[CANCELLED]

NES CSDSI & HSE ICSID Research Seminar on diversity and development joint with HSE Seminar on Political Economy: Georgiy Syunyaev (Columbia University,
HSE), "Manipulation of Public Attribution of Responsibility: Experimental Evidence from Russia". 

Abstract:

This study examines whether and how contents of media reporting impact citizens' perception of public policy outcomes, responsibility for those outcomes and evaluation of the politicians in non-democratic context. I present evidence from a panel survey experiment in which respondents in several treatment groups are asked to watch several
video news reports about (a) Outcomes of the medical and educational policy in the city of Novosibirsk, and/or (b) Information on responsibility allocation for these policies between municipal and regional government. Respondents are then asked to evaluate the outcomes of various economic policies as well as performance of different levels of government. The design of the study allows us to learn whether the popularity of the government in countries without strong democratic traditions and vibrant media is predicated on strategic framing of economic issues by the media. One unique feature of this study is that it focuses on framing of performance, as well as allocation of responsibility between multiple tiers of the government thus allowing in experimental setting to test ability of citizens to correctly attribute responsibility in multi-level government structures -- important but empirically understudied aspect of political accountability in comparative context.

Registration is available till noon of November 27.