+ Christiana Parreira, Daniel L. Tavana, and Charles Harb (2023). "Ethnic Political Socialization and University Elections." Party Politics. [DOI][PDF]
Foundational studies of political behavior find that university education facilitates the development of political attitudes and shapes socialization outcomes. But in unconsolidated democracies where identity is politically salient and ethnic political parties dominate, education may play a different role in shaping mass politics. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding the consequences of political party intervention in annual university elections, a common feature of university life in the Middle East and the Global South. We draw on pre- and post-election surveys at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon to argue that ethnic political parties rely on partisan students to act as “party agents” who mobilize unaffiliated students through intensive peer-to-peer contact. Using a conjoint experiment embedded in both survey waves, we show that the university elections increase support in hypothetical national elections for in-group political elites and, to a lesser extent, ethnic political parties. By locating the university as an understudied site of competitive and contentious politics, our findings contribute new insights regarding the role of education in shaping political attitudes. We show that the persistence of ethnic political power can be attributed in part to party activity in less obviously political arenas that have not been systematically studied.
+ Rory Truex & Daniel L. Tavana (2019). "Implicit Attitudes Towards an Authoritarian Regime." The Journal of Politics 81(3): 1014-1027. [DOI][PDF]
This study measures Egyptian citizens’ attitudes towards President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi using a Single Category Implicit Association Test (SCIAT). Roughly 58% of respondents hold positive implicit attitudes towards Sisi, which suggests a deeper reservoir of popular support than is conventionally assumed. The data also allows for an investigation of attitude dissociation, whereby individuals hold distinct implicit and explicit attitudes towards a target object. Government employees and Copts are more likely to hold positive explicit attitudes towards Sisi but negative or neutral implicit attitudes. Students appear to systematically engage in inverse dissociation- they voice criticism towards Sisi despite holding more positive implicit attitudes. These findings are interpretable using the Associative-Propositional Evaluation model. The paper closes with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the implicit approach relative to other sensitive question techniques.
+ Daniel L. Tavana (2011). "Party Proliferation and Electoral Transition in Post-Mubarak Egypt." The Journal of North African Politics 16(4): 555-571. [DOI][PDF]
In the aftermath of the popular revolt that overthrew President Mubarak in February 2011, Egypt's transition to democracy has been a cautious one. Despite the restrained pace of reform, one of the defining features of post-Mubarak politics has been a surge in the number of new political parties contesting seats in Parliament. This paper argues that the nature of Egypt's new mixed-member majoritarian electoral system encourages loose alliances dominated by three political factions: liberals, leftists, and religious parties. It focuses on Egypt's new electoral framework, emerging political realities, and those parties likely to shape the political landscape in the future.