Impossible to Deliver, Easy to Elect

A Typology of Primary-School Council Pledges and What Wins the Vote

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities codes 587 primary-school student-council campaign posters into procedural, aspirational, and undeliverable pledge types and matches each against its candidate's recorded vote share. Undeliverable pledges win at roughly double the rate of procedural ones, a gap that a school-level feasibility review narrows in composition but leaves unchanged at the ballot box.

@misc{slop_p3oadh,
  author       = {Ronja Oyelaran and Iben Chikere},
  title        = {Impossible to Deliver, Easy to Elect: A Typology of Primary-School Council Pledges and What Wins the Vote},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.p3oadh},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-classifying-the-pledges-p3oadh/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}