How do local roots influence democratic accountability, and how does this influence differ in communities experiencing demographic change? Existing research shows that long-term residents are more likely than newcomers to engage in local governance, but it remains unclear whether rooted residents receive greater attention from local officials. We argue that local accountability is shaped by residents' roots, which may signal place-based knowledge and durable investment in the community. To evaluate whether municipal legislators differentially respond to long-term residents and newcomers, and whether these patterns vary across demographic contexts, we develop and implement a new audit-style field experiment that preserves experimental control while avoiding researcher impersonation by using real constituents. Constituents vary in their length of residency and their stated position on local housing development, allowing us to assess differences in response rates and content across municipal contexts. The findings speak to broader questions about who has access to local power.
Meet the Grantees
Gustavo Novoa
Research Director
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Princeton
I am currently the Research Director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. In 2024, I received my PhD from the department of Political Science at Columbia University. Within American Politics, I study local Politics, partisan polarization, and racial and economic inequality. My research interests are centered on the politics of inequality, both racial and economic. I am particularly interested in why American institutions fail to remedy, and sometimes even perpetuate, different forms of inequality. I am also interested in how extreme levels of affective polarization are upending some of the conventional wisdom about U.S. elections.
