Finally done (for now). If you study elections, want to use the Constituency-Levels Election Archive, but don't like bugs, then say hello to `clean_clea`, now on GitHub: github.com/jackobailey/...
🚨 New paper with great co-authors (@oguzhan-alkan.bsky.social @rdassonneville.bsky.social @zeynsom.bsky.social) in Political Behavior!
How well do citizens perceive where parties stand? 🤔
Open access: rdcu.be/fb83Z
The takeaway: LLM agents are not infiltrating the platforms researchers actually use. Outside of one platform already notorious for pre-LLM bot problems, they just aren't there.
The human data quality problem on the other hand is large, systematic, and fixable through platform choice.
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🚨 NEW REPORT! 🚨
What is the state of the UK academic job market in politics, and what does this mean for the field and #highered?
In a new @psaecn.bsky.social report, @lawrencemckay.bsky.social @williamlallen.bsky.social and I find worrying trends in job adverts and HESA data from 2012-25
#PSA26
Is partner partisanship associated with vote choice? @cerifowler.bsky.social finds that it was for the 2016 Brexit Referendum & subsequent elections in the UK & argues that this can help us understand gender gaps in vote choice. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/D8Fdnbw
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #polsky
Oh really? Is that because pandering to the far-right and assuming they will act rationally, reciprocally, & in good faith has always worked in the past, & because there's good evidence that Reform can be trusted? I totally trust this former Tory advisor report published by a right-wing think tank.
📢 New article 🌟
👥 @silkegoubin.bsky.social , @olijacques.bsky.social , @staffankumlin.bsky.social (ISV), & @dweisstanner.bsky.social
👉 Why Some Want Something for Nothing: Three Explanations for Unfunded Spending Demand
📗 Open Access in Scandinavian Political Studies
🔗 doi.org/10.1111/1467...
"Young people who were studying humanities subjects in school, namely history and art, became more likely to support more socially liberal parties. Those studying a technical subject, such as design and technology, became more supportive of more radical right parties."
and if you have a billion images to work with (like me teaching dataviz lol), this by @emilhvitfeldt.bsky.social is super helpful for an initial pass at making alt text for plots
Accessibility score for: evalsp26_01-exam_answers 100% Accessibility score: 100 percent arrow_drop_up Perfect! This PDF has a perfect accessibility score, although further improvements may still be possible. Keep up the good work!
If you use #QuartoPub for any PDF documents for teaching and you need to meet impending PDF accessibility rules, upgrade to v1.9, add format: typst: pdf-standard: ua-1 to the YAML front matter, and it'll work!
Great to speak with @meganekenyon.bsky.social of @newstatesman1913.bsky.social on location about the result in Gorton and Denton, including the role of party blocs!
Clipped my bit below, but you can watch the whole video here (bonus, there is a cat!):
youtu.be/dUh_1XuAg-g?...
@martamiori.bsky.social and I have been writing, since 2024, about why Labour's 'Reform' challenge and emphasis was based on a misunderstanding of Labour's vote. Here for anyone interested: politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-and-eve...
While you're all messing around on Bluesky: I have a new working paper on the Gallagher index, the most common measure of disproportionality.
TL;DR: I show that it is constrained by the size of the party system, which can cause problems comparing elections across time and space.
Just to put this in context for you, this would nearly double the deficits posted by the big unis in deepest trouble if they had to pay in a one-shot. Now no doubt they will try another Heath Robinson financial vehicle to do so if needs must, but some simply won't be able to pay if on this scale.
ICYMI: in the past week, we released the YOUMEM dataset — with survey responses from 5000+ members of 12 youth wings.
It is the largest comparative study of youth wing members to date.
It is also, we believe, the largest comparative party membership survey dataset ever made publicly available.
It must be very hard to publish null results Publication practices in the social sciences act as a filter that favors statistically significant results over null findings. While the problem of selection on significance (SoS) is well-known in theory, it has been difficult to measure its scope empirically, and it has been challenging to determine how selection varies across contexts. In this article, we use large language models to extract granular and validated data on about 100,000 articles published in over 150 political science journals from 2010 to 2024. We show that fewer than 2% of articles that rely on statistical methods report null-only findings in their abstracts, while over 90% of papers highlight significant results. To put these findings in perspective, we develop and calibrate a simple model of publication bias. Across a range of plausible assumptions, we find that statistically significant results are estimated to be one to two orders of magnitude more likely to enter the published record than null results. Leveraging metadata extracted from individual articles, we show that the pattern of strong SoS holds across subfields, journals, methods, and time periods. However, a few factors such as pre-registration and randomized experiments correlate with greater acceptance of null results. We conclude by discussing implications for the field and the potential of our new dataset for investigating other questions about political science.
I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.
The moral panic about young men is the new version of “UKIP is winning over former Labour voters” (also a Goodwin argument). Both rely on anecdote more than data, and do significant damage to public understanding of the radical right. Young men are the second *least* pro-Reform group in the UK.
partycoloR is now on CRAN! Started as a simple idea 6 years ago, now it's a full-featured package. Extract party colors and logos from Wikipedia with one line of code. It's already powering ParlGov Dashboard.
install.packages("partycoloR")
What you do need training on is how to identify AI generated images, video, and text - and how to learn the pitfalls of GenAI tech like their habit of confirming whatever you say to them.
This is not what is being proposed. They won't want people to be AI-sceptics.
"This is how you navigate to a website and type a sentence."
You do not need training to use ChatGPT. This would be the government absolutely flushing money down the toilet (the toilet here is AI "consultancy" firms who will happily quote you enormous sums to deliver this non-task).
I'm looking forward to the Reform Party fighting corruption, putting a few quid in workers' pocket and turning the country around like they did when they were Conservatives
Ever wondered why Germany, in 2001 only the seventh country in the world after the Nordic ones and Netherlands to have more than 30% of MPs female, has since completed stagnated and been overtaken by 50-odd countries?
In this newly published paper, @maarja.bsky.social and I try to explain that.
Congratulations to my amazing @ucddublin.bsky.social @ucdpolitics.bsky.social colleague @stefanmueller.bsky.social on his latest project
www.ucd.ie/newsandopini...
Very interesting new publication by Leonie Rettig and @lukasisermann.com on descriptive attributes as voting heuristics - specifically age and gender:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Screenshot of email that reads: “This status will remain in place until the University receives notification that you are no longer participating in that action. During this period, any work undertaken will be regarded as voluntary.”
Well that’s me locked out. No pay for the foreseeable future, all because I refuse to reschedule lost teaching, for which I have already lost pay as part of the strike. Please donate to support @sheffielducu.bsky.social members like me at www.gofundme.com/f/heubvb-sup...
🫵WE WANT YOU 🎓
Are you interested in political communication, negative campaigning, and social norms? Are you experienced in quantitative methods? Do you have good rain clothes?
Then our postdoc position might be just for you: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...
Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas
Final publication of the year: I examined 10 years of panellists on BBC Question Time. Some interesting findings - thread below:
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journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
