Donghyun Danny Choi

Political parties are often seen as guarantors of democratic accountability. Yet their internal decisions over who may run for office can have pernicious consequences for the quality of representation. Severed Connections reframes our understanding of democratic dysfunction by tracing how politics inside parties shapes whether elected officials are attentive to their constituents, well before voters cast a ballot. Drawing on Kenya as a central case, with comparisons across democratic Africa and beyond, the book argues that party leaders use control over candidate selection to balance two competing objectives: winning elections and consolidating power within the party. They resolve this tension strategically, nominating voter-oriented candidates in competitive districts and loyal insiders in party strongholds. These choices leave citizens in strongholds systematically underserved - not because institutions are weak or voters are uninformed, but because the party decided their legislators' priorities long before election day. Severed Connections places the internal life of political parties at the center of how democratic representation succeeds or fails.

What drives anti-immigrant bias—and how it can be mitigatedIn the aftermath of the refugee crisis caused by conflicts in the Middle East and an increase in migration to Europe, European nations have witnessed a surge in discrimination targeted at immigrant minorities. To quell these conflicts, some governments have resorted to the adoption of coercive assimilation policies aimed at erasing differences between natives and immigrants. Are these policies the best method for reducing hostilities? Native Bias challenges the premise of such regulations by making the case for a civic integration model, based on shared social ideas defining the concept and practice of citizenship. Drawing from original surveys, survey experiments, and novel field experiments, Donghyun Danny Choi, Mathias Poertner, and Nicholas Sambanis show that although prejudice against immigrants is often driven by differences in traits such as appearance and religious practice, the suppression of such differences does not constitute the only path to integration. Instead, the authors demonstrate that similarities in ideas and value systems can serve as the foundation for a common identity, based on a shared concept of citizenship, overcoming the perceived social distance between natives and immigrants. Addressing one of the most pressing challenges of our time, Native Bias offers an original framework for understanding anti-immigrant discrimination and the processes through which it can be overcome.

What drives anti-immigrant bias—and how it can be mitigatedIn the aftermath of the refugee crisis caused by conflicts in the Middle East and an increase in migration to Europe, European nations have witnessed a surge in discrimination targeted at immigrant minorities. To quell these conflicts, some governments have resorted to the adoption of coercive assimilation policies aimed at erasing differences between natives and immigrants. Are these policies the best method for reducing hostilities? Native Bias challenges the premise of such regulations by making the case for a civic integration model, based on shared social ideas defining the concept and practice of citizenship. Drawing from original surveys, survey experiments, and novel field experiments, Donghyun Danny Choi, Mathias Poertner, and Nicholas Sambanis show that although prejudice against immigrants is often driven by differences in traits such as appearance and religious practice, the suppression of such differences does not constitute the only path to integration. Instead, the authors demonstrate that similarities in ideas and value systems can serve as the foundation for a common identity, based on a shared concept of citizenship, overcoming the perceived social distance between natives and immigrants. Addressing one of the most pressing challenges of our time, Native Bias offers an original framework for understanding anti-immigrant discrimination and the processes through which it can be overcome.