Political Analysis

It is difficult to write the present as if it was history. Ola Hassanain nonetheless attempts to provide us with an account of the unfolding situation in Sudan, where protesters against the October 25, 2021 military coup risk their lives in the streets. She reflects on the quasicontinuous military regime and what civilian lives (and deaths) mean in this political context.

The separation of southern Sudan has undoubtedly been traumatic for the absolute majority of people on the northern border of the divide. Amongst others, the departure of the south has dealt a serious blow to the concept of New Sudan, ironically associated with John Garang, the southern saviour of the Nation who did not survive to keep the country together. To his credit, Garang's struggle for freedom, equality and unity was not all in vain. The spirit of New Sudan that he inspired still lives with us and will undoubtedly remain the only vision that can deliver us out of our current impasse.

In this paper we present a forensic analysis of the vote counts of spanish national elections that took place in December 2015 and their sequel in June 2016. Vote counts are extracted at the level of municipalities, yielding an unusually high resolution dataset with over 8000 samples. We address the frequencies of the first and second significant digits in vote counts and explore the conformance of these distributions at three different levels of aggregation to Benford’s law for each of the main political parties. The results and interpretations are mixed and vary across different levels of aggregation, finding a general good quantitative agreement at the national scale for both municipalities and precincts but finding systematic nonconformance at the level of individual precincts. We further explore the co-occurring statistics of voteshare and turnout, finding a mild tendency in the clusters of the conservative party to smear out towards the area of high turnout and voteshare, what...

Di tengah merosotnya ideologi-ideologi besar dan fragmentasi global, The Last Leviathan menegaskan bahwa dunia abad ke-21 tidak lagi digerakkan oleh gagasan, melainkan oleh kapasitas. Kedaulatan kini berarti kemampuan nyata mengendalikan energi, teknologi, data, dan institusi bukan sekadar batas wilayah atau retorika politik.

Buku ini membedah paradoks tata dunia modern: banyak aturan dan lembaga, tetapi tanpa otoritas global yang final. Dalam sistem yang anarkis namun terstruktur, negara harus dirancang ulang lebih adaptif, tangguh, dan strategis. “Leviathan terakhir” ditawarkan sebagai sintesis antara kekuatan dan legitimasi: negara yang kuat, namun tetap terkendali oleh hukum dan akuntabilitas.

Pada akhirnya, seluruh perdebatan tentang geopolitik dan teknologi dikembalikan pada satu pusat normatif: manusia. Buku ini bukan menawarkan utopia, melainkan desain bagaimana membangun kekuasaan yang cukup kuat untuk bertahan, dan cukup adil untuk melindungi martabat warganya.

This article reinforces our 2007 Political Analysis publication in demonstrating that the fixed-effects vector decomposition (FEVD) procedure outperforms any other estimator in estimating models that suffer from the simultaneous presence of time-varying variables correlated with unobserved unit effects and time-invariant variables. We compare the finite-sample properties of FEVD not only to the Hausman-Taylor estimator but also to the pretest estimator and the shrinkage estimator suggested by Breusch, Ward, Nguyen and Kompas (BWNK), and Greene in this symposium. Moreover, we correct the discussion of Greene and BWNK of FEVD's asymptotic and finite-sample properties. Authors' note: Supplementary materials for this article are available on the Political Analysis Web site. 1 This symposium deals with the estimation of time-invariant variables in panel data with unit effects. The FEVD procedure also performs better than all known alternatives for estimating variables with low within-variation and time-varying variables uncorrelated with the unobserved unit effects when other time-varying variables of interest are correlated with the unobserved unit effects. For these discussions, see Plu ¨mper and Troeger (2007, 2010). 2 Our definition of endogeneity is thus identical to the one BWNK employ in this symposium. 3 We use the terminology of King, Keohane, and Verba (1994, 66ff) and Ullah (2004) for bias and efficiency. Note that efficiency solely denotes the sampling variation of an estimator across hypothetical replications.

This article reinforces our 2007 Political Analysis publication in demonstrating that the fixed-effects vector decomposition (FEVD) procedure outperforms any other estimator in estimating models that suffer from the simultaneous presence of time-varying variables correlated with unobserved unit effects and time-invariant variables. We compare the finite-sample properties of FEVD not only to the Hausman-Taylor estimator but also to the pretest estimator and the shrinkage estimator suggested by Breusch, Ward, Nguyen and Kompas (BWNK), and Greene in this symposium. Moreover, we correct the discussion of Greene and BWNK of FEVD's asymptotic and finite-sample properties.

