Demographics and Brexit: A deeper problem for the EU? CEPS Commentary, 8 July 2016

There has been much debate about the demographic factors that contributed to the outcome of the UK’s referendum on its membership of the EU. Two aspects command special attention. First, there are marked differences between young and old generations in the preferences shown for remaining in the EU. While the former predominantly voted to remain, a great majority of the latter voted to leave. On the other hand, voter turnout revealed the opposite trend: about 83% of UK citizens aged 65 and older voted, whereas only 36% of those aged 18-24 cast their vote (Figure 1).

The need to re-engage Europe's youth. EPC Commentary, 18 July 2016

In the immediate aftermath of the UK EU referendum, the breakdown of results sparked talks of a generational conflict, with young people – who voted overwhelmingly to remain - being blamed for having brought Brexit on themselves with their dismally low 36% turnout. New data compiled by the London School of Economics reduces the grounds for these accusations, suggesting a 64% turnout for 18-24 year olds. While this is certainly positive, the problem of youth disengagement lingers as the 64% turnout of those aged 18-24 has to be weighed against a 90% turnout of those aged 65+. This should not come as a surprise as Britain generally has the lowest youth turnout in Europe and the last referendum confirmed a trend that is not at all new, neither in Britain nor in other European countries.

Voters and Candidates of the Future

Within the literature there is a growing concern about lower voter turnout rates among young age cohorts. In this article we investigate the reported willingness to vote among 72,466 14-year old adolescents from 22 European countries, taking part in the International Citizen and Civic Education Survey (ICCS, 2009). Results indicate that the willingness to vote remains quite high among this age group, but with a clear gender division. While girls are more likely to state that they will vote, boys are more likely to see themselves as a future election candidate. An open classroom climate at school contributes to the willingness to vote in future elections. The elements that are known to have an effect on the turnout level of adults, however, do not have a significant impact on the intention to vote among adolescents. This would suggest that the observed low turnout rate among young age groups cannot just be attributed to an alleged lack of political motivation among adolescents.

Prosecution and radical discourse during the 1790s: The case of the Scottish sedition trials

This essay looks at the sedition trials in Scotland during the 1790s to examine how prosecution was exploited by radicals as a forum for political expression. As the government instituted a concerted campaign against radical activism, an increasing number of reformers faced trial on sedition and treason in this period. The courtroom emerged as an alternative venue for political discourse and this essay will explore some of the ways by which radicals challenged the dominant discursive and performative elements of trial proceedings. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Placing immigrant incorporation: Identity, trust, and civic engagement in Little Havana

Immigrant incorporation in the United States has been a topic of concern and debate since the founding of the nation. Scholars have studied many aspects of the phenomenon, including economic, political, social, and spatial. The most influential paradigm of immigrant incorporation in the US has been, and continues to be, assimilation, and the most important place in and scale at which incorporation occurs is the neighborhood. This dissertation captures both of these integral aspects of immigrant incorporation through its consideration of three dimensions of assimilation – identity, trust, and civic engagement – among Latin American immigrants and American-born Latinos in Little Havana, a predominantly immigrant neighborhood in Miami, Florida. Data discussed in the dissertation were gathered through surveys and interviews as part of a National Science Foundation-funded study carried out in 2005-2006. The combination of quantitative and qualitative data allows for a nuanced understanding of how immigrant incorporation is occurring locally during the first decade of the twentieth century. Findings reveal that overall Latin American immigrants and their American-born offspring appear to be becoming American with regard to their ethnic and racial identities quickly, evidenced through the salience and active employment of panethnic labels, while at the same time they are actively reshaping the identificational structure. The Latino population, however, is not monolithic and is cleaved by diversity within the group, including country of origin and socioeconomic status. These same factors impede group cohesion in terms of trust and its correlate, community. Nevertheless, the historically dominant ancestry group in Little Havana – Cubans – has been able to reach notable levels of trust and build and conserve a more solid sense of community than non-Cuban residents. With respect to civic engagement, neighborhood residents generally participate at rates lower than the overall US population and ethnic subpopulations. This is not the case for political engagement, however, where self-reported voting registration and turnout in Little Havana surpasses that of most benchmarked populations. The empirical evidence presented in this dissertation on the case of Latinos in Little Havana challenges the ways that identity, trust, and civic engagement are conceptualized and theorized, especially among immigrants to the US.

