Michele Scotto di Vettimo

Research challenges and training needs in text analysis for political science research European Political Science | Cambridge Core

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@michelesdv.bsky.social, A.Haraldsson, @gelovanishota.bsky.social, S.Banducci, K.Koc-Michalska & @yannistheocharis.bsky.social highlight the challenges, training needs, and preferences of scholars using text analysis methodologies.

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Promotional image for the European Political Science (EPS) journal featuring the text "European Political Science" and "EPS" with the hashtag "OpenAccess" on an olive green background.

#OpenAccess from @epsjournal.bsky.social -

Research challenges and training needs in text analysis for political science research - https://cup.org/3ZlNL4Q

- @michelesdv.bsky.social, A.Haraldsson, @gelovanishota.bsky.social, S.Banducci, K.Koc-Michalska & @yannistheocharis.bsky.social

#FirstView

Central bank shifts tone when reputation is threatened, study finds | King's College London New research has found a stark contrast in how policymakers at independent technocratic institutions such as central banks respond to different types of reputational risk.

How do central bankers talk when their reputation is at stake? Here's a brief post about a recent study by Christel Koop and myself on the Bank of England:
shorturl.at/uGnF7

@kcl-spe.bsky.social @govjournal.bsky.social

Senator Merkley is on hour 20 of reading How Democracies Die, mixed w commentary, on u.s. senate floor

Nature could be an effective self-help tool for improving mental health Engaging with nature could be an effective measure for those with low wellbeing to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety. A new pilot study from the University of Exeter, published in Behavioral Sciences, found that

If you're struggling with the effects of anxiety and depression, a new study has shown that a nature-based programme called Roots and Shoots could help boost your mood, enhance mindfulness, and reconnect with the natural environment. news.exeter.ac.uk/fa...
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“Neither our media nor our political system is designed to deal with a far right authoritarian party” Mark Copelovitch unpacks his signature phrase.

"The media continues to cover politics as if it is still the 1990s. 'Both parties are basically center-right or center-left parties.' The journalism infrastructure in our country wants to pretend that that’s the world that we live in. The instinct is to treat everything politicians say as valid."

Telling people on Bluesky that the crisis of left-wing parties and movements might have something to do with the behavior of left-wing parties and movements

Chart showing Iranian nuclear centrifuge from 2011 to 2025

In a more serious country, unilaterally withdrawing from the JCPOA would have immediately ended Trump's first presidency & destroyed the GOP's reputation on national security policy for a generation 🧐

You wouldn't know it from today's newspaper front pages screaming "betrayal", but new YouGov polling finds that 66% of British people now want the Government to deliver a closer relationship with the EU, compared to just 14% who don't

The COMPTEXT family keeps on growing! #COMPTEXT2025

AI is already in the classroom. Instead of banning it, educators should focus on integrating it while preserving intellectual rigor. AI is already in the classroom. Instead of banning it, educators should focus on integrating it while preserving intellectual rigor.

AI is already in the classroom. Instead of banning it, educators should focus on integrating it while preserving intellectual rigor.

A tricky thing about modern society is that no one has any idea when they don’t die.

Like, the number of lives saved by controlling air pollution in America is probably over 200,000 per year, but the number of people who think their life was saved by controlling air pollution is zero.

Happy to promote this course I am delivering for the LISS DTP training programme. The course is open to London-based PhDs who want to explore how to use automated methods to classify texts and covers methods with different levels of complexity.

More here: mscottodivettimo.github.io/liss2117.html

Higher debt servicing costs and weaker tax receipts turned the Chancellor’s day-to-day spending surplus of £9.9 billion in 2029-30, into a fiscal rule breaking deficit of £4.1 billion. Policy measures announced in the Spring Statement have restored that surplus.

The Chancellor has chosen to stay within her fiscal rules by cutting spending. This comes in the form of cuts to disability benefits, Universal Credit and departmental budgets. The biggest single cut is a restriction to eligibility for PIP, saving £4.5 billion. We expect 800,000 people will no longer qualify for support, losing out on £6,300 (in 2029-30) on average. 68 per cent of all welfare cuts are concentrated on households in the bottom half of the income distribution.

The Chancellor has also cut day-to-day public spending by £3.6 billion in 2029-30. This is far cry from a return to austerity - spending is rising in the intervening years - but nor can the cuts be delivered solely by painless efficiency savings.

Real household disposable incomes are forecast to rise by just £1,200 over the course of the 2020s. This is down from £2,900 during the 2010s and £4,800 in the decade running up to the financial crisis (1997-2007).

What does the Spring Statement mean for lower income families?

The youth gender gap in support for the far right The 2024 European Parliament election showcased a surprising new trend. While progressive parties have traditionally done well among younger voters, it was far-right parties that enjoyed unpreceden...

This paper also just went out: doi.org/10.1080/1350...

The biggest threat to European security does not come from Russia but it comes from the far right within its own nation states. All of the defense spending is not going to protect anyone if Trump's and Putin's buddies are voted into office, they consolidate power and erode liberal democracy 1/

One model to rule them all? Choosing two-dimensional spaces for European political landscapes with VAA data This article investigates the effectiveness of three different two-dimensional models in representing political competition using user data from the EU and I Voting Advice Application for the EU el...

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Our paper "One model to rule them all? Choosing two-dimensional spaces for European political landscapes with VAA data" has just been published!

What did we find?
TL;DR: EU + L/R Super Dimension summarises EU VAA user data best.

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www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
PolDataSky polisky #polsci

Only 6% of gen Z actually favour dictatorship – not half, as some reports would have you believe Gen Z don’t hate democracy, they have a problem with the way it is being delivered.

Widespread media coverage about a recent study suggested over half of Gen Z want the UK to be run by a dictator.

But our research suggests it's more like only 6% who hold this view in reality.

@bobbyduffy.bsky.social & @pmorini.bsky.social explain why this matters for @uk.theconversation.com ⬇️ 🧵

+++NEW ANALYSIS+++

UK electricity was the cleanest ever in 2024, with emissions per unit falling by more than two-thirds in a decade

Highlights:
🏭end of coal power after 142yrs
🔥fossil fuels at record-low 29% share
🌄renewables at record-high 45%

www.carbonbrief.org/...
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Citizen-produced political text: An interdisciplinary study of ineq... Research possibilities utilising text data are expanding (Baden et al., 2022), and political text produced by citizens is among the most commonly employed text data within political and communicati...

What are the main challenges for the researchers studying citizen-produced political text? Data collection difficulties, steep learning curve, and more.
Read more in our piece with a wonderful OPTED team of Amanda Haraldsson, @michelesdv.bsky.social, @benteka.bsky.social, and Karolina Koc-Michalska.

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