New paper, out today in @commssustain.nature.com : politicians are far more polarized on climate change than the citizens they represent. Study in 8 countries, with 714 politicians and 18,281 citizens in open access: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

I genuinely think this emerging body of research on perceptual biases of public opinion among elected officials is some of the most important in political science. (There's some democratic theory to be done here as well)

Lior Sheffer@liorsheffer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint: Jack Lucas, @breunig.eurosky.social and I reanalyze 70,470 assessments made by 12,860 politicians about their constituents' public opinion and demographics, sourced from every available published study of elite perceptual accuracy, and our own original data. /1 osf.io/preprints/ps...

New preprint: Jack Lucas, @breunig.eurosky.social and I reanalyze 70,470 assessments made by 12,860 politicians about their constituents' public opinion and demographics, sourced from every available published study of elite perceptual accuracy, and our own original data. /1 osf.io/preprints/ps...

🧠 Do politicians misread their constituents' preferences? ➡️Using a new method where politicians draw preference distributions, N Dias, @jacklucas.bsky.social & @liorsheffer.bsky.social show that conservative overestimation is smaller than assumed www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView

New and open access, in @psrm.bsky.social: What happens when we make politicians draw distributions? Nic Dias, @jacklucas.bsky.social and I explore whether the large errors politicians make about public opinion are artificially inflated by how researchers ask them to estimate it /1 cup.org/4kltoyE

I should also have mentioned this paper by @noamgidron.bsky.social et al. osf.io/preprints/so...

Jacob Edenhofer @jacobedenhofer.bsky.social · 7mo ago

interpreted, which brings us to the first failure mode: interpretive disagreement. 2. Citizens -- and, indeed, academics (see below) -- hold divergent conceptions of democracy. On some conceptions, a give action may appear anti-democratic while on others it may not. As I point out in thread,

Who protests against democratic backsliding? A new working paper with Margalit, Sheffer and Yakir examines this issue and finds that people’s conceptions of what democracy means play a crucial role in predicting whether they engage in active opposition to backsliding efforts. osf.io/preprints/so...

🆕 What kind of personalities are drawn to politics? 🗳️ This cross-national study across 🇨🇦🇩🇰🇮🇱🇳🇱🇨🇭 explores #Representation and how honesty-humility and other HEXACO personality traits shape people’s ambition to run for office 🧵1/2 buff.ly/xk4qMa3

Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core

Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment

cambridge.org

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment - https://cup.org/4ncO4c0 - Marc van de Wardt, P.Bundi, P.J.Loewen, @annerasmussen.bsky.social, @liorsheffer.bsky.social & F.Varone #FirstView

Over a year ago (!) Roee Levy and I wrote this op-ed (that you can auto-translate) on Israel's responsibility for the horrifying famine in Gaza. The starvation persists. The immoral war in Gaza must end. If you can, protest with us today: 7pm, Habima Square, Tel Aviv www.ynet.co.il/news/article...

להסתכל במראה: הרעב בעזה הוא כתם מוסרי עלינו

כמעט 700 אלף עזתים סובלים ממחסור קטסטרופלי במזון. ההערכות הן שתושבים בצפון עזה צורכים בממוצע רק 245 קלוריות ביום, ולפי ארגון המזון העולמי ארבעה מכל חמישה אנשים בעולם שסובלים היום מרעב חמור נמצאים בעזה...

ynet.co.il

Now in @ispp-pops.bsky.social: what type of personality do citizens want their leaders to have? In a series of studies conducted in Belgium, Canada, and Israel, we present citizens with profiles of potential leaders with different personality configurations drawn using the Big Five traits /1

From February 2025 - Do Political Leaders Understand Public Opinion Better than Backbenchers? - cup.org/3CNR4dt - Stefaan Walgrave, Julie Sevenans, Frédéric Varone, @liorsheffer.bsky.social & @breunig.bsky.social #OpenAccess

The most important paper on democratic backsliding I've read this year

Noam Gidron@noamgidron.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨Why do masses support democratic backsliding?🚨 A new @AJPS_Editor paper with Yotam Margalit, @liorsheffer.bsky.social and Itamar Yakir explores this question in the Israeli context. Our findings emphasize the role of leader attachment and affective polarization. doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

🚨Why do masses support democratic backsliding?🚨 A new @AJPS_Editor paper with Yotam Margalit, @liorsheffer.bsky.social and Itamar Yakir explores this question in the Israeli context. Our findings emphasize the role of leader attachment and affective polarization. doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

Now in @bjpols.bsky.social: Are leaders really better at reading public opinion? In a large-scale study led by Stefaan Walgrave and Julie Sevenans, we test the assumption that politicians in leadership positions have more accurate knowledge of public opinion than others. /1 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

This paper joins a couple of others demonstrating that politicians have a conservative bias in their expectations of public opinion. This work is hugely illuminative of elite attitudes and so is of vital interest to activists pursuing progressive change

Lior Sheffer@liorsheffer.bsky.social · 2y ago

Now in APSR: What do politicians think about their voters? Fielding face-to-face surveys to 982 sitting politicians in 11 countries, and accompanying surveys of 12,000 citizens, we find that politicians have remarkably consistent - and cynical - theories of voters: /1 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Very cool paper! Well worth your time if you study elite decision-making or elections and accountability.

Lior Sheffer@liorsheffer.bsky.social · 2y ago

Now in APSR: What do politicians think about their voters? Fielding face-to-face surveys to 982 sitting politicians in 11 countries, and accompanying surveys of 12,000 citizens, we find that politicians have remarkably consistent - and cynical - theories of voters: /1 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Now in APSR: What do politicians think about their voters? Fielding face-to-face surveys to 982 sitting politicians in 11 countries, and accompanying surveys of 12,000 citizens, we find that politicians have remarkably consistent - and cynical - theories of voters: /1 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Now in Political Psychology: Why are some politicians more hostile than others? Do politicians as a group feel more partisan animosity than citizens? @lucasjacklucas and I report results from a study of 850 politicians and 28,500 citizens to provide first answers: /1 doi.org/10.1111/pops.12974

Excited to share my new publication in the International Journal of Press/Politics with my brilliant friends Yossi David, @noamgidron.bsky.social & @liorsheffer.bsky.social! Imagined audiences have been studied for decades - but what do we know about imagined journalists? >> shorturl.at/klovF

Now in @EJPRjournal: Are Politicians Democratic Realists? Social scientists debate whether citizens are competent participants in the political game, but where politicians stand on this question is far more consequential, and yet we know virtually nothing about their views. /1

Now in EJPR: Can elections reduce partisan hostility? @noamgidron.bsky.social and I tracked 1,000 voters throughout the 2021 election in Israel, in which Netanyahu was temporarily ousted by a short-lived, improbable coalition whose member parties were highly hostile to each other. /1

Check out this great special issue on comparative affective polarization -- including my paper with @liorsheffer.bsky.social and Guy Mor: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Markus Wagner@markuswagner.bsky.social · 3y ago

Check out this new special issue in Electoral Studies: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/elec... It contains 7 cool articles on the nature and causes of AP - using observational and experimental data, focusing on measurement, elites and ideology, and an important theoretical piece as well.

Israel's democratic crisis provides us with an opportunity to explore, in real time, who supports democratic backsliding. Our new working paper (w\ Noam Gidron, Yotam Margalit and Itamar Yakir) examines this issue using original pre- and post-reform panel data. Here's what we find: osf.io/zxukm/