Political Science

This project investigates what happens when individuals gain legal rights. The work seeks to determine whether these individuals exhibit increased trust of the state and therefore increase their political participation, or, alternatively, find that these individuals disengage from the state. This study seeks to understand whether the formal recognition of a right -- in particular, a formal property right to land -- affects an individual's incentives to engage in politics. The PI conducts a cross-national analysis of three rural land-titling programs.