The MoveOn Effect: The Unexpected Transformation of American Political Advocacy
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Evaluating the Effect of School and Teacher Incentives: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Mexico
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Merit‐based incentives are a topic of growing interest in labor economics due to their potential to increase performance for private and public employees. Following this argument, such pay schemes have been applied in numerous countries to provide incentives to teachers and schools based on their students’ achievement scores and other performance metrics. However, because of the multi-task, multi-principal and multi-period nature of education, they present several caveats. Observational and experimental research provides ambiguous conclusions about their impact. This paper contributes to this literature by evaluating the effects of the Mexican PECD, a program that since 2010 has provided salary bonuses to teachers in primary and secondary public schools based on their national standardized tests scores. Nearly 30,000 schools and 300,000 teachers have benefited from this program in its first implementation. Given its characteristics, the PECD provides an ideal ground for a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) and for a Multiple Rating‐Score Discontinuity (MRSD). Combining these quasi‐experimental techniques with a Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM), I show that the effect of this program on student performance is null. If any, this program seems to harm student performance; this negative effect is more evident for indigenous schools.
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Q&A: Stanford scholar on challenges to clean and fair elections
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With political upheaval sweeping the Arab world and the presidential campaign entering the home stretch in the United States, democracy and elections are hot topics. But a bigger story about those bedrocks of fair and open governments has unfolded all over the world in the past two decades, as more than 50 authoritarian regimes have converted to democratic societies.
The change hasn’t always been ideal. Corruption and violence continue to mar some budding democracies, while restrictive voter ID laws and big money have tainted the political process in the world’s most established democratic systems.
Stanford political scientist Stephen J. Stedman just wrapped up his work as director of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security – a group that spent almost two years reviewing the integrity of elections worldwide. The panel was convened by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the Kofi Annan Foundation, an organization founded by the former U.N. secretary general.
The panel’s report lists 13 steps that individual countries, civil society leaders and the international community can take to make sure elections and democracies are fair, open and honest.
“The first is the most basic,” said Stedman, a Freeman Spogli Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. “You have to have a society where citizens feel everyone is equal under the law.”
Stedman discusses the panel’s work in the following Q&A.
What was the need and motivation to analyze how free elections are faring around the world?
Each of the commissioners came to this with different concerns. Kofi Annan, who chaired the commission, was very much driven by his experience of having to deal with several elections in Africa that had become violent and had gone off the rails. And there’s a frustration he feels about how little attention had been paid to those places before they blew up.
Ernesto Zedillo, (a former Mexican president and vice chair of the panel), was motivated to join the commission by a real alarm at the nefarious influence of huge sums of money in political finance – not just in America, but in parts of the world where transnational organized crime is getting involved in the political process. We’re finding that political finance and campaign finance might be ways for those groups to buy legitimacy or protection through democratic political systems.
Others were concerned that despite the incredible growth of democracy during the last 20 years, there isn’t a guarantee that you’re getting good government out of it – especially in poorer, developing countries.
Has the global economic slump stressed democracies?
A fundamental pillar of democracy is political equality; that every citizen has an equal opportunity to influence politics.. But in a world where the gap between the rich and poor is growing, its more challenging to make sure everyone has that opportunity.
For developing countries, there’s a real challenge in building democracy under scarcity. The biggest danger for poor countries is that all the resources tend to be centered in the state, and elections are about getting those resources. So if you lose, you have nowhere to go. In wealthy democracies, that’s not the case. Whoever loses the U.S. election this year will still have a comfortable life. That’s not true in many parts of the world. If you lose in Asia or Africa, for instance, you’re just out of the game. But that winner-takes-all system has to change in order to have a strong democracy.
The report concludes that the “rise of uncontrolled political finance threatens to hollow out democracy everywhere in the world.” How is that playing out?
Political finance is absolutely necessary for democracy. It’s good that citizens feel so strongly that they’re willing to make donations and express their preferences by contributing to campaigns and candidates. And candidates and parties need money to get their messages out. But you just have to look around the world over the last 15 years and see all the countries that have had political finance scandals. It’s a long list, and it includes some of the best-known democracies in the world. Even in the best conditions, it’s a problem that can corrupt your democracy.
And the problem is becoming more urgent. With growing economic disparity, it’s become easier for certain groups to buy and influence elections and governments.
