Poll Workers and the Effects of Supportive Political Participation

This event is hybrid. To register for the virtual session, click here.

Speaker: Noam Lupu, Associate Professor of Political Science, Vanderbilt University; Associate Director of LAPOP Lab
Moderated by: Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez, PhD candidate in the Department of Government, Harvard University; Graduate Student Associate, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies

How does participating in democracy shape the attitudes of citizens? This study looks at how the experience of serving as a poll worker in Peru affected the democratic commitments and evaluations of individuals.

Noam Lupu is Associate Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of LAPOP Lab at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Party Brands in Crisis (Cambridge 2016) and coeditor of Unequal Democracies (with Jonas Pontusson, Cambridge 2024) and Campaigns and Voters in Developing Democracies (with Virginia Oliveros and Luis Schiumerini, Michigan 2019).

Manuel Meléndez-Sánchez is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government. His research examines contemporary challenges to democratic institutions in Latin America, with a focus on Central America and Mexico. His dissertation explores the causes and consequences of efforts by criminal organizations to influence elections. He is a 2022-23 USIP and Minerva Peace and Security Scholar and a graduate of the University of Oxford and Harvard College. Manuel was born and raised in El Salvador.

Presented in collaboration with Weatherhead Institute for International Affairs