The politics of local governments and public policy.

Natália S. Bueno

Principal Investigator · Associate Professor of Political Science, Emory University

Natália studies comparative politics and public policy, with an emphasis on how local governments distribute resources and information and how those choices shape elections, political behavior, and accountability. Her work draws on experiments, original administrative data, and causal-inference methods, primarily in Brazil and Latin America. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University; her research has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, World Politics, and Comparative Political Studies, among others.

She is a recipient of the APSA Urban and Local Politics Section’s Clarence Stone Scholar Award (2024) and the Harold D. Lasswell Award for best dissertation in public policy (2019).

Clara Bicalho

Principal Investigator · Postdoctoral Associate in Political Science, Emory University

Clara's work draws on experimental research designs, original survey data, and in-person interviews to advance scholarship on governance, accountability, electoral participation, and land politics. Her current research studies the relationship between land and politics, specifically the institutional barriers to land access and how land and housing (in)security affect political preferences and participation. Her research has been published in Science Advances, World Development, and Political Analysis. Prior to joining the Lab, Clara was a Tinker Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University's Center for Latin American Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.