A frequent problem with classic first digit applications of Benford's law is the law's inapplicability to clustered data, which becomes especially problematic for analyzing election data. This study offers a novel adaptation of Benford's law by performing a first digit analysis after converting vote counts from election data to base 3 (referred to throughout the paper as 1-BL 3), spreading out the data and thus rendering the law significantly more useful. We test the efficacy of our approach on synthetic election data using discrete Weibull modeling, finding in many cases that election data often conforms to 1-BL 3. Lastly, we apply 1-BL 3 analysis to selected states from the 2004 US Presidential election to detect potential statistical anomalies.

This article provides a basic report about subject recruitment processes for Web-based surveys. Using data from our ongoing Internet Survey of American Opinion project, two different recruitment techniques (banner advertisement and subscription campaigns) are compared. This comparison, together with a typology of Web-based surveys, provides insight into the validity and generalizability of Internet survey data. The results from this analysis show that, although Internet survey respondents differ demographically from the American population, the relationships among variables are similar across recruitment methods and match those implied by substantive theory. Thus, our research documents the basic methodology of subject acquisition for Web-based surveys, which, as we argue in our conclusion, may soon become the survey interview mode of choice for social scientists. Are Web-based surveys the future of survey research? On one hand, Web-based surveys show great promise. They can be very cost-effective ways to collect public opinion data, provide rapid turn-around time, allow for easy presentation of complex textual or multimedia material to respondents, provide flexibility for respondents, and may alleviate much of the time and social pressures present in conventional interview formats (Dillman 2000; Krosnick and Chang 2001; Berrens et al. 2003). Also, some evidence indicates that Web surveys might produce highly reliable survey responses (Krosnick and Chang 2001). Finally, Web surveys promise to democratize the process of survey data collection: "Not only can researchers get access to undreamed numbers of respondents at dramatically lower costs than traditional

Recent research demonstrates that voters who change their perceptions of parties' reputation on specific issues (issue ownership) are also more likely to change their party choice accordingly. This article deals with the sources of such instability, with an emphasis on the accessibility of voters' perceptions as measured by survey response times. We contend that more accessible perceptions are more stable, but that this stabilizing effect decreases over time. Panel data from the 2019 Swiss Election Study strongly suggest that voters who are quick to assess parties' competence and associative ownership are more likely to stick to their judgment, both in the short-term context of an election campaign (which in turn heightens the likelihood that they end up voting for the party they identified as the issue owner) and in the longer run. Hence, political parties may have incentives to continuously reinforce voters' issue ownership perceptions throughout the electoral cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the geometry of the quadratic utility function in the standard spatial model of choice can be exploited to estimate a model of Parliamentary roll call voting. In a standard spatial model of Parliamentary roll call voting, the legislator votes for the policy outcome corresponding to Yea if her utility for Yea is greater than her utility for Nay. The voting decision of the legislator is modeled as a function of the difference between these two utilities. With quadratic utility, this difference has a simple geometric interpretation that can be exploited to estimate legislator ideal points and roll call parameters in a standard framework where the stochastic portion of the utility function is normally distributed. The geometry is almost identical to that used in to develop a non-parametric unfolding of binary choice data and the algorithms developed by can be easily modified to implement the standard maximum likelihood model.

Large Language Models (LLMs) offer new research possibilities for social scientists, but their potential as "synthetic data" is still largely unknown. In this paper, we investigate how accurately the popular closed-source LLM ChatGPT can recover public opinion, prompting the LLM to adopt different "personas" and then provide feeling thermometer scores for 11 sociopolitical groups. The average scores generated by ChatGPT correspond closely to the averages in our baseline survey, the 2016–2020 American National Election Study. Nevertheless, sampling by ChatGPT is not reliable for statistical inference: there is less variation in responses than in the real surveys, and regression coefficients often differ significantly from equivalent estimates obtained using ANES data. We also document how the distribution of synthetic responses varies with minor changes in prompt wording, and we show how the same prompt yields significantly different results over a three-month per...

Social scientists have increasingly turned to expert judgments to generate data for difficult-to-measure concepts, but getting access to and response from highly expert informants can be costly and challenging. We examine how informant selection and post-survey response aggregation influence the validity and reliability of measures built from informant observations. We draw upon three surveys with parallel survey questions of candidate characteristics to examine the trade-off between expanding the size of the local informant pool and the pool's level of expertise. We find that a “wisdom-of-crowds” effect trumps the benefits associated with the expertise of individual informants when the size of the rater pool is modestly increased. We demonstrate that the benefits of expertise are best realized by prescreening potential informants for expertise rather than post-survey weighting by expertise.

