Winter 2024 Academic Year Part-Time Research Fellowship Opportunity: "Dataset on exams for civil servants (DECS)"
The Stanford King Center on Global Development’s Academic Year Part-Time Research Fellowship Program connects King Center faculty affiliates and affiliated researchers with undergraduate students committed to providing research support 8-10 hours per week during winter, and spring quarters.
Students have the opportunity to engage in world-class research that has real-world impact. Undergraduate student research fellows are paid $19/hour, for 8-10 hours per week of research per quarter.
*Students must submit an I-9 form to verify employment and receive payment.
Students must be enrolled full-time to participate and must be able to commit to research 8-10 hours per week. Students who cannot accept pay may be allowed to receive academic credit for this research.
Research Project Description:
Critical outcomes like economic development (Besley et al., 2022; Dincecco & Katz, 2016), human rights protection (Englehart, 2009), and public service provision (Aneja and Xu, 2024; Oliveira et al., 2024) are largely determined by a government’s administrative capabilities. A key method for governments to enhance their administration is to implement civil service examinations for the recruitment of public officials (Dahlström 2012; Egerberg et al. 2017; Evans and Rauch, 2000). Exams guarantee that hires are based on talent instead of other non-meritocratic criteria, such as loyalty to individuals or a political party. However, most countries in the Global South struggle to introduce exams for civil servants. Why do some countries in the Global South successfully implement civil servant exams while others fail? This project presents a collaborative initiative— a time-series cross-sectional dataset of 164 countries on exams for civil servants (DECS)—to collect and harmonize large-scale comparable data on civil service reform. Existing measures of civil servant exams are limited to expert surveys. Two distinct features of our dataset—the objective nature of our measure of meritocratic recruitment and the coverage between 1789 and 2020 make it particularly useful for quantitative research on civil service reform. The dataset is the product of a collaboration between three scholars studying civil service reform in the Global South: Barry Driscoll (Grinnell College), Julia Coyoli (Harvard University), and myself, Julieta Casas (Stanford, CDDRL).
The dataset focuses on three key aspects of exams: (i) when they were first introduced, (ii) the mode of implementation (ii.a.) legislative bill, (ii.b.) decree, (ii.c) constitution amendment, and (iii) the long-term survival of civil servant exams. This last aspect looks at posterior legal provisions to determine whether they (iii.a.) extend, (iii.b.) reduce, or (iii.c.) eliminate civil service exams. Gathering systematic data on these crucial aspects of civil servant exams is the first step toward assessing the causes of successful civil service reforms. This knowledge can help policymakers design more effective reforms and improve public sector performance.
Research Mentor: Julieta Casas, DoR - Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)
Stanford undergraduate students in good academic standing and enrolled full-time are eligible to apply. Co-term students must have undergraduate student status - if they are in GR billing status (after 12 quarters) they will be ineligible.
All majors are welcome!
The Research Fellow will gather and code data on civil service examinations only for the low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and North Africa. The fellow will code three core variables in these countries: (i) the year of civil servant exam introduction, (ii) the mode of implementation of civil servant exams, and (iii) the long-term survival of civil servant exams. For the first variable, the RF will code the year in which a law/rule/order was introduced requiring that civil servants pass exams to enter the civil service. For the second one, the RF will gather information on whether this regulation is in the form of a legislative law, executive decree, or modification to the constitution. For the third one, the RF will gather data on whether subsequent laws strengthen, weaken, or re-focus civil service exams. The unit of observation is the country-year. Each country is identified by the same ID used in the V-Dem Dataset (Coppedge et al 2024). Countries retain the same country ID irrespective of their sovereign status, i.e., both as colonies and independent status. The V-Dem sovereignty measure indicates the polity’s sovereign status (V2svdomaut). Following V-Dem, the dataset begins in 1789.
The research fellow would be involved in the following tasks:
The RF will be asked to begin their research with the website of the civil service offices of each country. Afterwards, they consult the following journals:
● Review of Public Personnel Administration
● International Review of Administrative Sciences
● International Journal of Public Administration
● Public Administration Link
● Public Administration and Development Link
The main databases to be used are:
● United Nations, Publications of the United Nations Administration.
● International Labour Organizations’s NATLEX database of Labour Legislation."
Students qualifications:
Preference for French or Arabic Speaker.
Time Commitment:
The time commitment is 8-10 hours per week (equivalent to a 3-unit course) during winter quarter. Continuation in spring quarter is possible with the agreement of both the research mentor and the student.
These hours may be an average and be flexible across the 10-week quarter to accommodate your academic obligations, such as midterms or finals week.
To Apply:
Along with the application, applicants are asked to submit:
- a cover letter
- resume or CV
- unofficial Stanford transcript (first quarter frosh do not need to submit transcripts for autumn quarter applications)
Research Mentor Questions for Applicants:
- Please list your familiarity with programming languages and statistical software.
- Please list if you are proficient in French
