Information, Accountability, and Cumulative Learning

Throughout the world, voters lack access to information about politicians, government performance, and public services. Efforts to remedy these informational deficits are numerous. Yet do informational campaigns influence voter behavior and increase democratic accountability? Through the first project of the Metaketa Initiative, sponsored by the Evidence in Governance and Politics (EGAP) research network, this book aims to address this substantive question and at the same time introduce a new model for cumulative learning that increases coordination among otherwise independent researcher teams. It presents the overall results (using meta-analysis) from six independently conducted but coordinated field experimental studies, the results from each individual study, and the findings from a related evaluation of whether practitioners utilize this information as expected. It also discusses lessons learned from EGAP's efforts to coordinate field experiments, increase replication of theoretically important studies across contexts, and increase the external validity of field experimental research.

Thad Dunning is Robson Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Guy Grossman is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

Macartan Humphreys is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, New York and a Director of the Research group 'Institutions and Political Inequality' at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung.

Susan D. Hyde is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Craig McIntosh is Professor of Economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California, San Diego.