Project Mentor
Dr. Matthew Singer
Department: Political Science
Research Project Overview:
There is a large literature showing how the public evaluates presidents/prime ministers. We know relatively little, however, about how the public evaluates subnational authorities. In many countries, large city mayors receive more press coverage than any other political figure other than the president and are frequently candidates for national executive office. Yet we don’t know if support for these leaders is affected by outcomes that occur on their watch (e.g. economic fluctuations inside their city, crime rates, or scandals). This question becomes especially important in light of the recent COVID pandemic where local officials were on the front-line of crafting policy and doing messaging but we don’t know if their popularity was affected by these actions.
To answer these questions, I would like to collect available survey data measuring the approval of large-city mayors, particularly in Latin America. The initial focus will be (as time allows-I am allocating 10 hours per mayor but there is a learning curve at the beginning) on the mayors of Mexico City (Mexico), Lima (Peru), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Bogota (Colombia), Santiago (Chile), Montevideo (Uruguay), and Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (Brazil). These cities were chosen because there are polling firms focused on these specific cities. Once data is compiled by the student, the faculty member will look at how it associates with economic outcomes, scandals, levels of crime (if comparable data are available), and COVID outcomes (e.g. cases and deaths).
Role of a SHARE Summer Apprentice:
While I have identified most of the major survey firms in these countries, the student will be responsible for looking through press archives and firms’ websites and press releases for data about how popular mayors are over time. For each poll that we find they will then record the nature of the sample and its size, the poll’s date, the percentage who gave the mayor a positive and negative score, and details about the question wording. Students will have to be creative in looking for pollsters that may have entered/left the market and in identifying historical polls given that there are not central archives of these polls like there are in the United States.
Through the project itself, students will learn data management/documentation and about polling techniques. I will show the student how we combine polls from different pollsters to generate a comparable measure of leader popularity over time and teach them some of the literature on how the public holds leaders accountable. Then they can have access to the data generated by the project in their own future classwork/thesis work.
Summer Schedule/Time Commitment:
The work schedule is flexible and can be done at the student’s schedule, with the number of hours worked changing by week as needed.
Preferred Qualifications:
Apprentices must be able to read in Spanish, be comfortable working with Google Sheets/Excel and have access to the internet and a personal computer/Chromebook.
Interest in political science is preferred.
To Apply:
Applications are closed for this apprenticeship.
Click here to view an outline of the application questions. In addition to the question on the outline, applicants for this position will be asked the following questions:
- What is your experience reading in Spanish? (500 word maximum)
- What is your experience working with spreadsheets? (500 word maximum)