🗣️ Can government-led citizens' assemblies strengthen democratic attitudes?

➡️ @mcduarte.bsky.social, @jmfernandes86.bsky.social
& @miguelpereira.bsky.social use random selection to Lisbon's citizens' assemblies and find participation increases knowledge, efficacy and trust doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

⛪️ Does a politician's religiosity influence their policymaking?

➡️ Luca Vitale finds that narrowly elected religious Catholic mayors in Italy increase debt repayment, showing how religious values can shape politicians' fiscal decisions doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

🧩 Masking or lexicographic preferences? The same choice patterns can reflect very different processes.

➡️ @scandersen.bsky.social & @mortenhjortskov.bsky.social show how conjoint experiments can distinguish between these two explanations of political choice doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

📈 Does the intensity of citizens' policy preferences matter for political representation?

➡️ Zachary Peskowitz & Eddy S.F. Yeung find that preference intensity does not reliably predict policy outcomes across US states, even when measured in multiple ways doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

🤖 Can transformer-based language models deliver accurate text classification at a low cost?

➡️ Cecilia Y. Sui shows how pretrain-finetune models can classify political text with modest labeled data and computing resources, using toxicity in US Senators' X conversation threads doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

⚔️ Do wars follow predictable patterns, or are they inherently unpredictable?

➡️ T. Schincariol & @thomaschadefaux.bsky.social use entropy-based analysis to show that conflict fatalities exhibit high levels of randomness, making their dynamics particularly difficult to predict doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

🇪🇺When does the European Parliament use vague language in EU policy negotiations?

➡️ A. Khokhlova, N. Yordanova & A. Ershova find that the EP adopts concrete positions in inter-institutional conflict, but uses vagueness when public opinion is divided and issues are contentious doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

👵 Do pension expansions mobilise older voters?

➡️ M. Ganslmeier, M. Klymak & T. Vlandas find that a 36% pension increase in Illinois had no effect on turnout—even among low-income retirees—challenging expectations that material gains increase political participation doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

📰How should researchers debrief participants after exposing them to misinformation?

➡️ @emmahoes.bsky.social & @sachaltay.bsky.social show that specific debriefings with fact-checks reduce belief in false claims, while general warnings may increase skepticism toward true news doi.org/10.1017/psrm...