of their power. We   first check whether the general idea \'works\' for cases where power can be   measured in alternative ways as well, studying the relative press coverage of   different congressional committees, the relative coverage of mayors when they   lose power after their cities adopt the council-manager form of government,   and the relative coverage of congressional leaders vs. rank-and-file. Our   goal is to apply the idea to measure power in a \'difficult\' case -- state and   local political party organizations. We generate scores for each state and   year, and aim to examine the correlations between the scores and   institutional features of the political system that scholars argue should   affect party strength -- e.g. secret ballot laws, direct primary elections,   and civil service reforms.      *Abstract for \'Mandatory Voting and Political Interest in Brazil\'*      This paper presents empirical evidence on the effects of mandatory voting   laws on political interest and media consumption. In Brazil, the law   determines that every literate citizen over the age of eighteen at the day of   the election is subject to an abstention cost. This provides us a natural   experiment which allows us to identify the causal effect of mandatory voting   on outcomes related to the level of political interest and information   acquisition. Using national survey data on the consumption of media we find   that the mandatory voting law has a significant positive impact on the   interest on obtaining news about the government, and that this increase is   driven mostly by the interest in obtaining information on local politics. We   also find that the compulsory voting law shifts voters opinion about the   incumbent party at the federal government towards a more favorable one.   General media consumption is not affected but, for specific media outlets   owned by the federal government, a causal impact is found.     subscribe [1] iCal [2]    [1] webcal://www.iq.harvard.edu/calendar/export.ics/279041  [2] http://www.iq.harvard.edu/calendar/export.ics/279041
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STATUS:CONFIRMED
DTSTART:20150209T170000Z
DTEND:20150209T190000Z
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