Identifying the differing ways in which political actors and groups express themselves is a key task in the study of legislatures, campaigning, and communication. A variety of computational tools exist to help find and describe these patterns, typically summarizing differences with weighted word lists representing either lexical frequencies or semantic fields. I identify two limits to the inferences that can be made based on this method: the ambiguity of the semantic value of words without wider context and an inability to detect differences outside of lexical semantics.

Under what conditions do voters from marginalized ethnic groups support parties that promise to address economic inequality concerns over ethno-national identity? In an inequality-based ethnic vote equilibrium, ethnic-majority parties seeking to build a minimum-winning coalition target ethnic minorities by offering targeted economic incentives and ignoring ethnic identity concerns, which are designed to change the strategic voting calculus of ethnic minorities.

How do changes to the global political economy shape the development strategies available to African countries? This paper tackles this question by examining the drivers and outcomes of Ethiopia’s ambitious experiment with integration in textile and garments global value chains through the construction of “plug-and-play” industrial parks (IPs). The paper makes two main arguments. Firstly, I show how the diversification of Ethiopia’s external relations expanded the government’s policy space, while also offering new sources of technical and financial assistance.

Please email sarah.mortimer@chch.ox.ac.uk for a link.

Join us on Wednesday 4th May at 6pm-7pm when Magdalen President Dinah Rose will be in conversation with Honorary Fellow Lord Hague of Richmond (Magdalen College, 1979). This event will be livestreamed from the Magdalen College Auditorium and includes a Q&A. Both in-person and livestream tickets available for members of the University of Oxford.