🧵 The Gallagher index is the industry standard measure of disproportionality in political science 📈 What values do you think it can take? 📏 In my new paper, I show something surprising: under democratic conditions, it can never exceed 1 / √2 ≈ 0.707

Mother of god, that's a lot of parties chrishanretty.co.uk/posts/madre_... <- quick blog post on an extreme case to show why you can't predict district outcomes based just on the district

Reading about corruption www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...

Let’s say one can take a “fork in the road” or not. Those who don’t get forced out by other means (agency reorganization, etc). Then it’s ordered that those who took the fork get their jobs back. How does this affect workforce characteristics at end game?

!! www.courant.com/2025/09/21/o...

anyone still using Meta-products: you may want to reconsider (and read Wynn-Williams amazing book!)

This study illustrates a very important point for researchers and strategists to understand. Just because we define a group by some set of traits, those traits aren't necessarily central to their *self* conception. The issues that associate with that group may not be those they care about the most

“The whole US party system would have to change.” Yes. That’s the point. But to answer your question: Party primaries with PR could continue to work the way they do now. There are lots of elections now where each party nominates by primary 5 candidates to fill 5 seats in a general election.

Good reporting on the thing everyone is talking about. www.wsj.com/business/med...

I understand why there is party polarization on this issue, but it doesn’t make sense on the merits. thedailytexan.com/2025/09/17/u...

We need to get out of this rut in which governing means going after people’s jobs.

Thrilled that my paper "Partisan disparities in the funding of science in the United States" with Nic Fishman, @leahrosenstiel.bsky.social, and @dashunwang.bsky.social was published in @science.org today! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🎯New publication out in @wepsocial.bsky.social 'Lipset and Rokkan meet data': a 🧵on our study (with Bruno Marino) on the electoral structuring of traditional cleavages (1870–1967) across 17 Western European countries 👇 Read the full article (open access): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The evolution of cooperation, social-media edition www.courant.com/2025/09/17/s...

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose??? This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

Small wins. I spent tonight having students use these skills to break down journal articles. “Why isn’t everybody teaching it this way?!?!” educate.apsanet.org/developing-r...

I'm looking for some good example articles that sort of announce or release datasets. Specifically this in the area of comparative politics. Any suggestions?

8 oz. of Locatelli was $16+ the other day. A nightmare for otherwise-humble meals like pasta e fagioli.

Just out at JOP (www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....) : Why do so few working-class people hold office? It's not lack of interest. Noam Lupu and I ran 10 surveys in 8 countries and found no evidence of a social class gap in how often qualified people consider running.

Interested in a take that situates the Cook saga -- and concerns about the erosion of Fed independence -- in a broader theoretical framework? Then, check out the updated version of this working paper by @grattonecon.bsky.social and myself. gratton.org/papers/Techn...

Fresh out at Politics & Policy, I look at the effect of primary election rules on governance within Congress. The results pose interesting tradeoffs between electoral rules and legislating.

Are these numbers credible? Other thoughts? Seems quite high based on my experience rankings.thefire.org

colleagues in political science. the formal update to the Garand and Giles journal ranking survey is now live. many of you will receive an email momentarily inviting you to participate. in the event you do NOT receive an invitation, please see this website to self-enroll. thanks! sharing = caring!

The DODO team recently got together in New York to discuss democracy and review an original draft of the Bill of Rights. (The 1789 version at the NY Public Library includes 12 amendments, including one that would have limited the population in each congressional district to 50,000 people).

NEW Cost of living, calls for change undergird Mamdani lead in NYC Voters call city unaffordable and prioritize someone bringing "needed change" over "right experience" Trump also a factor, with majorities wanting next mayor to oppose him on ICE and National Guard www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-new...

This is good. Very engaging prose.

Sad that the polisci conference season has ended? Why not watch my EPOP presentation on how to generate realistic party systems from scratch? youtu.be/_U0AaP15vyY?...

“This is yet another horrendous moment in a society falling into a nihilistic spiral from which there appears to be no off-ramp.”

If you think the hochul/zohran stuff is weird (or good), consider learning more about the politics of all this.

Stop heckling NG troops on Sunday afternoons. They’re workers.

The underlying report is quite good. Part of what’s going on is that, in a multi-seat district, the party has an incentive to create a diverse slate. We see similar effects in U.S. states with multi-seat districts.

There is a staggering amount of occult content on certain social media. Very creepy.

Because some are using the word “communist” loosely, I wrote a short glossary of communism-related terms. Thoughts? I am not an expert outside having taken two college courses on post-socialism.

Writing about the nomination process for the presidential election in @irishtimes.com Presidency is the highest political office and if we allowed everyone to compete, our ballot paper would probably look like an old-style phone book. www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

It’s interesting… the big thing that comes up for me these days is the causal mechanism behind some relationship we always thought was kind of causal but never really interrogated.

Class by Education in the 2024 CCES.

Designing toy surveys with Gen Z. A bit less interest this year in reproductive and environment issues, more on capital punishment and immigration.

Our edited volume has a cover! If you’re teaching American government, this could be of interest to you. We’ve got a lot of great contributions from some really great people. It’ll be available by January 2026.

Bloomberg: To understand why residents of New York City, the epicenter of American capitalism, are supporting a democratic socialist candidate for mayor, look no further than its warped rental market. www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

I’m curious 1 What respondents think college means (4 year residential?) 2 how this is influenced by their experience of different kinds of higher ed, given that most of it is public regional or community college. 3. What happened to undo partisan divide?

What do writing, explaining, and prompting AI all presume? The skills to form a sentence that communicates its point (request) in the clearest possible terms.

I suspect this “instinct” is related to the absence of institutions that would make “excess candidacy” moot. (Context: increasing signature requirements for ballot access.)

Maybe that one Democratic governor you don't like messaged poorly. I get that. 4 U.S.C. §7 Think it through before posting...

It’s not a left-right issue, either empirically or normatively. I tune out when a person frames it as such.

Research: Believing that the mass public in the opposing party supports undemocratic tactics leads people to be more supportive of undemocratic tactics themselves. Being assured that a majority of your opponents oppose such radical tactics increases support for democratic norms osf.io/my987/download

👀 www.opb.org/article/2025...

👀 www.americanbar.org/news/abanews...