Civil society groups emphasize the need for high quality public information on the performance of politicians. But, does information really make a difference in institutionally weak environments? Does it lead to the rewarding of good performance at the polls or are voting decisions going to be dominated by ethnic ties and clientelistic relations? The Information and Accountability Metaketa seeks to answer these questions by implementing a series of experimental projects that assess the role of information in promoting political accountability in developing countries.
This Metaketa round was launched in Fall 2013 and will run until Fall 2018. This round awarded seven projects—one each in Benin, Brazil, Burkina Faso, India, and Mexico, and two in Uganda—ranging in funding from $175,000 to $300,000. All of the projects, which have now been completed, used common informational interventions to assess the impact of providing voters with information about politician performance. In addition, each involved at least one complementary intervention. In this round, many projects compared the effects of providing information to individual voters (first arm) with the effects of providing information collectively to groups of voters (second arm). Individual academic papers and policy briefs, as well as a co-authored book and article that present results from the distinct studies in an integrated analysis are forthcoming. For additional information about the Metaketa Initiative, contact Jaclyn Leaver (EGAP Director of Research) at jleaver@berkeley.edu.
Metaketa I Steering Committee: Thad Dunning (chair, UC Berkeley); Guy Grossman (U Penn); Macartan Humphreys (Columbia University); Susan Hyde (UC Berkeley); and Craig McIntosh (UCSD)
Statement of Principles All projects in this Metaketa will abide by the following common set of principles above and beyond minimal requirements:
Protect staff: Do not put research staff in
harm’s way Informed consent: Subjects exposed to treatments will know that information received is part of a research project Local partnership: Teams will partner with local civil society or governmental actors to
ensure appropriateness of information Non-partisan interventions: Information
will be provided by a non-partisan source
and will reveal information about
incumbents regardless of party Approval: Teams will seek approval from relevant electoral commissions, when appropriate
