Aidan Milliff
@aidanmilliff.com
1.6K followers 900 following 140 posts
Political scientist https://www.aidanmilliff.com
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Reposted by Aidan Milliff
dlknowles.bsky.social
Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...
Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children
Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.
southsideweekly.com
aidanmilliff.com
Southside Weekly holding strong as Chicago's best reported local paper (with the Guardian in ironic second place).
nycsouthpaw.bsky.social
This South Side Weekly report on the Chicago building raid is well worth reading. Most striking to me are the indications of collusion between federal authorities and the building owner and management to effect a mass eviction at the blighted property. southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...
aidanmilliff.com
Very short summary of this paper:
Dr Strangelove "it could easily be accomplished with a computer" meme rewritten to say "it could be accomplished with a computer if you are careful."
Reposted by Aidan Milliff
aidanmilliff.com
It's important to remember the 🐺 Wolf Number 🐺

In 2021 @today.yougov.com found that 12% of Americans said they'd beat a wolf in an unarmed fight ⁉️

When you see a survey response split 85/15, remember: 12% of people will say literally anything on a survey.

today.yougov.com/society/arti...
Chart showing what proportion of survey respondents think they could beat various animals in unarmed fight. 72% say they could beat a rat, 23% say they could beat a large dog, 6% say they could beat a grizzly. Original here: https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/35852-lions-and-tigers-and-bears-what-animal-would-win-f
aidanmilliff.com
Modest #APSA2025 proposal:

Move all panels, receptions, meetings, etc. to Stanley Park. Just describe the tree you are meeting under, and count on everyone to find you.
aidanmilliff.com
🤔

(I really don't think India is interested in the opportunity to be a treaty ally with the US if they have to drop historic partners who aren't currently imposing tariffs on their exports to do so)
Reposted by Aidan Milliff
wesleymorgan.bsky.social
So far during the second Trump administration, this puts the US military at:

—1,000+ air strikes in Yemen (in March-April)
—65+ air strikes in Somalia
—5 air strikes and 2 JSOC ground raids in Syria
—1 night of B-2 strikes on 3 sites in Iran
—1 air strike in Iraq
—1 air strike in the Caribbean
wesleymorgan.bsky.social
Rubio’s tweet announcing a US military strike somewhere in the Caribbean…if I’m not mistaken, first combat action by SOUTHCOM since the Clinton administration called off the invasion of Haiti three decades ago.
aidanmilliff.com
Syllabus plug! Here's what I assign on how to give feedback (of which peer reviews are a special type, imo)
• Blattman, Chris. “The Discussant’s Art.”

• Humphreys, Macartan. “How To Critique.”

• Miller, Beth, Jon Pevehouse, Ron Rogowski, Dustin Tingley, and Rick Wilson. 2013. “How To Be a Peer Reviewer: A Guide for Recent and Soon-to-be PhDs.” PS: Political Science & Politics” 46(1).

• Nyhan, Brendan. 2015. “A Checklist Manifesto for Peer Review.” The Political Methodologist 23(1).
Reposted by Aidan Milliff
aidanmilliff.com
Bottom line: Drone campaigns aren't necessarily as "surgical" as advertised. Non-lethal collateral damage should factor into strategic and ethical debates about their use in counterterrorism.

Find out more in (a preprint of) the full paper: aidanmilliff.com/publication/...
aidanmilliff.com
aidanmilliff.com
Drones cause major disruption, even without civilian casualties.

• Nearby mobility jumps 24% on strike days
• 5.3% of exposed people leave their homes
• 1.2% remain displaced for over a month

Drones cause more displacement than similarly-deadly suicide bombings, gun attacks.

🧵: 2/3
Average distance from home location, -7---56 days after a drone strike. Baseline period t=-2. Average daily distance travelled, -7--21 days after a drone strike. Baseline period t=-2.
aidanmilliff.com
🚨 Just accepted at @bjpols.bsky.social!

Paolo Bertolotti, Fotini Christia, Ali Jadbabaie, and I use 12 billion Yemeni cellphone records to study the effects of U.S. drone strikes on civilian mobility and displacement.

We Find:

🧵: 1/3
Screenshot of title page of article. Download pre-print version here: https://aidanmilliff.com/publication/estimating-the-impact-of-drone-strikes/BMCJ_Drones_20Aug25.pdf
aidanmilliff.com
How amazing is ChatGPT! I just tried turning publishers' citation manual PDFs into .bst files.

It's a super efficient way to make all your LaTeX citations show up like this:

The future is amazing.
Screenshot from LaTeX compilation reading:

or "blowback" violence (??????), while others identify short term violence spikes (?) or violence diffusion due to degraded militant command structure (??).
aidanmilliff.com
Congratulations Eric!
aidanmilliff.com
A bit buried in the text here, but: UChicago is apparently pausing/ending graduate training in one of the best South Asian Studies departments in the country.
theonash.bsky.social
This isn’t an impoverished regional school – this is the University of Chicago. Devastating.
Reposted by Aidan Milliff
woldense.bsky.social
📢🗣️...Are you a graduate students about to go on the market? Or perhaps you're just interested in research presentations. If so, check out my free two-day workshop:

The Research Presentation as Storytelling
Flyer for a workshop on giving research presentations. Contains QR code and link to the workshop landing page
aidanmilliff.com
Very excited that FSU is hiring this year. I am not on any of the committees, but I'm happy to talk to anyone about what it's like to work at FSU. Drop me a note, or find me at APSA next month!
seandehrlich.bsky.social
Florida State University’s polisci dept just posted 3 jobs: a junior job in American political behavior and open rank jobs in American public policy and American public law/judicial politics. The Polisci dept here is a great place to work. Come join us!

Happy to answer questions if you have them.
Reposted by Aidan Milliff
seandehrlich.bsky.social
Florida State University’s polisci dept just posted 3 jobs: a junior job in American political behavior and open rank jobs in American public policy and American public law/judicial politics. The Polisci dept here is a great place to work. Come join us!

Happy to answer questions if you have them.
aidanmilliff.com
I agree Chat GPT is "like having a team of PhD-level experts in your pocket" in that I usually spell traveling as travelling (with three Ls)
aidanmilliff.com
What am I missing? It seems like this graphic shows that Mamdani also got ~7pp more of the first-choice vote than Cuomo. Doesn't that mean Mamdani would have won without ranked choice...even assuming that *zero* Lander voters made a strategic adjustment?
nytimes.com
The Democratic primary for mayor of New York City in June was the second major election in which the city used ranked-choice voting. Zohran Mamdani ultimately benefited from the system in defeating Andrew Cuomo, especially after his cross-endorsement with Brad Lander, data shows. nyti.ms/47hfyZr
Text reads: "Ranked-Choice Voting Helped Mamdani Score a Decisive Win" over a chart showing how votes were broken up. Source: New York City Board of Elections.