Still haven't stocked up on your summer reading list? No worries, we have you covered! Get 50% off ALL books with code SPRING26 until July 1. Browse here: press.umich.edu

I'm pleased to announce that Eitan Sapiro-Gheiler and I have created the Comprehensive Courts of Appeals Database, which extends the Songer Database to the universe of published Courts of Appeals cases between 1892 and 2025. coadata.org/data/

New site up: kylesaunders.com/athletics-map. D1 athletic finance for available NCAA Division I programs in FY 2024-25. Four interactive views, free, data downloadable, methodology documented. Find your school.

New in Nature: LLMs give "the party line" in the languages of authoritarian regimes. This works when they control the media, which feeds pretraining data. We show more state control over the media means less critical LLMs. 6 studies spanning 38 languages & 13 models. Details ↓

We found some evidence that SCOTUS legitimacy had bottomed out among democrats after Dobbs but I’d guess it’ll take an even further dip now. If you’re collecting data about specific support, we recommend three items that I’ll post below.

Free free free! I think UGs can probably handle this and if anyone ends up assigning a chapter or two, then I’m happy to zoom in and chat about it. 🫡

a glimmer of glad tidings. my short book with @matthewhitt.bsky.social — Supremely Polarizing — is available FOR FREE. it nicely summarizes and extends our work on how partisanship shapes support for the Supreme Court. thank you for your attention to this matter.

New Cambridge Element, Supremely Polarizing, by Nicholas T. Davis and Matthew P. Hitt, out now! Read for free for the next 2 weeks at https://cup.org/3NT9dfD

Happy to see that my book with @ntd.bsky.social was published today! Downloads are free until 4/17. We explore how and why the institutional legitimacy of SCOTUS sorted by party, present a new measure of Court approval, showing how this attitude and others predict legitimacy. doi.org/10.1017/9781...

amid bad one bright spot: “supremely polarizing” short book w @matthewhitt.bsky.social has been accepted for publication. more data showing sorting of judicial public opinion, a validated short measure of specific support, and a new measure of applied support for rule of law relation to legitimacy.

in case you missed it when I posted the preprint on acceptance, here's the more aesthetically pleasing, actually formatted (and unfortunately timely) article for your reading pleasure! (cc: Fitz, @stecula.bsky.social, @matthewhitt.bsky.social): www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Pairs nicely with: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/.... Open Acess right now, to boot.

New (very timely!) paper with Erin Fitz, @stecula.bsky.social, @matthewhitt.bsky.social & myself, accepted at Behavioural Public Policy entitled "Mindset to Gain? Framing Effects, Need for Chaos, and the Limits of 'Burning It All Down'"--a thread and a link: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Does the loss of local newspapers affect the political divide in America? You bet it does! How? Researchers found that when a local newspaper closed before an election, people switched to national news, meaning less exposure to local races and increased partisan voting. Source: zurl.co/kxxSU

#OpenAccess from the new issue of the Journal of Policy History - “The Future of the US Supreme Court: Ethics, Polarization, and Reform” - cup.org/43ZF3fK - @jboxsteff.bsky.social, Nicholas T. Davis &‪ @matthewhitt.bsky.social

Appreciated the nice writeup about my work with @ntd.bsky.social by CSU's communications team. Thinking a lot about this project today as the Court debates birthright citizenship and the 14th Amendment. libarts.source.colostate.edu/is-the-supre...

This will sound weird but love yourself enough to write your own term papers.

Driscoll, Krehbiel, and I have been polling with @today.yougov.com about Americans' support for defying the judiciary since the start of covid. Overall story has been stasis. But, since July, a 12% increase among Democrats in support for presidents obeying courts and a 17% drop among Republicans.

Partisan sorting, fatalism, and Supreme Court legitimacy by Nicholas T. Davis and Matthew P. Hitt is now available in Early View. @matthewhitt.bsky.social ajps.org/2025/04/28/p...

This is how 60-70% of American adults think about housing markets.

