Chris Hanretty
chanret.bsky.social
Chris Hanretty
@chanret.bsky.social

I teach politics at a university in the UK. I'm interested in electoral systems, public opinion, and the politics of non-majoritarian institutions like courts and regulators.

ORCID: 0000-0002-8932-9405

Political science 32%
Law 25%

Principal-agent problems everywhere: the supposedly 24/7 Tesco Express outside Chelsea and Westminster hospital gets 2.2 ⭐ because late night staff park a delivery van outside the front entrance each night maps.app.goo.gl/5ajwtnSK3T6c...
maps.app.goo.gl

This is entirely in line with Alphaville style
The idea of teaching Western civilisation as “Plato to NATO” is taking a battering at both ends in the US nowadays
Does party switching pay off for MPs? Not really, but... For details see our #instaparty paper w @sonagolder.bsky.social, @ibenskasr.bsky.social & @paulinasl.bsky.social just out in @electoralstudies.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1016/j.el...

Reposted by Chris Hanretty

some very good lines about statistical liturgy (as usual), and a reminder that science is everywhere and always a social phenomenon #linklog

Reposted by Chris Hanretty

Temperatures plummeted in Poland today, with the city of Łódź recording -15.8°C at 8 a.m.

Even Hel, on Poland's northern Baltic coast, has frozen over, at -1.5°C.

Could be more pathetic: Hong Kong has cold weather warnings when it gets to 11°C share.google/hPUal8ijVOjG...
Hong Kong issues cold weather warning as temperatures set to dip to 11 degrees
Observatory also says cold weather will last for a few days as it issued its second warning of 2026.
share.google
me, the author of a book about neoliberalism, sobbing: please stop, you can’t just call everything that isn’t fascism neoliberalism

stephen miller, pointing to elections: neoliberalism
Around 2.28 he says tells Tapper: "You are approaching this from the wrong frame, this neoliberal frame that the United States job is to go around the world and demand immediate elections be held everywhere."
Man, I know neoliberalism has been defined in all sorts of ways, but thats truly a new one.
MILLER: The US is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We're a superpower. It's absurd we'd allow a nation in our backyard to become a supplier of resources to our adversaries

TAPPER: Sovereign countries shouldn't be able to do what they want?

M: *yells*

I think you'd have to say more about why the US is sui generis and why that makes this research design invalid. I know the argument for politics (US parties are not unitary actors so it's legislators maximizing goal attainment) but not for public management

Arguments for letting people get on with things: oversight of public projects increases delays and overruns (in the United States) www.jstor.org/stable/48760...
Oversight and Efficiency in Public Projects on JSTOR
Eduard Calvo, Ruomeng Cui, Juan Camilo Serpa, Oversight and Efficiency in Public Projects, Management Science, Vol. 65, No. 12 (December 2019), pp. 5651-5675
www.jstor.org
By way of preparing for teaching and making sense of current events, I spent today trying to synthesise the demand-side literature on democratic backsliding (see figure below). The starting point of most of this literature is simple: Do voters punish politicians who violate democratic norms, or do
So much stupid stuff happens when your institutions are motivated by the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is getting something they don't deserve.
This report in Nature on the costs of competing for & administering scientific grants is shocking: "In other words, European taxpayers will have spent more on the funding process than on the funding itself, and the scientific ecosystem has been drained." www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪
Point of no returns: researchers are crossing a threshold in the fight for funding
With so little money to go round, the costs of competing for grants can exceed what the grants are worth. When that happens, nobody wins.
www.nature.com

This is indeed the joke - and a happy New year to you too!

Makes you think

Reposted by Chris Hanretty

This is lovely. Also the ascent in the infancy is no joke: i thought i had a pretty productive 2025 but that's nothing compared to The Agent growing a fully functioning spinal column in 3 months

Want good news that isn't pablum? It's here 👇
New post!

There was a lot of innovation in medicine and biomedical research this year, and I've tried to summarize the biggest ones in this blogpost.

Medical breakthroughs in 2025. Plus a serious note at the end.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/medical-br...
Medical breakthroughs in 2025
... and a happy new year.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev
Think @sundersays.bsky.social is accurate here.

The UK has not suddenly become much more racist.

However the (re)normalisation of open racism by "respectable" right-wing media and politicians has led to both increased visibility for open racists, & radicalisation of some "soft" racists/xenophobes
Longterm intergenerational shift is a civic widening of inclusion. The short-term shift is hardening views within the minority position
bsky.app/profile/prof...
Today's opinion poll news in context. The longer term trend has been away from ethno-nationalism.

Source:
Butt S, Clery E, Curtice J, editors (2022). British Social Attitudes: The 39th Report. National Centre for Social Research.

I guess you're not receiving any Christmas cards from the Economics department then...

Reposted by Chris Hanretty

Looking at the New Year Honours List, it seems remarkable heavy on people nominated "for services to defence". Are lots of MoD types doing things for Ukraine for which they can't otherwise be publicly celebrated?

OTOH, I watched it to the end, so more fool me!

Alas, just not very good

Gugu Mbatha-Raw wasted, flashback scene made no sense, preposterous conclusion. Scenery was nice though.

Anti-recommendation: do not watch The Woman in Cabin 10 (Netflix).

I guess the FT has a weakness for people who are listened to by finance types

I do hate wheeling out the "if this appeared in an undergraduate essay it would fall" trope, but "we must strengthen the executive by having a sovereign legislature" is quite a take. It's almost like this is an incoherent mash up of slogans from two very different political systems.
Liz Truss, who served 44 days as UK prime minister, goes full Curtis Yarvin.

Interviewing Yarvin on her new podcast, she calls for overhauling UK government to fit his vision.

“I agree with you, having spent 10 years in the system, you need to start from scratch,” Truss tells Yarvin.
Liz Truss, who served 44 days as UK prime minister, goes full Curtis Yarvin.

Interviewing Yarvin on her new podcast, she calls for overhauling UK government to fit his vision.

“I agree with you, having spent 10 years in the system, you need to start from scratch,” Truss tells Yarvin.

Well, I fear it probably got people rage watching
New post!

There was a lot of innovation in medicine and biomedical research this year, and I've tried to summarize the biggest ones in this blogpost.

Medical breakthroughs in 2025. Plus a serious note at the end.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/medical-br...
Medical breakthroughs in 2025
... and a happy new year.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev