| 1. |
- Baldwin, Kate, et al.
(författare)
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Is authority fungible? Legitimacy, domain congruence, and the limits of power in Africa
- 2024
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Ingår i: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. - 0092-5853 .- 1540-5907.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Scholars increasingly recognize the plurality of leaders who exercise de facto authority in governing communities. But what limits different leaders' power to organize distinct types of collective action beyond the law? We contend that leaders' influence varies by activity, depending on the degree to which the activity matches the leaders' geographic scope and field of expertise ("domain congruence"). Employing conjoint endorsement experiments in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, we test whether domain congruence predicts citizens' willingness to comply with leader requests across different activities and examine the mechanisms that explain its importance. We find limits on leaders' authority, that the concept of domain congruence helps predict the activities over which leaders have the greatest influence, and that leaders' domain legitimacy may underpin the relationship between domain congruence and authority.
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| 2. |
- Benstead, Lindsay, et al.
(författare)
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Does it matter what observers say? The impact of international election monitoring on legitimacy
- 2022
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Ingår i: Mediterranean Politics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1362-9395 .- 1743-9418. ; 27:1, s. 57-78
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Full Article Figures & data References Supplemental Citations Metrics Reprints & Permissions Get access ABSTRACT Scholars and democracy promoters often suggest that electoral observers’ (EOs’) assessments impact public opinion in a straightforward manner, yet, research on communication cautions against these sanguine assumptions. We test the impact of EO statements on public opinion in two very different contexts using survey experiments conducted among 3,361 Jordanians and Tunisians. Our results demonstrate the need for democracy promoters to consider negative consequences when implementing democracy promotion programmes, and for scholars to undertake further research regarding the impacts of election monitoring on domestic attitudes.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Benstead, Lindsay, et al.
(författare)
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Using Tablet Computers to Implement Surveys in Challenging Environments
- 2017
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Ingår i: Survey Practice. - 2168-0094. ; 10:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) has increasingly been used in developing countries, but literature and training on best practices have not kept pace. Drawing on our experiences using CAPI to implement the Local Governance Performance Index (LGPI) in Tunisia and Malawi and an election study in Jordan, this paper makes practical recommendations for mitigating challenges and leveraging CAPI’s benefits to obtain high quality data. CAPI offers several advantages. Tablets facilitate complex skip patterns and randomization of long question batteries and survey experiments, which helps to reduce measurement error. Tablets’ global positioning system (GPS) technology reduces sampling error by locating sampling units and facilitating analysis of neighborhood effects. Immediate data uploading, time-stamps for individual questions, and interview duration capture allowed real time data quality checks and interviewer monitoring. Yet, CAPI entails challenges, including costs of learning new software; questionnaire programming; and piloting to resolve coding bugs; and ethical and logistical considerations, such as electricity and Internet connectivity.
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| 5. |
- Dulani, B., et al.
(författare)
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Elections in the time of covid-19: the triple crises around Malawi’s 2020 presidential elections
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1745-7289 .- 1745-7297. ; 31:S1, s. 56-68
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In June 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Malawians went to the polls and voted to replace the incumbent government. Much like other natural disasters, the Covid-19 pandemic and accompanying economic and political shocks had the potential to shake voters’ confidence in the government, reduce turnout, and/or reduce support for the incumbent if voters associated them with the ills of the pandemic. In this paper, we examine the extent to which the Coronavirus pandemic influenced Malawi’s 2020 elections. We consider how fear of infection and economic distress affected citizens’ trust and confidence in President Mutharika’s government, their willingness to turn out to vote, and their choices at the polls using data collected pre- and post-Covid. We find that fears about the virus and its economic impact did influence trust and confidence in the government to handle Covid but had little to no effect on either abstention or vote choice. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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| 6. |
- Ferree, Karen, et al.
(författare)
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Disease Threat, Stereotypes, and Covid–19: An Early View from Malawi and Zambia
- 2020
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Ingår i: SSRN Electronic Journal. - Göteborg : Göteborgs universitet. - 1556-5068.
