Working Papers

How is between-group inequality related to collective action potential in highly clientelistic settings? Much of the existing work on the political implications of between-group inequality has been conducted at coarse geographical scales, such as the country-level. We argue it is crucial to examine how the structure of economic inequality at hyper-local levels, such as the neighborhood-level, conditions political outcomes. We draw on original fine-grained household survey data, including an experiment, from over 200 Indian informal settlements — or “slums” — as well as multi-faceted social networks data from a subset of these settlements, to demonstrate that local inequality between ethnic groups is associated with decreased collective action potential. We also test several potential mechanisms that could underly this association. Consistent with existing findings from coarser scales, we find neighborhoods with higher levels of inequality between ethnic groups evince higher levels of conflict and lower levels of reciprocity. We also propose a novel mechanism based on exploratory analyses: community leaders, or brokers, face barriers to amassing followers in areas with higher inter-group inequality, which has adverse consequences for group mobilization. Our findings contribute to growing work in comparative politics on how diversity and the structure of inequality affect political behavior, especially in cities in the Global South.

Research finds both that women are less likely to protest than men and that cellphone access increases protest participation. Yet, no work asks whether gulfs in mobile ownership between men and women affect protest turnout gaps. Our manuscript examines this relationship, showing that the growing gender digital divide in cellphone ownership exacerbates the participation gap. We use survey data from Africa to show that where women systematically own fewer cellphones than men, they protest less frequently than men. We use a variety of methodological techniques to address concerns of endogeneity and show our results hold in a global sample. We also probe one mechanism underpinning this relationship; we demonstrate that women who do not own cellphones face a political information disadvantage that limits their engagement. We conclude that unequal cellphone access further entrenches women’s position on the political margins.

We examine how the office a candidate seeks influences their use of feminine stereotypes in campaign messaging, focusing on the interplay between government branches (legislative and executive) and jurisdictions (local, state, and federal). We argue that when a particular office is seen as more feminine, such as school boards or city councils, women candidates will perceive a strategic opportunity to emphasize feminine traits to showcase their qualifications for that office. Women candidates will be more likely to perceive and leverage these strategic opportunities relative to men because of the congruence between being a woman and being seen as having feminine stereotypes. Drawing on an exhaustive and novel dataset of nearly 49,083 campaign ads from the 2012-2020 election cycles, we analyze candidates' strategic use of masculine and feminine traits across local, state, and federal legislative and executive offices. Contrary to our initial expectations, our findings suggest that women candidates do not significantly tailor their use of feminine stereotypes to match the perceived femininity of the office they seek. We find that women and men are more likely to use masculine traits over feminine traits. We also find that women appear to employ a dual stereotype strategy across offices with a higher likelihood of emphasizing feminine traits and masculine traits in strategic messages. The results from our analyses of the novel campaign data contribute to an understanding of how candidates strategically emphasize feminine characteristics across contexts.

Gender gaps in political participation are particularly large in developing countries. Though developing countries are rapidly urbanizing, evidence on urban gender gaps remains scarce and almost entirely omits a vast yet politically active population — those residing in informal settlements (or “slums”). This article proposes and tests a framework explaining how gender and informality intersect to create distinctive gender gaps in political behavior in informal urban areas. Drawing on existing literature and original interviews with urban slum residents, I argue that key characteristics of slum neighborhoods — their social and physical density as well as their reliance on political mobilization to access neighborhood resources — have important implications for women’s participation. I test my expectations with original household survey and social networks data from over 9,000 from three Indian cities. I find 1.) women are as embedded and active in neighborhood clientelistic networks as men; 2.) women in slums are just as active as men in communal mobilization efforts to improve neighborhood outcomes; and 3.) women’s participation varies meaningfully across these settlements. This article advances an understanding of how rapid urbanization will affect gender gaps in the Global South and calls for far more research to be conducted on this topic.

Urban economic growth is often associated with transformation and beautification in the name of development. However, to build new roads or create green space, city planners transform the preexisting urban environment. This process creates winners and losers, and often involves the eviction and displacement of poor households. In this paper, we investigate how governments decide whom to displace, and whom to leave untouched, in the name of modernisation. We argue officials consider both political and economic costs and benefits when deciding which settlements to displace, and we draw on a unique combination of pre-eviction surveys, post-eviction interviews, and novel geospatial data, to analyse the correlates of slum evictions for the case of Patna, Bihar, India. We find that evictions are negatively associated with the local business activity of the areas where slums are situated, and, contrary to our expectations, that local political connectedness did not prevent evictions in this context. Future scholarship should examine how local political and economic factors can produce divergent displacement patterns across cities.

While governments and development agencies have intensively focused on formalizing property rights, including for women, over the past few decades, compelling evidence on the gendered impacts of these efforts remains limited. We examine a massive intervention aimed at improving land tenure security in Mozambique, drawing on three novel data sources to begin filling crucial gaps in evidence: a panel survey of 850 urban household heads from intervention treatment and control areas, a separate survey of both husbands and wives from these households, and detailed focus group discussions with community members. Consistent with existing evidence from rural and larger urban contexts, we find formalizing land rights significantly improved household tenure security. We also provide compelling evidence that — when explicitly listed on housing documents — women experience improved decision-making power and rights over their household’s land. However, we show that, as implemented, women were rarely listed, and we caution that omitting women’s names when formalizing household land rights may exacerbate household inequalities. We argue that gatekeeping by household heads, as well as existing community gender norms, structure both the implementation and potential impacts of programs focused on women’s property rights. This article makes several important empirical contributions to research on gender, urban property rights, and development.

Despite the tremendous gains experienced in joining the workforce, many women in low- and middle income contexts continue to opt out of working for pay. In this paper, we explore reasons why women’s employment rates continue to be low, despite women reporting interest in working. In surveying respondents across household member roles, we account for the complex intra household decision making in determining what kinds of jobs are suitable for women. Findings from a conjoint experiment varying attributes of work show that household members converge on responsiveness to the wage rate, much more so than other job features. Household members diverge on preferences for risk for women’s work –we find that men are more sensitive to informal jobs with contingent tenures and uncertain pay schedules. Preferences are impacted by other job features such as job location and flexibility of working hours, but to a much lesser extent than monetary benefits. Surprisingly, co-worker gender and caste identity are insignificant factors in determining job preference. All told, we provide new insights into how women and their families negotiate the complex tradeoffs inherent in women’s choice to enter the workforce.