Making Good Citizens: Policy Approaches to Increasing Civic Participation

In this dissertation, I explore the impact of several public policies on civic participation. Using a unique combination of school administrative and public–use voter files and methods for causal inference, I evaluate the impact of three new, as of yet unexplored, policies: one informational, one institutional, and one skill–based. Chapter 2 examines the causal effect of No Child Left Behind’s performance-based accountability school failure signals on turnout in school board elections and on individuals’ use of exit. I find that failure signals mobilize citizens both at the ballot box and by encouraging them to vote with their feet. However, these increases in voice and exit come primarily from citizens who already active—thus exacerbating inequalities in both forms of participation. Chapter 3 examines the causal effect of preregistration—an electoral reform that allows young citizens to enroll in the electoral system before turning 18, while also providing them with various in-school supports. Using data from the Current Population Survey and Florida Voter Files and multiple methods for causal inference, I (with my coauthor listed below) show that preregistration mobilizes and does so for a diverse set of citizens. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the impact of psychosocial or so called non-cognitive skills on voter turnout. Using information from the Fast Track intervention, I show that early– childhood investments in psychosocial skills have large, long-run spillovers on civic participation. These gains are widely distributed, being especially large for those least likely to participate. These chapters provide clear insights that reach across disciplinary boundaries and speak to current policy debates. In placing specific attention not only on whether these programs mobilize, but also on who they mobilize, I provide scholars and practitioners with new ways of thinking about how to address stubbornly low and unequal rates of citizen engagement.

On the Economics and Politics of Mobility

Exit, Voice and Political Change: Evidence from Swedish Mass Migration to the United States. During the Age of Mass Migration, 30 million Europeans immigrated to the United States. We study the long-term political effects of this large-scale migration episode on origin communities using detailed historical data from Sweden. To instrument for emigration, we exploit severe local frost shocks that sparked an initial wave of emigration, interacted with within-country travel costs. Because Swedish emigration was highly path dependent, the initial shocks strongly predict total emigration over 50 years. Our estimates show that emigration substantially increased membership in local labor organizations, the strongest political opposition groups at the time. Furthermore, emigration caused greater strike participation, and mobilized voter turnout and support for left-wing parties in national elections. Emigration also had formal political effects, as measured by welfare expenditures and adoption of inclusive political institutions. Together, our findings indicate that large-scale emigration can achieve long-lasting effects on the political equilibrium in origin communities. Mass Migration and Technological Innovation at the Origin. This essay studies the effects of migration on technological innovations in origin communities. Using historical data from Sweden, we find that large-scale emigration caused a long-run increase in patent innovations in origin municipalities. Our IV estimate shows that a ten percent increase in emigration entails a 7 percent increase in a muncipality’s number of patents. Weighting patents by a measure of their economic value, the positive effects are further increased. Discussing possible mechanisms, we suggest that low skilled labor scarcity may be an explanation for these results.  Richer (and Holier) Than Thou? The Impact of Relative Income Improvements on Demand for Redistribution. We use a tailor-made survey on a Swedish sample to investigate how individuals' relative income affects their demand for redistribution. We first document that a majority misperceive their position in the income distribution and believe that they are poorer, relative to others, than they actually are. We then inform a subsample about their true relative income, and find that individuals who are richer than they initially thought demand less redistribution. This result is driven by individuals with prior right-of-center political preferences who view taxes as distortive and believe that effort, rather than luck, drives individual economic success. Wealth, home ownership and mobility. Rent controls on housing have long been thought to reduce labor mobility and allocative efficiency. We study a policy that allowed renters to purchase their rent-controlled apartments at below market prices, and examine the effects of home ownership and wealth on mobility. Treated individuals have a substantially higher likelihood of moving to a new home in a given year. The effect corresponds to a 30 percent increase from the control group mean. The size of the wealth shock predicts lower mobility, while the positive average effect can be explained by tenants switching from the previous rent-controlled system to market-priced condominiums. By contrast, we do not find that the increase in residential mobility leads to a greater probability of moving to a new place of work.

