Uma M. Ilavarasan

Working Papers

1. “Policy by Contract.” (Job market paper)
2. “The Microfoundations of Power-Sharing: Citizen Support for and Opposition to Political Sectarianism in Lebanon” with Melani Cammett, Aytuğ Şaşmaz, and Sami Atallah. (Under review)
   Abstract

   Draft available upon request.

   Political inaction is the norm in most countries, even when expressing opposition to deeply unpopular policies or politicians entails relatively little risks. Under what conditions do citizens openly endorse movements for change and when do they support calls for reform? We explore these questions through an experiment in Lebanon inviting respondents to sign a petition opposing the incumbent ethnic power-sharing regime. Focusing on Lebanese youth, we test whether cueing distinct benefits or harms of the system increases the likelihood of signing a petition against the system. At baseline, about half the sample signs but, when primed on negative aspects of the system, respondents are more likely to endorse calls for reform. Paradoxically, however, cueing purported security benefits of power-sharing increases the likelihood of opposing the system. Exploratory analyses indicate that two factors – preexisting dissatisfaction with the system and fear of elite retribution – may explain these findings.

Book Chapters

1. “‘In Every Contract We Must Have Some Sort of Standard to Purchase By’: Setting Technical Policy by Contract at NIST” forthcoming in The Contracting State, Alisha Holland and Gautam Nair (eds.).

Work in Progress

1. “Victims of their Own Success: Why the Most Effective Harm Reduction Policies are Uniquely Vulnerable to Retrenchment” with Aidan Connaughton and Julius Wilson.
   Abstract

   Preliminary draft available upon request.

   The literature on policy feedback devotes significant attention to policies that confer desirable resources on constituents (benefit disbursement policies), while paying relatively little attention to policies that prevent or mitigate undesirable events (harm reduction policies). First, we identify factors that shape whether policymakers turn to benefit disbursement or harm reduction approaches in addressing particular problems. We then present a theory for why successful harm reduction policies become increasingly vulnerable to challenge and reversal over time, particularly in contexts of low institutional trust. Using the case of vaccines, we provide public opinion evidence consistent with our theoretical expectations: respondents with low trust in government and low trust in expertise are more likely to have increased their skepticism of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccines and school vaccination mandates over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, we propose two additional studies: (1) a survey-experiment to test how raising problem salience (measles) affects policy preferences and information-seeking behavior; and (2) a historical analysis comparing vaccine politics in high- and low-trust periods of the 20th century. Collectively, our work broadens the scope of policy feedback research by highlighting the unique vulnerabilities of harm reduction policies, and the importance of both problem salience and institutional trust to their long-term political viability.

2. “Show Me the Money! Discretionary Grant Receipt as a Measure of Local Bureaucratic Capacity” with Aidan Connaughton.
   Abstract

   Bureaucratic capacity is a core concept in political science, given the strength of its relationship with state performance. Yet, the problem of measuring the bureaucratic capacity of local governments – which provide the vast majority of public services – remains unsolved. Most measures of capacity are tailored to the national level and translate poorly in lower levels of government; those specific to the local level are frequently coarse or challenging to collect on an ongoing basis. We propose a new measure of local bureaucratic capacity that addresses these issues: federal discretionary grant receipt. While previous theories of discretionary grant disbursement and receipt treat them as the outcomes of partisan, pork-barrel politics and as instruments of coalition management, we argue that discretionary grant receipt reflects underlying variation in local bureaucratic capacity. Success requires local bureaucrats to (1) be informed about the existence of discretionary grants and (2) be able to craft relatively high-quality grant applications, which often include complex federal requirements. In this paper, we describe variation in federal discretionary grant receipt across municipal and county governments, differentiating our measure from existing ones (which often directly reflect local demographics). Next, we use discretionary grant receipt to predict a number of outcomes associated with local bureaucratic capacity. Finally, we propose an audit study to validate our measure.

3. “Eight Hours for Public Work: Government Contracts and the Emergence of Labor Regulations in the United States.”
4. “The Physics of State-Building: Professional Science as a Catalyst for Bureaucratic Development in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany.”