For description of original data I collected for research, please visit the Data page of this website.
POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS AND PARTICIPATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
How are political parties built and organized in the MENA region? Who becomes a politician and why? How do the party elites and novice politicians react to institutional rules, citizens’ requests and social movements around them?
- “Local Political Priorities during Tunisia’s First Democratic Municipal Elections” (with Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark), in Governance and Local Development in the Middle East and North Africa (Kristen Kao and Ellen Lust, eds.), New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming.
- “What Men Want: Politicians’ Strategic Response to Gender Quotas in Tunisia’s 2018 Municipal Elections,” (with Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark) – under review
- “Political Accountability in New Democracies” (with Chantal Berman, Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark) – presented at MPSA 2019 [EGAP pre-analysis plan]
- “How do Party Members Respond to Top-Down Moderation: Evidence from the Islamist Party in Tunisia” (with Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark) – presented at Political Parties in Africa conference
- “Local Political Dynasties in Turkey” (with Tugba Bozcaga and Rabia Kutlu) – in progress
SOCIAL SERVICES IN THE CONTEXT OF ETHNIC AND ORGANIZATIONAL DIVERSITY
How do ordinary people navigate social welfare regimes characterized by diversity of (non-state) provider organizations? Are non-state organizations more likely to discriminate in favor of their co-ethnics? Which type of organizations (religious charities, or secular NGOs) are more likely to provide higher quality services, and why?
- “Navigating welfare regimes in divided societies: Diversity and the quality of service delivery in Lebanon” (with Melani Cammett), Governance, Vol. 35, 2021.
– Online Appendix / Supplementary Information
– Data and Code - “Political context, organizational mission and the quality of social services: Insights from the Health Sector in Lebanon” (with Melani Cammett), World Development, Vol. 98, 2017.
- “Secular vs. Religious Advantage in Providing Quality health care” (with Melani Cammett) – In progress
- “Social Welfare in Developing Countries” (with Melani Cammett), in Oxford Handbook of Historical Institutionalism (Tulia Falleti, Orfeo Fioretos and Adam Sheingate, eds.), New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Which organizations provide equal or superior quality for most vulnerable groups, such as refugees? What is the role of international organizations in handling the complexities of social welfare for refugees?
- “Targeting humanitarian aid using administrative data: model design and validation” (with O. Altindag, S.D. O’Connell, Z. Balcioglu, P. Cadoni, M. Jerneck, A. K. Foong), Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 148, January 2021.
- “The IO Effect: International Actors and Service Delivery in Refugee Crises” (with Melani Cammett), International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 66, 2022.
DEMOCRATIC DECLINE AND BREAKDOWN
How do citizens respond to presidents’ assaults on democratic institutions? What type of motivations makes citizens more likely to support moves toward authoritarianism, and under which conditions?
- “How voters respond to presidential assaults on checks and balances: Evidence from a survey experiment in Turkey” (with Alper Yagci and Daniel Ziblatt), Comparative Political Studies, 2022 (Early View).
INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE
How do the countries in the MENA, the region with the highest centralization in public administration, reform their local governance? What are the outcomes of decentralization or efficiency-enhancing reforms?
- “Electoral and governance outcomes of municipalization of rural governance” (with Esra Bakkalbasioglu, Tugba Bozcaga and Evren Aydogan) [EGAP pre-analysis plan]
OP-EDs & BRIEFS
- “CHP’nin Dönüşümünde ve Seçim Başarısında Parti Örgütlerinin Rolü”
Policy brief published by Turkish Foundation for Social, Economic and Political Studies. Also published as a three-part op-ed series at PolitikYol website (1, 2, 3). - “The Collapse of Tunisia’s Party System and the Rise of Kais Saied” (with Nate Grubman). Analysis piece in MERIP Online. August 2021.
- “Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia is a mosque again. Do Turkish citizens want Erdogan to restore the caliphate?” (with Tarek Masoud). Analysis piece at the Monkey Cage Blog of The Washington Post. July 2020.
- “Who really won Tunisia’s first democratic local elections?” Analysis piece at the Monkey Cage Blog of The Washington Post.
- “One third of municipal councilors in Tunisia are from independent lists. How independent are they?” Democracy International (with Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark), July 2018. [English] [Arabic]
- “Generational divide in Tunisia’s 2018 municipal elections: Are youth candidates different?” Democracy International (with Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark), July 2018. [English] [Arabic]
- “List fillers or future leaders? Female candidates in Tunisia’s 2018 municipal elections.” Democracy International (with Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark), July 2018. [English] [Arabic]
- “Introducing the Tunisian local election candidate survey (LECS): A new approach to studying local governance.” Democracy International (with Alexandra Blackman and Julia Clark), July 2018. [English] [Arabic]
Aytuğ Şaşmaz 