Semra Sevi

Congrats, Alex!! I’m so happy for you!

🪃Do legislators trade proposals?

➡️Leveraging a lottery in the Canadian Parliament, @semrasevi.bsky.social & D.P. Green find little evidence MPs second motions to gain favor. Support seems driven by shared interests, not quid pro quo www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView

Why is reciprocity so weak in 🇨🇦?

Strong party discipline limits side deals even in the more flexible world of PMBs.

Our study, using a rare real-world lottery, shows:

Legislative support often reflects shared values, not traded favours.

Not all politics is transactional.

So why second at all?

✅ Shared party
✅ Common values
✅ Constituency interests

In other words: homophily, not horse-trading.

Sometimes, MPs just support what they believe in, not because they expect payback.

Weak evidence for strategic seconding.

MPs with better lottery spots are slightly more likely to second others, and there's almost no evidence that favours are returned in future parliaments.

We tested two things:

🔁 Do MPs second each other within the same parliament?
🔄 Do they return favors across different parliaments?

The results?

After a PMB is introduced, MPs can formally second it to show support.

If reciprocity exists, we’d expect MPs with good lottery spots to second others hoping to get support back when it’s their turn.

In Canada, MPs are randomly assigned a spot in a lottery that determines who can introduce a private member’s bill (PMB).

This lets us test:

· Who supports whom

· Whether support gets repaid

· If it’s loyalty, strategy or something else

🚨NEW PAPER: Do legislators trade favours?

My latest with Donald Green uses a natural lottery in the Canadian Parliament to test whether MPs return favours when others support their proposals.

Our findings may surprise you.👇

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Thanks, Rohan!

What changed?

When party labels appeared on ballots, voters relied more on partisan cues than indiv. candidate familiarity. Result? The personal edge of incumbents disappeared. Party > Person.

Link: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@uoft.bsky.social

FINDING #2: Party matters more than person

Incumbency advantage:
Liberals pre-1972: +16 pts
Conservatives pre-1972: +8 pts (not significant)
Post-1972: Both parties? Advantage vanishes.

Using data from 1867 to 2021, and a RDD, I estimate the causal impact of incumbency on electoral success.

FINDING #1: The incumbency advantage shrank dramatically.

✅ Before 1972: Incumbents had a 15-point edge.
❌ After 1972: Just 2 points, and no longer significant.

Before 1972, Canadian ballots showed only:
• Candidate names
• Occupations

No party labels. No shortcuts for voters.

Then came a 1970 law: Starting in 1972, ballots began listing party affiliations alongside candidate names.

🚨NEW PAPER: Do incumbents really have an edge in elections?

Research says yes. But what happens when party labels are added to the ballot?

A natural experiment from Canadian elections tells an interesting story👇🧵

Sevi and her students worked behind the scenes in the busy newsroom

From classroom to control room: #UofT students join Global News on election night 🗳️ uoft.me/bzJ

Professor Semra Sevi and her students standing behind a global news desk.

#UofTArtSci students joined @globalnews.ca on election night, working behind the scenes in the newsroom to help call live results — an unforgettable hands-on experience.

Read more: bit.ly/3YpJPQL

Thank you!!

Semra Sevi

Just days after Canadians elected Liberal leader Mark Carney as Prime Minister, the mix of victories, upsets and expected outcomes reflects deeper trends that #UofTArtSci elections expert Semra Sevi has spent years analyzing.

Read more: bit.ly/4lVQ7ld

Can AI reduce prejudice? 🇺🇸 In our new preprint, GPT-4o moved the needle on trans rights in a national U.S. study using morally tailored messages. The shift was real and short-lived. For more, read 👇 Comments and feedback are welcome.

Prejudice is common in modern societies.

Reducing prejudice is difficult to do, particularly in a cost-effective & scalable manner.

Can AI help reduce prejudice?

My new working paper w @semrasevi.bsky.social, @mbosley.bsky.social & Crabtree examines this question!

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Growing threats faced by women candidates undermine our democracy This scholar has found that 86 per cent of replies to tweets sent to women MPs contained some form of harassment. This is a clear threat to women’s participation in politics.

Why aren't we talking about harassment in #elxn45?

In my new op-ed, I reflect on the harassment women continue to face in #cdnpoli, and the threat it poses to democracy:
theconversation.com/growing-thre...

@theconversationca.bsky.social #gendersky #polisky

We’re very excited to have you!!

Congrats!!

🚨 NEW PAPER 🚨 with Charles Crabtree & André Blais "Do Voters Punish Women Politicians More?"

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🚨Are feminine traits a liability in elections? My latest with André Blais at Acta Politica is now online!

Thanks, Emmett!

Ever wonder whether snap elections backfire? In my latest with Marco M. Aviña & @rdassonneville.bsky.social we study this question in the Canadian context. Now out at the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Here’s ours. Paper was recently accepted at PSRM.

osf.io/g5n23