Happy Independent Bookstore Day! Read Maris's piece, then go show your local indie bookstore some love. They're so much more than places to get books--they are places to engage with ideas and others in your community. Staffed by actual humans to help you find the books you didn't know you needed!

its officially alive 😭 online-first: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... background: @matthewhitt.bsky.social and I struck out on an NSF in 2022, but later won a RAPID grant. the project doesnt happen w/o Reggie Sheehan at the NSF. winding journey but working w one of your best mates is a joy.

we have now posted the 2024 Cooperative Election Study common content dataset to the @harvarddataverse.bsky.social! data from 60,000 American adults interviewed before & after the election. thanks to @today.yougov.com & Caroline Soler for getting this data produced & posted doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...

curious to see whether SCOTUS permits Trump's abuse of constitution across lots of issues but rn it looks like trump take legitimacy. @matthewhitt.bsky.social and i are finally...finally forthcoming in AJPS talking at length abt a new era of judicial public opinion. preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Several red state AGs including mine are suing to dismantle 504s in schools. Please, call your reps and AGs to demand they let all children learn in public schools. The end goal is to delete all special education services. All accommodations.

NEW ISSUE - Journal of Law and Courts - Volume 12 - Issue 2 - cup.org/3WylRBE With papers by @zoerobinson.bsky.social, @matthewhitt.bsky.social, @lisanhager.bsky.social‬, @annamccaghren.bsky.social, @mdm.bsky.social & more

@matthewhitt.bsky.social and I argue that this catastrophic loss of specific support - mostly among Ds - is the death knell of SCOTUS’ legitimacy. Final pre-print vers while awaiting replication approval: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Provocative (and interesting and worth your consideration to my eye) new paper, indeed...

in @matthewhitt.bsky.social and my book project "Supremely Polarizing," we argue that support for rule of law is a euphemism for pro-status-quo-authority; such beliefs cease to function as "democratic values" - republicans score high, democrats lower but law is now used to harm rather than defend...

Just published on APSR First View: "Interpersonal Relationships, Bipartisanship, and January 6th" by James M. Curry and Jason Roberts. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Took a crack at the Political Communication starter pack. Sorry for all the great folks I undoubtedly missed go.bsky.app/J1U6jVe

It occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a health politics starter pack. I tried to find as many folks from our APSA Health Politics section as I could (and a couple folks very adjacent), but let me know who I’ve missed.

NEW: I ran 80,000 simulations of the election. My wife left me for a guy who doesn’t do that.

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we log off? ESTRAGON: Yes, let's log off. They do not log off.

The presidential election is days away. What are the consequences of the election for who chooses to appear before SCOTUS? @kirstenwidner.bsky.social and I's new book digs into this question. We are on @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social chatting about it! megaphone.link/NBNK6866203115

Oh hey, my forthcoming Element now has a "Coming Soon" page! Look for it in August. 😀 www.cambridge.org/core/element... Polisky Gendersky

alright as foretold, the update. @matthewhitt.bsky.social and i got *another* wave of our SCD panel study back. ive posted this paper before, but we've added a third study to it, showing how "fatalism" lays at core of loss of legitimacy. thread incoming. osf.io/preprints/ps...

idk if ppl still poast work but, tl;dr: dem cands may not push reform bc dems have low levels of legitimacy, which = weaker rankings of Court as electorally important compared to other issues, which has ironic effect of depressing demand for reform. survey + exp: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New in Scientific Reports with @erinfitz.bsky.social @stecula.bsky.social & @matthewhitt.bsky.social: We use a Prospect Theory-style experiment to test whether numeracy + need for cognition moderate framing effects re: the May 2023 debt ceiling debates in Congress. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Politics in Worlds that Never Were, Part 1" by James Fielder activelearningps.com/2023/09/27/p... #Polisky #SoTLsky

“Keep it Simple, and Plagiarize” (Classroom Games, that is!) by James Fielder activelearningps.com/2023/08/30/k... #Polisky #SoTLsky

First #polyskycooks post over here. This is a favorite dish of mine to cook. Cacio e Pepe. Few ingredients, and so many ways they can go wrong. The “foolproof” version in the middle of this video was the game changer for me for the technique. Highly recommended youtu.be/U4eaNqTbDDA?...