The commission specifically criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which says the government cannot restrict independent political spending by a corporation or union. Does the ruling delegitimize America’s efforts to push for solid democracies and fair elections in developing countries?
Citizens United has essentially created a system of “anything goes.” In the eyes of many Americans, political finance is corrupting our democracy. And America’s reputation has taken a large hit internationally. In doing this report and talking to democratic activists around the world, so many of the conversations immediately go to the decision and the amount of money allowed to influence the system. It has diminished our reputation.
Both Western Europe and the United States are often better at professing the best practices of elections and democracy than following them. It definitely hurts when people overseas say: “Wait. You’re telling us to do this. But what do you do, exactly?”
Other than money, what are some of the barriers to political participation that hurt the growth of democracy?
It varies around the world. But across the board, women are still vastly underrepresented in voting and in political office in most democracies. That speaks to a slew of cultural, social and economic barriers.
In the United States, the problems tend to manifest themselves as barriers to the participation of minorities – especially African-Americans and Hispanics. It goes to the heart of many debates over the use of legal restrictions to register voters. And the restrictions are usually couched in language about protecting the integrity of elections. But the policies have the net effect of restricting participation by minority poor voters. And that’s what actually hurts the integrity of elections. The amount of out-and-out electoral fraud in the U.S. is miniscule. The amount of voters who are marginalized and dispossessed because of these voter ID laws is much greater.
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Groundbreaking research into dropout rates in Mexican schools released
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CDDRL's Program on Poverty and Governance posted a research project update for the project The Incidence of Criminal Activity Near Schools in Mexico. Currently this project is studying the interaction between education and violence in the context of Mexico's war on drugs. The initial results shed light on falling secondary educational attainment in Mexico, and its relationship to gang activity and school dropout rates. The project is working to systematically analyze several Mexican governmental programs including Escuela Segura and Espacios Recuperados that seek to rebuild disintegrating communities in order to improve educational attainment. You can read the update here.
Increase in Drug Related Deaths, 2007-2010
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Police officers carry children away during a gun battle in Tijuana, in Mexico's state of Baja California. REUTERS/Jorge Duenes.
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Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama and the 2012 Elections
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Turkey and the Arab Spring: Between Ethics and Self-Interest
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Turkey redefined its geographical security environment over the last decade by deepening its engagement with neighboring regions, especially with the Middle East. The Arab spring, however, challenged not only the authoritarian regimes in the region but also Turkish foreign policy strategy. This strategy was based on cooperation with the existing regimes and did not prioritize the democracy promotion dimension of the issue. The upheavals in the Arab world, therefore, created a dilemma between ethics and self-interest in Turkish foreign policy. Amid the flux of geopolitical shifts in one of the world’s most unstable regions, Turkish foreign policy-making elites are attempting to reformulate their strategies to overcome this inherent dilemma. The central argument of the present paper is that Turkey could make a bigger and more constructive impact in the region by trying to take a more detached stand and through controlled activism. Thus, Turkey could take action through the formation of coalitions and in close alignments with the United States and Europe rather than basing its policies on a self-attributed unilateral pro-activism.
Ziya Öniş is Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Center for Research on Globalization and Democratic Governance (GLODEM) at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. He received his BSc. and MSc. in Economics from London School of Economics, and his Ph.D. in Development Economics from University of Manchester. He also taught at Boğaziçi University (Istanbul), Işık University (Istanbul), and University of Manchester. He has written extensively on various aspects of Turkish political economy. His most recent research focuses on the political economy of globalization, crises and post-crises transformations, Turkey’s Europeanization and democratization experience and the analysis of new directions in Turkish foreign policy. Among his most recent publications are “Beyond the Global Economic Crisis: Structural Continuities as Impediments to a Sustainable Recovery” (All Azimuth, 2012), “Power, Interests and Coalitions: The Political Economy of Mass Privatization in Turkey” (Third World Quarterly, 2011), “Europe and the Impasse of Center-Left Politics in Turkey: Lessons from the Greek Experience” (Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2010), Turkey and the Global Economy: Neo-liberal Restructuring and Integration in the Post-Crisis Era (2009), and Turkish Politics in a Changing World: Global Dynamics and Domestic Transformations (2007)
The event is organized as part of the Annual Koç Lecture Series, a three-year project organized under the framework of the Mediterranean Studies Forum’s Turkish Studies Initiative and in collaboration with Stanford Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and the Sohaib & Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. It is also co-sponsored by the CDDRL Program on Arab Reform and Democracy.
