REPLACE: This paper provides the first systematic mapping of causal mass-level policy feedback research. Conceptually, it clarifies what constitutes a feedback effect on citizens, offering a simple framework that distinguishes the types of feedback policies can generate, the actors involved in producing them, and the attitudinal and behavioral targets they influence. Empirically, the paper synthesizes the existing literature through an original quantitative review, documenting which policies are most frequently studied, which political outcomes dominate scholarly attention, and which research designs underpin the field. The analysis reveals important blind spots—most notably, a narrow focus on a small set of policies and countries, and an uneven reliance on specific methodological approaches. The paper concludes by outlining a research agenda for identifying when and how public policies reshape citizens’ orientations toward the state, thereby advancing the study of democratic governance and the political consequences of policy design.

Summary: This study examines how personal networks respond to two contrasting forms of social exposure: disruptive life events and participation in civic organizations. We theorize that acquaintance networks operate as semi-stable systems, buffering short-term shocks but expanding durably through structured, repeated exposure in organizational settings. Using two waves of nationally representative panel data from Chile, we measure the network size with the Network Scale-Up Method. Our difference-in-differences strategy shows that most life events have limited effects, with only marital reconciliation producing modest increases. In contrast, active participation, especially in educational, labor, political, and sports groups, substantially expands networks, and the effects hold across robustness checks. These findings point to a dual role of personal networks: maintaining stability under short-term shocks while enabling expansion through sustained organizational participation.

Summary: The Unexpected Event during Survey Design (UESD) has emerged as a preeminent identification strategy to ascertain causal effects using observational cross-sectional survey data (Muñoz et al. 2020). UESD capitalizes on the sudden occurrence of events, unrelated to the timing of survey fieldwork, to establish a natural experimental setting. Despite its advantages, the inherent characteristics of the data within UESD present significant challenges for establishing causality. In this article, we explore how to adapt the UESD for panel data. This strategy opens new analytical opportunities that can significantly strengthen the credibility of causal effects. In particular, we claim that additional survey waves offer opportunities for more robust substantiation of the identification assumptions; it allows adopting a difference-in-differences approach in scenarios where underlying assumptions may not be may be uncertain or unlikely to hold; and it enables the examination of the durability of causal effects. To demonstrate LUESD's benefits, we delve into the "electoral winners-loser gap" literature in the context of Chile's 2022 constitutional referendum. Utilizing an extensive panel survey, we study the referendum's influence on satisfaction with democracy considering separately the consequences of winning and losing. Given the growing number of panel surveys in the social sciences, we believe this design holds promising opportunities for researchers.

Summary: What are the political consequences of the punitive face of the state? How does incarceration impact the exercise of citizenship? This article examines the behavioral effects of pretrial detention, a common yet underexplored feature of criminal justice systems in Latin America, where 30% to 80% of the incarcerated population has not undergone trial. Chile, with its relatively low crime rates and well-functioning justice system, provides a compelling case to investigate this issue. Using administrative data from multiple government agencies, I focus on the effects of pretrial detention on voter turnout. Employing a judge leniency instrumental variable (IV) design, I isolate the causal impact of pretrial detention and find significant negative effects on voter turnout, consistent across multiple elections. Subgroup analysis reveals minimal variation, suggesting that the effects are broadly homogeneous across different affected populations. The findings highlight the lasting consequences of pretrial detention on democratic participation, shedding light on how punitive measures undermine political engagement and exacerbate the challenges faced by democratic institutions..

Summary: The proper functioning of courts is essential to the Rule of Law. However, in many developing countries, judicial systems are plagued by inefficiencies, arbitrariness, and corruption. To address these problems, comprehensive reforms have been implemented to tackle these challenges. One notable example is the Latin American Criminal Procedural Revolution (LACPR, Langer, 2007), where nearly all countries in the region—except Brazil and Cuba—replaced their inquisitorial Criminal Procedural Codes with new texts inspired by adversarial models of prosecution. Multiple studies have evaluated the effects of these reforms in countries like Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay, focusing on their effects on judicial performance and criminal activity. However, the political implications of these reforms remain underexplored. This article examines the political consequences of the LACPR, specifically its impact on public opinion and political competition. I argue that the key components of these reforms—greater degrees of transparency, shorter time frames, and higher relevance of alternative exits in criminal procedures—alter the incentives for political actors and the elite cues related to the functioning of courts. In the short term, the new system increases public confidence in security institutions. Over time, however, these gains dissipate and eventually reverse as political actors frame the reforms, highlighting the new set of rules as obstacles to fighting crime. To test my argument, I analyze the staggered implementation of these reforms in Chile (2000–2005) and Colombia (2005–2008). I supplement my results with general trends for a larger sample of Latin American countries. This study expands our understanding of the broader political effects of judicial reforms in Latin America and highlights the complex dynamics between institutional change and public opinion.

Summary: Several studies provide evidence of the positive relationship between descriptive and substantive representation. However, there is no consensus regarding the explanatory mechanisms behind this link. A significant portion of previous studies in this field has focused on understanding the behavior of political elites (Lowande, Ritchie, and Lauterbach 2019). In this study, I will focus on voters’ preferences for descriptive and substantive representation in ethnic terms (Martin and Blinder 2021). My goal is to determine how voters weigh both forms of representation. Do voters prefer representatives who share their ethnic identity? Or do they prefer candidates congruent with their policy preferences? Does the preference for co-ethnic candidates have limits? How do they respond to co-ethnic candidates at the antipodes of their ideological preferences? My central hypothesis is that voters more electorally penalize ethnic minority candidates who express support for pro-minority policies. In this article, I study the case of the Chilean constituent process 2020-2022, where initiatives that expand the rights of indigenous peoples, such as Plurinationality, gained notoriety in the public discussion. Through a survey conjoint candidate experiment, applied before and after the 2022 referendum, I empirically evaluate the effect of these two attributes (belonging to an Indigenous People and Support for Plurinationality) on the propensity to vote for a candidate. My results show a penalty for all candidates who support Plurinationality but to a greater extent for indigenous candidates. These results demonstrate the tensions between descriptive and substantive representation and the limitations for expanding the rights of ethnic groups.

Summary: Is people's voting behavior stable over time? If so, why do some people vote, election after election, while others are regular abstainers? Several studies have detected patterns of temporal persistence in voter turnout. However, there is no agreement on the causal mechanism behind this fact. This article empirically explores the hypothesis of voting as a habit using Chilean registry data. This data source has measures of electoral participation of all Chilean citizens during four election cycles held between 2012 and 2017. Contrary to the typical cases studied in this literature, the Chilean institutional setting involves automatic registration of and voluntary vote, which avoids some common inferential risks. In this article, we combine different empirical strategies to explore the effect of voting in one election in the propensity to vote in future elections. In contrast to previous studies, we do not detect substantive habit effects. We argue that this divergence of results is due to differences in voter registration processes and the costs associated with participation. Our results indicate that voting is not a transformative event: the act of voting does not affect future voting behavior. The effect of voting over subsequent voting it is close to zero, in other cases it can approach a relatively large magnitudes that approximates or even surpasses 20 percentage points. Moreover, the effects are relatively large only when the amount of time held between elections is relatively brief, while the causal effect sharply decreases for elections held a few years apart. This implies that in Chile voting seems to adopt a habit-like dynamic but that does not withstand the passing of time.