Hasil untuk "Political science (General)"

H. McClosky

E. F. Keane, V. Graber, L. Levin et al.

Most of the pulsar science case with the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) depends on long-term precision pulsar timing of a large number of pulsars, as well as astrometric measurements of these using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). But before we can time them, or VLBI them, we must first find them. Here, we describe the considerations and strategies one needs to account for when planning an all-sky blind pulsar survey using the SKA. Based on our understanding of the pulsar population, the performance of the now-under-construction SKA elements, and practical constraints such as evading radio frequency interference, we project pulsar survey yields using two complementary methods for a number of illustrative survey designs, combining SKA1-Low and SKA1-Mid Bands 1 and 2 in a variety of ways. A composite survey using both Mid and Low is optimal, with Mid Band 2 focused in the plane. We find that, given its much higher effective area and survey speed, the best strategy is to use SKA1-Low to cover as much sky as possible, ideally also overlapping with the areas covered by Mid. In our most realistic scenario, we find that an all-sky blind survey with Phase 1 of the SKA with the AA* array assembly will detect $\sim10,000$ slow pulsars and $\sim 800$ millisecond pulsars (MSPs) if SKA1-Mid covers the region within $5°$ of the plane, while higher latitudes will be covered with SKA1-Low. The yield with AA4 is $\sim 20\%$ higher. One could increase these numbers by increasing the range covered by SKA1-Mid Bands 1 and 2, at the cost of a considerably longer survey. The pulsar census will enable us to set new constraints on the uncertain physical properties of the entire neutron star population. This will be crucial for addressing major SKA science questions including the dense-matter equation of state, strong-field gravity tests, and gravitational wave astronomy.

Ali Salloum, Dorian Quelle, Letizia Iannucci et al.

Online political discourse is increasingly shaped not by a few dominant platforms but by a fragmented ecosystem of social media spaces, each with its own user base, target audience, and algorithmic mediation of discussion. Such fragmentation may fundamentally change how polarization manifests online. In this study, we investigate the characteristics of political discourse and polarization on the emerging social media site Bluesky. We collect all activity on the platform between December 2024 and May 2025 to map out the platform's political topic landscape and detect distinct polarization patterns. Our comprehensive data collection allows us to employ a data-driven methodology for identifying political themes, classifying user stances, and measuring both structural and content-based polarization across key topics raised in English-language discussions. Our analysis reveals that approximately 13% of Bluesky posts engage with political content, with prominent topics including international conflicts, U.S. politics, and socio-technological debates. We find high levels of structural polarization across several salient political topics. However, the most polarized topics are also highly imbalanced in the numbers of users on opposing sides, with the smaller group consisting of only 1-2% of the users. While discussions in Bluesky echo familiar political narratives and polarization trends, the platform exhibits a more politically homogeneous user base than was typical prior to the current wave of platform fragmentation.

Sullam Jeoung, Yubin Ge, Haohan Wang et al.

Examining the alignment of large language models (LLMs) has become increasingly important, e.g., when LLMs fail to operate as intended. This study examines the alignment of LLMs with human values for the domain of politics. Prior research has shown that LLM-generated outputs can include political leanings and mimic the stances of political parties on various issues. However, the extent and conditions under which LLMs deviate from empirical positions are insufficiently examined. To address this gap, we analyze the factors that contribute to LLMs' deviations from empirical positions on political issues, aiming to quantify these deviations and identify the conditions that cause them. Drawing on findings from cognitive science about representativeness heuristics, i.e., situations where humans lean on representative attributes of a target group in a way that leads to exaggerated beliefs, we scrutinize LLM responses through this heuristics' lens. We conduct experiments to determine how LLMs inflate predictions about political parties, which results in stereotyping. We find that while LLMs can mimic certain political parties' positions, they often exaggerate these positions more than human survey respondents do. Also, LLMs tend to overemphasize representativeness more than humans. This study highlights the susceptibility of LLMs to representativeness heuristics, suggesting a potential vulnerability of LLMs that facilitates political stereotyping. We also test prompt-based mitigation strategies, finding that strategies that can mitigate representative heuristics in humans are also effective in reducing the influence of representativeness on LLM-generated responses.

Tom Dobber, Ronan Ó Fathaigh, Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius

In this paper, we examine how online political micro-targeting is regulated in Europe. While there are no specific rules on such micro-targeting, there are general rules that apply. We focus on three fields of law: data protection law, freedom of expression, and sector-specific rules for political advertising; for the latter we examine four countries. We argue that the rules in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) are necessary, but not sufficient. We show that political advertising, including online political micro-targeting, is protected by the right to freedom of expression. That right is not absolute, however. From a European human rights perspective, it is possible for lawmakers to limit the possibilities for political advertising. Indeed, some countries ban TV advertising for political parties during elections.

