Marcelo M. Leal

Come work with us! Great department and colleagues.

Blame Games in Cyberspace: How Foreign Cues Shape Public Opinion on Cyber Attribution and Retribution Conflicting narratives about who is responsible for a cyberattack are often thought to create uncertainty about the aggressor’s identity, which in turn could lead to greater restraint in state resp...

Do allies and adversaries shape U.S. views on cyber attribution? In a new paper at @intlinteractions.bsky.social, I show that allies’ endorsements boost Americans' trust in attribution and support for retribution, while adversary denials produce limited and inconsistent effects.

Are you a graduate student planning to present a paper at the 2025 APSA conference on an IR/Foreign Policy topic? Need some funds to cover costs of attending? APSA's Foreign Policy section travel grant is there just for you- Apply Now!

Screenshot of the linked Quarto website, with input checkboxes to change different conditions for a regression model that predicts economic performance based on US political party, with a reported p-value

I’ve long used FiveThirtyEight’s interactive “Hack Your Way To Scientific Glory” to illustrate the idea of p-hacking when I teach statistics. But ABC/Disney killed the site earlier this month :(

So I made my own with #rstats and Observable and #QuartoPub ! stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/

Great essay on why we should be paying more attention to attention in our information-rich era.

Highly recommended! Well-deserved!

É do Brasil 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷

Does DOGE Pose a National Security Risk? Uncertainty about access and authority will worry allies and tempt adversaries.

Last week in my Cyber Policy & National Security class, students mentioned DOGE's access to federal systems, which led us to discuss some cyber vulnerabilities. This week, I’m referring them to @profsaunders.bsky.social & @jimgoldgeier.bsky.social article in @foreignaffairs.com. It's a must-read!

This! Since moving back to the U.S., I've gained a few pounds. Same diet (we cook almost everything from scratch), but now I drive everywhere. In Rio, I walked and took public transit all the time. Big difference!

We're getting the social media crisis wrong The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics

We're getting the social media crisis wrong
The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics. On Zuckerberg today and Musk over the last few weeks. www.programmablemutter.com/p/were-getti...

Fernanda Torres wins Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for I'm Still Here 🎥

#GoldenGlobes boxd.it/BPEO

Polling paradox: what actually shapes the numbers? Likely voters, past voters, demographics and more – how pollsters weight 2024 election poll data matters a great deal.

This piece that came out a week ago at @goodauth.bsky.social might be what you are looking for

📚🚨 I posted 11 new chapters of my upcoming book!

Model to Meaning: How to Interpret Statistical Results with #marginaleffects for #RStats and Python.

These are early drafts and I really need your feedback! Errors, content requests, improvements, etc.

marginaleffects.com

UT-Dallas is hiring for an open rank faculty position in IR! We're particularly interested in scholars studying IPE and/or Conflict. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions! polisky psjminfo

jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/27562

Me, to students asking for my syllabus in August: “I have concepts of a plan”

Did you know we are now on Substack?

We're publishing articles there daily, so if that's your preferred source, make sure you're subscribed.

goodauthority.substack.com

I’m excited to share that I'm starting a new position as an Assistant Professor of Cyber Security, Technology, and Policy at The University of Texas at Dallas! I’ve been holding onto this news for a while and can’t wait for what’s ahead. A huge thank you to everyone who helped me get here.

I am thrilled to share that I have successfully defended my dissertation. Huge thanks to everyone who has played a part in making this journey worth celebrating! I’m particularly grateful to Jane Fountain, @profmusgrave.bsky.social, and Alasdair Roberts for their guidance and support.

Persistent Brazil floods raise specter of climate migration Devastating and ongoing flooding in southern Brazil is forcing some of the half million displaced residents to consider uprooting their lives from inundated towns to rebuild on higher ground.

I don't know if this has registered so much outside Brazil, but speaking as someone who knows the region well, and still has lots of family there: this has been unimaginably horrible and devastating. The climate dystopia has arrived, and it's really, really awful... www.reuters.com/world/americ...

AI is global, but the UK government’s summit is insular As the UK prepares to host its AI Safety Summit, Sebastián Lehuedé, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Centre of Governance and Human Rights, argues that far from being a ‘global’ e...

The UK's AI Safety Summit is almost upon us and @slehuede.bsky.social has a great commentary on it. A must-read particularly after the Biden-Harris administration singled out the summit in the fact sheet of its executive order on AI yesterday.

skynet

FACT SHEET: President Biden Issues Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intel... Today, President Biden issued a landmark Executive Order to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI). The Executive Order establi...

The White House just released an Executive Order on AI. It requires the most powerful AI systems to share safety test results, orders NIST to develop standards and tests to ensure that AI systems are safe and secure, and calls on Congress to pass bipartisan data privacy legislation.

skynet

Announcing the Good Authority fellows program Apply by Jan. 15, 2024 for the Good Authority fellowship and be a regular contributor to our blog on politics and political science.

We at @goodauth.bsky.social are excited to share this call for the Good Authority fellows program. Deadline is January 15. Application is brief. Please share!

(And yes, in my mind, I'm calling it goodfellas.)

goodauthority.org/news/good-au...

New from me @goodauth.bsky.social: I show how a change in the Cooperative Election Study from select-all-that-apply to forced-choice produce a big "shift" in immigration attitudes. Maybe only 40 people will care about this, but here's the graph!

goodauthority.org/news/the-pro...

Hi @profmusgrave.bsky.social, could you add me to the polisky list?

A hill I'm willing to die on: answering yes to survey questions that ask if I'm Latino.

I'm always amazed that the whole American continent has issues with the term "American," yet most U.S. persons do not know that this is an issue at all. @profmusgrave.bsky.social is an exception to this pattern and has just published a great piece reflecting on this.

Backwards from zero: How the U.S. public evaluates the use of zero-day vulnerabilities in cybersecur... Zero-day vulnerabilities are software and hardware flaws that are unknown to computer vendors. As powerful means of carrying out cyber intrusions, such vulnerabilities present a dilemma for governm...

Using my first post here to spread the word about this great article I have with @profmusgrave.bsky.social. It uses survey experiments to examine the zero-day disclosure dilemma, U.S. vulnerability disclosure policy, and U.S. public opinion. Open access using the link below #polisky