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room
Ziya Öniş
Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Center for Research on Globalization and Democratic Governance (GLODEM)
Speaker
Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey
Panel Discussions
Crime, Violence and Governance in Latin America: Sharing Data and Building a Web-Based Research Network to Expand Knowledge
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Despite some interesting research on crime and violence in Latin American countries (particularly Colombia), there is still a relative dearth of policy-oriented research. People interested in these subjects lack a convenient means to access the emerging research in these areas, or to pool data across countries and contexts. Scholars within particular sub-fields are routinely engaged in separate conversations that do not sufficiently leverage complementarities in methods and substantive areas. This project will addres these gaps by delivering a first-rate electronic resource making it easy to pool data, to share research, and to engage audiences within and beyond academia. We also want to make it easier for policymakers in the United States and Latin America to learn about cutting-edge, policy-oriented research addressing the problems before them.
CISAC Conference Room
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
Professor and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School; Co-Director of CISAC; FSI Senior Fellow; CDDRL Affiliated Faculty;FSE Affiliated Faculty
Speaker
Beatriz Magaloni
Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA
0
magaloni@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.
She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.
Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.
Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.
Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.
She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.
Director, Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab
Co-director, Democracy Action Lab
CV
Document
Magaloni_cv (12).pdf
(97.5 KB)
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Seminars
Governance and Public Goods in Indigenous Mexico
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We exploit a unique institutional feature in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, where municipalities were allowed to choose between a form of autonomy called “usos y costumbres” or delegating decisions to “modern” forms of representative government. Using a geographic discontinuity approach to identify causal effects, we find strong evidence that political autonomy enhances development outcomes for indigenous communities. To explore plausible mechanisms, we collected a household survey in over 90 villages. In autonomous villages, direct participatory democracy practices lead to a more egalitarian distribution of services with a less notable anti-poor bias.
CISAC Conference Room
Beatriz Magaloni
Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA
0
magaloni@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.
She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.
Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.
Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.
Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.
She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.
Director, Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab
Co-director, Democracy Action Lab
CV
Document
Magaloni_cv (12).pdf
(97.5 KB)
Hide publication sections
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Seminars
Network Neutrality and the First Amendment, According to Verizon
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Abstract:
For almost a decade, network neutrality has been among the most contentious and high-profile subjects of debate in Internet policy. This debate has taken place in government agencies, legislatures, courts, and the public square, in countries around the world. In the U.S., both sides assume the mantle of free expression. Advocates of network neutrality argue that adopting a rule to keep networks "neutral"--forbidding ISPs from discriminating against or blocking particular sites or software--would ensure that anyone can speak and listen to anyone else, without permission, and that any developer can create new speech-technologies like Blogger, Twitter, and Tumblr. Those opposed to network neutrality--primarily ISPs like cable and phone companies--argue that government involvement in the decisions of ISPs abridges their First Amendment rights. They assert a right to "edit" the Internet like a newspaper or cable company edits and curates articles and channels. They also argue that, under standard First Amendment doctrine, network neutrality is presumptively unconstitutional--an argument many academics seem to believe.
The FCC's network neutrality rule, adopted in December 2010, is currently on appeal. Four different amicus briefs, from scholars, former government officials, and others have addressed the First Amendment question.
What can the network neutrality debate tell us about freedom of speech, and translating Constitutional provisions, in the Internet Age?
Marvin Ammori heads a small law firm that advises Silicon Valley companies on public policy issues and is also a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society, writing about the U.S. First Amendment. He was previously the head lawyer of an advocacy group, Free Press, where he worked primarily on network neutrality and open Internet issues and handled the Comcast/BitTorrent case. His work for several companies in their opposition to SOPA and PIPA earned him recognition by Fast Company magazine as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2012.
Wallenberg Theater
Marvin Ammori
Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation and Counsel
Speaker
Ammori Group Law Firm
Seminars
Following Africa’s Lead: Opportunities and Threats of the Mobile Internet Revolution
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***** NOTE: CHANGE OF LOCATION*****
Abstract
The mobile Internet — accessed through smartphones, tablets, and 4G technology — is now set to overtake the wired Net in usage and users. The implications of this shift are most obvious in Africa, where journalists have seized on mobile-driven innovations to transform newsgathering. But mobile networks also give repressive governments unprecedented powers to identify, locate, and harass journalists, their sources, and their audiences. The Committee to Protect Journalists invited a group of pioneering African journalists and entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley in October to talk about their work at the forefront of the media revolution. The group worked with executives and technologists from leading media and technology companies to find practical ways to protect free speech and privacy online. This panel will discuss their conclusions.
