This is an archived version of the Formal Theory Virtual Workshop sessions that took place in 2020.
April 24: Governing and Authority
- Chris Li (with Greg Sasso and Ian Turner), “Accountability in Governing Hierarchies” (slides)
- Jean Guillaume Forand (with Mike Ting and Gergely Ujhelyi), “Equilibrium Administrations”
- Lindsey Gailmard, “The Politics of Delegated Authority”
May 1: COVID-19: Theory and Data
- Mehdi Shadmehr (with Ethan Bueno de Mesquita), “Coordination and Social Distancing: Inertia in the Aggregate Response to COVID-19”
- Austin Wright (with Konstantin Sonin, Jesse Driscoll, and Jarnickae Wilson), “Poverty and Economic Dislocation Reduce Compliance with COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place Protocols”
- Tom Pepinsky (with Shana Gadarian and Sara Goodman), “Partisanship, Health Behavior, and Policy Attitudes in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic” (short version)
May 8: Policy Competition
- Nolan McCarty, “Team Policy Production”
- Arduino Tomasi, “Machiavellian Fair Play: Electoral Incentives to Implement Programmatic Transfers” (slides)
- Giovanna Invernizzi, “Electoral Competition and Factional Sabotage”
May 15: Media and Persuasion
- Elliot Lipnowski, “Persuasion via Weak Institutions”
- Xiaoli Guo, “Media Censorship Backfire”
- Davin Raiha, “Strategic Mobilization of Stakeholders”
May 22: Bureaucracy and Agency
- Tara Slough, “Oversight, Capacity, and Inequality”
- Gregory Sasso, “Bureaucrats under Populism”
- Peter Schram, “Self-Managing Terror: How Insurgents Resolve Agency Problems with Diverse Teams” (appendix)
May 29: Backsliding
- Carlo Prato (with Edoardo Grillo), “Reference Points and Democratic Backsliding”
- Monika Nalepa, “Ritual Sacrifices? Transitional Justice and the Fate of Post-Authoritarian Democracies”
- Zhaotian Luo (with Adam Przeworski), “Democracy and Its Vulnerabilities: Dynamics of Democratic Backsliding”
- Stephane Wolton (with Will Howell and Ken Shepsle), “Executive Absolutism: A Model”
June 5: Elections
- MaryClare Roche, “Non-Consecutive Executives”
- Korhan Koçak, “Provoking the Opposition” (slides)
- Federico Trombetta, “Pandering and Asymmetric Costs of Mismatch in Political Agency Models”
June 26: Police
- Andrew McCall, “What Police Chiefs Can Teach Officers About Race and Arrest Decisions: A Theory of Context Constrained Learning”
- Allison Stashko, “Do Police Maximize Arrests or Minimize Crime? Evidence from Racial Profiling in U.S. Cities”
- James D. Fearon, “Coups, Police Shootings, and Nuclear War”
- Ryan Hübert (with Andrew Little) “Social Segregation and Discriminatory Policing” (related paper)
July 10: We’re Not In Kansas Anymore
- John Patty (with Maggie Penn), “Stereotypes, Information, and Discrimination”
- James Hollyer, “Political Outsiders and Democratic Backsliding”
- Federico Vaccari, “Influential News and Policy-making”
July 17: Coercion and Coordination
- Steven Beard, “Rationalism, Social Constructivism and Coercion”
- Jessica S. Sun, “Forced Economic Migration”
- Ethan Bueno de Mesquita (with Mehdi Shadmehr), “Motivation in Collective Action”
July 24: Policy + Accountability
- Dana Foarta, “Equilibrium Reforms and Endogenous Complexity”
- Robert Gulotty, “Fire Alarm Fatigue: how politicians evade accountability”
July 31: War and Peace
- Noam Reich, “A Theory of Endogenous Brinkmanship”
- German Gieczewski, “Evolving Wars of Attrition”
- Michael Gibilisco, “Mowing the Grass”
August 7: Informed Voters
- Alex Hirsch (with Saba Devdariani), “Voter Attention and Electoral Accountability”
- Federica Izzo, “Cumulative Knowledge in the Social Sciences: the Case of Improving Voters’ Information”
- Steven Callander, “Cause and Effect in Political Polarization: A Dynamic Analysis”
August 14: Bureaucrats and Policy
- Tinghua Yu, “Political Polarization and Quality of Bureaucratic Decision Making”
- Giovanni Andreottola, “Policy Design Under Polarization”
- Amanda Kennard (with Diana M. Stanescu), “Does Delegation Matter? Evidence from IMF Staff Appointments”
- Agustin Casas (with Martín Gonzalez-Eiras), “Cooperation and Retaliation in Legislative Bargaining”
August 21: Economic Investments
- Arthur Silve (with Thierry Verdier), “Democratic Spillovers”
- Brendan Cooley (with Scott Abramson and Bethany Lacina), “How Wide is the Ethnic Border?”
