Dr. Rubenson’s research interests are in comparative politics, generally. Specifically, he works on questions of political behaviour, political participation, campaigns, political communication and the political economy of development. While he employs a variety of methods - including experimentation, econometric analysis, qualitative methods and survey work - he is focused on using identification driven designs to draw causal inferences about politics. Mostly this involves using field experiments in cooperation with political campaigns, organizations and policy makers.
His current projects include large scale field experiments on the effects of property rights on economic, social and political outcomes; a series of SSHRC funded studies on how citizen preferences shape the behaviour of politicians; a second SSHRC funded project on the effects of perceptions of the racial and ethnic diversity of communities on political participation and attitudes; and a series of papers examining how images of and information about war affects behaviour and attitudes.
