I think we can all agree: "There is only one way to do credible research, and it happens to be the way that I myself do research."

Meanwhile scholars will hit the panel data FE regression with the incantation “parallel trends,” that literally means “I assume away non-causal explanations for a correlation,” and think we learned something scientifically special.

“I personally can’t think of a way” is deficient. “We collectively can’t think of a way” is not that. Also note the identifying assumption in, say, IV regression is not doing anything besides this. “We can’t think of a way for the instrument to directly affect the DV” is actually the argument.

This is an interesting paper. I continue to sense that we as a field have concluded, either you have an identification strategy as defined here, or you don’t have a valid causal claim. And that is really not true.

Take: moderating in swing districts in 2026 highly likely to work; moderating partywide in 2026 has some evidence it will work; moderating partywide for the long term as a strategy to rid off Trumpism has way more perils and risks than proponents acknowledge.

Not new! In The Political Beliefs of Americans (1967) Cantril & Free found that Americans were "ideological conservatives" opposed to abstract "big government", but "operational liberals" for lots of specific spending. It doesn't help that they have no clue re distribution of spending.

Last week, the CDU/CSU breached the so-called "firewall" and attempted to pass a restrictive immigration bill with the AfD. How did German voters react? Together with Chris Wratil and Jorge Fernandes, we ran a survey with 2000 German voters to find out! Read thread below for insights ⬇️ 1/n

You wonder how the CDU/CSU playing with the "Brandmauer" to AfD last week has influenced German voters? @mafaldapratas.bsky.social @jmfernandes86.bsky.social & I have you covered. We surveyed sample of 2,000 German voters. 🧵with first results 👇. Spoiler: It did not go down as well as CDU/CSU hoped.

‼️ Hiring‼️ One postdoctoral position in my ERC Consolidator in Madrid. Application deadline: end of February. Job ad & details: tinyurl.com/3dwm96kb Come and join me and my team in sunny Madrid for 5 years of intensive research and lots of publications, traveling, and fun! Please share widely.

sometimes representative democracy means you all choose one guy to chuck over the fence and charge the military

Very proud of my dear husband @jmfernandes86.bsky.social, who just got a big ERC Consolidator Grant (2M€!) to study those we do not see and do not represent in European democracies. Many innovations, but I'm particularly excited about the move beyond the urban-rural cleavage. 🎉

Transplanting this one from the other network, because it's so on point and so recurrent...

Perfection

Let's see how this works...