Simon Hix

Coalition bargaining time and governments’ policy‐making productivity What is the purpose of lengthy negotiations when a coalition government forms? Do they make a difference in coalition policy-making? Negotiations that produce policy agreements between coalition part...

When you learn about "controlling on a post-treatment variable", you begin to see it everywhere. Today's example: do coalition governments that take longer to form work quicker when they take the reins? doi.org/10.1111/1475... (1/n)

We hate rankings except when they are favorable...so today I am extremely happy that EUI Political Science ranks 6th in the world!

1000 times this. Thanks Cyrus

I’d put it almost more sharply: not always, but too often, researchers using survey experiments seem to think they’re making causal inferences when they are measuring quantities. confusion over the inquiry is v far from the spirit of the cred revolution

Why not a simple product code, with the information available online? This is very old school.

Thank you Ingvild. And congratulations. You wrote an excellent thesis, and you were a delight to supervise and to get to know.

The EU single market’s elephant in the room Small, often invisible barriers to trade affect products from businesses across Europe, including a fluffy Ikea pachyderm

Brilliant article on the regulatory burdens of the EU single market, eg. the toy with the massive label with loads of required envir. info, which costs a fortune to produce and is then cut off and thrown away, creating more waste! EU shooting itself in the foot.
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

This isn’t good. Sounds like a classic case of insider information sharing on a major public procurement contract.

News from a robust democracy

Thanks Dan

To halt the far right, Europe’s progressive parties must fix its housing crisis. Our research shows how | Tarik Abou-Chadi, Björn Bremer and Silja Häusermann The mantra of ‘build, build, build’ misses something crucial: that few can afford these new homes, say Tarik Abou-Chadi, Silja Häusermann and Björn Bremer

For the Guardian, @bjoernbremer.bsky.social, @siljahausermann.bsky.social and I write about how building new homes is not enough to tackle the housing crisis. Housing is a redistributive issue and progressive policy solutions need to acknowledge that.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I agree with Ben: "fire alarms" better than "police patrols" (i.e. basic principal-agent theory!). So, we need to make fire alarms easier, e.g. via @i4replication.bsky.social et al. This is not about "gotcha" moments, but about credibility, which includes showing replications that confirm findings

Yes, journals signal quality. What I like about I4R is the culture it fosters: civil; engagement between original paper authors and replicators; open to younger scholars; publishing replications that show the original is sound, etc. So great for transparency and accountability.

Yep. And also platforms like Institute4Replication are a good innovation. Much faster and more flexible. I use it for the course I teach on “Replicating Research in Political Science”. i4replication.org

I agree. I’m sceptical that having an in house replication specialist would solve the issues we’re discussing. We know (eg. from principal-agent work) that, as a monitoring mechanism, “fire alarms” can be more effective than “police patrol”. So, in that sense, the system isn’t broken.

West Ham legend Billy Bonds dies aged 79 Billy Bonds, West Ham's record appearance maker who led them to two FA Cup titles, passes away peacefully on Sunday morning.

A great man 😢 #COYI
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Sure. Are you willing to pay for that, e.g. by paying to submit papers? Almost no money from journal publishers to pay for anything like that, so journals rely a lot on temporary and usually voluntary labour.

I understand that. I know this stuff is far from easy. I’m just reporting what Dan and Stuart have been saying. Better to talk directly to them.

From what has been said (and that’s all I can judge), the replication and the response to the replication should ideally have been published online at the same time. Both sets of authors made other points, and they can address those themselves.

Yep. On the same page. We need to collectively work out how to do this stuff better.

Thanks Hugo. This debate is now on the curriculum of the course for next term :-)

Btw, it sounds like @apsrjournal.bsky.social didn’t handle this as well as they might have done. Lessons for the future, perhaps.

Ouch! Hoping this argument doesn’t escalate. I have enormous respect for @dandekadt.bsky.social and @turnbulldugarte.com. Both are phenomenally smart and creative scholars. Some of the very best around.

A critique of our (w/ @bertous.bsky.social) paper “Instrumentally inclusive” has just been published.

Our response is under review (see below on process) but we feel obliged to share our draft for balance since the comment has been released without the response.

osf.io/rn6h3/files/...

Thanks Dan. Didn’t mean to be snarky. Just thought I’d flag that, in case you weren’t aware. Good to know it’s in hand.

SPLITTERS !!! #LifeOfBrian

Hi Dan. This is fascinating. But (somewhat ironically!) the link to your replication files on Dataverse doesn't seem to work (doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...). Maybe fix that. Ta!

Today I published a replication outlining concerns with "Instrumentally Inclusive" by Turnbull-Dugarte and López Ortega (2024, APSR).

I document seemingly idiosyncratic and ad hoc choices made by the authors that create a pattern of statistically significant results consistent with their theory.

Santa Claus is still a woman There is something particularly stubborn about gender roles at Christmas

To do list:
- buy more of the Xmas gifts this year!
on.ft.com/4pAF8Pc Santa Claus is still a woman

People on BlueSky: AI is useless! A stochastic parrot!

Mathematicians/biologists/physicists: It is already helping us do frontier technical research and in some cases solve open problems arxiv.org/pdf/2511.16072

(There are of course, as always, many caveats, but the paper is genuinely remarkable)