Tessera

Andrew R. Flores

@aflor017.github.io

Political science LGBTQ politics 🏳️‍🌈 Assoc Prof @American University Distinguished Visiting Scholar @Williams Institute Affiliated Scholar @PRRI.org https://www.american.edu/spa/faculty/aflores.cfm https://aflor017.github.io

852 Posts2033 Follower 504 Folgt

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2h ago

Mark Carney: "This fall we will begin intense discussions with the European Union, the world's second-largest economy, to build a much stronger and deeper economic and security partnership"

eric gonzalez juenke @egojunk.bsky.social · yesterday

Political science jobs, sortable by subfield. poli-sci-jobs.org

Job Market Status (2026-2027) – Political Science Jobs

poli-sci-jobs.org

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 3d ago

Trump has opened a new front in his campaign to intimidate political foes — threatening the Center for American Progress with a $5 billion defamation lawsuit over a report concluding that his deployment of the National Guard has had little effect on reducing violent crime.

Trump Threatens Defamation Suit Over National Guard Report, Aiming to Intimidate a Critic

It was the latest example of President Trump’s bid to use the legal system against those who voice unflattering facts and opinions generally protected by the First Amendment.

nytimes.com

Yamil Ricardo Velez @yamilrvelez.bsky.social · 3d ago

Columbia Political Science is hiring in political methodology at the junior level, starting July 2027. Review of applications begins October 1. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/190515

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 4d ago

NEW: Hegseth hid the fact that our main resupply base in the Gulf of Oman was destroyed. newrepublic.com/post/214510/...

Hegseth Covered Up the Real Reason the USS Lincoln Wasn’t Resupplied

According to a report from MS NOW, the USS Abraham Lincoln wasn’t resupplied because Iranian strikes destroyed a key Navy resupply base in the Middle East.

newrepublic.com

The Advocate @advocate.com · 4d ago

The city’s drag community is rallying around the performer and designer, issuing calls for their release and financial support.

Andrew Rudalevige @rudalev.bsky.social · 4d ago

#polisky Come experience "the way life should be" in Maine! Bowdoin is conducting a tenure track search for a scholar of comparative public policy with special emphasis on AI -- feel free to be in touch with me with any questions. Application deadline is Sept 21. careers.bowdoin.edu/postings/18086

Assistant Professor of Government and Legal Studies (AI)

Bowdoin College’s Department of Government and Legal Studies invites applications for a full-time tenure-track faculty appointment in comparative public policy or governance at the Assistant Professor...

careers.bowdoin.edu

G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 4d ago

You may have heard of a "pollster" that recently admitted to fabricating data for a "social experiment". We have discovered that another firm, TPSI, falsified data to produce results more favorable to a candidate it did undisclosed partisan work for blog.fiftyplusone.news/suspending-t...

We’re suspending two pollsters from FiftyPlusOne for ethics violations

Both pollsters appear to have failed to disclose that a campaign paid for their surveys, and one admits to changing voters’ responses in favor of the candidate that allegedly paid for the survey.

blog.fiftyplusone.news

Andrew R. Flores @aflor017.github.io · 5d ago

I decided to re-watch Chernobyl episode 1 - when government fails.

Andrew R. Flores @aflor017.github.io · 5d ago

Wow. Good week everyone! (It’s only Wednesday!)

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 5d ago

This is extraordinarily dark: government agents surveilling peaceful protestors and trying to entrap them into breaking the law. It’s a classic measure of an authoritarian state.

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 5d ago

Trump's covert surveillance of anti-ICE protesters is much worse than we thought. I dug into this and found that DHS agents secretly spied on over a dozen meetings of left-leaning groups, all protected by First Amendment. The details are unnerving. 1/ (new piece) newrepublic.com/article/2144...

Anna O. Law @unlawfulentries.bsky.social · 5d ago

Friends don't let friends select on the dependent variable! "based on a series of 30 in-depth, qualitative interviews w/ men ranging from their mid-20s to their mid-40s without college degrees. [researchers hoped to add texture] by seeking out those who they believe are struggling the most."

Opinion | Friendship Is the New Luxury Good (Gift Article)

The four-year degree isn’t just an economic signal; it’s become a lifestyle determinant.

nytimes.com

Andrew R. Flores @aflor017.github.io · 6d ago

It’s weird to be on sabbatical and playing “The Chair” in the background.

Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 6d ago

This is a truly INSANE story.

