Hugo Ferrinho Lopes

How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it I wanted a dinner recommendation and got a research agenda instead. Using 13000+ restaurants, I rebuild its ratings with machine learning and map how algorithmic visibility actually distributes power.

This is an amazing analysis of how Google Maps shapes restaurant ratings and choice! Bravo @laurenleek.eu open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

As Duncan says, this article was a lot of fun.

There's so much to it - the funky method, in-depth case studies, the nuancing of a well-established party organisation theory, spatial regressions, maps...

This is super interesting: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The geography of the party on the ground: Local branches in Italy and Sweden in the late twentieth century The idea that the presence of Western European political parties at grassroots level rose and fell in the twentieth century is central to some of the …

🎁 Christmas has come early for @ammassarisofia.bsky.social & me with the publication of our article "The geography of the party on the ground: Local branches in Italy and Sweden in the late twentieth century" in @politicalgeography.bsky.social:

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

I’ve never seen such a smooth parallel trend with such beautiful shaped lines.

And then PhD hits.

This is pretty amazing. Read it.

Excited to be in Gothenburg this week. Very grateful to
@annkristinkolln.bsky.social for the invitation.

„the importance of sample size stemmed from small effect sizes across studies (perhaps smaller than researchers may have anticipated), highlighting a tension between commonly used power calculi and determining what constitutes a “meaningful effect.“

I may be wrong – and I’m by no means defending APSR – but I do think a similar decision was made in this case. Not sure, though. In any case, the editors should publish the two pieces simultaneously.

This debate brought me back to a great replication course I took in 2023 with @simonhix.bsky.social at @eui-eu.bsky.social. I’m learning a lot from both sides. Critique is welcome -- what we should avoid is turning disagreements into attacks on authors.

LSE Collaborative Studentship with Campaign Lab LSE Collaborative Studentship with Campaign Lab

🚨 We have a cool new ESRC PhD studentship opportunity on the topic of political persuasion for someone interested in campaigning, field experiments and/or computational methods @lsegovernment.bsky.social, in collaboration with
@campaign-lab.bsky.social. All info 👇
www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse...

Great. Congratulations!

A rare benefit of being awake in the middle of the night (day 10 of jetlag!): you get to see this drop into your mailbox.

Coming soon, by @ammassarisofia.bsky.social & me, in Political Geography.

What a brilliant thing to stumble upon in the middle of the night. Congrats!

This is wild!

Seven-day-ahead weather forecasts in high-income countries are more accurate than one-day-ahead weather forecasts in low-income countries.

“We estimate that from the mid-2000s to 2022, exposure to the opioid epidemic continuously increased the Republican vote share in House, presidential, and gubernatorial elections.”

🌟 JOB ALERT! 🌟

I’m hiring 1 postdoc for my ERC project ECONENGAGE (@ Gothenburg 🇸🇪)! Starting ca. Aug '26! Congenial colleagues + int'l & supportive environment. 💸 for conferences + workshops! Lots of professional networking opportunities with scholars! Deadline Jan 7th. Apply! (see more below 🧵)

🚨 LSE Assistant Professor in Political Science 🚨

We’re hiring a tenure-track assistant professor - any area of empirical political science - to join our wonderful Government Dept @lsegovernment.bsky.social

Any questions, please reach out to me

📣 Please share! 📣

jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Electoral System Explorer - Interactive Voting & Gerrymandering Tool Explore how electoral systems work with this interactive tool. Draw districts, adjust party support, and compare majoritarian vs proportional results.

🚨New genAI teaching material: an Electoral System Explorer built with Claude. It lets students see how votes translate to seats under different electoral systems. Try it here: claude.ai/public/artif.... Feedback, as always, is very much appreciated!

#poliski

‼️ Important new paper on the consequences of low turnout for representation by @mascakir.bsky.social, see Semih's 🧵 for a summary of his findings 👇

Indeed, yet I think both need to pay for at least one revision — and the costs are super high.

📻 Great new podcast on political behaviour - the last episode features my @lsegovernment.bsky.social colleague Florian Foos @florianfoos.bsky.social on whether campaigns matter, Mamdani’s victory and the Dutch elections -
listen here ⬇️
linktr.ee/Politically....

This plot is from a different, evil world.

Oh, wait a minute: this is reality. Publishers making like 38% profit margins.

50 years after Angola's independence, 44% of Angolans disagree with the removal of symbols of Portuguese colonialism, and 30% are in favor. We will publish today the results of polls in Portugal, Cape Verde, and Angola on the 50th anniversary of Portuguese decolonization.

How are contemporary cleavage structures stabilized in times of declining mass social and political organizations?

In this new paper with @davidattewell6.bsky.social @bjpols.bsky.social, we suggest that homogeneous social (educational) networks provide part of the answer.

tinyurl.com/49cs8jwp

Better get your paper submissions in for the @epssnet.bsky.social conference in June 2026, as the deadline is 7 November, and we have no intention of extended that (given the submission numbers)!
epssnet.org/belfast-2026...

Democracy Under Siege: Global Fascism, Populism, Illiberalism // Eight Convention of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies // Org. ComFas | ICS - ULisboa ICS-ULisboa / Lisbon / 18-20 June 2026 The debate on the similarities and differences between fascism, authoritarianism, and populism has been present in political discourse since the first half of th...

— Call for papers —
International Conference "Democracy Under Siege: Global Fascism, Populism, and Illiberalism", Institute of Social Science, University of Lisbon, June 18-20, 2026. Deadline for proposals of papers, panels, "meet the author", and "research projects" sessions, January 31, 2026.

Just prepped this slide on party membership numbers for a class. Shout if you think/know I've got it wrong as plenty of time to change it. PS I suspect the Tory figure is below 100,000 now but can't prove it, of course. PPS If anyone has an official/updated figure for Plaid, I'd love to know it!

We have just advertised a Full Prof position in the Political and Social Sciences department at the EUI (@eui-sps.bsky.social). Here are the details. Please spread the word, and get in touch if you have any questions.
www.eui.eu/Documents/Se...

German far right setting agenda as opponents amplify its ideas, study finds Normalisation of far-right stances likely to affect success of such parties at ballot boxes across Europe, say researchers

German study shows how far right sets agenda thanks to mainstream parties reshaping their communications to respond to what are initially fringe issues, boosting the spread of these ideas and signalling to voters that these ideas and stances were legitimate

shorturl.at/OFfig