Browsing by Autor "Michael Weintraub"

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12

Building Trust in State Actors: A Multi-Site Experiment with the Colombian National Police
(2023) Verónica Abril; Ervyn Norza; Santiago M. Perez‐Vincent; Santiago Tobón; Michael Weintraub
Low trust in state actors constrains state capacity, hindering growth and development. This paper studies how state actors can build public trust by improving the quality of their interactions with citizens. We first propose a mechanism linking improved interactions to public trust, defined as the belief that the state actor implements welfare-enhancing policies. Improved interactions lower the expected burden of engaging with the state actor, promoting compliance. This motivates citizens to believe compliance is worthwhile, increasing trust in the state actor. We then empirically assess the relationship between the quality of interactions and public trust in the Colombian National Police. We experimentally evaluate an intervention that retrains officers across five major cities in procedural justice principles such as fairness and respect while intensifying police-citizen interactions. The intervention was purposefully designed to be low-cost in terms of financial and human resources. We find that the intervention improved public trust, willingness-to-pay for police services, and citizens perceptions of fair treatment, suggesting low-cost interventions can help build trust between police and communities. We also find a limited impact on officers trust in citizens and their beliefs about citizens public trust, implying that institutional culture change may require more profound efforts.
Building Trust in the Police: Evidence from a Multi-Site Experiment in Colombia
(RELX Group (Netherlands), 2025) Santiago Tobón; Verónica Abril; Ervyn Norza Céspedes; Santiago M. Perez‐Vincent; Michael Weintraub
Colombia’s peace plebiscite: the case for Yes and the case for No
(2016) Michael Weintraub
Disappearing dissent? Repression and state consolidation in Mexico
(SAGE Publishing, 2018) Javier Osorio; Livia Schubiger; Michael Weintraub
Abstract Does violent repression strengthen the state? In this article we explore the legacies of repression by the Mexican government on subsequent patterns of state consolidation. We investigate how a particular form of state repression, forced disappearances of alleged leftist dissidents during the ‘Dirty War’, had path-dependent consequences for different dimensions of state capacity nearly 50 years later. To do so, we rely on data gathered from suppressed Mexican human rights reports of forced disappearances which, to our knowledge, have not been analyzed by social scientists before. Controlling for a rich set of pre-disappearances covariates we find that forced disappearances are positively correlated with contemporary measures of fiscal, territorial, and bureaucratic capacity. However, historical forced disappearances do not help the state to provide security, to consolidate its monopoly over the use of force, or to provide welfare-related public goods in the long run. Moreover, disappearances are negatively correlated with various measures of trust in the government. Forced disappearances committed by the state appear to have long-term yet heterogeneous effects on state consolidation.
Introducing the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (MAPS) dataset on the Colombian peace process
(SAGE Publishing, 2023) Michael Weintraub; Abbey Steele; Sebastián Pantoja-Barrios; Håvard Mokleiv Nygård; Marianne Dahl; Helga Malmin Binningsbø
Abstract This article introduces the Mapping Attitudes, Perceptions and Support (MAPS) dataset, which provides rich survey data from more than 12,000 respondents in Colombia. Our panel survey – carried out in two separate waves in 2019 and 2021 – is representative at the level of each ‘Program for Development with a Territorial Focus’ (PDET, for its acronym in Spanish), the most war-affected regions and those targeted for peace agreement implementation. We describe the sample and compare support for the peace agreement in MAPS to other recent surveys in Colombia, showing how MAPS reveals regional variation obscured in nationally representative surveys. Regression analyses illustrate how the panel data allow us to explore how and why people’s perceptions of the agreement shift over time. The MAPS data will enable scholars to gain insights into the microfoundations of peacebuilding over time and across space.
