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What Motivates Political Activists? Evidence From a Field Experiment

Last registered on July 17, 2018

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
What Motivates Political Activists? Evidence From a Field Experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002358
Initial registration date
July 28, 2017

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
July 31, 2017, 8:59 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
July 17, 2018, 1:38 AM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Oxford

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of Konstanz

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2017-07-28
End date
2017-09-23
Secondary IDs
Abstract
See pre-analysis plan.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hensel, Lukas and Anselm Rink. 2018. "What Motivates Political Activists? Evidence From a Field Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. July 17. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2358-2.1
Former Citation
Hensel, Lukas and Anselm Rink. 2018. "What Motivates Political Activists? Evidence From a Field Experiment." AEA RCT Registry. July 17. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2358/history/198129
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2017-07-28
Intervention End Date
2017-09-23

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
self-reported and behavioral canvassing effort.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
See preanalysis plan.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomized by online survey platform.
Randomization Unit
Individual
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
None
Sample size: planned number of observations
roughly 8000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2000
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES INTER-DIVISIONAL RESEARCH ETHICS COMMITTEE
IRB Approval Date
2017-07-25
IRB Approval Number
R52651/RE001
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-analysis plan

MD5: 8a35a7581c514d2c5dc2cfcc04211b0f

SHA1: 51945a7695457beefca9fb10a5142658ce3bbd51

Uploaded At: July 28, 2017

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
August 09, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
November 29, 2017, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
2828 activists
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
2828 activists
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
1411 activists in the own treatment, 1417 in the other party treatment.
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
Yes

Program Files

Program Files
Yes
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
How does a citizen’s decision to participate in political activism depend on the participation of others? We conduct a nationwide natural field experiment in collaboration with a major European party during a recent national election. In a party survey, we randomly provide canvassers with true information about the canvassing intentions of their peers. When learning that more peers participate in canvassing than previously believed, canvassers significantly reduce both their canvassing intentions and behaviour. An additional survey among party supporters underscores the importance of free-riding motives and reveals that there is strong heterogeneity in motives underlying supporters’ behavioural responses.
Democracies
Citation
Hager, A., Hensel, L., Hermle, J., & Roth, C. (2023). Political Activists as Free-Riders: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment. The Economic Journal, 133(653), 2068–2084.
Abstract
Does party competition affect political activism? This paper studies the decision of party supporters to join political campaigns. We present a framework that incorporates supporters’ instrumental and expressive motives and illustrates that party competition can either increase or decrease party activism. To distinguish between these competing pre- dictions, we implemented a field experiment with a European party during a national election. In a seemingly unrelated party survey, we randomly assigned 1,417 party supporters to true information that the canvassing activity of the main competitor party was exceptionally high. Using unobtrusive, real-time data on party supporters’ canvassing behavior, we find that respondents exposed to the high-competition treatment are 30% less likely to go canvassing. To investigate the causal mechanism, we leverage additional survey evidence collected two months after the campaign. Consistent with affective accounts ofpolitical activism, we show that increased competition lowered party supporters’ political self-efficacy, which plausibly led them to remain inactive.
Citation
Hager, A., Hermle, J., Hensel, L., & Roth, C. (2021). Does Party Competition Affect Political Activism? Journal of Politics, 83(4), 1681–1694.

Reports & Other Materials