Larissa Aguiar Albuquerque, Liliana Ramalho Froio

A obra “The United States' Subnational Relations with Divided China: A Constructivist Approach to Paradiplomacy” de Czeslaw Tubilewicz e Natalie Omond investiga as relações paradiplomáticas entre entes subnacionais dos Estados Unidos (EUA) com a China e Taiwan durante o período de 1949 a 2020. Com onze capítulos, sendo os dois primeiros teóricos e os demais estudos de caso, o livro oferece uma nova perspectiva sobre o envolvimento dos EUA no conflito China-Taiwan. O enfoque construtivista da obra aprofunda a compreensão da dimensão interna do Estado, apresentando que interesses e identidades subnacionais são relevantes para suas ações na dinâmica da paradiplomacia, além de moldar papéis em política externa. Ao examinar as relações entre os entes subnacionais dos EUA e os países asiáticos, o texto revela a complexidade das interações internacionais e do papel que os governos subnacionais podem desempenhar internacionalmente.

Hlengiwe P. Maila, Lianne P. Malan, Adrino Mazenda

Background: The public housing delivery practices in South Africa are fragmented, resulting in various outcomes concerning housing delivery. There is a pressing need to overhaul public housing delivery that puts citizens at the core of the delivery process. Aim: The current state-led model of delivering housing is not effective and by design, the model for housing delivery should include the participation of beneficiaries. The aim was to develop a co-production model for housing delivery. Setting: The article focused on the housing sector in South Africa. Methods: A qualitative research approach and grounded theory as research design was used. Instruments were document analysis and semi-structured interviews with participants who are stakeholders in housing co-production. Data collected was analysed through inductive thematic analysis. Results: The results suggested a self-reliant approach to housing delivery, which is demand driven with the state as a facilitator and not the provider of housing. The model for housing should have a component that does not perpetuate a culture of dependency and entitlement but promotes the concept of co-production. Conclusion: The article explored the possibility of introducing a co-production model for housing delivery model in South Africa. It was established that the role of government must shift to that of an enabler and facilitator instead of a provider of housing. Contribution: This proposed model contributes towards the body of knowledge in terms of promoting public service delivery and performance (in this instance in the housing sector) in South Africa as a country situated in Africa.

LOMPO Miyemba

Le Burkina Faso, à l’image d’autres pays de sahel traverse une crise sécuritaire et humanitaire sans précédent provoquée par des attaques de groupes terroristes et autres conflits exposant les femmes et les enfants à des multiples risques et dangers. S’inscrivant dans une démarche mixte, le présent article vise à analyser l’impact de la crise sur le quotidien de la femme déplacée interne. Les résultats de la recherche montrent que les déplacements de population ont renforcé le patriarcat et les violences basées sur le genre. La crise a engendré des stratégies d’adaptation en termes de réorganisation du travail dans les ménages.

Stanley Cao, Felix Drinkall

Stance detection is a crucial NLP task with numerous applications in social science, from analyzing online discussions to assessing political campaigns. This paper investigates the optimal way to incorporate metadata into a political stance detection task. We demonstrate that previous methods combining metadata with language-based data for political stance detection have not fully utilized the metadata information; our simple baseline, using only party membership information, surpasses the current state-of-the-art. We then show that prepending metadata (e.g., party and policy) to political speeches performs best, outperforming all baselines, indicating that complex metadata inclusion systems may not learn the task optimally.

Yang Ding, Yi Bu

This paper contributes a new idea for exploring research funding effects on scholar performance. By collecting details of 9,501 research grants received by principal investigators from universities in the U.S. social sciences from 2000 to 2019 and data on their publications and citations in the Microsoft Academic Graph and Web of Science bibliographic collections, we build a novel dataset of grants and article counts, citations, and journal CiteScore. Based on this dataset, we first introduce three instrumental variables (IVs) suitable for isolating endogeneity issues in the study of competing grant effects, namely scholars political hegemony in academia, imitation isomorphic behavior among scholars, and project familiarity. Then, this study explains the research funding effects by combining the three IVs with a two-stage least square (2SLS) model. Also, we provide validity and robustness tests of these three IVs and research funding effects. We find that our IVs serve the function of exogenizing and isolating endogeneity in capturing the research funding effect. Empirical findings show that receiving research funding increases a scholars research output and impact. While research funding doesn't significantly increase high CiteScore publications, it reduces submissions to low-prestige journals, reshaping journal selection strategies and raising the floor of academic performance.

Ho-Chun Herbert Chang, Benjamin Shaman, Yung-chun Chen et al.

Visual content on social media has become increasingly influential in shaping political discourse and civic engagement. Using a dataset of 239,526 Instagram images, deep learning, and LLM-based workflows, we examine the impact of different content types on user engagement during the 2024 US presidential Elections, with a focus on synthetic visuals. Results show while synthetic content may not increase engagement alone, it mediates how political information is created through highly effective, often absurd, political memes. We define the notion of generative memesis, where memes are no longer shared person-to-person but mediated by AI through customized, generated images. We also find partisan divergences: Democrats use AI for in-group support whereas Republicans use it for out-group attacks. Non-traditional, left-leaning outlets are the primary creators of political memes; emphasis on different topics largely follows issue ownership.