Election Forensics: Vote Counts and Benford's Law How can we be sure that the declared election winner actually got the most votes? Was the election stolen? This paper considers a statistical method based on the pattern of digits in vote counts (the second-digit Benford's Law, or 2BL) that may be useful for detecting fraud or other anomalies. The method seems to be useful for vote counts at the precinct level but not for counts at the level of individual voting machines, at least not when the way voters are assigned to machines induces a pattern I call "roughly equal division with leftovers" (REDWL). I demonstrate two mechanisms that can cause precinct vote counts in general to satisfy 2BL. I use simulations to illustrate that the 2BL test can be very sensitive when vote counts are subjected to various kinds of manipulation. I use data from the 2004 election in Florida and the 2006 election in Mexico to illustrate use of the 2BL tests.

El documento "La asimetría populista: del fracaso de la izquierda a la consolidación de la derecha. El paradigma del caso norteamericano", presenta un análisis crítico y estructural sobre la crisis de la izquierda occidental y la imparable consolidación electoral del populismo de derecha, utilizando el caso norteamericano como paradigma.
La importancia central del trabajo radica en diagnosticar una "asimetría estructural": el fracaso progresista no es solo táctico, sino inherente a las desventajas que la izquierda populista enfrenta en la política contemporánea, mientras que el populismo de derecha radical opera con ventajas sistémicas que facilitan su hegemonía.
El argumento clave identifica la fractura entre clase e identidad como el factor que paraliza a la izquierda populista. El documento analiza esta división a través de sus dos alas principales en Estados Unidos:
1. El Movimiento "Woke": Enfocado en la política de identidad, la justicia racial, los derechos LGBTQ+ y el reconocimiento. Aunque logra una hegemonía cultural al definir el lenguaje institucional, provoca una fragilidad electoral al chocar con el sentir de amplias mayorías.
2. El "Bernismo": El ala socialdemócrata que prioriza la clase trabajadora y la redistribución material (como el Medicare for All). A pesar de su influencia programática, es incapaz de construir una mayoría amplia y sufre la fragmentación ante las tensiones internas.
El núcleo de la tesis es la Ventaja Operativa de la Derecha. El populismo de derecha (Trump, MAGA) triunfa gracias a su simplicidad comunicacional (enemigos claros como el "wokismo" o la inmigración, mensajes directos), su capacidad para movilizar el miedo (más potente que la esperanza) y una flexibilidad de coalición que une intereses económicos y sociales contradictorios bajo la bandera del nacionalismo cultural.
Además, la derecha populista goza de una compatibilidad sistémica con los intereses corporativos, evitando el "sabotaje financiero" que sí sufren los movimientos de izquierda que proponen una redistribución radical.
La conclusión del documento es una advertencia urgente: el fenómeno Trump es "irreversible" a corto plazo, marcando el peligro de un autoritarismo electoral que vacía la democracia desde dentro. La única salida viable para frenar este avance no es un resurgimiento de la izquierda populista, sino el imperativo de una Gran Coalición pragmática entre la socialdemocracia y el centro liberal, capaz de defender la democracia institucional y, simultáneamente, proteger la justicia material para las clases trabajadoras.

A lot is being said about how penetrative the Mossad is. Even after the war ended, news reports kept emerging, praising its capabilities and reach. And well, I'm not disagreeing, as what I'm about to write may be a figment of my imagination, but what is political analysis for those of us outside the decision-making circles other than indicators/dots connected by a thread of their imagination? It was interesting watching cybersecurity becoming a significant part of national security for countries, some years ago. That same line of interest brings me here, to a newer and darker possibility, one that highlights the role of artificial intelligence in geopolitical betrayal. And regardless of how wide the Fourth Industrial Revolution we are witnessing today, represented by the tremendous and rapid development of artificial intelligence, its manufacturing is limited to certain countries, most notably the United States and China.

Scholars of representation are increasingly interested in mass–elite congruence—the degree to which the preferences of elected elites mirror those of voters. Yet existing measures of congruence can be misleading because they ignore information in the data, require arbitrary decisions about quantization, and limit researchers to comparing masses and elites on a single dimension. We introduce a new measure of congruence—borrowed from computer science—that addresses all of these problems: the Earth Mover’s Distance (EMD). We demonstrate its conceptual advantages and apply it to two debates in research on mass–elite congruence: ideological congruence in majoritarian and proportional systems and the determinants of congruence across countries in Latin America. We find that improving measurement using the EMD has important implications for inferences regarding both empirical debates. Even beyond studies of congruence, the EMD is a useful and reliable way for political scientists to compar...