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 6d ago

We're hiring! Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics apply.interfolio.com/191508

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 6d ago

Heads up: The Trump Justice Department plans to dispatch about 1,000 monitors to the polls this fall — probably the largest number under a Republican president, according to a top assistant attorney general.

Justice Department plans to send about 1,000 monitors to the polls this fall

The move to send 1,000 poll monitors is likely the largest number under a Republican president, a DOJ official said.

washingtonpost.com

Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 6d ago

My latest attempt at an AI/LLM policy in my intro to social science stats class. Basically two rules: 1. Everything human-facing must be human-generated 2. You are responsible for understanding, verifying, and citing everything an LLM generates quantf26.classes.andrewheiss.com/syllabus.htm...

Generative AI and LLMs
In this class, I have two general rules regarding LLMs:

Everything human-facing must be human-generated.
You are responsible for understanding, verifying, and citing everything an LLM generates.
I’ll explain what these mean below, but first, an important warning!

LLMs and learning
Phew, I can talk about the relationship between learning and LLMs for hours (see this for a more formal explanation of my thinking). LLMs and generative AI can be useful for statistical programming, but only when you already know what you are doing. They can be dangerous and counterproductive for beginners.

Additionally, using LLMs and generative AI to write does not lead to deeper learning. The point of writing is to help crystalize and organize your thinking. Pasting LLM-generated words into an assignment to make it look like you read and understood the content will not help you learn. Pasting LLM-generated code into an assignment and hoping that it works will not help you learn.

Rule 1: Everything human-facing must be human-generated
Generative AI tools like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude can be helpful for generating ideas or topics for your assignments and can even help you find existing research about topics you’re interested in. They are useful for debugging and troubleshooting code.

These uses are permitted in this course.

If you want to use LLM tools to document your code, clean up your notes, look up error messages, search for research related to your topic, and so on, cool. Do it. That’s fine. It’s unavoidable nowadays anyway, since every R-related Google search will give you a Gemini-generated answer at the top with mostly working R code.

Any writing and revisions, however, must be your own. You may not use AI tools to write any of the text you submit to me. AI text adds nothing to my understanding. I have no interest in engaging with it at all. There is nothing more disheartening for me than spending my time grading something that ChatGPT spat out in 10 seconds. I want to see good engagement with the readings. I want to see your thinking process. I want to see you make connections between the readings. I want to see your personal insights. I don’t want to see a bunch of words that look like a human wrote them. That’s not useful for future-you. That’s not useful for me. That’s a waste of time.

Thus, anything human-facing (i.e. not stuff done just for yourself, like your own personal notes, research, etc.) must be human-generated (i.e. written by you). You may not use AI tools to write any portion of your assignments. Using AI tools in this way, or failing to disclose the use of AI tools, will be treated as a case of plagiarism and referred to the Honor Council.

Rule 2: You are responsible for understanding, verifying, and citing everything an LLM generates
These tools are really good at working with code, but again, only if you know what you’re doing. Without guidance and expertise, LLMs love making lots of extraneous, convoluted, and weird code by default. The code ostensibly works, but it’s often strange and unnecessary and uses uncommon syntax and packages.

If you use LLMs for help with code, you must understand and verify what’s going on with your code and you must cite where it came from.

This means that you need to know what each line is doing. If the LLM uses a function or gives you an argument that you don’t understand or haven’t seen before, figure out why and figure out if it’s necessary. Look at the documentation for the function. Search Google for other examples. Ask the LLM about it, and then add comments to the code explaining what’s going on.

The citation doesn’t need to be anything formal (i.e. don’t worry about Chicago or APA guidelines)—it just needs to (1) say which LLM you used, and (2) mention what you asked the LLM.

You should do this by using code comments—inside your code chunk, add a # to the beginning of a line so that it’s treated as a comment (or text) instead of actual code.

Here’s an example of what this can look like:

Here’s an example of what this can look like:

# This calculates the average GDP per capita in each region in the dataset,
# for all countries after 2015. I couldn't remember how to use group_by() and
# summarise() together, so I asked Gemini:
#
# "I'm using tidyverse. I have a dataset named my_dataset and I'm filtering it
# to include all countries after 2015. I want to calculate region averages with
# group_by and summarise but cannot remember the syntax"

my_dataset |>
filter(year > 2015) |>
group_by(region) |>
# Gemini here included na.rm = TRUE, which omits any rows with missing values
# when calculating the average. That's okay and necessary here because
# South Sudan is missing some years of GDP data
summarise(avg_gdp = mean(gdp_per_cap, na.rm = TRUE))

# Gemini also included an extra ungroup() function at the end, but I don't need
# that because there are no groups leftover after summarising here

↑ That’s a lot of extra comments and you won’t always see stuff like that in real life code, but I want to see it here, and future-you will want to see it too.

Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 6d ago

Political Analytics is back. Washington, DC October 8 and 9th. Hosted by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies, Georgetown, and Washington University in St. Louis. Join us. politicalanalyticsconference.com

Political Analytics 2026

are the numbers on the wall?   October 8th & 9th, 2026 | Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. More details & registration information to follow

politicalanalyticsconference.com

Drew Engelhardt @amengel.bsky.social · 6d ago

Working on a dissertation in American political behavior and need money for survey research? Apply for a grant worth up to $15,000 from the Rapoport Family Foundation. They’re planning on awarding up to 15 grants this cycle. Deadline Oct. 21. www.rapoportfamilyfoundation.com/phdgrant

Rapoport Doctoral Dissertation Grants

Supporting projects for PhD students doing political science research, democracy and social justice.

rapoportfamilyfoundation.com

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · last wk.

The distinction matters & AOC is clear… QUESTION “Are you still a member of the Democratic Socialists of America?” REP AOC “The New York City chapter, not the national.” Every DSA chapter isn’t the national DSA. They’re decentralized & local chapters can have very different politics & priorities.

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · last wk.

Reuters: US SUPREME COURT REJECTS RENEWED TRUMP REQUEST TO HEAR APPEAL OF $5 MILLION VERDICT IN FAVOR OF E. JEAN CARROLL

Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · last wk.

“I was asked not to mention the Times at all. I’m choosing not to honor that norm, b/c silence abt how accountability journalism gets suppressed is itself a form of suppression.” Read the back story of how @nytimes.com and @thebulwark.com killed @adambonica.bsky.social’s piece. What a mf badass.

With Fear and Favor

Institutions don’t have courage. They have incentives.

data4democracy.substack.com

NPR @npr.org · last wk.

For 10 years, a Catholic-run home offered young women an affordable place to live in the nation's capital as they studied and launched careers. Now, that community is saying goodbye. n.pr/4hDVYvS

Living with nuns: Priced out of D.C., young women found low rent with unlikely roommates

For 10 years, a Catholic-run home offered young women an affordable place to live in the nation's capital as they studied and launched careers. Now, that community is saying goodbye.

n.pr

Omar Wasow @owasow.bsky.social · last wk.

Did Nazi marches persuade or polarize voters? In 1932 Hamburg, full exposure raised Nazi vote share by ~1 pp (18% of citywide gain), but only by widening divides: support rose in Nazi-leaning areas and fell in opposition areas. Spillovers made up ~half the effect. academic.oup.com/jeea/advance...

GOING VIRAL: PROTESTS AND POLARIZATION
IN 1932 HAMBURG
Bruno Caprettini
University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Marcel Caesmann
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Hans-Joachim Voth
University of Zurich, Switzerland
David Yanagizawa-Drott
University of Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract
Political polarization is a growing concern in many countries. Are mass protests merely a sign of increasing cleavages, or do they polarize societies? In this paper, we estimate the impact of Nazi marches in 1932 Hamburg, using granular data from 622 voting precincts during six elections.
We show propaganda can persuade—but it does so by raising the share of areas with high levels of Nazi support. Importantly, marches can also backfire, repelling voters. Thus, protest marches lead to polarization.
These effects diffused through social networks, measured using contagion patterns across neighborhoods during the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak. The electoral effects of social spillovers are similar in importance to those of direct exposure and grow over time.
(JEL: D72, D74, N44)

Figure 3. Nazi Party swing. The map shows a heatmap of the change in NSDAP vote share after the marches. The change is calculated between the two elections before the marches (13 March and 10 April 1932) and the three elections afterward (31 July 1932–5 March 1933).
Voting behavior is observed at the polling-station level. The average change in NSDAP vote share is computed using a spatial kernel with a fixed bandwidth of 500 meters around each polling station and divided into 10 equally sized groups. Darker colors indicate larger gains for the NSDAP. Black lines show the routes of the two Nazi marches in April 1932.
Sources: Voting data: Statistical Bulletin of Hamburg (Sköllin 1932a, 1932b, 1933); Nazi marches: SA Hamburg documents (State Archive Hamburg 1932a, 1932b).

