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Political science methodology

Assessing the degree and drivers of sensitivity in political science

September 19, 2025

🔮 Back to the future of populism?

October 27, 2023

🔮 Populists in power, constitutional change, and democratic backsliding

August 10, 2023

How (not) to measure China’s autocratic influence

May 31, 2023

Terrorist attacks rarely increase trust in political leaders

May 24, 2023
January 5, 2023

Is the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index little more than a joke indicator?

Nicolás Palomo Hernández The public and the media increasingly use Democratic Global Performance Indicators (GPIs). But how good are these indicators at measuring democratic health? Nicolás Palomo Hernández looks at the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index as an example. He argues that the index has methodological and ideological biases, yet significant impact nonetheless Read more
November 11, 2022

Against misinformation as method in political science

Matthew Barnfield Political scientists use experimental methods to study cause-and-effect relationships in politics. Sometimes these approaches involve exposing people to false information about their political reality. Matthew Barnfield argues that this practice of misinformation is not only unethical, but also an ineffective way of learning about the political world Read more
October 25, 2022

Interdisciplinary social science and the limits of quantitative research

Avery Reyna Social scientists are increasingly using quantitative interdisciplinary research methods in the hope of obtaining more nuanced, concrete findings. However, Avery Reyna argues that without proper foresight, relying on these approaches to describe interactions between people, countries, and more complex sociopolitical systems may be harmful to the field overall Read more
October 10, 2022

A novel dataset of global political finance regimes

William Horncastle Most nations employ some form of regulation on political finance. William Horncastle explores the different approaches that are taken and presents his recently published open access dataset on political finance systems: the Regulation of Political Finance Indicator Read more
August 18, 2022

🦋 (Re)thinking democracy using Participedia

Paul Emiljanowicz Paul Emiljanowicz manages Participedia, the largest database documenting democratic innovations from around the world. To prevent reproducing coloniality, Paul writes, we must commit to expanding our knowledge about democracy and recognising the experiences and knowledges of all peoples Read more

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Advancing Political Science
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