In this research, we address a longstanding question concerning how individuals evaluate social and political issues. We focus on the role that political self-identification plays when individuals evaluate policy statements. In a laboratory setting, participants completed a task facilitation procedure, in which they made paired sets of judgments about a series of policy statements. Relative to a control task, ideological categorization of policy statements as liberal or conservative influenced the ease of evaluation. On experimental trials that began with ideological categorization, policy evaluations that were consistent with the participant's own ideology were made more quickly than responses that were ideologically inconsistent and more quickly than responses following a control judgment. In three experiments, we show that this effect is stronger for individuals with more accessible ideological identification (Experiment 1) and more extreme ideological identification (Experiment 2), and that it holds when examining partisan instead of ideological identification (Experiment 3). The findings suggest that the use of ideological category information can facilitate and interfere with evaluative judgments of political issues, and that the use of such categories varies as a function of individual differences in the strength of political identification.

The Internet offers a number of advantages as a survey mode: low marginal cost per completed response, capabilities for providing respondents with large quantities of information, speed, and elimination of interviewer bias. Those seeking these advantages confront the problem of representativeness both in terms of coverage of the population and capabilities for drawing random samples. Two major strategies have been pursued commercially to develop the Internet as a survey mode. One strategy, used by Harris Interactive, involves assembling a large panel of willing respondents who can be sampled. Another strategy, used by Knowledge Networks, involves using random digit dialing (RDD) telephone methods to recruit households to a panel of Web-TV enabled respondents. Do these panels adequately deal with the problem of representativeness to be useful in political science research? The authors address this question with results from parallel surveys on global climate change and the Kyoto Prot...

Political scientists often argue that political processes move together in the long run. Examples include partisanship and government approval, conflict and cooperation among countries, public policy sentiment and policy activity, economic evaluations and economic conditions, and taxing and spending. Error correction models and cointegrating relationships are often used to characterize these equilibrium relationships and to test hypotheses about political change. Typically the techniques used to estimate equilibrium relationships are based on the statistical assumption that the processes have permanent memory, implying that political experiences cumulate. Yet many analysts have argued that this is not a reasonable theoretical or statistical assumption for most political time series. In this paper I examine the consequences of assuming permanent memory when data have long but not permanent memory. I focus on two commonly used estimators: the Engle-Granger two-step estimator and gener...

A search of recent political science literature and conference presentations shows substantial fascination with the concept of the natural experiment. However, there seems to be a wide array of definitions and applications employed in research that purports to analyze natural experiments. In this introductory essay to the special issue, we attempt to define natural experiments and discuss related issues of research design. In addition, we briefly explore the basic methodological issues around the appropriate analysis of natural experiments and give an overview of different techniques. The overarching theme of this essay and of this issue is to encourage applied researchers to look for natural experiments in their own work and to think more systematically about research design.

