Brian Boyle

ICYMI: in the past week, we released the YOUMEM dataset — with survey responses from 5000+ members of 12 youth wings.

It is the largest comparative study of youth wing members to date.

It is also, we believe, the largest comparative party membership survey dataset ever made publicly available.

It must be very hard to publish null results Publication practices in the social sciences act as a filter that favors statistically significant results over null findings. While the problem of selection on significance (SoS) is well-known in theory, it has been difficult to measure its scope empirically, and it has been challenging to determine how selection varies across contexts. In this article, we use large language models to extract granular and validated data on about 100,000 articles published in over 150 political science journals from 2010 to 2024. We show that fewer than 2% of articles that rely on statistical methods report null-only findings in their abstracts, while over 90% of papers highlight significant results. To put these findings in perspective, we develop and calibrate a simple model of publication bias. Across a range of plausible assumptions, we find that statistically significant results are estimated to be one to two orders of magnitude more likely to enter the published record than null results. Leveraging metadata extracted from individual articles, we show that the pattern of strong SoS holds across subfields, journals, methods, and time periods. However, a few factors such as pre-registration and randomized experiments correlate with greater acceptance of null results. We conclude by discussing implications for the field and the potential of our new dataset for investigating other questions about political science.

I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.

The moral panic about young men is the new version of “UKIP is winning over former Labour voters” (also a Goodwin argument). Both rely on anecdote more than data, and do significant damage to public understanding of the radical right. Young men are the second *least* pro-Reform group in the UK.

partycoloR is now on CRAN! Started as a simple idea 6 years ago, now it's a full-featured package. Extract party colors and logos from Wikipedia with one line of code. It's already powering ParlGov Dashboard.

install.packages("partycoloR")

What you do need training on is how to identify AI generated images, video, and text - and how to learn the pitfalls of GenAI tech like their habit of confirming whatever you say to them.

This is not what is being proposed. They won't want people to be AI-sceptics.

"This is how you navigate to a website and type a sentence."

You do not need training to use ChatGPT. This would be the government absolutely flushing money down the toilet (the toilet here is AI "consultancy" firms who will happily quote you enormous sums to deliver this non-task).

I'm looking forward to the Reform Party fighting corruption, putting a few quid in workers' pocket and turning the country around like they did when they were Conservatives

The myth of compensatory effects: How party organisation shapes women's representation in dual-candidacy mixed electoral systems Electoral systems are widely recognised as important institutional determinants explaining women's political representation. Mixed-member proportional…

Ever wondered why Germany, in 2001 only the seventh country in the world after the Nordic ones and Netherlands to have more than 30% of MPs female, has since completed stagnated and been overtaken by 50-odd countries?

In this newly published paper, @maarja.bsky.social and I try to explain that.

UCD-co-led research into AI’s influence on democracy awarded seed funding

Congratulations to my amazing @ucddublin.bsky.social @ucdpolitics.bsky.social colleague @stefanmueller.bsky.social on his latest project

www.ucd.ie/newsandopini...

Just like me? Testing descriptive attributes as voting heuristics The lack of candidate diversity and the descriptive under-representation of groups such as women and young people in parliaments is a recurring concer…

Very interesting new publication by Leonie Rettig and @lukasisermann.com on descriptive attributes as voting heuristics - specifically age and gender:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Screenshot of email that reads: “This status will remain in place until the University receives notification that you are no longer participating in that action. During this period, any work undertaken will be regarded as voluntary.”

Well that’s me locked out. No pay for the foreseeable future, all because I refuse to reschedule lost teaching, for which I have already lost pay as part of the strike. Please donate to support @sheffielducu.bsky.social members like me at www.gofundme.com/f/heubvb-sup...

🫵WE WANT YOU 🎓
Are you interested in political communication, negative campaigning, and social norms? Are you experienced in quantitative methods? Do you have good rain clothes?

Then our postdoc position might be just for you: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas

Constructing impartiality in a polarised news environment: An analysis of BBC Question Time contributors 2014-2024 - Matt Walsh, 2025 Televised panel discussions are an increasingly used form of journalism, providing cheap content without expensive newsgathering. In recent years, panel constru...

Final publication of the year: I examined 10 years of panellists on BBC Question Time. Some interesting findings - thread below:
(1/6)
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

"An academic discovers a paper attributed to him that does not exist has been cited 42 times" is a sentence with an actual referent in 2025.

Photo of Trinity College Dublin taken by Stefan Müller

Our neighbours at @tcdpoliticalsci.bsky.social are hiring 3 (!) tenure-track faculty members:

– Assistant Professor in Political Economy
– Assistant Professor in International Politics
– Assistant Professor in Political Science

Deadline: 15 Jan 2026
More details: jobs.tcd.ie
@tcddublin.bsky.social

Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science (3-4 years) (291366) | University of Oslo Job title: Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science (3-4 years) (291366), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Friday, February 6, 2026

Interested in pursuing a career in climate governance, policy or politics research? Do you have a relevant PhD degree in political science, public administration or international relations? Then you should check out this opportunity!

www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

🧵 Thread on new research on gender gaps in “don’t know” responses

Some of you will know that my stellar coauthors @hannahbunting.bsky.social @cerifowler.bsky.social @jess-smith.bsky.social @annasanders.bsky.social & I have been working on a large-scale project on “don’t know” responses in surveys.

