Project DEMED

SEARCH FOR PAPERS ON ADULT CIVIC EDUCATION AND DEMOCRATIC VALUES

We are looking for published and unpublished academic studies on the effect of adult civic education on democratic values.

Do you know any? 

We are currently conducting a meta-analysis on the effect of adult civic education on democratic values. Our definition of “adult civic education” is broad: It includes information campaigns, media campaigns, SMS campaigns, online interventions comprised of short videos, workshops, in-person canvassing studies etc.

 Importantly, however:

• At least one of the outcome variables should be about democratic values, such as support for democracy, support and trust in democratic institutions, political tolerance, support for democratic responsibilities, support for authoritarianism, satisfaction with democracy.
• We are only interested in experimental and quasi-experimental studies.
• We are only interested in studies targeting (predominantly) ordinary citizens who are older than 18 years old.
• Our sample of studies does not include advanced democracies, such as the United States and Western European countries.

Below is a full list of 23 studies that we have collected so far through a database search and systematic review. If you are aware of any study that is not included in this list, either conducted by you or by someone else, please let us know. We are interested in both published and unpublished work (working papers, drafts, dissertations).

Our current collection (Relevant outcome variables are in parantheses)

• Ahmed, Firoz, Roland Hodler and Asad Islam. 2020. “Voting or Abstaining in “Managed” Elections? A Field Experiment in Bangladesh.” Working Paper (Support for Democracy) 

• Aker, Jenny C, Paul Collier and Pedro C Vicente. 2017. “Is information power? Using mobile phones and free newspapers during an election in Mozambique.” Review of Economics and Statistics 99(2):185–200. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Arriola, Leonardo R, Aila M Matanock, Manuela Travaglianti and Justine M. Davis. 2017. Civic Education in Violent Elections: Evidence from the Cote d’Ivoire’s 2015 Election. Working Paper (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Bilali, Rezarta and Johanna Ray Vollhardt. 2015. “Do mass media interventions effectively promote peace in contexts of ongoing violence? Evidence from Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 21(4):604. (Political Tolerance)

• Bilali, Rezarta, Johanna Ray Vollhardt and Jason Ray David Rarick. 2017. “Modeling collective action through media to promote social change and positive intergroup relations in violent conflicts.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 68:200–211. (Political Tolerance)

• Brancati, Dawn. 2014. “Building confidence in elections: The case of electoral monitors in Kosova.” Journal of Experimental Political Science 1(1):6–15. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Chong, Alberto, Ana L De La O, Dean Karlan and Leonard Wantchekon. 2015. “Does corruption information inspire the fight or quash the hope? A field experiment in Mexico on voter turnout, choice, and party identification.” The Journal of Politics 77(1):55–71. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Collier, Paul and Pedro C Vicente. 2014. “Votes and violence: Evidence from a field experiment in Nigeria.” The economic journal 124(574): F327–F355. (Democratic values)

• Finkel, Steve E, Christopher A Sabatini and Gwendolyn G Bevis. 2000. “Civic education, civil society, and political mistrust in a developing democracy: the case of the Dominican Republic.” World Development 28(11):1851–1874. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Finkel, Steven, Anja Neundorf and Ericka Gabriela Rascon Ramirez. 2021. “Can Online Civic Education Induce Democratic Citizenship? Experimental Evidence from a New Democracy.” SSRN Working Paper (February 3, 2021). (Support for Democracy, Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Finkel, Steven E. 2000. Can tolerance be taught? Adult civic education and the development of democratic values. In conference Rethink Democracy in the New Millennium, University of Houston. Citeseer. (Political Tolerance)

• Finkel, Steven E and Amy Erica Smith. 2011. “Civic education, political discussion, and the social transmission of democratic knowledge and values in a new democracy: Kenya 2002.” American Journal of Political Science 55(2):417–435. (Political Tolerance) 

• Finkel, Steven E, Jeremy Horowitz and Reynaldo T Rojo-Mendoza. 2012. “Civic education and democratic backsliding in the wake of Kenya’s post-2007 election violence.” The Journal of politics 74(1):52–65. (Support for Democracy, Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions, Political Tolerance, Support for Democratic Rights)

• Gin´e, Xavier and Ghazala Mansuri. 2018. “Together we will: experimental evidence on female voting behavior in Pakistan.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10(1):207–35 (Support for Democracy, Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Hawkins, Darren, Lucas C Brook, Ian M Hansen, Neal A Hoopes and Taylor R Tidwell. 2019. “Do citizens see through transparency? Evidence from survey experiments in Peru.” British Journal of Political Science 49(1):205–228. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Khan, Adnan, Sanval Nasim, Mahvish Shaukat and Andreas Stegmann. 2021. “Building trust in the state with information: Evidence from urban Punjab.” Journal of Public Economics 202:104494. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Kolstad, Ivar and Arne Wiig. 2019. “How does information about elite tax evasion affect political participation: Experimental evidence from Tanzania.” The Journal of Development Studies 55(4):509–526. (Support for Democracy, Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Lupu, Yonatan and Geoffrey PR Wallace. 2019. “Violence, nonviolence, and the effects of international human rights law.” American Journal of Political Science 63(2):411–426. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Marx, Benjamin, Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri. 2021. “Voter Mobilisation and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya.” The Economic Journal 131(638):2585–2612. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions, Satisfaction with Democracy)

• Nanes, Matthew. 2020. “Police integration and support for anti-government violence in divided societies: Evidence from Iraq.” Journal of peace research 57(2):329–343. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions, Political Tolerance)

• Nichols-Barrer, Ira, Jacqueline Berman, Ali Protik, Anu Rangarajan, Matt Sloan, LindsayWood et al. 2014. Rwanda Threshold Program Evaluation. Technical report Mathematica Policy (Satisfaction with Democracy Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Nussio, Enzo, Miguel Garcıa-Sanchez, Ben Oppenheim and Sebasti´an Pantoja-Barrios. 2020. “Testing Statebuilding’s ‘Missing Link’: Effects of Government Communications in Colombia.” The Journal of Development Studies 56(3):509–526. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)

• Paler, Laura. 2013. “Keeping the public purse: An experiment in windfalls, taxes, and the incentives to restrain government.” American Political Science Review 107(4):706–725. (Support and Trust for Democratic Institutions)