📖 A new BJPolS article in which we develop and test the concept of ‘partisan intolerance’ - the gap between a person’s willingness to interfere with contentious activities by in-partisans versus the same activities by out-partisans - and we find high levels of partisan intolerance in the UK 👇

British Journal of Political Science@bjpols.bsky.social · 3w ago

From May 2026 - Partisan (In)Tolerance and Affective Polarization - https://cup.org/4ud30Lm - James Tilley, @tmbejan.bsky.social & @sarahobolt.bsky.social #OpenAccess

The report from our EPSS 2026 roundtable, Protecting Democracy in the Age of AI, is now available! The discussion covered the latest on how generative and agentic AI impact democratic processes, and the risks and opportunities for representation and policymaking Read here: www.poal.co.uk/events/

🚨 POAL roundtable at @epssnet.bsky.social (EPSS) 2026: Protecting Democracy in the Age of AI — join us to discuss the democratic risks of AI technologies with a great lineup of @poalab.bsky.social and @aimediademlab.bsky.social experts

Can political messages become too personalized ? New podcast episode w/ @miriamsorace.bsky.social on nano-targeting now available! 📺 Stream here : pod.link/1851725697 @simonhix.bsky.social @poalab.bsky.social

We are pleased to share that the report from our 2026 Local Elections event is now available The report brings together key insights and discussion points from the event, focusing on the evolving dynamics of local elections and their broader implications See the report here: poal.co.uk/events/

New episode ! Our conversation on "Digital Immunity : the psychology of misinformation" with Dr Van der Linden(Cambridge) is now available. We cover: pre-bunking, AI inoculation and tech policy ! Playing from 0:00 open.spotify.com/episode/00HY...

Ep. 6 - Digital Immunity: The Psychology of Misinformation with Dr. van der Linden

Spotify video

open.spotify.com

📣 New publication 📣 Delighted to see my article with the brilliant Teresa Bejan and James Tilley now out in the BJPolS We develop and test the concept of 'partisan intolerance' - and find high levels of intolerance in Britain, associated with affective polarisation 👇

British Journal of Political Science@bjpols.bsky.social · 3mo ago

NEW - Partisan (In)Tolerance and Affective Polarization - https://cup.org/4ud30Lm - James Tilley, @tmbejan.bsky.social & @sarahobolt.bsky.social #OpenAccess

We are here at LSE for their 2026 Elections event organised in collaboration with POAL! 🗳️ Throughout the afternoon, top academics on elections and public opinion in the UK will be giving their analysis of what happened on 7 May, what this means for the country, and what happens next.

However the fall in Labour's vote (since 2022) is more strongly correlated with change in the Green vote than Reform over the same period.

Will Jennings📉🗳️@drjennings.bsky.social · 3mo ago

With results for over 500 wards in, our @news.sky.com analysis finds that Reform are increasing their vote most (against 2022) in older, Leave-voting areas with lower levels of educational attainment that have less ethnically diverse populations.

New #podcast episode w/ @joetwyman.bsky.social on the challenges and importance of polling for democracy in the UK and beyond ! -- especially close to elections ! Watch here : open.spotify.com/episode/1pru...

Ep.5 - Polling the Nation: Joe Twyman on UK Democracy

Spotify video

open.spotify.com

"measuring [LLM] agents’ relative issue saliences using party manifestos as a source of data is a harder problem than measuring their issue positions" New article from @kenbenoit.bsky.social and Michael Laver on the challenges with LLMs measuring issue salience Read here: doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Measuring issue salience for political parties using LLMs

Understanding both party positions on issues and the relative importance, or salience, they attach to these is central to the study of party competition. Recent work shows that large language model...

doi.org

Thrilled that my paper (w/@sarahobolt.bsky.social,@catherinedevries.bsky.social,@simonecremaschi.bsky.social) was accepted at the American Political Science Review! We find that declining public services fuel support for the populist right — and show why the right benefits more than other parties 🧵

AJPS article from @kenbenoit.bsky.social, Scott de Marchi, Conor Laver, Michael Laver, and Jinshuai Ma on using LLMs to analyse political texts. 🧵 1/8 Social science research requires reliable extraction of information from texts to identify authors' preferences on various policies and issues.

This analysis draws heavily on polling by @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social for @news.sky.com - there is a clear difference between the 2024 Reform vote and those who have defected from the Conservatives since (not to mention with the Tory loyalists who are still sticking with the party).

Will Jennings📉🗳️@drjennings.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Analysis of the battle on the right for @news.sky.com by @alicjahagopian.bsky.social - including modelling by @robfordmancs.bsky.social and me on the constituencies where Reform may be ahead of the Conservatives.

"Reform and the Greens are the electoral expression of that [Brexit] cleavage finally finding its natural home." New @politicallyinsane.bsky.social write-up about @sarahobolt.bsky.social and James Tilley's new book on Brexit's continuing political impact politicsinsane.substack.com/p/tribal-pol...

