Conor Gaughan
@conorgaughan.bsky.social
Postdoctoral Research Associate | University of Manchester | Digital Research and Quantitative Politics | PhD from University of Southampton | #PUSB
I spent way too long this weekend correlating 81 census variables with local election results, so you don't have to. Enjoy! datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QQQ3D/7/
Local elections 2026: aggregate-level correlations | Created with Datawrapper
Pearson correlation coefficients between aggregate-level census data and the 2026 local election vote share and swing for each party, for the electoral ward or County Electoral District.
datawrapper.de
🚨 NEW REPORT! 🚨 What is the state of the UK academic job market in politics, and what does this mean for the field and #highered? In a new @psaecn.bsky.social report, @lawrencemckay.bsky.social @williamlallen.bsky.social and I find worrying trends in job adverts and HESA data from 2012-25 #PSA26
Academic Job Market Trends in Politics and International Relations - Political Studies Association
Academic Job Market Trends in Politics and International Relations: Evidence from the UK, 2012-25 Authored by: Dr Ralph Scott, Dr Lawrence McKay, and Dr William Allen Read the full report here Execu...
psa.ac.uk
🚨New publication out in Social Science Computer Review! Non-response in linked survey-to-Twitter/X data differs systematically across several sociodemographic, behavioural, and attitudinal characteristics, and these effects can vary between countries and over time: doi.org/10.1177/0894...
🚨There's a really cool funded PhD opportunity at the University of Manchester to work on measuring political rhetoric and influence on social media! If anyone knows of any students in social and/or computer science who might be interested: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
[HUMS Bicentenary PhD] Conceptualising and Measuring Political Rhetoric and Influence on Social Media at The University of Manchester on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - [HUMS Bicentenary PhD] Conceptualising and Measuring Political Rhetoric and Influence on Social Media at The University of Manchester, listed on FindAPhD.com
findaphd.com
Today I’m excited to launch Nation, State and Politics - a Substack exploring the powerful role that ideas of nations and nationhood play in shaping the political forces swirling around us today nationstateandpolitics.substack.com/p/nation-sta...
Nation, State and Politics - An Introduction
Progressive politics cannot afford to ignore the importance of nation, nationhood and state.
nationstateandpolitics.substack.com
My story revealing that MP Rupert Lowe has been paid £40k from posting on X is in Playbook PM Graph below shows how Lowe has massively overtaken the Reform MPs with his X earnings throughout this year
Here's a slightly crazy diagram illustrating today's major Cabinet reshuffle You're welcome
Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...
Latest @thehousemag.bsky.social piece - on how to rank MPs, inc one of my fave academic studies, which put Diane Abbott to the right of Giles Radice. Also includes Rush reference.
The Professor Will See You Now: Ranking MPs' politics
Professor Philip Cowley offers a political science lesson for The House’s readers. This week: ranking the politics of MPs
politicshome.com
Any great PhD or postdoctoral researchers out there who fulfil the attached criteria and who are interested in: 1) Formal logical models of electoral systems 2) Multilevel regression + poststratification 3) Digitising comparative elections data Please let me know! I want to get you to Manchester!
Mega presence for @sotonpolitics.bsky.social at @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social! #PSA25 @dbonansinga.bsky.social and @profannikawerner.bsky.social on populism @rikkidean.bsky.social on democratic resilience @elizabethjevans.bsky.social on feminism Myself on urban-rural divides in trust (1/2)
Just a couple more days left to apply for this one day PhD/ECR event in Manchester next month - travel and accommodation covered!
UK in a Changing Europe@ukandeu.bsky.social · last yr.📢 CALL FOR PAPERS 📢 🚨 Just over a week left to apply for this amazing opportunity with UKICE's @robfordmancs.bsky.social & @uniofmanchester.bsky.social 👇
📣 CALLING ALL QUANT SOCIAL SCIENTISTS! 📣 Do you know of causally identified research that estimates the effect of higher education on political attitudes? @elizabethsim0n.bsky.social and I are currently working on a meta-analysis on this question and we need your help!
Join Dr Alexandru Cernat & Dr @conorgaughan.bsky.social sky.social for a session on Open Data & digital footprints. Learn about anonymizing and linking digital data to surveys, the DIGSURV project, and an online MSc in Data Analytics and Social Statistics. Register: zoom.us/webinar/regi...
You can also see a short summary & discussion of our @psrm.bsky.social paper @bbcmaryam.bsky.social’s excellent The World Today show from Monday 🦸♀️ doi.org/10.1017/psrm...
Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte@turnbulldugarte.com · last yr.Who does Spiderman vote for? Who you vote for. In a new paper w/ @markuswagner.bsky.social we show that people engage in motivated projection of political identities. In the absence of explicit info on politics, individuals rely on valence to infer the politics of others doi.org/10.1017/psrm...
🚨We are so excited to announce that we are hosting the PSA Women & Politics @psawomenpol.bsky.social 2025 Annual Conference here in 📍Southampton! The conference, Troubled Times: Gender and Politics in the 21st Century, will be held from 📅 17 to 18 June! More details are in the CFP linked below.