It somehow is always the widening participation programmes that are the ones that get cut first, that get deemed dispensable.

Shame on @universityofessex.bsky.social. Transforming society for the better is #UKHE 's role, Essex's in particular. Have you forgotten what you were established for?

🚨 Postdoc in Comparative Politics/Public Opinion (2 years)

We’re hiring a 100% Postdoc at the University of Greifswald.

✨ What makes this job special: Two full years to focus on research (no teaching, no admin overload) embedded into an International Research Training Group

The Call for Papers and Panels for #COMPTEXT2026 in Birmingham (23-25 April) is out; feel free to circulate: shorturl.at/gRg0p!
Deadline: January 16!

Consolidation, Not Conversion: Understanding Wales’s Ongoing Realignment Showcasing current research, comments and analysis on the law, politics, history, culture, government and political economy of Wales from the Wales Governance Centre.

🚨 NEW BLOG

Labour have won every election in Wales for 100 years, but they are on track to (badly) lose the 2026 Senedd election - why?

@jaclarner.bsky.social and I have looked at new data, which shows how support is shifting within (not between) Wales's blocs!

blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal...

Will you incorporate LLMs and AI prompting into the course in the future? No. Why won’t you incorporate LLMs and AI prompting into the course? These tools are useful for coding (see this for my personal take on this). However, they’re only useful if you know what you’re doing first. If you skip the learning-the-process-of-writing-code step and just copy/paste output from ChatGPT, you will not learn. You cannot learn. You cannot improve. You will not understand the code.

In that post, it warns that you cannot use it as a beginner: …to use Databot effectively and safely, you still need the skills of a data scientist: background and domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, and coding ability. There is no LLM-based shortcut to those skills. You cannot LLM your way into domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, or coding ability. The only way to gain domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, and coding ability is to struggle. To get errors. To google those errors. To look over the documentation. To copy/paste your own code and adapt it for different purposes. To explore messy datasets. To struggle to clean those datasets. To spend an hour looking for a missing comma. This isn’t a form of programming hazing, like “I had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow and now you must too.” It’s the actual process of learning and growing and developing and improving. You’ve gotta struggle.

This Tumblr post puts it well (it’s about art specifically, but it applies to coding and data analysis too): Contrary to popular belief the biggest beginner’s roadblock to art isn’t even technical skill it’s frustration tolerance, especially in the age of social media. It hurts and the frustration is endless but you must build the frustration tolerance equivalent to a roach’s capacity to survive a nuclear explosion. That’s how you build on the technical skill. Throw that “won’t even start because I’m afraid it won’t be perfect” shit out the window. Just do it. Just start. Good luck. (The original post has disappeared, but here’s a reblog.) It’s hard, but struggling is the only way to learn anything.

You might not enjoy code as much as Williams does (or I do), but there’s still value in maintaining codings skills as you improve and learn more. You don’t want your skills to atrophy. As I discuss here, when I do use LLMs for coding-related tasks, I purposely throw as much friction into the process as possible: To avoid falling into over-reliance on LLM-assisted code help, I add as much friction into my workflow as possible. I only use GitHub Copilot and Claude in the browser, not through the chat sidebar in Positron or Visual Studio Code. I treat the code it generates like random answers from StackOverflow or blog posts and generally rewrite it completely. I disable the inline LLM-based auto complete in text editors. For routine tasks like generating {roxygen2} documentation scaffolding for functions, I use the {chores} package, which requires a bunch of pointing and clicking to use. Even though I use Positron, I purposely do not use either Positron Assistant or Databot. I have them disabled. So in the end, for pedagogical reasons, I don’t foresee me incorporating LLMs into this class. I’m pedagogically opposed to it. I’m facing all sorts of external pressure to do it, but I’m resisting. You’ve got to learn first.

Some closing thoughts for my students this semester on LLMs and learning #rstats datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-12...

Readable, Reliable, Reusable: A Guide to Clean #rstats Code
jacciz.github.io/portfolio/pr... Lots of good advice in this post. Too bad one (better, I) keeps forgetting about some practices in the process and follow bad practices

⏰ I’m happy to share that a major paper from my dissertation was published today (🔗 doi.org/10.1017/pan....) in Political Analysis. In the paper, Clemens Lechner and I conduct an extensive validation study on how to measure politicians’ public personality traits using computational text analysis!

🚨New article🚨 What do people want from political leaders in times of crisis, and are those preferences gendered?

Interested? Then check out our new Electoral Studies paper @jess-smith.bsky.social @viktorv.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social @hannahbunting.bsky.social @carolineleicht.bsky.social

After a long time in development, {traktok} #rstats is now finally on CRAN!

Whether you have access to the Research API or just want to scrape some pages, traktok has you covered

jbgruber.github.io/traktok/

These are HEPI estimates of the 20 institutions affected: I think this illustrates the impact if the tariff is absorbed in full by institutions.

What share of the 6% tariff different universities may try to pass on to fees - or the impact might be on demand if they did - is not publicly known.

If all they're doing is "fact-checking" AI output + using AI for all reading and writing (which most are), they will never have the opportunity to acquire those fundamental cognitive skills which can only be obtained through the challenging and uncomfortable work of actually reading and writing.

I don't think this is right. These kind of metacognitive tasks require that students *already* have the cognitive skills to critically evaluate a piece of text both for empirical accuracy and strength of argument. In an AI-saturated world, I'm not convinced first-year students do.