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Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 18h

NEW - 'The Power of the Crowd: How the Public Can Both Spoil and Improve Social Media as a Source of Information'

This Cambridge Element by F. Stöckel, S. Stöckli, B.A. Lyons, H. Kroker & @jasonreifler.bsky.social is free to read for 2 weeks.

cup.org/4344Tyl

#cambridgeelements #politics #Polisky

Cover titled "The Power of the Crowd" by Sabrina Stöckli, Benjamin A. Lyons, and Hannah Krekler, published by Cambridge Elements in Political Science. The cover features a vibrant, multicolored geometric background.

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Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 1d

A Brief History of Men are Becoming Less Manly

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Public Opinion Analytics Lab (POAL) @poalab.bsky.social · 1d

A major step forward for large-scale survey research from our own Thomas Robinson & @patricksturg.bsky.social: SOCbot is a powerful AI tool for open-ended survey items—fast, cheap, reduces burden, and tackles longstanding measurement error in social science & labour stats
Paper: tinyurl.com/2yxcbshs

OSF

tinyurl.com

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Miguel Pereira @miguelpereira.bsky.social · 1d

Updated version of "The Effects of Participating in Government-Led Citizens’ Assemblies“ with @mcduarte.bsky.social and @jmfernandes86.bsky.social

Full draft: osf.io/preprints/so...

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British Journal of Political Science @bjpols.bsky.social · 2d

#OpenAccess -

Believing What Politicians Communicate: Ideological Presentation of Self and Voters’ Perceptions of Politician Ideology - https://cup.org/4gTSToM

- @hjghassell.bsky.social, @michaelheseltine.bsky.social & @reuning.bsky.social ‬

#FirstView

BJPolS abstract which discusses the relationship between politicians' communication and voter perceptions through social media content analysis between 2012 and 2022.

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Marina Duque @mduque.bsky.social · 5d

📢 Call for Papers!
We’re inviting submissions for the @politicalnetworks.bsky.social Online Colloquium (2025–26) (w/ @mtp.bsky.social)

🔹 Monthly, 1-hr sessions
🔹 Read-ahead format (no presentations)
🔹 Open to scholars in poli sci & related fields
🔹 Deadline: 17 Oct 2025

Learn more & submit here 👇

PolNet-PaCSS - Political Networks Online Colloquium

The Political Networks Online Colloquium aims to bring together a community of scholars to provide feedback on ongoing research about political networks. Each month we will meet for one hour to discus...

sites.google.com

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 4d

That is what happens when sick people who get off on abusing others can act without impunity

The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 5d

Federal officer blasts chemical spray into vocal but nonviolent Portland protester, video shows

The interaction illustrates how federal law enforcement officers do use aggressive tactics against protesters who yell and needle officers but don’t appear to present clear physical threats.

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Zeynep Somer-Topcu @zeynsom.bsky.social · 8d

Still confused about EPSA vs. EPSS? Which conference should you go to? Here is a link to clarify things: epssnet.org/uncategorize... TL;DR: "EPSA" community will be in Belfast. Same community, new organisation, bigger mission; slightly new name; and a very different foundation @epssnet.bsky.social

a man with glasses says look can 't you see it 's obvious netflix

ALT: a man with glasses says look can 't you see it 's obvious netflix

media.tenor.com

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 6d

Perhaps we agree after all, in that case! :)

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 6d

Fair enough, I don't deny that this is perfectly compatible! It just doesn't seem like the optimal way to go about this to me, but that's just because I'm distrustful of any researcher that is convinced that they know the truth about something. I prefer a healthy mix of skepticism and curiosity!

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 6d

But wouldn't it be better if the passion for research came from a desire to understand the world, instead of proving to others that one is right?

Maybe it's just me, but Geddes' idea sounds like a recipe for researcher bias. If priors are that strong, would you ever accept contradictory evidence?

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Jeyhun Alizade @jeyalizade.bsky.social · 8d

Glad to see this out at @ajpseditor.bsky.social! I show that the immigration-crime issue, when salient, can shift leftist cosmopolitans to the Right. This is due to leftist voters being more conservative on crime than leftist parties.

