2013–14 Grants

Professors, UC San Diego Department of Political Science

Title: "A Survey Experiment of the Democratic Peace in India and Pakistan"

Summary:

This project is designed to conduct survey experiments in India and Pakistan on the nature of the democratic peace across different cultures, regions and regimes. The survey has been designed to test for the effect of regime type (democracy/not democracy) and dispute type (territorial, resource, alliance or security) on citizen’s willingness to use force to resolve international disputes.

The scholars seek to increase our knowledge on the democratic peace and of the causes of peace generally by identifying and distinguishing among possible causal mechanisms of the democratic peace through survey experiments. This project is the first step in what could become a large-multi country study. This survey will allow Professors Desposato and Gartzke to generate preliminary results and show proof of concept before seeking extramural support for a larger study.

Josh Graff Zivin, Professor, UC San Diego GPS
Prashant Bharadwaj, Professor, UC San Diego Department of Economics
Jamie Mullins, PhD Candidate, UC San Diego Department of Economics

Title: "Long Term Effects of Early Childhood Pollution Exposure – Evidence from the London Smog Incident of 1952"

Summary:

A deeper understanding of how exposure to environmental pollutants in utero and in early childhood impact human health in the long run is of critical importance given the ever-increasing levels of pollution in the developing world.

The scholars propose to use the “London Smog” incident as a source of variation to examine the long-term impacts of exposure to very high levels of air pollution. The “Great Smog of ’52,” as it is also called, was a 5-day period in December of 1952 when the City of London was subjected to severe levels of air pollution due to unusual meteorological conditions and the city’s heavy reliance on coal at the time.

Given the continued episodes of extreme air pollution in Beijing and other major cities, it has never been more important to increase our understanding of both the immediate and lifetime costs of early exposure to air pollution. Through the study of long-term effects of air pollution exposure, this project will add a valuable dimension to our understanding that has thus far been lacking due to data limitations.

PhD Candidate, UC San Diego Department of Political Science

Title: "Public Policy and Ethnic Fractionalization in Singapore and Malaysia"

Summary:

This is the second part to the research project funded last year. Ostwald seeks to complete data collection for his dissertation on how political mobilization and public policy shape ethnic identity. He situated this research in Singapore and Malaysia, as key features of those countries allow him to isolate the effect of key political phenomena and public policy programs.

A significant portion of the data collection, based on the prior survey administered in Singapore and Malaysia, has already been carried out with grant support from NSF and the UC Pacific Rim Research Program.