Out-Competing Rivals: Armed Group Governance and Civilian Attitudes in Colombia
(Cambridge University Press, 2025) Erica De Bruin; Gabriella Levy; Livia Schubiger; Michael Weintraub
What determines the legitimacy of aspiring rulers? Questions about support of the governed are central to theories of state-building and political order. Millions worldwide live under the influence of competing armed groups, yet we know little about how people in these contexts make comparative assessments of would-be rulers. We theorize how local norms, social networks, and the provision of goods and services influence these comparative judgments. We report results from a conjoint survey experiment in Colombia among nearly 2,400 respondents across 54 municipalities contested by multiple armed groups. Armed groups that take community norms into account and those that involve local leaders in decision-making are judged less negatively. Additionally, providing services and limiting violence both reduce negative evaluations of armed groups. These findings help us understand dimensions of political legitimacy under limited statehood and the effects of governance on civilian attitudes in areas of competition.
Preventing Rebel Resurgence after Civil War: A Field Experiment in Security and Justice Provision in Rural Colombia
(Harvard University, 2022) Robert Blair; Manuel Moscoso; Andrés Vargas Castillo; Michael Weintraub
Replication data for "Preventing Rebel Resurgence after Civil War: A Field Experiment in Security and Justice Provision in Rural Colombia," American Political Science Review
Replication Data for: Little Evidence That Military Policing Reduces Crime Or Improves Human Security
(Harvard University, 2023) Robert Blair; Michael Weintraub
Replication code and data for all results of the project "Little Evidence That Military Policing Reduces Crime Or Improves Human Security”.
Replication Data for: The 2016 Election and America's Standing Abroad: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of a Trump Effect
(Harvard University, 2021) Regina Bateson; Michael Weintraub
This is the replication package for the article, "The 2016 Election and America's Standing Abroad: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of a Trump Effect." Our identification strategy exploits the fact that a major cross-national survey was in the field when the 2016 US presidential election occurred. Comparing respondents surveyed just before and after the election, we find that Donald Trump's surprise victory caused a sharp drop in trust in the US government.
Replication Data for: Why Do Citizens Support Ineffective Military Policing Policies? Evidence from Field and Survey Experiments in Colombia
(Harvard University, 2025) Robert A Blair; Michael Weintraub; Jessica Zarkin
Governments across the Global South increasingly rely on their militaries to conduct domestic policing operations. Despite recent evidence that military policing does not reduce crime, most Latin Americans still endorse it. What explains persistent support for this apparently ineffective practice? We propose two mechanisms — blame misattribution and disconfirmation bias — that could account for these patterns. Results from a survey experiment of 7,858 respondents in Cali, Colombia, support the blame misattribution but not the disconfirmation bias mechanism. We complement the survey experiment with evidence from a real-world, randomized military policing intervention that did not reduce crime. In line with our survey experimental results, civilians living on or near blocks randomly assigned to military patrols in 2019 support the practice less than those living on control blocks even three years later. We discuss the implications of our findings for policing and democratic responsiveness in countries beset by crime.
The 2016 Election and America’s Standing Abroad: Quasi-Experimental Evidence of a Trump Effect
(University of Chicago Press, 2021) Regina Bateson; Michael Weintraub
Global favorability toward the United States declined by more than 10 percentage points from 2016 to 2017. This shift coincided with the end of the Obama administration and the inauguration of Donald Trump—but did Trump’s election cause America’s standing abroad to erode? Leveraging a natural experiment, we show that Trump’s victory had an immediate, negative effect on international public opinion toward the United States. Our identification strategy exploits the fact that a major cross-national survey, the AmericasBarometer, was in the field when the 2016 US presidential election occurred. Using data from four Latin American countries, we compare respondents surveyed just before and after the election. We find that Trump’s unexpected win caused a sharp drop in trust in the US government. While scholars have long observed that domestic political considerations shape leaders’ foreign policy decisions, we show that domestic political events—such as elections—can also affect a country’s international image.
Training for Public and Policy Engagement: Lessons from 20 Years of Bridging the Gap Programming
(RELX Group (Netherlands), 2026) Naazneen H. Barma; Brent Durbin; Danielle Gilbert; James Goldgeier; Bruce W. Jentleson; Jordan Tama; Michael Weintraub