New paper: Does Gamson’s Law hold in opposition? I test whether shadow ministries & Question Time follow Gamsonian distribution. They do, even though the Libs are a “dictator” under Gamson’s rule. In ParlAffairs @hansardsociety.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/pa/g... w/ thanks @thiagonsilva.bsky.social

An expansion to Gamson? ‘dictators’, oppositions, and the distribution of political resources: lessons from Australia

Abstract. This article extends the proportionality regularity identified in Gamson’s Law to examine how political resources are allocated within an opposit

doi.org

POLSCI/Academic hivemind, I need some help. I have at the last minute been asked to fill in for a course called Applied Politics. I'm looking for recommendations for shorter books at the intersection of political science/current policy debates, both domestically and internationally.

Question for instructors. In your view, does a blue-book exam provide sufficient incentive to avoid digital distraction, or should it be twinned with a laptop/tablet ban for note-taking?

Young people, please don’t do this with your education. Learn how to form sentences with subjects, verbs, and objects. Learn how to dismantle specious arguments. Acquire the skills needed to build a world in which “work” means more than being half-naked on TikTok. www.cnn.com/2026/08/01/b...

Influencing looks like the new American Dream for young people. Universities are taking advantage | CNN Business

Influencing is Gen Z’s new glamour job. So if more than half of young people say they want to be influencers, why not study it?

cnn.com

Elderly friend: “They’re going to kill Dr. Fauci by giving him a heart attack.”

🚨New paper Like most things in democracies, achieving climate action in the form of sustainable policy needs a significant amount of political mobilization. We investigate when & where this is more likely to happen across places on the climate frontline: the Global South🧵 📌 osf.io/preprints/so...

Now on FirstView! "These results indicate that after predatory journals engage with a submission, acceptance - and even publication - of undergraduate-level work that lacks originality or methodological contribution is far more common than rejection." doi.org/10.1017/S104... #polisky

Who do you trust? How old are you? Trust in other people is dramatically lower among younger people than the olds charlesatpollsandvotes.substack.com/p/who-do-you...

I had no idea public sentiment had moved this far this fast.

Eric Michael Garcia@ericmgarcia.bsky.social · last wk.

Economist/YouGov poll ask "Should the U.S. arrest Netanyahu if he comes here?" 49% yes 27% no Men: 46% yes 35% no Women: 52% yes 21% no White: 47% yes 21% no Black: 53% yes 13% no 18-29: 58% yes 17% no yougov.com/en-us/articl...

jacksantucci.substack.com/p/can-a-coun...

Can a country do surgery on its own political institutions?

Years ago, before graduate school, I studied to join and worked in a business called “democracy promotion.” Its purpose was to bring democracy to formerly authoritarian regimes and, in places where th...

jacksantucci.substack.com

Here is a realpolitik argument for assembly expansion (e.g., a larger House, but not that necessarily or exclusively). Political ambition is creating pressure on existing electoral institutions (see blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...) by raising probabilities of coordination failure.

Racial justice movements mean that the candidate pipeline of young Black and Latino Americans is fuller than ever | LSE United States Politics and Policy

Black and Latino Americans, especially those who are Gen Z, are more likely than white Americans to want to run for office.

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Italy is changing its electoral system (again): the fifth reform since 1993. I wrote for @laderafrutal.bsky.social's Fruits & Votes blog on how the new bonus-adjusted system works, why the government wants it, and its political implications. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/i...

Italy is changing its electoral system (again)

Nicknamed the “Stabilicum” by the right-wing coalition government that introduced it, this would be the fifth major electoral reform in Italy since 1993.

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com

Viral dumpling lasagna. My review: a bit greasy.

There are good proposals for electoral system reform involving MMP and then there is Fiji’s proposal. fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com/2026/07/27/o...

OLPR vs. MMP in Fiji

When political scientists or election reform activists (at least in Anglo countries) think about electoral systems that they argue have good normative outcomes, the debate often comes down to eithe…

fruitsandvotes.wordpress.com

Anchovy pie

Block-preferential variant sighted in the wild: wamu.org/story/26/07/... See doi.org/10.1080/1036... and www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandg... on its effects.

D.C.'s move to ranked choice voting complicates two council races. Could lawmakers change how the city counts votes?

The new system has set up a complex process for determining the winners of two citywide council races, prompting accusations of voter disenfranchisement. The council is weighing a major change just a ...

wamu.org

Learn about “paras” in primary (and special) education. www.courant.com/2026/07/24/c...

CT schools are short by 900 paraeducators data shows. Officials launched a plan to fix it

Registration has officially opened for an initiative state officials hope will close a major workforce gap for Connecticut schools: paraeducators. As of Feb. 2026, there were 909 unfilled paraeducato...

courant.com

New at the Strength In Numbers Data Lab: How pollsters weight by party ID is influencing Democrats' midterm standing. Different methodologies give a margin anywhere between D+7 and D+10 (among registered voters — likely even higher among likely voters). www.gelliottmorris.com/p/2026-07-23...

Democrats' edge in midterms polling depends on how pollsters weight by party

What would our Strength In Numbers polling say if we weighted our samples by different targets for party identity?

gelliottmorris.com

My attempt to answer an all too common question: kevinrkosar.substack.com/p/why-is-it-...

A new publication of possible interest with @snsoroka.bsky.social on the relationship between negativity bias in media coverage and misinformation: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Negativity and Misinformation

There are large and growing bodies of research highlighting inaccuracies in news coverage. In this paper, we suggest that negativity biases account for a substantial portion of longstanding inaccur...

tandfonline.com

This is now reasonably easy to do. I’ll make the picture tomorrow, time permitting. 🌹 folks, this is right up your alley.

ground.news/article/conf...

Confidence in US institutions mired near record low: Gallup

The American public’s trust in major institutions is near an all-time low, according to a recent Gallup poll.

ground.news

You heard it here first: www.voteguy.com/2026/05/13/d...

Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 2w ago

#ELB: Rick Pildes: “A Politically Realistic Approaccongh to Fair Political Representation” https://electionlawblog.org/?p=157528

Useful descriptive findings on ballot fusion journals.maine.edu/nejps/articl...

Just heard from a friend who got a review back with the first line, "write this up to a review of a paper - include 3-4 mild typos as a human aspect" at a respectable journal. You know that you're allowed to decline reviews, right?

🚨Attention American Political Development Scholars🚨 We are excited to announce a new APD Workshop Series where scholars--especially grad students, post-docs, junior faculty, and folks at institutions with limited research budgets--can present works-in progress. sites.google.com/maine.edu/ap...

AI might have problems, but it helped me fix my slow computer. (The computer was slow to begin with because manufacturers push bloatware with system updates.)

🗳️ Electoral Reform Alert 🗳️ Yesterday, the Italian Lower House approved a new electoral reform, now headed to the Senate. This would be the fifth major reform of the electoral system in Italy since 1993, and it could bring an even more radical right-wing party into the next government coalition. (1)

Is anyone else following the drama re: the Italian electoral law? There are several interesting dimensions.

Best book I've read in a while! academic.oup.com/book/59843