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A growing literature documents Covid–19’s health and economic effects. Can Covid–19 also exacerbate identity divisions? Psychologists argue that contagious disease increases threat perception, provoking policing of group boundaries and discrimination against perceived outsiders. We focus here on a mechanism underlying this work, the emergence of disease-based stereotypes. Employing survey experiments administered over the phone in Malawi (N=4,641) and Zambia (N=2,198) in May-August 2020, we explore how insider/outsider status and symptoms of illness shape perceptions of infection, reported willingness to help, and desire to restrict free movement of an ailing neighbor. We find mixed evidence for outsider stereotypes: Malawians associate the disease more with outsiders; Zambians do not. In both countries, moreover, symptoms more strongly shape perceptions and hypothetical behavior than insider/outsider status, suggesting that objective risk matters more than identities in shaping responses to the illness.
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| 7. |
- Ferree, Karen, et al.
(författare)
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Disease Threat, Stereotypes, and Covid–19: An Early View from Malawi and Zambia
- 2021
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- A growing literature documents Covid–19’s health and economic effects. Can Covid–19 also exacerbate identity divisions? Psychologists argue that contagious disease increases threat perception, provoking policing of group boundaries and discrimination against perceived outsiders. We focus here on a mechanism underlying this work, the emergence of disease-based stereotypes. Employing survey experiments administered over the phone in Malawi (N=4,641)and Zambia (N=2,198) in May-August 2020, we explore how insider/outsider status and symptoms of illness shape perceptions of infection, reported willingness to help, and desire to restrict free movement of an ailing neighbor. We find mixed evidence for outsider stereotypes: Malawians associate the disease more with outsiders; Zambians do not. In both countries, moreover, symptoms more strongly shape perceptions and hypothetical behavior than insider/outsider status, suggesting that objective risk matters more than identities in shaping responses to the illness.
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| 8. |
- Ferree, K. E., et al.
(författare)
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Stigma, Trust, and Procedural Integrity: Covid-19 Testing in Malawi
- 2021
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Ingår i: World Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-750X. ; 141
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- An emerging consensus in public health views testing for Covid-19 as key to managing the pandemic. It is often assumed that citizens have a strong desire to know their Covid-19 status, and will therefore take advantage of testing opportunities. This may not be the case in all contexts, however, especially those where citizens perceive stigma associated with the Covid-19, have low trust in health institutions, and doubt the procedural integrity of the testing process. This article explores willingness to receive a free Covid-19 test via a vignette experiment (conjoint design) embedded in a phone survey conducted in Malawi in May 2020. The experiment varied test provider (public clinic versus international health organization), proximity to illness, and reassurance of confidentiality. We find that Malawians expect higher uptake of testing in their community when the international health organization offered the test rather than a public clinic, an effect we attribute to higher trust in the organization and/or perceptions of greater capacity to ensure procedural integrity. The confidentiality reassurance did not substantially alter beliefs about the privacy of results, but did increase doubts about the willingness of community members to get tested in a public health clinic. Our findings suggest the importance of considering the demand side of testing in addition to well-known challenges of supply. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 9. |
- Ferree, K. E., et al.
(författare)
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Symptoms and Stereotypes: Perceptions and Responses to Covid-19 in Malawi and Zambia
- 2023
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Ingår i: Comparative Political Studies. - : SAGE Publications. - 0010-4140 .- 1552-3829. ; 56:12
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A large literature documents Covid-19's health and economic effects. We focus instead on its political impact and its potential to exacerbate identity divisions, in particular. Psychologists argue that contagious disease increases threat perceptions and provokes policing of group boundaries. We explore how insider-outsider status and symptoms of illness shape perceptions of infection, reported willingness to help, and desire to restrict free movement of an ailing neighbor using a phone-based survey experiment administered three times in two neighboring African countries during different stages of the pandemic: Malawi, from May 5 to June 2, 2020 (n = 4,641); Zambia, from July 2 to August 13, 2020 (n = 2,198); and Malawi again, from March 9 to May 1, 2021 (n = 4,356). We study identities that are salient in Malawi and Zambia but have not induced significant prior violence, making our study a relatively hard test of disease threat theories. We find that symptoms more strongly shape perceptions and projected behavior than insider-outsider status in both countries and across time, suggesting that there are limits to the ability of pandemics to independently provoke identity politics de novo.
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