🚨 A reminder! 🚨
The call for our Spring/Summer 2026 series is due THIS Friday, March 6 @ 11:59PST.
Presenters only need an abstract to submit:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Great event. I highly recommend applying.
🧵on my new paper "Synthetic personas distort the structure of human belief systems" w Roberto Cerina I'm v excited about...
🚨 Do synthetic samples look like human samples?
We compare 28 LLMs to the 2024 General Social Survey (GSS) to find out + develop host of diagnostics...
Nick Vivyan, Chris Hanretty (@chanret.bsky.social) and I have a new book out: “Idiosyncratic Issue Opinion and Political Choice”. The core of the book is making the argument that citizens’ views about political issues neither reduce to an ideological orientation nor to a lack of substance. (1/10)
Czech President Petr Pavel and a hundred thousand protesters have shown how liberal democracy can prevail against illiberalism.
✍ @jrovny.bsky.social @sciencespo-cee.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...
🎉 New paper out in Political Behavior (with @gijsschumacher.bsky.social & @mrooduijn.bsky.social)
Why do some people feel stronger emotions about politics than others?
💡Not political knowledge, but interest and confidence-in-knowledge drive emotional engagement.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
🧵
Do ordinary Republicans and Democrats really avoid each other in everyday life? In a new working paper with Delia Baldassarri, we present descriptive and experimental evidence to challenge the view that partisanship drives the formation of social relationships.
osf.io/preprints/so...
1/15
My colleague Kevin Munger asked me and a bunch of editors to sit and think through AI and peer review. Our take:
osf.io/9sxnc/files/...
We envision an increased (!) involvement of humans in the evaluation of social science.
📰While I read all sorts of bizarre depictions of the Davos speech in American media, I’ve got to love the simplicity of Czech public radio. The headline reads: Ungrateful Canada, Denmark, and Europe on the wrong path. In Davos, Trump scolded the world, praising only himself.
Abstract It is widely accepted in political science – and remarkably established in public discourse – that status anxieties fuel a far right backlash against progressive politics. This narrative suggests that right-wing conservatives perceive the status of women, racial, or sexual minorities as threatening. Using open-ended survey questions fielded in Germany, we show that women and minorities indeed figure in people’s perceptions of status hierarchies, but in very specific ways: First, overall, people still perceive status as largely socioeconomically determined. Second, sociocultural groups figure in perceptions of who is gaining/losing status, less so in perceptions of the top/bottom of society. Third, more than conservative voters, it is social progressives who mention women and minorities as “winners”. While on race/ethnicity, we find evidence for a backlash, on gender and sexuality we find more evidence for a progressive momentum. This matters for progressive politics today and for how we empirically study status concerns.
New article out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social with Tabea Palmtag and @dpzollinger.bsky.social 📝
We use open-ended survey questions (in Germany) to assess how and among whom social status shifts are perceived. This tests cultural backlash narratives in voters' perceptions.
🔗 doi.org/10.1177/0010...
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)
I ran a simulated social media experiment with 1450 Republicans to test different fact-checking interventions.
AI produced the largest decrease in engagement with Trump misinformation, outperforming independent fact-checkers and doing so far more consistently than Community Notes.
Thanks to several folks at @prl.bsky.social for their comments and support!
Furthermore, given the decline of local media, citizens are less likely to learn about or pay attention to the norm-violating behavior of local and state politicians. Overall, our results are consistent with the nationalization of U.S. politics, showing few differences across office levels.
This paints a mixed picture of citizens as democratic safeguards. On the plus side, voters are no more forgiving in local races, where issues like democracy might matter less. Pessimistically, however, their willingness to defect is also no greater — even when facing lower policy trade-offs.
We used a different between-subject experimental design and wording. Various checks and screening procedures were implemented to ensure validity. To enhance realism, we also included policy positions in the vignette. The second study nevertheless replicates the first.
However, using a high-powered vignette experiment in which voters chose between candidates across different races, we found no difference in their willingness to defect from undemocratic politicians. This held regardless of the type or number of norm violations in the vignette.
Norm-violating behavior occurs at all levels of 🇺🇸 government. As local and state politicians often ascend to national office, this could suggest a pipeline of backsliders. Yet, in lower-stakes local elections, citizens may often fail to hold such politicians accountable.
Preprint: Levels of Office and Voter Accountability for Democratic Norm Violations
⚠️New paper fothcoming in POQ! ⚠️
With @marcjacob.bsky.social and @seanjwestwood.bsky.social, we worried about norm-violating local politicians rising to higher office. We tested when voters defect from such politicians in local, state and federal races.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵...
Job 🚨! PRL is looking for a postdoc based at Dartmouth College for next year. Candidates should bring advanced data skills and enjoy writing. Read more about our work at polarizationresearchlab.org and apply through Interfolio by February 15, 2026: apply.interfolio.com/175722
ANO’s return also revives unresolved questions about Andrej Babiš’s conflict-of-interest case. Current law bars him from holding government office, but with enough parliamentary support, he could seek to change it.
🇨🇿 Today’s Czech vote went little differently than polls suggested — centrist populism dominates, extremists underperformed. The next coalition is uncertain, but a minority ANO government backed by the radical right looks likely. Now all depends on coalition talks and what they can secure in return.
🎉 We're excited to share our Fall/Winter 2025-26 schedule! We have a stellar lineup of research highlighting cases from Central Europe to Central Asia🎉
Workshops are on Fridays 5pmCET/11amET/8amPST with links+papers shared on our list-serv the week before.
Sign up here⤵️
eepg-workshop.github.io
New in PNAS with @seanjwestwood.bsky.social and @ylelkes.bsky.social: Why depolarization is hard: Evaluating attempts to decrease partisan animosity in America
@prl.bsky.social @pnas.org
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Plans to export them as a favor to indebted governments are currently underway. 🙂
Or see this other publication ( @polbehavior.bsky.social ), which shows how ideological alignment matters for animosity and expectations of future disagreement: bsky.app/profile/cely...
For research in the same vein, check out my piece in @eupthejournal.bsky.social on cross-national differences: bsky.app/profile/cely...
Now it has also been published in an issue! But I’m curious—and increasingly worried—about how this will look in a year or two.
👉Check out our new publication in @electoralstudies.bsky.social (with Toth & Chytilek)! Using eye-tracking and surveys, we test whether framing political issues in moral terms attracts more attention than presenting them with facts. Surprisingly, facts hold a slight advantage doi.org/10.1016/j.el...
