Welcome to my webpage!

My name is Elsa Voytas.

I am an assistant professor of Quantitative Social Science at Dartmouth College. My research examines how experiencing, remembering, and confronting past violence influences contemporary political decisions. I apply a range of methodological techniques, including field and survey experiments, causal inference, focus groups, and interviews, to ask how societies can advance social justice and build peace. As an instructor, I teach courses on quantitative methods and peace, justice, and conflict resolution.

You can find my CV here.

Research

Publications

Balcells, Laia, Valeria Palanza, and Elsa Voytas.* 2022. "Do transitional justice museums persuade visitors? Evidence from a field experiment." The Journal of Politics.

Balcells, Laia and Elsa Voytas.* 2023. "What difference do museums make?" In The Oxford Handbook of Transitional Justice (in press), edited by Jens Meierhenrich, Alexander Laban Hinton and Lawrence Douglas.

Voytas, Elsa and Benjamin Crisman. "State Violence and Participation in Transitional Justice: Evidence from Colombia." The Journal of Peace Research.

Under Review

"Shades of justice: victim responses to apology and punishment (with Sarah Z. Daly)."

"More than money: the political consequences of reparations."

"Communitarian appeals increase opposition to violent extremism: Experimental evidence from Bangladesh (with Jason Lyall and Brendan Nyhan)."

Working Papers

"Trust a few: a meta-analysis of violence exposure and trust (with Danielle Gilbert)."

* denotes equal authorship (listed alphabetically).

Teaching

Instructor of Record

  • Peace and Conflict Resolution. IE University. Spring 2023.
  • Research Methods in International Relations. IE University. Fall 2022.
  • Quantitative Approaches to Peace and Justice. Dartmouth College. Fall 2021.
  • Introduction to Comparative Politics. Rider University. Fall 2020.

    • Teaching Assistant

  • Human Rights. Princeton University. Spring 2020. Instructor: Gary Bass.
  • Introduction to Comparative Politics. Princeton University. Fall 2018. Instructor: Alisha Holland.
  • Introduction to Quantitative Social Science. Princeton University. Fall 2017. Instructors: Marc Ratkovic and Matt Salganik.

CV

Click here to view my CV.