On Humphreys opacity, Reverse Engineering, and Social Externalities of LLMs. Shout to @drnickcowen.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Are preferences for authoritarian rule individual predispositions—or can they spread socially? Using field + survey experiments in the Norwegian Armed Forces, we show that openness to strongman rule can spread socially. American Journal of Political Science: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Checkmate, neoliberals

35°C is normal, we used to just call that summer! Here's how many summers topped 32°C 70s 4 80s 2 90s 8 2000s 6 2010s all of them 2020s all of them And here's how many summers topped 35°C 70s 1 80s 0 90s 2 2000s 2 2010s 3 2020s 4 (out of 6 so far)

Two subjects we offer in the School of Social & Political Sciences (Uni of Lincoln) are among the very best in the UK in the latest Unifresher rankings: International Politics - 5th Politics - 6th Many thanks to all my hardworking colleagues for making this possible unifresher.co.uk/uni-prep/bes...

The rise of larger vehicles like SUVs and pickup trucks, with their taller hoods and larger blind zones, has contributed to a 75% increase in pedestrian and cyclist deaths since 2009. Until we design better streets and ban these vehicles, people outside these vehicles will keep dying.

I know at this point people like to trot out the list of manifesto pledges 'achieved', but that's just not how things work. No one cares if you've nationalised railways (especially if there's no material gain alongside it) if the big stuff that they actually care about hasn't changed.

Cervical cancer deaths fall to zero in young women given vaccine. 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

America is ☠️ This is bullshit. Everyone should be standing up against this. www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

Thousands gather at a peaceful anti-racism rally in Belfast as the crowd chants, "Refugees are welcome here”🙏

“Boston University researchers have conservatively estimated that (one year after closing #USAID) the shutdown has already killed at least three-quarters of a million people, most of them children” - Atul Gawande @agawande.bsky.social

Over the past week we've run focus groups & polling on Henry Nowak's murder, the police handling and political reaction. Beyond widespread horror and feeling for the family, Britons have different views on if there are more systemic issues at play, but a near universal rejection of violent protest.

This is clear prima facie evidence of different "tiers" or standards of policing across the UK. It means that there has been significantly less risk in Northern Ireland of facing consequences when take part in mob-based violence, targeting police or even arson vs migrant/minority homes businesses

The world has become much more resilient to disaster events over the last century. In the chart here, you can see estimates of average death rates — measured as the number of deaths per 100,000 people — by decade since the early 20th century.

UK tax has gone up significantly over the last 25 years But the tax paid by the average UK worker has not This apparent miracle was achieved by taxing “other people”: higher earners, capital, property, banks, etc The strategy has run out of road A 🧵 on what happens next.

Colleagues in the School of Social & Political Sciences @ University of Lincoln lead cutting-edge, interdisciplinary, policy-relevant research while actively engaging local communities. Dr Sue Bond-Taylor and @drnickcowen.bsky.social joined Lincoln’s Pint of Science festival. A proud Head of School!

Lincoln friends: Still time to book tickets for two talks tonight by my colleagues. @drnickcowen.bsky.social on How to End Drunk Driving & Dr Sue Bond-Taylor on Carefree Children, Careless Youth: Why young people in the UK need a radical politics of care. pintofscience.co.uk/event/how-we...

"Why doesn't the US have national health insurance?" Fascinating new paper from Alsan and Neberai out in QJE @qjeharvard.bsky.social finds: rise of private health insurance in the US was enabled by 'strategic, interest group-financed effort to shape citizen views and influence policy' #EconSky

Lincoln friends: you are invited to hear my Social & Political Sciences Uni of Lincoln colleague @drnickcowen.bsky.social discuss How to End Drunk Driving (& Other Crimes) on 19 May. This is part of Lincoln’s fabulous Pint of Science festival - details below pintofscience.co.uk/events/linco...

Looking forward to talking about how to end drunk driving (and other 'normal' crimes) next week at Pint of Science alongside my colleague Dr Sarah Sauve from psychology: pintofscience.co.uk/event/crime-... join us at Dough Loco on Tuesday 19th May at 7PM!

@drnickcowen.bsky.social for our future novel externalities work. Actually for all my policy salient work. From the ufo files [ht: @hetanshah.bsky.social]

Against the Generality Principle and Pro Politics; Or why I am a Machiavellian and not a Classical Liberal Shout outs to @mattzwolinski.bsky.social @drnickcowen.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Who should we fear more, tyrannical majorities or rent-seeking insiders? Aris tells Alex Aragona neither - more fundamental than these players are patrons and their clients. Without clientelism, political mobilisation is impossible. Politicians are not merely competing for votes.