Scholars recognize that time-series-cross-section data typically correlate across time and space, yet they tend to model temporal dependence directly while addressing spatial interdependence solely as nuisance to be "corrected" (FGLS) or to which to be "robust" (PCSE). We demonstrate that directly modeling spatial interdependence is methodologically superior, offering efficiency gains and generally helping avoid biased estimates even of "non-spatial" effects. We first specify empirical models representing two modern approaches to comparative and international political economy: (context-conditional) open-economy comparative political-economy (i.e., common stimuli, varying responses) and international political-economy, which implies interdependence (plus closedeconomy and orthogonal-open-economy predecessors). Then we evaluate four estimators-nonspatial OLS, spatial OLS, spatial 2SLS-IV, and spatial ML-for analyzing such models in spatially interdependent data. Non-spatial OLS suffers from potentially severe omitted-variable bias, tending to inflate estimates of common-stimuli effects especially. Spatial OLS, which specifies interdependence directly via spatial lags, dramatically improves estimates but suffers a simultaneity bias, which can be appreciable under strong interdependence. Spatial 2SLS-IV, which instruments for spatial lags of dependent variables with spatial lags of independent variables, yields unbiased and reasonably efficient estimates of both common-stimuli and diffusion effects, when its conditions hold: large samples and fully exogenous instruments. A tradeoff thus arises in practice between biased-but-efficient spatial OLS and consistent-(or, at least, less-biased-) but-inefficient spatial 2SLS-IV. Spatial ML produces good estimates of non-spatial effects under all conditions but is computationally demanding and tends to underestimate the strength of interdependence, appreciably so in small-N samples and when the true diffusion-strength is modest. We also explore the standarderror estimates from these four procedures, finding sizable inaccuracies by each estimator under differing conditions, and PCSE's do not necessarily reduce these inaccuracies. By an accuracy-ofreported-standard-errors criterion, 2SLS-IV seems to dominate. Finally, we explore the spatial 2SLS-IV estimator under varying patterns of interdependence and endogeneity, finding that its estimates of diffusion strength suffer only when a condition we call cross-spatial endogeneity, wherein dependent variables (y's) in some units cause explanatory variables (x's) in others, prevails. the effects of non-spatial domestic factors and exogenous-external stimuli, and we evaluate the relative performance of alternative methodological strategies for modeling spatial interdependence: non-spatial OLS (which ignores the interdependence), spatial OLS (S-OLS), spatial 2SLS-IV (S-2SLS), and spatial ML (S-ML). 1 We also explore the accuracy of the standard errors reported by these four procedures and the performance of the S-2SLS estimator under varying patterns and combinations of interdependence and endogeneity. In summary, we find that, given interdependence, non-spatial OLS suffers from potentially severe omitted-variable bias that tends to inflate estimates of common-stimuli effects. Spatial OLS, which directly specifies interdependence via spatial lags, dramatically improves estimates, even of non-spatial (e.g., domestic and exogenous-external) effects, and especially to the degree diffusion (i.e., interdependence) and domestic and common-stimuli (i.e., non-spatial) alternatives are wellspecified. S-OLS does, however, suffer a simultaneity bias, which, while mild at low levels of spatial interdependence, can become appreciable when diffusion is strong. This bias manifests as overestimation of diffusion effects at the expense of common-shock effects. Spatial 2SLS, which instruments for spatial lags of dependent variables with spatial lags of independent variables, seems to redress the resulting dilemma well, yielding unbiased and reasonably efficient estimates of both common-stimuli and diffusion effects, when its conditions hold: large samples and fully exogenous instruments. This raises a familiar (Bartelsian) tradeoff between the biased-but-efficient S-OLS and 1 We borrow the standard terminology of spatial dependence, shocks, etc., whose connotation of geographic and spatial-distance bases for interdependence (spatial proximity, shared borders, etc.) originates from the spatial-econometrics literature's development in geographically related sciences. However, the notions of space and spatial dependence extend transparently and without any change in the statistics or mathematics to encompass alternative bases of "proximity" that may induce interdependence such as, e.g., economic notions of nearer and further competitors, sociological notions of network connectivity, or socio-political notions of shared or nearer or further cultural, religious, linguistic, or political heritages.

People are commonly expected not to waste their vote on parties with small probabilities of being elected. Yet, many end up voting for underdogs. We argue that voters gauge the popular support for their preferred party from their social networks. When social networks function as echo chambers, a feature observed in real-life networks, voters overestimate underdogs’ chances of winning. We conduct voting experiments in which some treatment groups receive signals from a simulated network. We compare the effect of networks with a high degree of homogeneity against random networks. We find that homophilic networks increase the level of support for underdogs, which provides evidence to back up anecdotal claims that echo chambers foster the development of fringe parties.

The similarity of states' foreign policy positions is a standard variable in the dyadic analysis of international relations. Recent studies routinely rely on Signorino and Ritter's (1999) S to assess the similarity of foreign policy ties. However, S neglects two fundamental characteristics of the international state system: foreign policy ties are relatively rare and individual states differ in their innate propensity to form such ties. I propose two chance-corrected agreement indices, Scott's (1955) π and Cohen's (1960) κ, as viable alternatives. Both indices adjust the dyadic similarity score for a large number of common absent ties. Cohen's κ also takes into account differences in individual dyad members' total number of ties. The resulting similarity scores have stronger face validity than S. A comparison of their empirical distributions and a replication of Gartzke's (2007) study of the 'Capitalist Peace' indicate that the different types of measures are not substitutable.

Each level of the society should take responsibility of changes in such a way that they will be unfold on the new imperatives of the postmodern society. Romanian education system needs complete diagnosis (analysis), so as to be able to reconsider the socioeducational reality, and implement a change, i.e. educational reforms. The results of these educational changes will take a shape in time, and we must be aware of this; the educational change implies a regeneration of the mission and practices at the school level. A very important aspect involves an emotional engagement from the part of the educational actors in promoting and implementing coherent educational changes. Most of the time, changes are not only about implementation, but they also happen to affect personality, professional identity, and organizational status of the educational actors involved.

