Pablo Argote Tironi

Summary Statement of Research Interests

Welcome! I am Pablo Argote, Provost Postdoctoral Scholar in the Political Science Department, at the University of Southern California. My research lies at the intersection of Comparative Politics and Political Economy, with a regional focus on Latin America.

My doctoral dissertation explores how the internet and social media impact political elites. I argue that heavy exposure to social media increases ideological extremeness among politicians via two channels. First, if the internet causes a decline in citizens’ pro-democratic attitudes, politicians could respond to their constituencies by adopting more extreme positions. Second, if social media rewards negative and angry messages, politicians could move to more radical positions in the offline domain, as they might be afraid of bad publicity by upsetting their online followers.

In other projects, I look at how politicians adopt strategies in response to changes in electoral laws, shocks in the electorate and alterations in the informational environment. I also explore the impact of immigration on political attitudes in the global south.

I study these topics using a variety of quantitative methods, including experiments, quasi-experimental designs and text analysis, always prioritizing causal identification. My research has been published in the European Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics in Latin America, Nature Partner Journal Vaccines, among others.

Before my PhD, I worked in the Chilean government, in a political campaign, and completed a Master in Public Administration at NYU.

Research Keywords

Comparative Politics
Quantitative Methods
Political Behavior
Social Media
Latin America

Journal Article

• Argote, P., Marshall, J., Barham, E., Daly, S., Gerez, J., Pocasangre, O. (2021). Messages that increase COVID-19 vaccine acceptance: Evidence from online experiments in six Latin American countries. PLOS ONE. Vol. 16(10 (e0259059), pp. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259059.
• Argote, P., Barham, E., Daly, S. Z., Gerez, J. E., Marshall, J., Pocasangre, O. (2021). The shot, the message, and the messenger: COVID-19 vaccine acceptance in Latin America. Npj Vaccines. Vol. 6 (118), pp. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41541-021-00380-x.
• Argote, P. (2021). Does Voluntary Voting Enhance Partisan Bias? Evidence from Chile. Journal of Latin American Studies. Vol. 1–25 (https), pp. /doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X21000481.
• Argote, P. (2020). Incumbency advantage and shocks in the electorate: The adoption of voluntary voting. European Political Science Review. Vol. 12 (173–197), pp. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773920000041.
• Argote, P., Navia, P. (2018). Do Voters Affect Policies? Within-Coalition Competition in the Chilean Electoral System. Journal of Politics in Latin America. Vol. 10(1 (3–28), pp. https://doi.org/10.1177/1866802X1801000101.