Figure 5. Distribution regression of direct exposure. The figure plots the estimated effect of direct exposure to Nazi marches using the main panel of elections from 1932 and 1933 (y-axis). The dependent variable equals 1 when the NSDAP vote share exceeds the threshold shown on the x-axis. Thresholds range from the 5th to the 95th percentile of the NSDAP vote-share distribution in increments of 2 percentage points.
The vertical line marks the 29% crossing point between backlash—a negative effect of direct exposure—and persuasion—a positive effect. The p-value for backlash tests whether all exposure coefficients below the 29% threshold are jointly zero. The p-value for persuasion applies the analogous test to all coefficients above 29%.
The regressions control for polling-station and election fixed effects, street and demographic characteristics interacted with election fixed effects, and indirect exposure to the marches. Standard errors are clustered at the polling-station level. See equation (3) and the paper for details of the joint tests.

Figure 7. Indirect effect. Panel (a) plots a bin scatter of flu-based indirect exposure (x-axis) against the change in NSDAP vote share after the marches (y-axis). The change in NSDAP vote is calculated between two elections before the marches (13 March and 10 April 1932) and three elections afterward (31 July and 6 November 1932, and 5 March 1933). The t-statistic is estimated from a bivariate regression with robust standard errors. See the main text and Online Appendix for the construction of the flu-based indirect-exposure measure.
Panel (b) plots estimates of flu-based indirect exposure from equation (6), with corresponding 95% confidence intervals by election (computed from Table 4, column 5).
Sources: Nazi marches: SA Hamburg documents (State Archive Hamburg 1932a, 1932b); indirect exposure: death records (State Archive Hamburg 1917, 1918, 1919); voting data: Statistical Bulletin of Hamburg (Sköllin 1930, 1932a, 1932b, 1933).

Hakeem Jefferson @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social · last wk.

Must-read piece from @adambonica.bsky.social on how Democratic committees and consultants built a fundraising machine that runs on a captive pool of elderly donors. Bonica discusses that and more in this piece a bunch of lawyers for these committees didn’t want you to read. Incredible work, Adam!

Hook and Squeeze

How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.

data4democracy.substack.com

Chicago Tribune @chicagotribune.com · last wk.

The layoffs and exigency declaration come as Illinois Tech has already planned for a sweeping shift in its operations, including a restructuring of its academic institutions.

Illinois Institute of Technology cuts over 100 faculty and staff positions, quietly declares financial crisis

chicagotribune.com

Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · last wk.

BREAKING: The BBC is seeking to subpoena Don Jr., Ivanka, and Jared Kushner in connection with Trump's $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the broadcaster. Lawyers say Trump's family "without question have personal knowledge" about Trump's intentions with the speech at the heart of the case.

BBC seeks to subpoena Trump family members in defamation suit

The British broadcaster says Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have relevant knowledge about the president’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.

politico.com

The Associated Press @apnews.com · last wk.

A shooting involving multiple suspects and five people shot at Virginia State University prompted a campus lockdown early Saturday.

Multiple shooters and 5 people shot at Virginia State University

A shooting involving multiple suspects and five people shot at Virginia State University prompted a campus lockdown early Saturday.

bit.ly

APSA @apsa.bsky.social · last wk.

2026 APSA Theme Panel: The Psychology of Political Violence The Psychology of Political Violence Thursday, September 3, 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm 2026 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition — Boston, MA | ... http://politicalsciencenow.com/2026-apsa-theme-panel-the-psychology-of-political-violence/

2026 APSA Theme Panel: The Psychology of Political Violence

The Psychology of Political Violence Thursday, September 3, 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm 2026 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition — Boston, MA | Register here In-Person | Created Panel Participants: (Chair) Christopher F. Gelpi, The Ohio State University (Discussant) Aidan Milliff, Ohio State University Session Description: Papers exploring different psychological antecedents to political violence, mostly in the American politics context.

politicalsciencenow.com

Andrew R. Flores @aflor017.github.io · last wk.

Detained in Adelanto… the area with questionable water… Another person doing everything right

Christopher Webb@cwebbonline.com · last wk.

This is crazy. Alex is from Brazil, why would they deport him to Guyana? He’s a longtime West Hollywood resident who has been following his immigration requirements. He wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t on the run. He showed up for his required ICE check-in. And that’s where they detained him.