Peter, noooo!

My four-year-old said he wants to make YouTube videos about cutting open squishy toys when he grows up. Honestly, it seems like a more secure choice than pursuing a career in academia!

None believes in me the way LinkedIn does!

WaPo Editorial: US cut aid to Africa. The continent proved resilient.

The @washingtonpost.com describes the deaths of an estimated 750,000 people to date as "messy"

Someone sent me this.

a man is sitting at a desk in front of a computer with a fire coming out of the screen . ALT: a man is sitting at a desk in front of a computer with a fire coming out of the screen .

Talking to people about their use of AI makes one reflect on how disruptive and soul-crushing technology can be. And that technology is *e-mail*.

The #BigTech is becoming ever more powerful in modern societies & the policy implications of its rise remain underexplored

@rosalingrad.bsky.social, Hongzhou Zhang & @arazth.bsky.social develop an idealized theoretical construct of the #SuperPolicyEntrepreneur 👇

doi.org/10.1093/pols...

“Meritocracy” is hell of a drug

Interestingly, the academics felt that 1.) they are discouraged from engaging with local communities; 2.) the international impact that the universities want is not necessarily more important or easier (!) than one achieved at the local level.

This case study has implications for other research assessment reforms. It shows that universities will override explicit instructions to communicate their value across all the registers (e.g. as international - and thus prestigious - institutions).

New paper out in Research Evaluation! I ask why universities that position themselves as civic institutions still undervalue local impact in the REF. The short answer: because they operate across different valuation regimes, and the "global" one comes with prestige.
academic.oup.com/rev/article/...

Abstract As Al-generated images and texts proliferate, people have developed techniques for identifying them using clues like misshapen hands in images or distinctive words in text. This commentary situates these emerging practices within what Carlo Ginzburg called the “conjectural paradigm”: a mode of knowing that links contemporary Al detection to older traditions of medical symptomatology, art historical connoisseurship, and detective work. Yet unlike the stable or slowly evolving clues of earlier conjectural practices, the signifiers of Al involvement are rapidly shifting. This instability has consequences not only for how texts are read but also for how they are written. Authors now navigate a landscape of suspicion where their words may be misrecognized as machine generated. Rather than resolving into stable literacies, our efforts to recognize Al’s handiwork reveal the deeper uncertainties of authorship and interpretation.

new publication alert: a little commentary I wrote about 🔎 clues 🔎 and the detection of AI-generated material is out in American Ethnologist (paywalled at the moment, but hit me up if you can't access it): doi.org/10.1111/amet...

Economics slop powered up by AI slop. Is it slop squared?

It’s efficiently turning everyone’s job into that of an AI fact checker!

Conducting interviews with the same organisations after 6/7 years really made me realise the scale of the AI disruption. What used to be a cohesive organisational epistemology is now a set of tensions, conflicts or avoidance tactics.

Very niche millennial content, 10/10

Congratulations!

Male loneliness epidemic!

Who gets to be the “loser” in policy stories? Narrative approaches in public policy often feel surprisingly (theoretically) thin on characters, so great to see this new paper by Rachel McGovern, Hilda Broqvist & Crystal Soderman in @psjeditor.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Nothing sparks a love for books in children quite like a full-family meltdown over a costume at 7 AM on a random Thursday.

Most Reform members believe non-white UK citizens born abroad should be forced or encouraged to leave, poll finds Nigel Farage’s recent efforts to woo centre-ground voters may cause tension in party’s right flank, says Hope Not Hate

"One in five (22%) also supported it for non-white citizens whose parents were born in the UK" - this is shocking.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

10/10 title!

(And a really interesting paper as well!)

The Politics and Practice of Truth: Critical and Interpretive Perspectives on the Relationship Between Evidence and Policy in Post-Truth Times General Conference 2026, 8 – 11 September, Jagiellonian University

📣 Call for #ecprgc26 Papers
⚖️ The Politics and Practice of Truth: Critical and Interpretive Perspectives on the Relationship Between Evidence and Policy in Post-Truth Times
🪑 Lars Dorren & @justynabandola.bsky.social
⌛ Deadline: 5 Jan buff.ly/Kr4XaUA

If you are working in this area or are interested in this topic, do get in touch!

The project has a comparative focus exploring: 1.) Settings where practices have been ‘augmented’ by introducing AI tools to enhance some elements of the review process; 2.) Settings where practices are being ‘replaced’ by the automated evidence infrastructure for real-time evidence synthesis.

The project will explore three levels of change brought about by AI: epistemic (how it reshapes knowledge production); organisational (how it changes professional norms and career trajectories); institutional (how it transforms science-policy interactions)

a group of people are dancing in a doorway ALT: a group of people are dancing in a doorway

I am delighted to share that I have been awarded a UKRI AI Metascience Fellowship.

🌐 My project, Transforming Evidence Synthesis: AI and the (R)evolution of the Evidence Ecosystem, will investigate the implications of AI on the practice of evidence synthesis and the broader research ecosystem.

STS to International Relations concept pipeline takes 15 years. I do not have hard evidence, but I just know it's true. I even have a theory why this is happening.

Thanks for contributing! It was fantastic!

Knowledge Politics and Policies European Consortium for Political Research

✨ Due to popular demand, we are organizing our #AI politics panel at the @ecpr.bsky.social General Conference for the 6th year in a row

Topic this year 'Demystifying power in/ of Artificial Intelligence'

Looking forward to seeing many of you at #ecprgc25 ecpr.eu/Events/Event...