- Htet Thiha Zaw, “Resistance, Repression, and (Re)Education in Colonial States”
October 9
Why Theory Matters for Measurement
- James Bisbee, “What Matters to Voters? Micro and Macro-Level Drivers of Economic & Political Beliefs”
- Thomas Choate, “Textual Ambiguity in the Legislative Process”
- Mary Kroeger, “Majority Party Power and Bill Change”
- Charlotte Cavaille, “Who Cares? Measuring Preference Intensity in a Polarized Environment”
October 16
Smooth Criminal: Crime and Policing
- Harry Pei, “Crime Aggregation, Deterrence and Witness Credibility”
- Tom Clark, “The Political Economy of Police Administration”
October 23
Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Electoral Accountability I
- Dana Foarta, “Organizational Capacity and Electoral Accountability”
- Konstantin Sonin, “Political Economy of Crisis Response”
- Nikitas Konstantinidis, “A Model of Voting and Electoral Accountability under Supranational Policy Constraints”
October 30
Fire Away: Electoral Accountability II
- Niall Hughes, “Strategic Voting in Two-Party Legislative Elections”
- Salvatore Nunnari, “Democratic Accountability with Reciprocal Voters”
- Carlo Prato, “Pathways of Accountability: How Transparency Shapes Entry Decisions, Party Nominations, and Electoral Outcomes” (with G. Grossman and K. Michelitch)
November 13
Hard Knock Life
Note: this session will begin at 2 PM EST.
- Zuheir Desai, “A Theory of Electoral Competition in Developing Democracies”
- Gabriele Gratton, “Liberty, Security, and Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Illiberal Democracies”
- Desiree Desierto,”Shipwrecked by Rents“
November 20
Show Must Go On: Strategic Use of Media
- Antoni-Italo De Moragas, “Scandals, Media Competition and Political Accountability”
- Arseniy Samsonov, “The Fragmentation of Views in a Democracy”
- Greg Sheen, “Why Do Popular Incumbents Not Welcome Precise News Media?”
December 4
I Won’t Back Down: War and Identity Politics
Note: this session will go from 12 PM EST to 1:20 PM EST
- Carlo Horz, “Identity Propaganda”
- David Andres Cerezo, “The Construction of National Identities”
- Kathy Ingram, “Competitive Intervention and Sabotage in Civil Wars”
- Peter Schram, “When Deterrence Fails: How Improved Hassling Capabilities Produce Worse Outcomes“
December 11
Two Sides: Information and Policy
Note: this session will go from 12 PM EST to 1:20 PM EST
- Avi Acharya, “Optimal Political Career Dynamics in the Ferejohn Accountability Model” (with Elliot Lipnowski and Joao Ramos)
- Greg Martin, “Ideological Competition” (with Federica Izzo)
- Max Kwiek, “Information acquisition in citizen and representative assemblies”
- Greg Sasso, “Policy Bundling and Costly Monitoring”