Land, Power and Technology : Essays on Political Economy and Historical Development

Land Ownership and Development: Evidence from Postwar Japan This paper analyzes the effect of land ownership on technology adoption and structural transformation. A large-scale land reform in postwar Japan enforced a large number of tenant farmers who were cultivating land to become owners of this land. I find that the municipalities which had many owner farmers after the land reform tended to experience a quick entry of new agricultural machines which became available after the reform. The adoption of the machines reduced the dependence on family labor, and led to a reallocation of labor from agriculture to industries and service sectors in urban centers when these sectors were growing. I also analyze the aggregate impact of labor reallocation on economic growth by using a simple growth model and micro data. I find that it increased GDP by about 12 percent of the GDP in 1974 during 1955-74. I also find a large and positive effect on agricultural productivity. Loyalty and Treason: Theory and Evidence from Japan's Land Reform A historically large-scale land reform in Japan after World War II enforced by the occupation forces redistributed a large area of farmlands to tenant farmers. The reform demolished hierarchical structures by weakening landlords' power in villages and towns. This paper investigates how the change in the social and economic structure of small communities affects electoral outcomes in the presence of clientelism. I find that there was a considerable decrease in the vote share of conservative parties in highly affected areas after the reform. I find the supporting evidence that the effect was driven by the fact that the tenant farmers who had obtained land exited from the long-term tenancy contract and became independent landowners. The effect was relatively persistent. Finally, I also find the surprising result that there was a decrease, rather than an increase, in turnout in these areas after the reform.  Geography and State Fragmentation We examine how geography affects the location of borders between sovereign states in Europe and surrounding areas from 1500 until today at the grid-cell level. This is motivated by an observation that the richest places in this region also have the highest historical border presence, suggesting a hitherto unexplored link between geography and modern development, working through state fragmentation. The raw correlations show that borders tend to be located on mountains, by rivers, closer to coasts, and in areas suitable for rainfed, but not irrigated, agriculture. Many of these patterns also hold with rigorous spatial controls. For example, cells with more rivers and more rugged terrain than their neighboring cells have higher border densities. However, the fragmenting effects of suitability for rainfed agriculture are reversed with such neighbor controls. Moreover, we find that borders are less likely to survive over time when they separate large states from small, but this size-difference effect is mitigated by, e.g., rugged terrain.

Estudio comparado de las barreras o umbrales electorales implícitos y explícitos en el sistema electoral

"...En el presente estudio se parte, en primera instancia, de la necesaria conceptualización del término, en general y particular, y en función de ello, posteriormente, a su tipificación, sistematización y análisis especifico en Latinoamérica, mientras que ofrece un panorama general de la aplicación de las barreras electorales explicitas en diferentes regiones del mundo, para luego analizar el caso colombiano en general y visualizar el impacto de la implementación de las barreras electorales explícitas a través del acto legislativo 01 de 2003 y sus efectos en los comicios nacionales de 2006."--introducción

Civil conflict and voting behavior : evidence from Colombia

¿Cuáles son los efectos de la guerra sobre el comportamiento político? Colombia es un caso interesante en el que el conflicto y las elecciones coexisten y los grupos armados ilegales intencionalmente afectan los resultados electorales. Sin embargo, los grupos usan diferentes estrategias para alterar estos resultados. Este artículo argumenta que los efectos diferenciales de la violencia sobre los resultados electorales son el resultado de estrategias deliberadas de los grupos ilegales, que a su turno, son consecuencia de las condiciones militares que difieren entre ellos. Usando datos panel de las elecciones al Senado de 1994 a 2006 y una aproximación por variables instrumentales para resolver posibles problemas de endogenidad, este artículo muestra que la violencia guerrillera disminuye la participación electoral, mientras que la violencia paramilitar no tiene ningún efecto sobre la participación pero reduce la competencia electoral y beneficia a nuevos partidos no-tradicionales. Esto es consistente con la hipótesis de que la estrategia de la guerrilla es sabotear las elecciones, mientras que los paramiltares establecen alianzas con ciertos candidatos.