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Each of the more than 800 fellows who have been in residence at the Radcliffe Institute has pursued an independent project, but the collaborative experience unites all of them. Scholars, scientists, and artists work on individual projects, or in clusters, to generate new research, publications, art, and more.
In many developing economies, poor social and economic outcomes are attributed in part to political decision-making that is unresponsive to the needs and preferences of citizens. Weaknesses of governance structures and social welfare in turn are associated with fragile security outcomes and economic failures that may in turn have implications for US economic and security interests. In light of these adverse outcomes, large amounts of development aid has been provided by the United States to bolster democracy and governance interventions in developing areas.
Candidate-centered politics and personal voting in the United States are much stronger today than they were in the past, and party organizations are much weaker. This project asks two main questions: i) Why did this happen?; ii) What are the implications of this development for the future of American democracy?
Poverty reduction is one of the central challenges for development in new democracies. Many of these democracies operate in a context of weak institutions, where policy implementation is subject to the discretion of politicians, This proposal investigates the strategies used to target private benefits and how voters' access to benefits affects their behavior. This project studies the conditions under which local politicians pursue partisan targeting strategies and when voters can circumvent these strategies.