Articles:
10. Rizzo, Tesalia and Aditya Dasgupta. Forthcoming. "Does the Built Environment Shape Voter Participation? Learning from Polling Place Imagery in Mexico". American Political Science Review.
Abstract: Does the built environment shape political behavior, particularly voter participation in the democratic process? We apply deep learning to imagery of polling places linked to polling place-level voter turnout data in Mexico to show that the built environment can shape spatial inequalities in civic participation. We use a natural experiment in the assignment of voters to polling places to show plausible causality and explainable AI tools to identify what features seem to matter (tree cover/shade, green space, and spacious, official, and aesthetically pleasing buildings).
Access: [preprint]
TLDR: We use computer vision to learn to learn how architecture and urban planning as captured in overhead and street view imagery of polling places enter the "calculus of voting" and shape voter turnout in Mexico.
9. Agnihotri, Anustubh, Aditya Dasgupta and Devesh Kapur. 2025. "Bureaucrat Assignments as Instruments of Political Control: Evidence from Land Administration Officials in India". American Journal of Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.70069
Abstract: This paper investigates the role of personnel policy as an instrument of political control of bureaucracy. We study the spatial assignment of bureaucrats in India, and combine a matching model with an original nationwide survey which estimates the value that officials assign to posts and provides evidence that politicians use assignments as a system of incentives to corrupt land regulation, especially in locations with more corruption potential (volume of rural-to-urban land transactions imputed from satellite imagery).
Access: [preprint][replication data][survey instrument][journal website]
Media: [The Print][Financial Times]
TLDR: A good assignment is worth a large salary premium to bureaucrats, we show with a novel design. Politicians leverage this, strategically placing and threatening to transfer officials, in order to corrupt their regulatory behavior.
8. Dasgupta, Aditya and Elena Ruiz Ramirez. 2024. "Explaining Rural Conservatism: Political Consequences of Technological Change in the Great Plains". American Political Science Review. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055424000200
Abstract: Rural areas are conservative electoral strongholds in the United States and other advanced capitalist economies. But this was not always the case. What explains the historical rise of rural conservatism? This paper leverages a natural experiment -- the post-war introduction of center-pivot irrigation, which enabled farmers to irrigate large fields from aquifers -- to examine how technological change transformed not only agriculture, making it more capital-intensive, but also drove rural political preferences rightwards during the twentieth century.
Access: [open access][journal website][replication data]
Media/Blogs: [Broadstreet][Wikipedia][Reddit][APSA Public Scholarship][Boston Globe][LSE USAPP]
Awards: 2025 Michael Wallerstein Prize, APSA Political Economy section. 2021 Franklin Burdette/Pi Sigma Alpha Prize for Best Paper presented at the APSA annual meeting
TLDR: After the introduction of center-pivot irrigation, counties overlying the Ogallala aquifer became much more conservative in their voting patterns as 'big ag' (agribusiness) thrived and drove political preferences to the right.
7. Dasgupta, Aditya and Daniel Ziblatt. 2022. Capital Meets Democracy: The Impact of Franchise Extension on Sovereign Bond Markets. American Journal of Political Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12585
Abstract: By empowering poor voters, did the emergence of democracy pose a risk to concentrated wealth held in the form of financial capital? We study the reaction of the sovereign bond market to franchise reforms in Europe and the Americas, 1800-1920, leveraging the asynchronous timing of franchise reforms across countries connected to monthly country-level data on the market price/yield of country bonds.
Access: [preprint][[journal website][replication data]
Media/Blogs: [Broadstreet][Twitter][WeChat]
Replications: [Financial History Review]
Awards: Honorable Mention, Best Article Published in AJPS, 2022.
TLDR: After countries extended the right to vote to poor voters, bond yields went up (prices went down), as investors perceived these political changes to pose an expropriation risk to capital.
6. Dasgupta, Aditya and Devesh Kapur. 2020. The Political Economy of Bureaucratic Overload: Evidence from Rural Development Officials in India, American Political Science Review. Vol 114 (4): 1316-1334.