In the Romanian educational system, educational reforms were not easy to implement. It involved a chain of operations and restructuring, adaptation and training processes, in accordance with the nowadays demands of the educational system. This study highlights a diagnosis, a critical reflection, a reconsideration of the socio-educational realities. We emphasize that there is a conditioning reciprocal relationship between the change and the human resource's attitude and motivation in the educational system. The study results highlight the importance of personality development, school managers' capacity to analyze the process of change and to design and implement changes in the school organization. We demonstrated, using scientific methods of investigation, on a representative sample that the change and development of the school organization can be possible only if its people have valid reasons to operate the change at an educational level.

Each level of the society should take responsibility of changes in such a way that they will be unfold on the new imperatives of the postmodern society. Romanian education system needs complete diagnosis (analysis), so as to be able to reconsider the socioeducational reality, and implement a change, i.e. educational reforms. The results of these educational changes will take a shape in time, and we must be aware of this; the educational change implies a regeneration of the mission and practices at the school level. A very important aspect involves an emotional engagement from the part of the educational actors in promoting and implementing coherent educational changes. Most of the time, changes are not only about implementation, but they also happen to affect personality, professional identity, and organizational status of the educational actors involved.

We propose a dynamic allocation procedure that increases power and efficiency when measuring an average treatment effect in sequential randomized trials exploiting some subjects' previous assessed responses. Subjects arrive sequentially and are either randomized or paired to a previously randomized subject and administered the alternate treatment. The pairing is made via a dynamic matching criterion that iteratively learns which specific covariates are important to the response. We develop estimators for the average treatment effect as well as an exact test. We illustrate our method's increase in efficiency and power over other allocation procedures in both simulated scenarios and a clinical trial dataset. An R package "SeqExpMatch" for use by practitioners is available.

We propose a dynamic allocation procedure that increases power and efficiency when measuring an average treatment effect in sequential randomized trials exploiting some subjects' previous assessed responses. Subjects arrive sequentially and are either randomized or paired to a previously randomized subject and administered the alternate treatment. The pairing is made via a dynamic matching criterion that iteratively learns which specific covariates are important to the response. We develop estimators for the average treatment effect as well as an exact test. We illustrate our method's increase in efficiency and power over other allocation procedures in both simulated scenarios and a clinical trial dataset. An R package “SeqExpMatch” for use by practitioners is available on CRAN.

When do parties respond to their political rivals and when do they ignore them? This article presents a new computational framework to detect, analyze and predict partisan responsiveness by showing when parties on opposite poles of the political spectrum react to each other’s agendas and thereby contribute to polarization. Once spikes in responsiveness are detected and categorized using latent Dirichlet allocation, we utilize the terms that comprise the topics, together with a gradient descent solver, to assess the classifier’s predictive accuracy. Using 10,597 documents from the official websites of radical right and ethnic political parties in Slovakia (2004–2014), the analysis predicts which political issues will elicit partisan reactions, and which will be ignored, with an accuracy of 83% (F-measure) and outperforms both Random Forest and Naive Bayes classifiers. Subject matter experts validate the approach and interpret the results.

Open science and effective collaboration both require the sharing of data between researchers. This is especially true for computational methods, as the technical complexity and heterogeneous data sources often require collaboration between researchers in different institutions and jurisdictions. Many data sources, however, cannot be shared openly because of copyright law and contracts such as terms of service. These regulations can be complex, sometimes untested in case law, and vary between countries and over time. This paper details our experiences in conducting international comparative research on very large collections of news items from multiple countries. We set out the main problems we have encountered and some short-term approaches we have used to mitigate some of these problems. We end with listing some additional long-term actions that will advance our research community's ability to collaborate on computational research using sensitive data.