Tribal Politics : How Issues create Political Identities

Vishnu Prakash reviews Tribal Politics, by Sara Hobolt (LSE) and James Tilley (University of Oxford) and looks ahead to the effects of Brexit on British Politics

politicsinsane.substack.com

🚨 New POAL brief from @victoraraujo.bsky.social & @miriamsorace.bsky.social out now: how to properly evaluate the causal impact of shocks, debates, and political crises on public opinion. Diagnostics, pitfalls, examples … all in three pages! Read here: www.poal.co.uk/POAL_brief_U...

New POAL methods brief out from @miriamsorace.bsky.social 🚨 Outdated policy‑insight frameworks = bad strategy, as exemplified by the government's current woes. Here’s how to fix how we track what voters think about policy: www.poal.co.uk/miriam_brief...

"The strategic use of negative campaigning in political fundraising is likely to continue through this next election cycle" Check out @politicallyinsane.bsky.social's write-up on Substack about recent research from POAL members on negative campaigning politicsinsane.substack.com/p/defeat-the...

Defeat the Enemy : Do Negative Campaigns Outperform Positive Ones?

Jade Holman, Producer at Politically In/Sane writes for POAL on emerging research about the affective responses generated by emotionally-charged campaign messaging

politicsinsane.substack.com

📣 Call to all passionate political Behaviour scholars ! Are you an academic in Political Behaviour ? Do you know people who you think would be great to discuss political behavior on our podcast? Then reply to this by (i)tagging them here and (ii)repost ! Looking forward to your suggestions!

We’re delighted to announce that the Politically In/Sane podcast is now part of POAL! Hosted by Marc Bokobza, the podcast dives into Political Behaviour, exploring how people think, feel, and act politically with insights from prominent experts. Find it here: www.poal.co.uk/events/

Delighted that our @jwfurlong.bsky.social @academic.oup.com book The Changing Electoral Map of England and Wales has been shortlisted for the @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social Mackenzie Book Prize (along with five other excellent books!). www.psa.ac.uk/news/mackenz...

Read the full report here -> www.southampton.ac.uk/publicpolicy...

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 6mo ago

Labour risks election wipeout unless it improves Britain’s high streets, study finds

📢 JOB ALERT! Postdoc opportunity in Political Behaviour & Political Economy (UKRI‑funded) - Please do share with anyone who might be a great fit. If you’re interested or would like to know more, please feel free to get in touch!! jobs.reading.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

For the historical polling nerds out there, an article about our project with @ropercenter.bsky.social that digitised ~800 surveys by Gallup poll in Britain between 1955 and 1991 has been published in JEPOP. The merged dataset contains over three-quarters of a million respondents.

Revealing long-term trajectories of public opinion and polling in Britain: a new resource of historical data from the Gallup Poll in Britain, 1955–1991

From the 1930s to early 2000s, the British affiliate and later subsidiary of the Gallup Organization conducted around three thousand surveys of public opinion in Great Britain. While the records of...

tandfonline.com

"Safeguarding data quality is no longer a single checkpoint but an end-to-end pipeline - one that reallocates substantial resources from sampling to continuous fraud monitoring" Read our new POAL Methods Brief by @laurenleek.eu on dealing with AI bots in surveys! Link: www.poal.co.uk/briefai.pdf

"While testing one dimension at a time can yield simple results, those effects may not generalise to richer, real-world contexts." Read our new POAL Methods Briefs on Conjoint Experiments from Thomas Robinson! Link: www.poal.co.uk/research/met...

Tariffs might be the word of 2025. Given the state of *looks around* we asked: is there demand for tariffs in Europe? @grahn.bsky.social @katharinalawall.bsky.social @sophiemainz.bsky.social Maria Nordbrandt & I show the answer is a resolute no @jeppjournal.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/1350...

A game of tariffs: is there demand for tariffs in Europe?

In April 2025, the United States introduced sweeping tariffs on imports from the European Union and the United Kingdom, raising transatlantic tensions and prompting debate over Europe’s response. T...

doi.org

Nano-targeting is not a persuasive weapon: it is a dissuasion and polarization weapon. New paper out osf.io/preprints/so... with the brilliant Thomas Robinson, @simonhix.bsky.social and @fresejoris.bsky.social – the first to quantify the perverse incentives/inherent democratic dangers of this tech.

A major step forward for large-scale survey research from our own Thomas Robinson & @patricksturg.bsky.social: SOCbot is a powerful AI tool for open-ended survey items—fast, cheap, reduces burden, and tackles longstanding measurement error in social science & labour stats Paper: tinyurl.com/2yxcbshs

ESRC-funded PhD @lsegovernment.bsky.social × Campaign Lab: New Ways to Think Political Persuasion (start Sep 2026, 3.5 yrs) Methods-heavy (experiments/computation) Topics: multi-stage persuasion, interpersonal mechanisms, AI–voter interactions 📅Apply by 10 Dec 2025: www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse...

LSE Collaborative Studentship with Campaign Lab

LSE Collaborative Studentship with Campaign Lab

lse.ac.uk