Social and/or political involvement within the population is often argued to enhance public sector performance. The underlying idea is that engagement fosters political awareness and interest and increases the public’s monitoring ability. Still, although extensive voter involvement may put...

Rapid urbanization is transforming the developing world, but the political consequences of this transformation are not well understood. In this paper, we argue that political contention and mobilization in the urban environment differs from other forms of political activity in its scale, speed,...

Housing policy is one of the most important areas of local politics. Yet little is known about how local legislatures and executives make housing policy decisions and how their elections shape policy in this important realm. We leverage survey data, housing policy data, and a new data source of...