Abstract: Drawing on an original nationwide survey of rural development officials, including time-usage diaries which measure their day-level behavior, this paper studies the political economy and bureaucratic behavior underpinning weak local state capacity. We show the more resources enable officials to specialize in managerial tasks, with positive effects on program implementation, but that officials are generally under-resourced, especially in places without clarity of political responsibility for local service delivery.
Access: [preprint][journal website][replication data][survey instrument]
Media/Blogs: [Hindustan Times][India Today][Twitter]
TLDR: Bureaucrats can't get their work done because they are under-resourced and can't allocate enough time to core functions. Politicians don't fix things because it is not easy to claim electoral credit for state capacity.
5. Dasgupta, Aditya. 2018. Technological Change and Political Turnover: The Democratizing Effects of the Green Revolution in India. American Political Science Review. Vol 112 (4) pp. 918-938.
Abstract: Can technological change, as a form of “creative destruction”, contribute to political turnover? This paper investigates how the spread of high-yielding variety (HYV) crops across Indian districts contributed to India's transition from a single-party to a multi-party political system. Exploiting cross-district variation in suitability together with the timing of the introduction of the new crop technology, I show that the green revolution played a key role in India's democratization.
Access: [preprint][journal website][appendix][replication data]
Media/Blogs: [LiveMint][The Print] [Ideas for India][Broadstreet]
Awards: 2019 Best Article Award, APSA Comparative Democratization Section; 2019 Evan Ringquist Best Article Award, APSA Science, Technology, and Environmental Politics Section
TLDR: India used to be a dominant party system. This system collapsed when as a result of new crop technologies agriculture commercialized and farmers started to demand political representation.
4. Dasgupta, Aditya, Kishore Gawande, and Devesh Kapur. 2017. (When) Do Anti-poverty Programs Reduce Violence? India’s Rural Employment Guarantee and Maoist Conflict. International Organization. Vol. 71 (3): pp.605-32.
Abstract: Drawing on a policy experiment -- the phased roll-out of a large-scale rural employment guarantee program --- we demonstrate that anti-poverty programs can mitigate civil conflict, but also highlight the role of state capacity in shaping these effects, with effects concentrated almost entirely in districts with enough pre-existing state capacity to implement the program properly.
Access: [preprint][journal website][appendix][replication data]
Media/Blogs: [InsTED]
Replications: [AJPS]
TLDR: A rural public works program reduced insurgency-related violence in India, but this effect was only found in districts with adequate state capacity to implement the program properly.
3. Dasgupta, Aditya and Daniel Ziblatt. 2015. How did Britain Democratize? Views from the Sovereign Bond Market. The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 75 (1): pp.1-29.
Abstract: To assess competing theories of democratization, we analyze British sovereign bond market responses to the Great Reform Acts. Bond yields exhibit an inverted-U pattern, rising with the political risk and instability associated with reform and declining with the passage of stabilizing franchise reform. Interestingly, we find a similar pattern in episodes where demands for franchise expansion were met with repression, suggesting that markets liked stability rather than democracy per se.
Access: [preprint][journal website][replication data]
TLDR: Britain is thought to be a case of peaceful/gradual democratization, but we show using financial market data that key reforms were in fact associated with a great deal of volatility and perceived political risk.
Other writing:
2. Dasgupta, Aditya. 2024. "Natural Experiments and Historical Social Science" in Causal Inference and American Political Development, ed. Jeffrey Jenkins, Springer Press.
Abstract:I consider the promise and pitfalls of using natural experiments, in light of lessons learned from historical political economy (HPE), where the ‘credibility revolution’ has made significant inroads
Access:[preprint][publisher website]
TLDR: We can learn a lot from natural experiments, as long as they are studied properly and not faked in the interest of publishing stuff.
1. Dasgupta, Aditya. 2020. "Democracy without Capacity?" in Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 42 (1): pp. 1-3.
Abstract: This essay argues, drawing on the case of India, that democracy without adequate state capacity results in several pathologies, including democratic dysfunction and a temptation toward authoritarian populism.
Access:[preprint][publisher website]
TLDR: Democracies need functional bureaucracies to thrive and survive. This was part of a Fred Riggs public administration round table on bureaucracy and democracy.