This paper evaluates the dynamics of small group persuasion within a large scale randomized deliberative experiment, in particular whether persuasion in this context is driven by the ideological composition of small groups, to which participants were randomly assigned. In these discussions...

This book contains a compilation of contributions to a workshop in November 2007, "Generating Genuine Demand with Social Accountability Mechanisms," held in Paris, France, as well as specially commissioned articles and case studies from experts from development practice and academia.This...

A growing body of research shows the influence of political elites on the public's policy preferences. Yet we know little about the dynamics of elite influence or the cognitive mechanisms through which elite signals are interpreted in "real time"-that is, as public deliberation over a policy...

Recently, health policy experts have sounded the warning about the severe health and economic consequences of America's growing obesity epidemic. Despite this fact, obesity has not yet entered America's political consciousness and we have little information about what average Americans think of...

This paper extends the well-studied phenomenon of interviewer effects (race-, gender-, and ethnicity-of-interviewer) to the yet unexamined domain of language-of-interview. Using data from the 1989-1990 Latino National Politics Survey, the paper finds that the answers that survey respondents give...

How does policy information flow through Washington `issue networks'? And how does information flow determine which lobbyists get access in policy-making? Drawing upon the `strength of weak ties' argument, the authors argue that policy information passes more through acquaintances (`weak ties')...

State programmatic expertise is an important asset to federal systems, but this expertise is not always informative to federal decision-makers. I argue the degree to which state expertise is informative to federal decision-makers depends on how well the policy interests of state and federal...

This paper explores the dynamics of transparency. It asks why some government-created systems of disclosure improve over time while others stagnate or degenerate into costly paperwork exercises. Transparency policies inevitably begin as unlikely compromises. Though transparency is universally...

In the early 1990s, the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) allocated $400 million in public funds for Minneapolis neighborhood groups to spend on improvement projects over the coming 20 years. NRP created the most financially empowered structure of neighborhood governance in any American...