In 2002, the Mexican communities of Urequío and San Miguel Epeján in the municipality of Panindícuaro, Michoacán both participated in the “Three-for-One” (3x1) Program, which provides matching grants for community projects solicited and cofinanced by U.S.-based migrant clubs. The...

The present paper analyzes determinants of confidence in public institutions. In both theoretical literature and empirical research, a link between social trust and institutional confidence has been established. The present paper casts additional light on this relationship. Our analysis also...

The idea of social capital has had a powerful impact on the study of politics, policy, and social science at large. In recent years, scholars have paid increasing attention towards understanding what social capital is and exploring the direct and indirect consequences of living in high social...

Using geo-referenced terror events and ethnicity information, this article seeks to explore if and how elections contribute to violence in Iraq. Analyzing the December 2005 and March 2010 parliamentary elections and the January 2009 governorate elections, I assess whether partisan and/or ethnic...

Utilizing new data on criminal charges against candidates to India's Fourteenth and Fifteenth Lok Sabha elections, we study the conditions that resulted in approximately a quarter of those elected to each legislature facing or having previously faced criminal charges. We show that Indian...

This paper examines the role played by sitting presidents during United States midterm congressional elections between 1982 and 2006. I examine the effects of presidential campaign appearances on behalf of candidates for the House of Representatives. Conventional wisdom holds that such...

The paper proposes a mechanism explaining how elections may stabilize an autocratic regime even if they are evidently unfree and unfair. Instead of being meaningless rituals, non-democratic elections can help the autocrats in managing and communicating the public information about the regime's...

Pre-election “intention to vote” has come to substitute for “reported vote” or “validated vote” in many studies of turnout. The differences among them have been little studied. In this report, we examine all three jointly in a single U.S. dataset for what we believe is the first...