Zoltan Fazekas

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out.

As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class.

Here's what happened:

We are happy to announce the call for papers for the third WhoGov Mini-Conference on Political Elites!

It will be held on August 20-21st, 2026 in Oslo. We welcome research on political elites broadly understood and not just papers using WhoGov.

You can find the call here: bit.ly/whogovminico...

Reducing Bias in Citizens’ Perception of Crime Rates: Evidence from a Field Experiment on Burglary Prevalence | The Journal of Politics: Vol 82, No 2 Citizens are, on average, too pessimistic when assessing the trajectory of current crime trends. In this study, we examine whether we can correct this perceptual bias with respect to burglaries. Using...

I like this for teaching, because it can be used at multiple stages, starts simple: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

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...

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.

I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

University of Birmingham photo

SAVE THE DATE! We are pleased to announce that the 8th COMPTEXT Conference will take place at the Institute of Data and AI (lnkd.in/ebN7za_Q) of the University of Birmingham, 23-25 April 2026, with @chrisguarnold.bsky.social serving as the lead local organiser. Call for Papers coming soon!

The School of Public Policy at the LSE is hiring in political science! Associate or Full.

I was the first political scientist hired by the SPP, come be the second!

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

It's finally out! All parliamentary committee assignments for 14 countries, 30+ years, harmonized with other MP and parties datasets

ggplot2 4.0.0 A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.

I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN.

It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.

Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats

Please apply! join us in beautiful Copenhagen.

Apply to EuroWEPS 12/13! We're organizing the next EuroWEPS workshops at Bocconi (Nov 14) and EUI (Dec 15) to discuss designs/papers focusing on causal inference. No presentations, just constructive discussions. Early career scholars are especially welcome to apply! Submission deadline is Sep 30

🚨 We're #hiring at LSE! Join our Department of International Relations:

🔹Assistant Professor in IR (International Security)
➡️ bit.ly/41l2GOa
🔹Assistant Professor in IPE
➡️ bit.ly/4ogBjPj

📆 Deadline: 7 September 2025.
📢 Please share widely!

#AcademicJob #AcademicSky #PoliSky

W3 Professorship in "Political Science with a Focus on International Sustainability" - Universität Münster Universität Münster bietet Stelle als W3 Professorship in "Political Science with a Focus on International Sustainability" in Münster - jetzt bewerben!

🎓📢 We’re hiring!

Come join us @uni-muenster.de 🇩🇪 as a W3 Professor in Political Science (🌍 IR & ♻️ Sustainability)

💼 Permanent position
📍 Münster, Germany
🕒 Deadline: Sept 26, 2025

jobs.zeit.de/jobs/w3-prof...

The Call for Papers for the first @epssnet.bsky.social conference is out. Please submit a paper or a panel.

Job alert! 🚨 PLEASE SHARE!

I'm hiring a LSE Fellow (postdoc) in the School of Public Policy!

To provide teaching support on our core political science course (which is what I teach) + time for individual research.

Closes March 31: jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Questions? Email me!

We are hiring a PhD candidate in political science and political economy at the Copenhagen Business School. May 1 deadline. Full ad here: www.cbs.dk/cbs/jobs-paa...

🚨Job🚨 Interested in working 2 years in beautiful Copenhagen with our political economics group? Jan Stuckatz and I are hiring a postdoc for a revolving door project at CBS. Start: summer '25. No teaching.
Deadline: January 5 '25
Link: www.cbs.dk/en/about-cbs...

Come join us in Vienna! We are hiring a tenure track assistant professor in social policy, broadly defined. Do get in touch if you have questions. https://jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Tenure-Track-Professor-in-the-field-of-Political-Science-with-focus-on-Social-Policy/1001235101/

🚨Call for Papers🚨 Psyched to announce the CBS-Princeton Money in Politics conference to be held in Copenhagen, June 2024. Third iteration of the conference, always a fantastic experience. Send us your papers before Jan 5, '24!

Link: shorturl.at/ampPV 1/2