Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · 3d

Thanks for this public good..!

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

Francesca R. Jensenius @fr-jensenius.bsky.social · 3d

Very happy to be able to share the polling-level dataset on Indian Parliamentary Elections 2009, 2014, 2019 that we have been working on for more than a decade. Both the data and the data descriptor are open access: rdcu.be/eujHH

@statsvitenskap.bsky.social @unioslo-svfak.bsky.social

Screen shot of the title and abstract of the article I am talking about

2 8 25

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

Jamila Michener @povertyscholar.bsky.social · 19d

My book w/@profsorelle.bsky.social will be out in January! These ideas have brewed since I interned at Queens Legal Services 20 years ago. The book is for anyone who cares about people, justice, power & democracy. Much more to share more in the coming months!

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Uncivil Democracy

How the civil legal system undermines the political lives of marginalized communities

press.princeton.edu

8 50 160

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · 8d

Came across a cool paper on how false beliefs are sustained in equilibrium. In Murcia, prayers for rain appear to work - because they are timed to occur when rain is increasingly likely. Praying for rain globally is only found where rainfall is predictable with time: www.nber.org/papers/w31411

3 26

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · 23d

This book is relevant to thinking about the present constitutional moment in the US. Constitutional and federal mythology aside, the US has always had some elements of extreme political centralization in the hands of the presidency that go back to a desire to create an electoral monarchy

3

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

Xiaobo Lü | 吕晓波 @xiaobolu.bsky.social · Sep 11

I will be engaging a conversation with @daliyang.bsky.social, @vicshih.bsky.social, @tompepinsky.com and Martin Dimitrov on my new book at the #APSA2025 Author Meets Critics panel on 9/14, 10:00 to 11:30am PDT. Come join us if you are still around.

www.cambridge.org/core/books/d...

Domination and Mobilization

Cambridge Core - Asian Studies - Domination and Mobilization

www.cambridge.org

6 15

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · Sep 9

Incredible parallels in this Berinsky &
@gabelenz.bsky.social paper. Politicians didn't stand up to Joe McCarthy in large part because they incorrectly inferred McCarthy/ism was extremely popular. Not standing up to McCarthy was a kind of 1950s Popularism

gated academic.oup.com/poq/article/...

2 100 330

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Sep 11

Thx for coming!

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Sep 10

Come check out our panel on Bureaucratic Performance in the Developing World at APSA (Thu, September 11, 12:00 to 1:30pm PDT in East Meeting Level, East 12. I'll be presenting some new work on how farmers and officials in India learned to game satellite-based environmental enforcement.....

1 3

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Sep 10

I wasn’t familiar with this terminology but the “missing intercept” problem seems like a good way to think about partial vs general equilibrium effects and why the latter isn’t just about adding up the former: voxdev.org/topic/method...

The ‘missing intercept’ problem with going from micro to macro

Many applied microeconomics papers conclude with a back-of-the-envelope calculation that scales their cross-sectional estimates to the aggregate level. These types of aggregate estimates are only vali...

voxdev.org

2

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

APSA @apsa.bsky.social · Sep 8

The American Viewer: Political Consequences of Entertainment Media

The American Viewer: Political Consequences of Entertainment Media By Eunji Kim, Columbia University and Shawn Patterson Jr., University of Pennsylvania American voters consume an astounding amount of entertainment media, yet its…

The American Viewer: Political Consequences of Entertainment Media

The American Viewer: Political Consequences of Entertainment Media By Eunji Kim, Columbia University and Shawn Patterson Jr., University of Pennsylvania American voters consume an astounding amount of entertainment media, yet its political consequences are often neglected. We argue that this ostensibly apolitical content can create unique opportunities for politicians to build parasocial ties with voters. We study this question in the context of Donald Trump’s unconventional political trajectory and investigate the electoral consequences of The Apprentice.

politicalsciencenow.com

2 3

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

UC Merced Political Science @ucmpolisci.bsky.social · Sep 4

What a way to kick off the @ucmerced.bsky.social academic year! Political Science and CAPE hosted the inaugural Fall Kick-Off for faculty and students last week, featuring a celebration of Professor Christopher Ojeda's new book The Sad Citizen: How Politics is Depressing and Why It Matters.

2 2

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 27

The thing about industrial policy is that it doesn’t seem to work very well unless you have a highly professionalized and relatively politically autonomous bureaucracy (think MITI in Japan vs license raj in India) that implements it. I think that’s the fundamental problem in the US spanning party

3

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 19

The rest

1

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 19

Teaching a new class on technology and politics this fall — which tries to think about contemporary tech governance issues via the historical experience of past technological revolutions (IR, atom bomb, printing press, automobile, etc) Sharing the syllabus in case it is of interest..!

2 5

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 9

I’m starting to think everyone needs a basic primer in what machine learning is, just like they need to know algebra/the basics of calculus. It’s just as accessible and I think important for critical thinking about the tools everyone will increasingly be using, including government

1 8

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 9

I agree with the idea that LLMs are a very useful technology — but there is a fundamental difference with calculators. Calculators are hard coded with human engineered rules. LLMs like neural networks “learn” rules that are opaque even to their designers, so reliability is a fundamental issue.

4

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 8

In a polarized climate, nothing the president does is a bridge too far for co-partisans. Worth reading this article: muse.jhu.edu/article/729166

3

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

John Holbein @johnholbein1.bsky.social · Aug 7

"The Value of Clean Water: Experimental Evidence From Rural India"

static1.squarespace.com/static/558ef...

1 1 3

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · Aug 7

The student newspaper.
This fell. To the student. Newspaper.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · Aug 7

Stanford University’s student-run newspaper sued two senior Trump administration officials Wednesday, challenging Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ability to revoke student visas and deem an individual deportable based on the content of their speech.

Stanford newspaper sues Trump administration over student deportations

The lawsuit challenges Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s ability to revoke student visas and deem an individual deportable based on the content of their speech.

wapo.st

4 2.6K 9.8K

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

undercoverhist.bsky.social @undercoverhist.bsky.social · Aug 6

Peter Temin has himself written on the history of economic history at MIT here: read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article...

4 16

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 5

The dominant framework that political scientists have to think about parties is Downsian competition — parties just fluidly adjust to what the electorate demands. In fact, parties are more like clubs, and insiders are more than happy to sink the whole ship if it means they enjoy rents for a while..

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · Aug 3

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:

$678M raised through those spam tactics

$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.

$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)

The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine

How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

open.substack.com

1 4

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 5

A great review essay from Avinash Dixit on why government should not / cannot be run like a business: www.edegan.com/pdfs/Dixit%2...

3

Reposted by Aditya Dasgupta

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · Aug 3

The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand:

$678M raised through those spam tactics

$282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies.

$11M to actual campaigns (1.6%)

The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.

The Mothership Vortex: An Investigation Into the Firm at the Heart of the Democratic Spam Machine

How a single consulting firm extracted $282 million from a network of spam PACs while delivering just $11 million to actual campaigns.

open.substack.com

400 3.1K 7.9K

Aditya Dasgupta @adasgupta.bsky.social · Aug 1

An incredible embarrassment for an educational institution: www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Columbia Expels, Suspends Student Protesters

The move comes during reports that the institution is nearing a deal with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions in federal funding.

www.insidehighered.com

3 3