This article o ers a description and discussion of "shadowing" as a data collection and analytic tool, highlighting potential research opportunities related to the direct observation of individuals-principally political elites-in their normal daily routine for an extended period of time, o en between one day and one week. In contrast with large-scale data collection methods, including surveys, shadowing enables researchers to develop detailed observations of political behavior that are not limited by the availability of administrative data or the constraints of a questionnaire or an interview guide. Unlike more in-depth qualitative methods, such as ethnography, shadowing is scalable in a manner that allows for larger sample sizes and the potential for medium-N inference. I provide a detailed account of how to design and conduct a shadowing study, including sampling strategies, techniques for coding shadowing data, and processes for drawing inferences about the behavior of shadowed subjects, drawing on examples from a completed shadowing-based study. I also discuss ways to mitigate selection and observer biases, presenting results that suggest these can be no more pronounced when shadowing political elites than in other forms of observational research.

chiuso il 23/03/2022 La riforma delle concessioni demaniali marittime dal punto di vista dell'analisi delle politiche pubbliche Amedeo Vitiritti 1. Le «relazioni pericolose» tra agenda setting, mancata europeizzazione e ruolo della giurisprudenza nel dibattito sulle concessioni demaniali marittime. All'indomani delle sentenze gemelle del Consiglio di Stato, 9 novembre 2021, nn° 17 e 18, che hanno sancito l'ulteriore improrogabilità del termine delle concessioni demaniali marittime (cdm) attualmente in essere, con conseguente disapplicazione anche in via amministrativa dell'eventuale normativa che, a partire dal 2024, disponesse in tal senso per contrasto con la direttiva 2006/123/CE, ai membri della comunità politica è parso subito chiaro che il decisum dell'Adunanza plenaria avrebbe avuto l'effetto di ricollocare nuovamente il tema delle modalità di affidamento delle cdm nell'agenda istituzionale, attribuendovi attenzione e interesse tali da confermare il «carattere ricorsivo» della policy, in ragione della necessità di intervenire di nuovo sulla materia 1 . Per vero, per rispondere alla domanda di Cobb-Elder 2 , antecedentemente alle sentenze del CdS, la questione delle cdm, se raffrontata alla disciplina europea, è avvertita da tempo come problema politico dell'agenda pubblica su cui discutere in vista di un intervento riformatore 3 ; 1 Il fondamento di una politica pubblica può, infatti, ritrovarsi anche in una decisione giudiziaria (Bobbio et al. (2017), 29 s.; La Spina (2020), 17); non è certo questo il caso, tuttavia, nel modello circolare del processo di policy e seguendo una prospettiva sistemica/multilivello, dalle sentenze in epigrafe si possono evincere «effetti collaterali» e «cause dei problemi di policy», imputabili alla politica nazionale in materia di cdm, rispetto agli obblighi derivanti dall'UE, evidenziandosi le condizionalità reciproche tra decision making dell'UE, formazione dell'agenda, ciclo di policy e «retroazioni del medesimo» (Bache-Flinders (2005);

This study examines gender differences in first-author representation across communication, political science, and sociology journals, with a focus on how gender, academic fields, and journal quartile rankings intersect. We analyzed a proportional, representative sample of 1091 randomly selected articles published in 2021 in these disciplines, using data from the Journal Citation Reports ranking. Our findings reveal notable disciplinary differences: in communication, women were more likely to be first authors, whereas in political science and the overall sample, men held a significantly higher share of first authorships. In sociology, the gender distribution among first authors was more balanced. The results also indicate that the relationship between gender and first authorship varies by discipline, with political science favoring male authors and communication favoring female authors. Additionally, we examined whether journal prestige, measured by quartile rankings, is linked to first-author gender. No significant differences emerged in communication or political science, suggesting similar gender representation across journal quartiles in these fields. However, in sociology and the overall sample, women were more frequently first authors in mid-ranked journals but underrepresented in lower-tier journals. Overall, our findings contribute to ongoing discussions about gender representation in academic publishing, particularly in political science, where disparities in first authorship remain most pronounced.

Como  producto  de  su  último  trabajo  investigativo,  orientado  a  reconstruir  la  historia política reciente de Chile, este texto ofrece una visión crítica de aquel breve  periodo  de  la  Coyuntura  (1970-1973),  que  significó  un  hito  definitivo  en  la  historia  de  la  democracia  chilena.  El  autor  describe  sin  eufemismos,  las  condiciones  en  que  maduró  el  proyecto  político  de  la  Unidad  Popular,  las  reacciones  de  la  alianza  burguesa  y  los  errores  cometidos  por  la  coalición  de  gobierno,  que  finalmente  determinaron  el  colapso  del  gobierno  popular  y  del mismo proyecto político. Luego de plantear las decisiones y acciones que hubieran salvado la crisis, Zemelman se esfuerza en conectar la coyuntura de 1973 con la coyuntura actual de su país, en un intento por leer de manera más clara los factores determinantes del inmediato futuro político de esta nación.