PSA Women and Politics Specialist Group@psawomenpol.bsky.social · last yr.🚨 Call for Papers! 🚨 Join us for our 2025 Annual Conference hosted by @gain-centre.bsky.social 📅 17-18 June 2025 📍 Southampton 💡 Theme: Troubled Times: Gender and Politics in the 21st Century Submit abstracts by Friday 11 April. Full details: tinyurl.com/ycyusm2v #polisky #gendersky
UK’s poorest households now worse off than poorest households in Slovenia Analysis shows if wage growth continued in line with the pre-2008 trend, the average worker in the UK would be earning £12,000 more per year today, Business and Economics Editor Joel Hills reports www.itv.com/news/2025-03...
Just over two weeks to go to apply for this exciting PhD and ECR event here in Manchester at the end of April - with funding to cover travel and accommodation. Get your abstracts in now! Get the word out to your colleagues and PhD students!
UK in a Changing Europe@ukandeu.bsky.social · 2y ago🤩 Amazing opportunity with @officialuom.bsky.social and UKICE's @robfordmancs.bsky.social 👇
Helpful NYT article showing 30 exclusion restriction violations for studies claiming covid is an instrument for their preferred x variable nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/09/upshot/covid-lockdown-five-year-charts.html
30 Charts That Show How Everything Changed in March 2020
It can be easy to forget, or look away from, the pain and disruption of the pandemic. The numbers will be there to remind us.
nytimes.com
Still a real lack of right-wing presence among UK politicians so far, but overall is looking good 🇬🇧🦋
Zoë Crowther@zoecrowther.bsky.social · last yr.For everyone nerdy enough to care, this is @politicshome.bsky.social’s latest estimate of the percentage of each party’s MPs who have accounts on Bluesky Shows clearly what we know already - in terms of MP presence, Bluesky is massively tilted towards the left
The majority of Labour, Lib Dem and Green MPs are now on Bluesky And many of these MPs appear to be regularly posting on this platform
PoliticsHome@politicshome.bsky.social · last yr.🚨 NEW 🚨 Updated list of all the UK MPs on Bluesky 👇 Labour – 248 Liberal Democrats – 40 Conservative – 4 Green – 4 Independent – 3 SNP – 2 Alliance, Plaid Cymru, SDLP – 1 each And Commons Speaker @commonsspeaker.parliament.uk
Our article 'A Crisis of Political Trust?' led by @viktorv.bsky.social is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social! We use >3,000 surveys in 143 countries between 1958 and 2019, finding that trust in representative institutions has generally been declining in recent decades. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Happy to share that my paper (w/ James Tilley) is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social We show that expenses misconduct by British MPs was not associated with political distrust among their constituents. Open access here: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
British Journal of Political Science@bjpols.bsky.social · 2y ago#OpenAccess from our latest issue - Misconduct by Voters' Own Representatives Does Not Affect Voters' Generalized Political Trust - cup.org/40ZhYsp - Edmund Kelly & James Tilley
I'm assisting @robfordmancs.bsky.social in organising this ECR event for UK in a Changing Europe. Get your papers in, come to Manchester, enjoy the rain, have a drink, go home, tell your mates how good it was.
Another great paper from @sotonpolitics.bsky.social in BJPOLS. This is from one of our great PhD candidates
British Journal of Political Science@bjpols.bsky.social · 2y ago#OpenAccess from our latest issue - Estimating Ideal Points of British MPs Through Their Social Media Followership - cup.org/3Cekdyr - @conorgaughan.bsky.social
First ever publication alert! Do you credit all the software you use in your research?👀 In a new article in Computational Communication Research, we investigate when software gets mentioned in research articles and what makes a tool more likely to be cited. Read it here: doi.org/10.5117/CCR2...
Tools of the Trade – When Are Software Tools Mentioned in Computational Text Analysis Research? | Amsterdam University Press Journals Online
The use of computational methods for text analysis has been rapidly gaining a foothold in computational social science. Yet, little is known about the reporting practices of the software tools utilise...
doi.org
Really cool work by @chanret.bsky.social and @vlazarov.bsky.social! Speaking of left-right positions of UK MPs, it turns out that their social media followership is also an extremely effective way of generating ideology estimates too 👇👀👇 doi.org/10.1017/S000...
Survation.@survation.bsky.social · 2y agoHow left- or right-wing is each MP? New data by @chanret.bsky.social and @vlazarov.bsky.social in partnership with Survation and @ukandeu.bsky.social reveals the (economic) left-right positions of individual MPs. www.survation.com/how-left-or-...
Among MPs with an estimated ideological position (i.e. those who were MPs in 2023 - see www.cambridge.org/core/journal...), the most likely to vote for assisted dying were on the centre-left
Interesting paper and a super useful dataset of MPs' positions in the replication data. At a glance, I'd say the method works better for more obscure MPs (e.g. it correctly identifies almost all of the Socialist Campaign Group as very left-wing but not Corbyn). Neat!
Conor Gaughan@conorgaughan.bsky.social · 2y ago🚨Happy to share that my first academic paper has been published by @bjpols.bsky.social! Using work from my PhD thesis, this research provides estimates of left/right position of UK MPs (2019-2024) using their Twitter/X follower networks. Open Access: doi.org/10.1017/S00071…