The median voter

good essay from @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com that i think gets at what i mean when i say that the competition with china is a) real and b) not a military competition, not fundamentally it is a competition of systems, as during cold war 1 www.liberalcurrents.com/the-next-dem...

🚨NEW BLOGPOST 🚨 The Hormuz crisis has a real chance of causing energy shortages in the UK. The government is insisting it's business as usual, and opposition parties are arguing for fiscal measures that will stoke shortages. Neither is serious. open.substack.com/pub/joxleywr...

What share of income goes to the richest 1% in your country? How about the richest 10% or 0.1%? How has that changed over time? The World Inequality Database (WID) is the leading source for answering questions about incomes and wealth at the very top of the distribution.

“In the meantime, the coming months will likely see expanded American hybrid economic warfare, with little sense of where it might be headed”. V good piece on US economic warfare. www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

Video appears to show the moment ambulances belonging to a Jewish Ambulance Service in Golders Green were set alight in a suspected arson attack. It is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime. Police are appealing for information - nobody has yet been arrested.

In 1966, abortion was suddenly restricted for most women in Romania. In the decades that followed, maternal mortality increased, and by the 1980s, more than 80% of maternal deaths happened as a result of abortion complications.

My book (and many others!) are available at a stunning 50% discount from now until March 27th! A truly 'just' price. Use code ISAC26 at the checkout. www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/neo...

This week, it was a great honour to host Dr Mike Harris, former director of Rampton Hospital, to discuss the ethics, practice and governance of compulsory detention on mental health grounds for our applied criminology module: law enforcement and human rights.

Someone went to the trouble of creating 5 fake OSF accounts today, linking to 5 fake ORCID accounts, and generating 5 fake papers to submit to SocArXiv, with fake author and emails. Dude, if you are reading this, I hope you get the help you need (or a better job).

One of the things that surprised me when I was involved In university administration is that while faculty were almost exclusively focused on teaching students were often concerned about things outside the classroom: places to study, meet friends, eat, play sports. Having a university experience.

I talk a lot about how Article I of the Constitution (Congress) is not in effect, but Articles III and VI as well as their explicit powers from Marbury v Madison (Judiciary) are also not in effect.

For those who are now Claude-Code-curious: this is the best single set of slides and one hour talk you can check out to start using agentic AI in your research: outstanding-panther-851.convex.cloud/api/storage/...

The number of ‌legal abortions in Poland doubled in 2024, while complaints to Polish authorities over conscience clause refusals in the country have apparently ceased. The government had told hospitals they are obliged to provide abortion on the legal grounds of a woman's ​mental health.

Liberals take concentration of power seriously, and liberalism offers solutions to the dangers of concentrated power. @mattzwolinski.bsky.social talks about how in a new essay at @liberalism.org. www.liberalism.org/p/the-enemy-is…

Do it www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Lincolnshire-born John Bowers KC, principal at Brasenose College, Oxford, will give the 2026 Brian Winston Memorial lecture at the University of Lincoln 6PM Friday 8th May - all welcome with registration!👇

Under a regime that banned them from school, work & public life — a small but fearless group of Afghan women walked into the streets of Kabul today. No protection. No guarantees. Just courage. 🤍 This is what IWD looks like under the world’s only gender apartheid regime. Share this. 🌍​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Hi there and hello! Welcome to the US Politics Thread for w/e 6th March 2026, or, The Of Course We Can’t Explain Why We’ve Gone to War Or How Long It Might Last Edition… (1/64)

How Hyman Rickover built the first American nuclear plant

a thing historians will marvel about when they study this era is the extent to which the "war is a thing that happens to poorer, browner people" class went about systematically dismantling every aspect of the global political order that confined the costs of war to poorer and browner people

crookedtimber.org/2026/03/02/i... With shout outs to @ryanmuldoon.bsky.social @kathleencreel.bsky.social @drnickcowen.bsky.social @neillevy.bsky.social

UN warns use of force in global disputes being 'normalized' www.courthousenews.com/un-warns-use...

Roko’s basilica

The Nazis stopped Jewish doctors from practising, so thousands of them left the country (my great grandfather was one of them). So many left that this was a good natural experiment for estimating the causal effect of losing doctors on infant mortality (& thousands died)

NEW: A hobbyist has created Nearby Glasses, an app that warns you if someone close by is wearing smart glasses. 404 Media spoke to the creator who said he was inspired by our coverage that uncovers how men are wearing Meta's Ray-Bans to covertly film massage parlor workers.