Category: Political Science

Peer reviews: If you love something, set it free. And again. And again

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Peer reviews: If you love something, set it free. And again. And again 1

Being part of the peer review system has a sadomasochistic quality. Nate Jensen’s story about how he had to submit a certain manuscript again and again to different journals to get it published eventually is all too familiar. I don’t keep records as exact as his (would be too depressing), but I remember a single…

Why is Germany’s bioethics legislation so restrictive?

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Germany’s restrictive bioethics legislation in general, and its very tight rules on embryology and fertilisation in particular, present a puzzle for political science. Early on, the country has enacted liberal rules in other moral policy domains, most notably the abortion law of 1975 (Richardt, 2003: 113). The full range of prenatal diagnosis is available to…

Pegida borrows from the NPD’s vocabulary

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“Cult of guilt” (Schuldkult) is a phrase that was coined in the early 1990s. It is a highly loaded term that is used almost exclusively by the NPD and other right-wing extremist groups whenever the crimes of the Nazis are mentioned. That Pegida would use that word, on that day, and that the crowds would cheer, is significant.

Quick roundup on DA-RT, the “Data Access & Research Transparency” initiative that is shaking up Political Science

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On a balmy evening in August, I was lounging in the garden with a dead-tree copy of Perspectives on Politics (as you do), and stumbled across a rather spirited, well-written editorial attack by Jeffrey C. Isaac on the Data Access & Research Transparency (DA-RT) manifesto. So far, I had had only the vaguest awareness of…

Metrics in everything: My article on bioethics legislation in Germany

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Altmetrics loves my recent article on the strange phenomenon of bioethics legislation in Germany. Now these measures may be questionable and biased, but I’m happy nonetheless. Time for you to read it, too? It’s short, sweet, and open access. More generally, Altmetric has tracked 4,453,342 articles across all journals so far. Compared to these this…

Polling accuracy: a Q&A with Kai Arzheimer and Jocelyn Evans | OUPblog

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Polling data is ubiquitous in today’s world, but it is is often difficult to easily understand the accuracy of polls. In a recent paper published in Political Analysis, Kai Arzheimer and Jocelyn Evans developed a new methodology for assessing the accuracy of polls in multiparty and multi-candidate elections.

Source: Polling accuracy: a Q&A with Kai Arzheimer and Jocelyn Evans | OUPblog

Oldies but goldies. For installing/updating the ado, checkout SSC. And here is even more background material on surveybias.

On HoGeSa anniversary, minor clashes between right-wingers, “anti-fascists”, and police

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On the coattails of the Pegida anniversary, here is another far-right jubilee: A year on, self-declared hooligans have gathered once more for a “Hooligans against Salafists” (HoGeSa – those guys clearly love their acronyms) rally in Cologne. The two events could not have been more different. While Pegida is a largely regional weekly fixture that…