Understanding Urban Politics in Argentina and Brazil
Alison Post, Professor
Political Science
Applications for Spring 2025 are closed for this project.
What are the main types of concerns that citizens bring to mayors and city councilors in Latin America? What sorts of incentives do public officials have to address these concerns? And how do these dynamics vary between cities of different sizes? In this project, we will investigate local-level politics in Argentina and Brazil, paying special attention to how the texture of citizen-state relation differs with city size.
Role: The URAP apprentice will work closely with Professor Alison Post to examine interactions between city council members, mayors, and citizens using several types of media. The URAP apprentice will systematically evaluate a variety of types of data, including facebook and youtube channels with recordings of city council meetings, and facebook and twitter posts by government officials (and citizen comments on these posts). The URAP apprentice will also assist with the preparation of transcriptions of council meeting recordings using AI-assisted transcription programs. Overall, the project will provide a fun and engaging introduction to automated forms of text analysis, as well as the application of AI to social science research.
Qualifications: The URAP apprentice should have prior experience with conducting research online, and fluency in either Spanish or Portuguese (and ideally both!). Prior political science coursework is highly desirable. The URAP apprentice should also be comfortable with excel. A familiarity with R and/or Python would be helpful, but is not required.
Hours: 6-8 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: It will be possible for meetings to be held over zoom.
Social Sciences Biological & Health Sciences Engineering, Design & Technologies