New book published by UCL Press: "Parliament Buildings: The Architecture of Politics in Europe", co-edited by Sophia Psarra, Uta Staiger and Claudia Sternberg.
I've contributed a chapter called "Degrees of opposition and cooperation: how seating plans and parliament layouts reflect and give rise to political cultures"
Unveiling power, or why social science's task is explanation https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.13056@sociology@politicalscience This take on mechanisms and process tracing is a little bit different, but interesting. I agree that explanation can yield insights about power. I am less confident that it can expose lies. 1/
⌛️t-5: Don't forget to submit your proposals for the #DVPW#convention on "Politics in Times of Polycrisis" and join us on 24-27 September 2024 in Göttingen!
The #CfP closes on 31 October 2023, so that's your last chance 😀
Over the past year, I've reviewed a worrying number of articles on Russian media that seek to whitewash Russian media censorship as 'normal' or demonstrate it does not exist. This is done through strategic research design choices, selective lit review, and misrepresentation. Some thoughts in the thread below.
The papers are submitted to reputable journals and look good enough to be sent out for review. Without knowledge of the Russian context, a reviewer may not notice. Here are some red flags that a paper may be problematic (and, in any case, should not be published as is):
💬 Part 1 of our "Participant Insights Series" is here!
We are proud to present our first #citizen perspective on the #regroup#minipublics. How was it for the participants to engage in a deliberative democracy setting? Time for the participants' voices to be heard!
Click the images to read how this participant reflects on his experience in the Dutch mini-public. 👇
Follow our weekly series for more valuable insights.
Dear @politicalscience , I have no university affiliation so no access to Sage journals. It would be super great, if I could get access to this paper by Mair & Katz: Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party.
(link would be: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354068895001001001)
Thanks a lot!
Please share: In DC, on Fri, Oct. 20 @9am (& later airing on CSPAN) Princeton's Matt Jones VT's Janet Abbate, Columbia's Matt Connelly, & I are doing a public/free https://mastodon.social/@[email protected] AHA Congressional Briefing on how AI history informs AI risks.
Following the #Polish#election this evening. A weird (to me) detail I have noticed is that votes from Poles living abroad are all assigned to the Warsaw constituency.
I'm not sure I have ever seen an arrangement like that before, though may simply be my ignorance. Aren't overseas voters generally assigned to either their 'home' constituency, or an overseas constituency? Anyone have a similar example from elsewhere?
@Barros_heritage@mfi@sociology@politicalscience
🤔 Is there really a need to define such an open term (beyond giving broad indications of its general function in the sociological discourse) ? It will always have blurred limits (when it comes to determining whether someone is acting or being "acted"), and when we try to give a strict definition, it will always enforce strong ontologies with very cumbersome consequences.
@Barros_heritage@mfi@sociology@politicalscience
For instance, one might consider the #ANT definition a fancy but sterile metaphysical move that will hinder sociological work ;-) (haha sorry for the provocation)
An alternative strategy would be to merely distanciate yourself from conceptual connotations, depending on the object you want to build ("actor" vs "agent", or "subject", or "stakeholder", or "individual", etc...) without closing the meaning with an determinate definition.
Investigation by The Insider on Russia's enhanced filtering capacity - protocol-based blocking - and how it evaded sanctions to procure the equipment this requires.