Does anyone have recommendations for good texts for undergrads or masters students that compare/contrast the basic institutional setup of state and local governments? (e.g., council/manager systems in local governments)

Good thread. My story is similar. No digging, no this: doi.org/10.1093/oso/...

Might start a T-shirt business

I was basically too multidisciplinary for the first decade of my career, but it paid dividends in the increasingly broad books I’ve written. You can’t understand much about the questions in your field if you don’t also know a fair bit about a couple other fields. A challenge for training grads.

TIL that lawyers are being disbarred for this. It’s called a “case-cite hallucination.”

Check out these zoomers

Survey experiments have become a popular methodology among social scientists. Has it been effective? In POQ, Rauf et al. study the efficacy of 100 survey experiments. Their results show that a majority of hypotheses were not supported. Read now: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

My forthcoming book— For which I began research in 2006. Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press. Cover will be added soon. The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery

The instability of best practice with this research approach makes me skittish about using it to publish casual claims.

De NRC interviewde Arend Lijphart de belangrijkste Nederlandse politicoloog www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

At a time of year when the business email is nonstop, there are two things to keep in mind… www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ5c... www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8Pn... Eyes on the prize!

From October 2025 - Educational Networks, Social Closure, and Cleavage Stabilization - cup.org/47ifc4B "we show that educational divides are diminished in the presence of countervailing networks" - @davidattewell6.bsky.social & @dpzollinger.bsky.social #OpenAccess

Some closing thoughts for my students this semester on LLMs and learning #rstats datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-12...

Kevin Kosar contributes an introduction as AEI republishes Edward Banfield's seminal The Unheavenly City: The Nature and the Future of Our Urban Crisis (1970, revised 1974).

Middle age is eating lots of lentils and thinking about the meaning of justice.

Any thoughts on this? I’m trying to get students out of the habit of writing essays by dedicating one paragraph each to a predetermined set of course readings. What I’m asking them for used to go by “originality” in a typical rubric.

A word of wisdom from @cdsamii.bsky.social re credibility revolution and survey experiments: your conjoint or list experiment is not a policy intervention with real causal effects -- it's a measurement tool. A lot of smart folks are still confused about it for some reason! cyrussamii.com?p=4168

I had students in an asynchronous CDI course listen to this broadcast after reading up on how electoral systems change. The discussion question was: do you believe the reasons that the speaker is giving?

NYC's mayoral election results were just certified Final results: 50.8% Mamdani 41.3% Cuomo 7.0% Sliwa   Mamdani margin over Cuomo: 9.46 percentage points Total votes: 2,194,204 (excluding 24,443 unrecorded) Source: vote.nyc/page/electio... (Note: image below doesn't include write-in candidates)

Once an academic has decided they don’t like THIS party system, no amount of theory or evidence will persuade them that parties writ large are integral to the democratic process.

How do you teach the difference between list-of-reasons writing and an argument that unfolds?

LoPaPol is back! 💥 Come join us in Darmstadt for the 3️⃣ edition of the Local Party Politics workshop! ⏰ 24-25 March 2026 🚧 Organizers: @christinajuen.bsky.social Björn Egner @pluggedchris.bsky.social & myself with the help of LoPaPol legends @simonotjes.bsky.social & @rafreuse.bsky.social

I wrote about some of the research on this here - but as Jack points out, it's important to note that context matters and electoral institutions are not determinative. www.newamerica.org/political-re...

Today's podcast is with Sarah Cameron about the 2025 Australian Election Study. We discuss generational and gender splits, Peter Dutton's (lack of) popularity, changing attitudes to the USA and voter dealignment. www.tallyroom.com.au/63669 #auspol

Interesting article on the proportional representation/housing policy nexus: commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/how-...

Hot buttered rum

New England clam

If you’re into Christmas trees, please buy from the local Scouting troop!

Thinly sliced potatoes baked HOT in a béchamel of fromage suisse and chives

Live long enough, and you’ll see BC hold three citizens’ assemblies and referendums on electoral reform. www.fairvote.ca/26/11/2025/b...

Gratitude in an Angry Time www.aei.org/op-eds/grati...

I recognize faces from the news coverage. Imagine Thanksgiving with that news.

Now out in open access: "Aspirational Iconography: The European Union Flag as an Extraterritorial Political Symbol” doi.org/10.1080/2469.... Ben Forest and I explain why people fly “foreign” flags and why such displays can evoke powerful emotional reactions, both positive and negative.

Trump approvals across topics. Topics ordered by average net approval (after overall).

State Politics & Policy Quarterly - Volume 25 - Issue 4 - https://cup.org/3XkJEF7 Enjoy free access to this issue until the end of December 2025. #SPPQ25

Here are some thoughts on why fusion voting and democratized party nominations might not be an ideal combination.

The problem is that different people want different things from reform. One is representation. Another is effective gov’t. These are usually framed in comparative politics as “competing values.” Unfortunately, American polarization means one is now associated with the Dems, the other with the GOP.

political scientists: anyone know of research on affective polarization among the electorate at state and local levels of govt?

How’s this conjecture panning out? I am not watching the event.

NEW ARTICLE: @palesl.bsky.social, Vesa Koskimaa and I have an letter out in JOP, "Politicians talk less about the future as they age" doi.org/10.1086/739406 (1/10)

Super interesting paper on agenda control inside local-level assemblies doi.org/10.1111/lsq....

Delighted to see this paper out in @carlsengames.bsky.social - working with @grattonecon.bsky.social was fantastic; I learned a lot! We develop the argument that technocracy can serve as an intertemporal insurance device for groups who fear their majority status is ephemeral. Because technocrats

Since March 2024 I've been collecting SMS alerts from The Washington Post (thanks, undocumented public API!). Had Claude Code whip up a simple app to allow you to browse and search them. The Post has stopped using some topics this year but still does multiple alerts a day: thescoop.org/wapo-alerts/

Federalism is a powerful obstacle to fascism, and if fascism were *already here*, federalism would not be around. Gavin Newsom would be spoken of in whispers as "that guy who did a funny thing once making fun of the Leader and then no one saw again." /10

Backward references in topic sentences make writing harder to read.

2/🧵 New piece with @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social in @NewRepublic: We analyzed 60,000+ respondents in the 2024 Cooperative Election Study. Gen Z has the lowest racial resentment of any generation. The generational shift overwhelms the education divide that supposedly defines modern politics.