Christopher Wratil 🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine

"Zwischen der Erde und der Sonne ist die Atmosphäre.

Und wenn die immer dünner wird, dann wird die Sonne immer heißer.

Und der Grund dafür sind Abgase, CO₂ und und und"

- Manuel Hagel, CDU Spitzenkandidat für die Landtagswahl in Baden-Württemberg zu Schülern, ARD Mittagsmagazin vom 2. März 2026

Late deciders, higher turnout: what the Gorton and Denton byelection taught us about voters High numbers of undecideds may partially explain the late swing to the Greens.

New piece from w/ @hannahbunting.bsky.social & @jess-smith.bsky.social on the Gorton & Denton byelection, and what it might tell us about British politics.

We cover turnout, late-deciding voters, gender gaps & the continuing fragmentation of the party system 🧵

theconversation.com/late-decider...

The train has left the station: Agentic AI and the future of social science research | Brookings A new era of agentic AI agents has begun. What does it mean for social scientists? Solomon Messing and Joshua Tucker discuss.

Are you a social scientist who has been hearing about Claude Code but hasn't checked it out yet? Or are you a social scientist who has been playing with Claude Code and has been wondering what it means for the future of social science research?

www.brookings.edu/articles/the...

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Academics Need to Wake Up on AI Ten theses for folks who haven't noticed the ground shifting under their feet

Sorry, Bluesky, but I have to say it: AI can already do social science research better than most professors with PhDs. And, for the first time in my life, I really have no idea what happens in five years.

Things are changing already, we just need to wake up.

The hot in the west was hotter than the cold in the east was cold.
#climatechange

This is also supported by individual level data, which shows Labour losing more voters to the Greens than to Reform. The rise of Reform in traditional Labour areas does not mean that Labour voters in those places are all shifting to Reform. That’s an ecological fallacy (cf. @tabouchadi.bsky.social)

Völkerrecht also nicht mehr Maßstab für die Bundesregierung. Gilt das auch für die Eroberung Grönlands und Rügens? Oder gilt es dann wieder?

Sánchez und Merz sind in Sachen Iran zu sehr unterschiedlichen Positionen gekommen. Sánchez sagt, der Angriff sei völkerrechtswidrig, deshalb abzulehnen. Merz behauptet, völkerrechtskonform könne man leider nichts machen (was Schwachsinn ist, siehe JCPoA) - und begrüßt den Krieg.

Thread: Kein außergewöhnlich kalter Winter auch im Norden und Osten!

Im Deutschlandmittel schließt der Winter bei +1,8°C, damit +1,6K zu 1961-1990 und +0,2K zu 1991-2020.

This is from Keir Starmer’s letter to Labour MPs today. This sort of stuff is shockingly partisan and nasty. It will only backfire with voters who switched to Green or are thinking of switching.

Again, I’d be far more inclined to believe all of the “the world order is now completely changed & we need new IR paradigms” takes if any of the world’s other regional or “great” powers aside from 🇷🇺 showed even the least interest or enthusiasm in participating with Donald Trump in such a new order 🧐

Insulting his constituents, Matt Goodwin does the most Matt Goodwin thing. Blaming others for failing to see his brilliance. Academics first, now voters. This sentiment is driving his radicalisation. Maybe even people at Reform will realise that it‘s a very bad quality for a politician to have.

Poor Matt Goodwin. All he ever wanted was to be a hard working MP/academic/tv presenter/commentator/writer/pollster/wealth adviser/women’s health guru and you all ripped that away from him. A shame

Thank you! 🙏

We will also cover common challenges and pitfalls of survey experiments. You will get hands-on guidelines of how to deal with certain issues (e.g. deception, hypotheticality, demand effects), wherever such guidelines can be formualted. 😆

Let me know in case you are interested and have questions!

We will introduce a variety of common survey-experimental designs that are used in the social sciences. We will discuss their purpose, identification assumption, strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, we will try to design experiments to answer our own - your! - research questions.

You are interested in survey experiments or plan to do your own (first) survey experiment?

I offer a class at @methodsnet.bsky.social in Vienna this summer (6 - 10 July) that might be interesting for you! 👇

methodsnet.org/course/d10-d...

💥🗳️ Bombshell poll in Hungary: 55–35 lead for Péter Magyar’s TISZA over Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP – enough for a supermajority in parliament.

The survey was conducted by Medián, widely seen as the country’s most reliable pollster, for @hvghu.bsky.social.

Fieldwork: Feb 18–23, 1,000 respondents.

NEW: The fifth year of Russia’s invasion is not beginning well for Moscow. Recent Ukrainian successes on the battlefield disprove Russian claims that things can only get worse for Ukraine the longer Kyiv delays surrendering to Russian demands.

Read more: isw.pub/UkrWar022426

Did you talk with them about the discovery of the Higgs boson at five sigma?

Why does mainstream accommodation of far-right and Eurosceptic parties often electorally backfire? In my 3rd dissertation paper, just published in @wepsocial.bsky.social, I argue that voters specifically punish internally divided parties for accommodation: doi.org/10.1080/0140...
1/13 🧵

Extra: Recent experimental evidence from Dominik Duell,
@dielea.bsky.social, @sopro.bsky.social, Jonathan B. Slapin & @chriswratil.bsky.social similarly shows the negative effects that intra-party divisions can have for parties responding to new challengers. A great read: doi.org/10.1017/S147...

Most experimental evidence points in this direction!

I hope I remember these things about our second experiment correctly, because we ran it 7 years ago or so. But Bruno can confirm. I just thought that if this null was ever relevant again for the debate, it might be here 😝.

Outcome ended up in the file drawer. The one on pop attitudes we published. While you attribute your null to compiler rate, we thought at the time it was a design issue. From today’s perspective I believe these nulls simply reflect that pop attitudes are no causal factor explaining pop voting. 🗳️

Very interesting paper! A shame I missed it before. Your finding that populist attitudes are affected but vote choice not immediately ties in with findings @bcastanho.bsky.social & I had when we investigated populism and feelings of representation years ago. The experiment with vote choice…

Excited to see page numbers on our paper. 👇

If you are interested in the link between perceptions of inequality in society and support for populism, this paper is for you.

We present both observational and experimental evidence on it.

🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social):

We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.

Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.

w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social

URL: osf.io/preprints/os...

Logo for the European Journal of Political Research displaying the text "EJPR European Journal of Political Research" in cream letters on a blue background, accompanied by the hashtag "#OpenAccess".

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social -

Everything for the fans: Party responsiveness across the EU over time - https://cup.org/401z8nH

- @felixlehmann.bsky.social

#FirstView

Academics vying for a spot in Epstein‘s world. There are so many. I feel the need to make a thread, so I don’t keep confusing them. 1/

Wer verstehen will, wie sehr sich Springers Blattlinie verschoben hat, muss nur diesen Text lesen.

ICE-Terror wird als „Unerfahrenheit & schnelle Hand am Abzug“ verharmlost, verantwortlich „Linke“.

Die Schuldumkehr zeigt wie sehr Anstand, Moral & Menschlichkeit verrutscht sind.