Tiago Peixoto

Effects of the internet on participation: Study of a public policy referendum in Brazil

ABSTRACT Does online voting mobilize citizens who otherwise would not participate? During the annual participatory budgeting vote in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil—the worlds largest—Internet voters were asked whether they would have participated had there not been an online voting option (i-voting). The study documents an 8.2 percent increase in total turnout with the introduction of i-voting. In support of the mobilization hypothesis, unique survey data show that i-voting is mainly used by new participants rather than just for convenience by those who were already mobilized. The study also finds that age, gender, income, education, and social media usage are significant predictors of being online-only voters. However, technology appears more likely to engage people who are younger, male, of higher income and educational attainment, and more frequent social media users.

The Effect of Government Responsiveness on Future Political Participation

What effect does government responsiveness have on political participation? Since the 1940s political scientists have used attitudinal measures of perceived efficacy to explain participation. More recent work has focused on underlying genetic factors that condition citizen engagement. The authors develop a ‘calculus of participation’ that incorporates objective efficacy, the extent to which an individual’s participation actually has an impact, and test the model against behavioral data from FixMyStreet.com (n=399,364). The authors find that a successful first experience using FixMyStreet.com (e.g., reporting a pothole and having it fixed) is associated with a 54 percent increase in the probability of an individual submitting a second report. The authors also show that the experience of government responsiveness to the first report submitted has predictive power over all future report submissions. The findings highlight the importance of government responsiveness for fostering an active citizenry, while demonstrating the value of incidentally collected data to examine participatory behavior at the individual level.

A Get-Out-the-Vote Experiment on the World’s Largest Participatory Budgeting Vote in Brazil

Does non-partisan voter mobilization affect the popular vote? We use vote records from a state-level participatory budgeting vote in Brazil– the world’s largest –to assess the impact of voter mobilization messaging on turnout and support for public investments. The government provided records as to how each ballot was cast and designed the tabulation process so that votes could be matched to treatment assignment without compromising the secrecy of the ballot. Citizens (n=43,384) were randomly assigned to receive non-partisan email and text messages designed to encourage voting. We document an impressive 4.7 percentage point increase in online voting in our treatment group. However, we found no effect of messaging on vote choice; voters in the treatment and control groups shared the same sectoral preferences and showed no difference in the average cost of public investment projects they supported. These results suggest non-partisan Get Out the Vote campaigns can increase citizen participation without skewing the outcome.

Do Mobile Phone Surveys Work in Poor Countries

In this project, we analyzed whether mobile phone-based surveys are a feasible and cost-effective approach for gathering statistically representative information in four low-income countries (Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe). Specifically, we focused on three primary research questions. First, can the mobile phone survey platform reach a nationally representative sample? Second, to what extent does linguistic fractionalization affect the ability to produce a representative sample? Third, how effectively does monetary compensation impact survey completion patterns?We find that samples from countries with higher mobile penetration rates more closely resembled the actual population. After weighting on demographic variables, sample imprecision was a challenge in the two lower feasibility countries (Ethiopia and Mozambique) with a sampling error of /- 5 to 7 percent, while Zimbabwe’s estimates were more precise (sampling error of /- 2.8 percent). Surveys performed reasonably well in reaching poor demographics, especially in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Rural women were consistently under-represented in the country samples, especially in Afghanistan and Ethiopia. Countries’ linguistic fractionalization may influence the ability to obtain nationally representative samples, although a material effect was difficult to discern through penetration rates and market composition. Although the experimentation design of the incentive compensation plan was compromised in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, it seems that offering compensation for survey completion mitigated attrition rates in several of the pilot countries while not reducing overall costs. These effects varied across countries and cultural settings.