GitHub - xmarquez/democracyData: Access and manipulate most standard scholarly measures of democracy Access and manipulate most standard scholarly measures of democracy - xmarquez/democracyData

New version of my R package {democracyData} available: github.com/xmarquez/dem...

The New Get-Rich Quick Idea: Play Disco on Repeat People are reporting windfalls in the form of new jobs, big tips and unexpected refunds after playing the disco hit.

This is a recession indicator.

"Why ‘Ring My Bell’ By Anita Ward Is Making People Feel Lucky" www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Does Youth Representation Matter for Social Spending? | The Journal of Politics: Vol 0, No ja

"[Japanese municipalities] that elect younger mayors increase spending on child welfare, especially through long-term investments in infrastructure."
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

We often ask who wins elections. But who decides to run? New @electoralstudies.bsky.social w/@mhayes.bsky.social: Multi-member districts ⬆️ Black candidate emergence—and political empowerment matters. We revisit assumptions about US electoral design and show who enters the pipeline—not just who wins.

Fixing Our Democracies What if everyday people had a real say in the decisions that shape their communities?

www.eventbrite.com/e/fixing-our...

this resonates with my phd work showing that campaigns in Mexico avoided the topic of criminal violence, especially where it was worse

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

"incumbents, knowing how hard problems like public service quality are to solve, proactively “play defense” to keep those issues off the electoral agenda."

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

"exposure to multimember district/PR increased women’s commitment to voting and decreased both men’s and women’s support for particularistic campaign appeals in this context." (context: clientelistic democracies)

doi.org/10.1017/s000...

Candidates and Campaigns

www.newamerica.org/insights/wha...

It seems it makes campaigns more civil when candidates are trying to win lower choice rankings (primaries are the ideal scenario for this!). But if there are strong divisions in society & voters won't rank across parties (and candidates just need to turn out their base) it can create more negativity

"Politics transformed? Electoral competition under ranked choice voting"

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

Tie for coalition parties in Baden-Württemberg 2026, and the varieties of MMP In addition to reviewing the election outcome under the mixed-member proportional (MMP) rules in place–which were reformed prior to this election–this planting will also consider how so…

The recent election in Baden-Württemberg resulted in the CDU winning 14 district seats in excess of its proportional entitlement (overhangs). Here I review the basic ways that MMP can handle such situations.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/t...

i thought these were regression discontinuity plots

Video: How the Oscars Best Picture Winner Is Chosen Best picture is the only Oscar category decided by preferential ballot. Our reporter Marc Tracy explains how that works.

How the Oscars best picture winner is chosen - also works as an explainer of preferential voting.

www.nytimes.com/video/movies...

Consideration of Alternative Electoral Systems for the Los Angeles City Council A global city deserves a global council, one that transcends the practice of pitting racial groups against one another for representation and political power.

What electoral system would be better for LA?

Great overview of some of the options - and really cool comparisons to other city councils.

houstoninstitute.substack.com/p/considerat...

Huh. That's a lot easier than this method.

Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: A Discussion with Lee Drutman | Stanford Law School With the 2026 midterm elections fast approaching, both parties have begun to assemble their talking points and draw their respective political lines i

For Bay Area folks, I'll be at Stanford Law School talking about Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop next week: law.stanford.edu/event/breaki...

Flag map of Latin America.

Let’s Hype that Hypothesis! Elena Barham,Sarah Zukerman Daly, @juliangerez.com,John Marshall, and Oscar Pocasangre hypothesize that #vaccine distribution in #Latin#America strengthens #trust in #foreign#governments. Read how these favorable opinions may impact foreign policy: doi.org/10.1353/wp.2...

*cars!

Finally got to take the new acela and it's... fine! It's sleek and has better connections between cats.

Biggest gripes are that the cafe car doesn't have tables anymore, there are no overhead reading lights, and it's not faster!!

Some of my favorite ones were:

Economics of Aging
Art and Architecture of Mesoamerica
Politics and Violence through Latin American Theater
The Modern Unconscious (though so many of the papers we read in this psyc class haven't replicated)
Economics of Developing Countries (my intro to RCTs class)

Not electoral college directly, but this map on congressional apportionment from the Brennan Center has been circulating this week bsky.app/profile/mcpl...

Gerrymander Game: Interactive Electoral Districts Tool Learn how gerrymandering affects elections. Interactive game comparing single-member vs multi-member districts with real-time seat allocation results.

Proportional representation systems can't be gerrymandered. Don't believe me? Give it a try!

I made a gerrymandering simulator with an imaginary state under either single-member districts or multi-member proportional districts.

How much can YOU gerrymander?
claude.ai/public/artif...

The Dynamic Democracy data is an invaluable resource, and now easily accessible here: dynamicdemocracy.shinyapps.io/ShinyApp/

A useful guide to recreating in ggplot2 the style of the figures from one of my reports #rstats

Temporary U.K. Parliament | Projects | Gensler A proposed restoration of the Palaces of Westminster would require total decantation of the building for an estimated six years. In response, Gensler...

There's a cool proposal to build a floating parliament where MPs can meet during the renovation (but I'm sure security would be a nightmare!)

Temporary U.K. Parliament | Projects | Gensler share.google/CeVO5LNR5YGL...

Understanding the Partisan Divide: How Demographics and Policy Views Shape Party Coalitions Differences between Democratic, Republican, and competitive districts are magnified by winner-take-all elections.

Lots more here - but could definitely use an update and expansion:
www.newamerica.org/political-re...

We also looked at policy views in the districts. Lots of different positions that are left inadequately represented by the parties and that could support a multi-party system.

Dems got most of their votes from ethnically diverse districts; Reps from predominantly white.

Competitive districts varied a lot: a big challenge for parties trying to capture them.

We wrote about this in 2022 - and the divergence seems to have continued since.

We wanted to see what types of districts each party represented in 2020/2022, what competitive districts looked like, and what that means for the coalitions parties need to win in a winner-take-all system.