As a result of his latest research work, aimed at reconstructing the recent political history of Chile, this text offers a critical view of the brief period of  La  Coyuntura  (1970-1973),  which  marked  a  definite  turning  point  in  the  history of Chilean democracy. The author describes without euphemisms, the conditions under which advanced the political project of the UP, the reactions of  bourgeois  alliance  and  the  mistakes  made  by  the  coalition  government,  which  eventually  determined  the  collapse  of  popular  government  and  of  its  political  project.  After  specifying  the  decisions  and  actions  that  could  have  prevented  the  crisis,  Zemelman  connects  the  conjuncture  of  1973  to  the present situation in your country, in an attempt to read more clearly the determinants of immediate political future of this nation.

In this paper, we argue that claims of necessity and sufficiency involve a type of asymmetric causal claim that is useful in many social scientific contexts. Contrary to some qualitative researchers, we maintain that there is nothing about such asymmetries that should lead scholars to depart from standard social science practice. We take as given that deterministic and monocausal tests are inappropriate in the social world and demonstrate that standard multiplicative interaction models are up to the task of handling asymmetric causal claims in a multivariate, probabilistic manner. We illustrate our argument with examples from the empirical literature linking electoral institutions and party system size.

of an opinion's volume of citations to precedent, and their respective network centrality. Why do Justices cite cases in their opinions? Why do they choose particular citations to include in those opinions? No case is exactly identical to prior cases, conclusively governed by particular past opinions, and the Supreme Court selects the most difficult cases for resolution, so considerable discretion is necessary in evaluating the significance of prior precedents for its decisions. There are never truly binding, vertical precedents at the Supreme Court level, and the Justices occasionally even overturn their prior precedents. Justices reach very different conclusions about the correct disposition of a particular case, even though the precedents they consider are identical, and they occasionally accuse one another of manipulating or ignoring important precedent. In this Article, we provide an empirical analysis of the Justices' citation practices to assess why Justices cite cases in their opinions, how they differ, and how those decisions matter for the practical development of the law. And what are the implications of those citation choices? The facile answer-they mechanistically base their decisions entirely on the best applicable precedentscannot be sustained in its strongest version. Different Justices clearly make different citation choices, and the cases emphasized by a dissenting opinion may be quite different than those relied upon in the majority opinion. Citations function something like the currency of the legal system. An opinion's references to authoritative legal materials, most often the Court's own prior decisions, form the fundamental justification for a judicial decision. Of all citations, those to prior opinions are the most common, demonstrating the Court's respect for stare decisis. 2 The doctrine of stare decisis is said to reflect "the fundamental values of the legal process." 1. An early law review article observed that "[t]he reader of a judicial opinion seldom finds any clear indication of the reasons for citation of authorities in it." John Henry Merryman, The Authority of Authority: What the California Supreme Court Cited in 1950, 6 STAN. L. REV. 613, 614 (1954) [hereinafter Merryman, Authority of Authority]. The citations in opinions have "great practical and theoretical importance," but our understanding of citation practice has not advanced much since this time.

Economic forecasting is a dynamic domain. New methods are developed and tested and the methodology needs to be updated according to economic reality. Classical approach in methodology must be completed with latest trends in econometric analysis and the forecasting methods have to benefit from the increasing computational power of the modern software. One of the main causes of false prediction is using altered data. In this paper, we will present the new concepts for data testing, adjusted for the Romanian economy, based on Benford's law.

When using datasets for various analyses one should test the data for particular situations like existence of outliers or possible data errors. Outliers may indicate bad data and the results may be affected if these points are not identified and/or explained. Also, there are sensitive data, like electoral datasets, which are subject of fraud suspicion. Methods for identifying outliers and data errors are described in this paper, using R support and electoral data.

Actualmente la relación entre conocimiento, poder y tecnología está reconfigurando profundamente el panorama político. Conceptos básicos como la verdad, la democracia y la justicia se ven afectados por las dinámicas y avances de las tecnologías digitales. Esta transformación exige una reflexión filosófica que integre estos elementos, examinando cómo afectan a las estructuras democráticas y a las desigualdades.
En este trabajo se analizará estas transformaciones a través del lente Mario Bunge de acuerdo con sus criterios en su Tratado de Filosofía, así como las contribuciones de Fernando Broncano, Antonio Diéguez Lucena y Manuel Arias Maldonado, quienes en los últimos años han ofrecido aportes para entender cómo el conocimiento, la tecnología y la política se entrelazan en el mundo contemporáneo. La discusión se estructurará de acuerdo con Bunge en términos de semántica, ontología, epistemología, metodología y ética, abordando cómo estos conceptos están cambiando bajo la influencia tecnológica y política.