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

American Journal of Political Science | MPSA Journal | Wiley Online Library

Concern that immigration worsens crime problems is prevalent across Western publics. How does it shape electoral politics? Prior research asserted a growing left–right divide in immigration attitudes...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Sven Hegewald @svenhegewald.bsky.social · 8d

Just out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social 🚨
Together with @dschraff.bsky.social, I ask: Is the urban–rural divide in Europe affectively polarised?
👉 journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
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Is the Urban-Rural Divide Affectively Polarised? Comparative Evidence from Nine European Countries - Sven Hegewald, Dominik Schraff, 2025

Recent studies in the United States and Europe have documented a growing divergence in voting behaviour and political attitudes between cities and the countrysi...

journals.sagepub.com

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 8d

Not only is their brain sample in no way representative, but the entire correlational analysis effectively rests on a sample size of 17!

The Spirit Level came out 16 years ago - I thought we were past these kind of "findings" by now?!

Study links greater inequality to structural changes in children’s brains

Researchers say findings show inequality creates toxic environment and reducing it is ‘a public health imperative’

www.theguardian.com

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Anne Rasmussen @annerasmussen.bsky.social · 10d

🚨 New paper in @thejop.bsky.social

Why do politicians often misperceive what citizens' policy positions are?

@simonotjes.bsky.social and I study ~10,000 estimates of public opinion by politicians in Denmark & the Netherlands to uncover the sources of these (mis)perceptions

Thread 🧵1/10

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 14d

I'm sorry, but how is this different from what we did after 9/11?

The people tortured at black sites, held indefinitely w/o trial at Gitmo, or killed by drones were also targeted w/o public evidence by top officials.

OK, it's more brazen and the "enemy" is expanded, but it's still all subjective

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 14d

"The United States, created in opposition to monarchy, should never become a country where the president can order the indefinite imprisonment or the unilateral killing of people merely because he has deemed them to be criminals."

Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 14d

NYT editorial board: "With these attacks, Mr. Trump has ordered the summary execution of people who are not at war with the United States in any traditional sense of the term and who may not even have been committing the crime of which he accused them." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/o...

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Derek Holliday @derekholliday.com · 15d

New in PNAS with @seanjwestwood.bsky.social and @ylelkes.bsky.social: Why depolarization is hard: Evaluating attempts to decrease partisan animosity in America

@prl.bsky.social @pnas.org

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Matt DiGiuseppe @mdigiuseppe.bsky.social · 16d

🚨🚨🚨 Survey Researchers! WE HAVE A HUGE PROBLEM!🚨🚨🚨

I have access to the Comet browser by Perplexity.

I asked it to pretend to be a human, take the survey, and give me feedback. IT DID!

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Kai Arzheimer @kai-arzheimer.com · 18d

'Violence has never been a distortion in American politics. It has been one of its recurring features, not an aberration but a persistent force, destructive and yet oddly creative'

Yes, this is who we are: America’s 250-year history of political violence

The US has long fused politics and violence, often through firearms. To claim that such shootings betray ‘who we are’ is to forget that the US was founded on this form of political violence.

theconversation.com

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 21d

Seems like we should start demanding that people pre-register any projects based on LLM samples of "respondents", like with any other data (observational or experimental)

Jamie Cummins @jamiecummins.bsky.social · 21d

Can large language models stand in for human participants?
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.

One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.

THREAD 🧵

The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention

Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research. How...

arxiv.org

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Vincent Arel-Bundock @vincentab.bsky.social · 21d

Whoa—my book is up for pre-order!

𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭 & 𝐌𝐋 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 #Rstats 𝐚𝐧𝐝 #PyData

The book presents an ultra-simple and powerful workflow to make sense of ± any model you fit

The web version will stay free forever and my proceeds go to charity.

tinyurl.com/4fk56fc8

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Peter Luca Versteegen @versteegenluca.bsky.social · 21d

🚨New pre-print🚨

"Do citizens’ views of democracy and its actors vary with how they feel?”, @lilymasonphd.bsky.social and I ask in a new paper.
Why would they? While citizens widely endorse democracy in principle, temporary factors often shape their views. Also, work on “irrelevant events"

1/8🧵

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 21d

Cool! In that case, you have me convinced (which is rare!).

I would suggest mentioning that in the main paper, since it seems like maybe the most direct test of the theory.

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 22d

Obviously, there's an easy(ish) fix. If you can show that the results hold even when excluding all urban centres - meaning you only include rural/small town municipalities - then I would be much more convinced of your claims!

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Vittorio Merola @vittoriomerola.bsky.social · 22d

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed like you only dropped departure/arrival municipalities, not cities. Greater Paris has like 2,000 municipalities, so where do you draw the line?

My concern is about the theory only making sense for less urban areas, but the data relying a lot on urban areas/suburbs.

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