Eli Gavin Rau


About Me

I am a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project and a research affiliate at the Chicago Center on Democracy. I study comparative electoral institutions and political behavior, with particular interest in partisanship, voter turnout, and mechanisms for achieving more equal representation in democracies. I employ a multi-method approach to research, combining formal theory with quantitative empirical analysis and extensive fieldwork in Latin America. I completed my PhD at Yale University in 2021. In my dissertation, I studied the causal relationship between partisanship and voter turnout and explored how compulsory voting laws change the ways that parties engage voters.

My current research examines whether compulsory voting can strengthen democracy through its implications for partisan polarization, economic inequality, and popular support for democracy. I also conduct research on mechanisms of direct democracy, in affiliation with the Chicago Center on Democracy. My research has been published in the British Journal of Political Science and Comparative Political Studies. I have also written about political economy and participation for The Monkey Cage at The Washington Post.

Eli Gavin Rau


About Me

I am a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project and a research affiliate at the Chicago Center on Democracy. I study comparative electoral institutions and political behavior, with particular interest in partisanship, voter turnout, and mechanisms for achieving more equal representation in democracies. I employ a multi-method approach to research, combining formal theory with quantitative empirical analysis and extensive fieldwork in Latin America. I completed my PhD at Yale University in 2021. In my dissertation, I studied the causal relationship between partisanship and voter turnout and explored how compulsory voting laws change the ways that parties engage voters.

My current research examines whether compulsory voting can strengthen democracy through its implications for partisan polarization, economic inequality, and popular support for democracy. I also conduct research on mechanisms of direct democracy, in affiliation with the Chicago Center on Democracy. My research has been published in the British Journal of Political Science and Comparative Political Studies. I have also written about political economy and participation for The Monkey Cage at The Washington Post.