Scholars@Duke
Shelley Liu

Shelley Liu

Assistant Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
shelley.liu@duke.edu
288 Rubenstein Hall, Durham, NC 27705

Selected Publications

Sustaining Exposure to Fact-Checks: Misinformation Discernment, Media Consumption, and Its Political Implications

Journal Article American Political Science Review · January 1, 2025 Exposure to misinformation can affect citizens’ beliefs, political preferences, and compliance with government policies. However, little is known about how to durably reduce susceptibility to misinformation, particularly in the Global South. We evaluate an ... Full text Cite

Coercive Legacies: From Rebel Governance to Authoritarian Control

Journal Article Journal of Politics · October 1, 2024 Ex-rebels govern almost a quarter of sub-Saharan Africa today. How does war affect these countries’ long-run political development, and what explains their rebel regimes’ longevity? The article explores the role of coercion in rebel governance: postwar gov ... Full text Open Access Cite

When does education increase political participation? Evidence from Senegal

Journal Article Political Science Research and Methods · April 1, 2024 We argue that education’s effect on political participation in developing democracies depends on the strength of democratic institutions. Education increases awareness of, and interest in, politics, which help citizens to prevent democratic erosion through ... Full text Open Access Cite

Governing After War: Rebel Victories and Post-war Statebuilding

Book · March 21, 2024 Governing After War explores how wartime processes affects post-war state-building efforts when rebels win a civil war and come into power. Post-war governance is a continuation of war-although violence has ceased, the victor must consolidate its control o ... Cite

From Politicization to Vigilance: The Post-war Legacies of Wartime Victimization

Journal Article Journal of Conflict Resolution · January 1, 2024 Following regime change, how does wartime victimization shape political attitudes and participation in the long run? I argue that it increases post-war political vigilance: greater sensitivity to illiberal politics and poor governance, but with dampened ef ... Full text Open Access Cite

How war-related deprivation affects political participation: Evidence from education loss in Liberia

Journal Article Journal of Peace Research · May 1, 2022 How does civil war affect citizen engagement with democracy? Civilians who live through warfare face numerous disruptions to everyday life that can have permanent effects on political engagement even after peace is achieved. This article analyzes the role ... Full text Open Access Cite

Control, Coercion, and Cooptation

Journal Article World Politics · January 1, 2022 This article examines how rebels govern after winning a civil war. During war, both sides - rebels and their rivals - form ties with civilians to facilitate governance and to establish control. To consolidate power after war, the new rebel government engag ... Full text Open Access Cite

How Weakly Institutionalized Parties Monitor Brokers in Developing Democracies: Evidence from Postconflict Liberia

Journal Article American Journal of Political Science · October 1, 2020 Political parties in sub-Saharan Africa's developing democracies are often considered to lack sufficiently sophisticated machines to monitor and incentivize their political brokers. We challenge this view by arguing that the decentralized pyramidal structu ... Full text Open Access Cite

Countering misinformation via WhatsApp: Preliminary evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe.

Journal Article PloS one · January 2020 We examine how information from trusted social media sources can shape knowledge and behavior when misinformation and mistrust are widespread. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe, we partnered with a trusted civil society organization to ra ... Full text Open Access Cite

Service cynicism: How civic disengagement develops

Journal Article Politics and Society · March 1, 2018 How does civic disengagement develop? This article examines the theory that the dissatisfaction and disengagement citizens develop toward one government agency can extend to an alternative agency. Leveraging police precinct-level data on 311 calls and crim ... Full text Open Access Cite