Erik Charas is an engineer, social entrepreneur, and founder of @Verdade, the largest-circulation newspaper in Mozambique. Hailing from northern Mozambique, Erik is passionate about his responsibility to work for his country. The inspiration to create @Verdade came from the realization that most people in Mozambique lacked access to quality information. He believes informing people about their government, country and the world is the first step toward engaging them as active participants in transforming the country. He is one of the most vocal advocates of anti-poverty activism in Africa today.Erik is also founder and CEO of Charas LDA, a company that invests in Mozambican entrepreneurs. Erik was voted a Hero of Africa in 2005 by media group MSN, named a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2006, and served as an Archbishop Tutu African Leadership Initiative Fellow in 2007. He chairs several boards of companies and non-profit organizations in Mozambique and other countries. He has an engineering degree from the University of Cape Town. Follow him on Twitter @echaras.
Rafael Marques de Morais is an award-winning journalist, human rights activist, and founder of the anti-corruption watchdog website MakaAngola. The site is named for ‘maka,’ a Kimbundu world meaning "problem" or "trouble." Rafael’s writings on political economy, the diamond industry, and government corruption have earned him international acclaim, and have set the agenda for political debate in Angola by exposing the abuse of power. His most recent book, "Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola," published in September 2011, exposed hundreds of cases of torture and killings. Research for the book formed the basis of a criminal complaint Rafael filed against the shareholders of three private Angolan diamond mining companies for crimes against humanity. He now faces retaliatory legal action as company shareholders, including some of the country’s most influential generals, have countersued him in Portugal. Rafael was imprisoned for his work in 1999, and released after international advocacy efforts on his behalf. He was then charged with defaming the president and spent years in costly legal battles. His case was eventually taken up by the UN Human Rights Committee, which delivered a precedent-setting ruling in 2005 that Angola had violated the journalist’s fundamental rights. Born in Luanda, Rafael holds an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA Hons in Anthropology and Media from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Mohamed Keita is the Africa advocacy coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, an international press freedom advocacy organization based in New York. Mohamed has written extensively on press freedom and social media for publications including The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Slate Afrique. He is regularly interviewed by international media including Al Jazeera, BBC, NPR, and Radio France Internationale. A native of Bamako, Mali, Mohamed also lived in Senegal before moving to New York. Prior to joining CPJ, Mohamed volunteered as a researcher with the nongovernmental World Federalist Movement-Institute of Global Policy, where he was responsible for a project on the structures and mechanisms of the African Union and helped organize outreach activities in West Africa for a project on the UN's "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. Mohamed is a graduate of the City College of New York. Follow him on Twitter @africamedia_CPJ
Rebecca MacKinnon is a journalist and activist whose work focuses on the intersection of the Internet, human rights, and foreign policy. She serves on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Global Network Initiative. As a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, she is developing new projects focused on holding technology companies accountable to universally recognized human rights standards on free expression and privacy. Her first book, Consent of the Networked, was published in January 2012 by Basic Books. In 2012 she was named Hearst Professional-in-residence by Columbia Journalism School and listed by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of “40 women who changed the media business in the past 40 years,” primarily due to her role as cofounder of Global Voices Online (globalvoicesonline.org) an international citizen media network. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, MacKinnon worked as a journalist for CNN in China for nine years, including as CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 1998-2001. MacKinnon received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Fullbright scholar in Taiwan in 1991-92. Follow her on Twitter @rmack.
This seminar is being co-sponsored by the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships and in collaboration with the Committee to Protect Journalists https://www.cpj.org
Reception to follow in Mendenhall Library, McClatchy Hall, Bldg 120
History Corner
Bldg 200
Room 200-002
Rebecca MacKinnon
Author,Consent of the Networked and Board Member
Moderator
Committee to Protect Journalists
Erik Charas
Engineer, Social Entrepreneur, Founder
Speaker
@Verdade, largest circulation Mozambique newspaper
Rafael Marques de Morais
Journalist,Human Rights Activist, Founder
Speaker
MakaAngola
Mohamed Keita
Africa Advocacy Coordinator
Speaker
Committee to Protect Journalists
Seminars