About

Dorothy Kronick is a scholar whose research primarily focuses on political science topics related to electoral fraud, political violence, and institutional reform, with a particular emphasis on Venezuela and Latin America. Her work includes extensive analysis of electoral processes, such as investigations into unfounded claims of electoral fraud and the dynamics of vote counting in Bolivia and Venezuela. Kronick's research also addresses issues of political backsliding, the logic of violence in drug wars, and the political economy of illegal markets. She collaborates frequently with other scholars and contributes to both academic journals and policy discussions. Kronick has published peer-reviewed articles in leading journals such as the Journal of Democracy, Science Advances, the American Political Science Review, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution. Her scholarship extends to peer-reviewed book chapters and policy papers, where she examines political conflict, economic growth, and community policing in Latin America. Beyond academic publications, Kronick writes for broader audiences in outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Caracas Chronicles, discussing Venezuelan politics, violence, and economic issues. Her work is recognized for its empirical rigor and engagement with pressing political and social issues in the Global South.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Law
• Criminology
• Computer Security
• Political economy
• Public relations
• Law and economics
• Psychology
• Business

Selected publications

• On unfounded claims of electoral fraud

  World Development · 2025-10-25

  articleCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• In Memoriam: Francisco Cantú

  Political Science Today · 2024-02-01

  articleOpen access

  An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the 'Save PDF' action button.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How Maduro Stole Venezuela's Vote

  Journal of democracy · 2024-12-19 · 8 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract: On July 28 of last year, an opposition candidate defeated Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro at the polls—and then used the government's own voting technology to prove it. Yet Maduro remains in power. We explain why an elected autocrat would choose transparent, auditable vote-counting technology. Hugo Chávez, Maduro's predecessor, installed this technology when he was popular and needed to defend real electoral returns against false accusations of fraud. Maduro maintained the technology even as he lost popular support, because military loyalty provided insurance: When he actually won an election, transparent vote-counting rendered his victory maximally legitimizing; when he lost, he stayed in office anyway. We argue that Venezuela's vote-counting technology nonetheless holds promise for prodemocracy forces across the globe.

  PublisherDOI

• Preaching to the Choir: A Problem of Participatory Interventions

  The Journal of Politics · 2024-09-17 · 4 citations

  article

  Scholars and policymakers alike have endorsed dialogue as a remedy for the global crisis in police–community relations. But the community members who choose to engage in dialogue with police officers, we find, are those who trust the police to begin with (i.e., those who are hardest to impress and easiest to disappoint). In a large-scale field experiment in Medellín, Colombia, we discover that those who most trusted the police at baseline were twice as likely to attend police–community meetings as those who least trusted the police. We document similar patterns using survey data from 23 countries: people who most trust a given institution (e.g., city government) are the most likely to show up at that institution’s public meetings. This preaching-to-the-choir problem undermined the effect of the intervention in Medellín and, we argue, poses an under-recognized threat to related initiatives across the globe.

  PublisherDOI

• Do Police–Community MeetingsWork? Experimental Evidence from Medellín, Colombia

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2024-12-09

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Correction to: Political Conflict and Economic Growth in Post-independence Venezuela

  2024-01-01

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Political Conflict and Economic Growth in Post-Independence Venezuela

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2023-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The illusory end of stop and frisk in Chicago?

  Science Advances · 2023-09-29 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Critics of stop and frisk have heralded its recent demise in several large U.S. cities. Proponents of stop and frisk respond that when the practice ends, crime increases. Both groups typically assume that the end of stop and frisk reduces the number of police-civilian interactions. We find otherwise in Chicago: The decline in pedestrian stops coincided with an increase in traffic stops. Qualitative evidence suggests that the Chicago Police deliberately switched from pedestrian to traffic stops. Quantitative data are consistent with this hypothesis: As stop and frisk ended, Chicago Police traffic stops diverged (in quantity and composition) from those of another enforcement agency in Chicago, and the new traffic stops affected the same types of Chicagoans who were previously subject to pedestrian stops.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Conflict and Economic Growth in Post-independence Venezuela

  2023-01-01 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Replication data for, "The Illusory End of Stop-and-Frisk in Chicago?"

  Harvard Dataverse · 2023-08-18

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Replication materials for "The Illusory End of Stop-and-Frisk in Chicago?"

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Francisco Rodríguez

  University of Denver

  6 shared

• Javier E. Báez

  5 shared

• J. C. Castillo

  5 shared

• Andrew D. Mason

  4 shared

• Rebecca Hanson

  4 shared

• Tara Slough

  New York University

  4 shared

• Nicolás Idrobo

  4 shared

• David Hausman

  University of California, Berkeley

  3 shared