Kate Graham, Jesse Helmer

This paper explores administrative viability in Alberta’s municipalities by investigating a critical ingredient in municipalities’ ability to deliver local public services: the chief administrative officer (CAO). Specifically, this paper aims to identify the patterns that are emerging with respect to the role and tenure of municipal CAOs in Alberta, and the implications for Alberta’s municipalities. Using a mixed-methods approach that blends qualitative and quantitative analysis, this paper presents several important findings: ● The average tenure of a CAO in Alberta is now well under the length of one term of council. CAO tenure is generally shorter in smaller municipalities. More concerningly, the average length of tenure has been in a steady state of decline for the past two decades. ● The number of CAO transitions, including acting and interim roles, has been increasing in all types of municipalities – in some types of municipalities, double or triple the rate of CAO transitions in earlier time periods. The days of long-serving CAOs outside of cities appear to be waning, as the length of one council term becomes a harder cap on CAO tenure in those communities. ● The role of CAO involves important on-the-job learning. No two municipalities are the same; even two terms of council within the same municipality can have quite different dynamics. Shorter CAO tenures and higher rates of turnover mean more costly transitions – not just in dollars and organizational disruption, but in the time to reach peak performance. ● Current and past CAOs clearly identify the increasingly tenuous political dynamics as a leading driver in role dissatisfaction and reasons for decisions to join or depart from a municipality. There seems to be consensus that the political dynamics are getting worse, not better. Among many other insights about the contemporary experiences of CAOs, this emerged as the central theme.   The chief argument of this paper is that the success and stability of CAOs is a leading indicator of administrative viability. Currently, measures of this indicator are ringing alarm bells. Efforts towards strengthening the foundations of municipal governance – particularly role clarity, improved relations between council and staff, and intentional efforts to building trust and respectful decorum between CAOs and councils – are all needed to improve administrative viability in Alberta’s municipalities.

Rochelle E. Tractenberg, Donna LaLonde, Suzanne Thornton

Consensus based publications of both competencies and undergraduate curriculum guidance documents targeting data science instruction for higher education have recently been published. Recommendations for curriculum features from diverse sources may not result in consistent training across programs. A Mastery Rubric was developed that prioritizes the promotion and documentation of formal growth as well as the development of independence needed for the 13 requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities for professional practice in statistics and data science, SDS. The Mastery Rubric, MR, driven curriculum can emphasize computation, statistics, or a third discipline in which the other would be deployed or, all three can be featured. The MR SDS supports each of these program structures while promoting consistency with international, consensus based, curricular recommendations for statistics and data science, and allows 'statistics', 'data science', and 'statistics and data science' curricula to consistently educate students with a focus on increasing learners independence. The Mastery Rubric construct integrates findings from the learning sciences, cognitive and educational psychology, to support teachers and students through the learning enterprise. The MR SDS will support higher education as well as the interests of business, government, and academic work force development, bringing a consistent framework to address challenges that exist for a domain that is claimed to be both an independent discipline and part of other disciplines, including computer science, engineering, and statistics. The MR-SDS can be used for development or revision of an evaluable curriculum that will reliably support the preparation of early e.g., undergraduate degree programs, middle e.g., upskilling and training programs, and late e.g., doctoral level training practitioners.

Shuhei Kitamura, Aya S. Ihara

Worldviews may differ significantly according to political orientation. Even a single word can have a completely different meaning depending on political orientation. However, no direct evidence has been obtained on differences in the semantic processing of single words in naturalistic information between individuals with different political orientations. The present study aimed to fill this gap. We measured electroencephalographic signals while participants with different political orientations listened to naturalistic content. Responses for moral-, ideology-, and policy-related words between and within the participant groups were then compared. Within-group comparisons showed that right-leaning participants reacted more to moral-related words than to policy-related words, while left-leaning participants reacted more to policy-related words than to moral-related words. In addition, between-group comparisons also showed that neural responses for moral-related words were greater in right-leaning participants than in left-leaning participants and those for policy-related words were lesser in right-leaning participants than in neutral participants. There was a significant correlation between the predicted and self-reported political orientations. In summary, the study found that people with different political orientations differ in semantic processing at the level of a single word. These findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms of political polarization and for making policy messages more effective.

Matt Clancy

Scientific and technological progress has historically been very beneficial to humanity but this does not always need to be true. Going forward, science may enable bad actors to cause genetically engineered pandemics that are more frequent and deadly than prior pandemics. I develop a quantitative economic model to assess the social returns to science, taking into account benefits to health and income, and forecast damages from new biological capabilities enabled by science. I set parameters for this model based on historical trends and forecasts from a large forecasting tournament of domain experts and superforecasters, which included forecasts about genetically engineered pandemic events. The results depend on the forecast likelihood that new scientific capabilities might lead to the end of our advanced civilization - there is substantial disagreement about this probability from participants in the forecasting tournament I use. If I set aside this remote possibility, I find the expected future social returns to science are strongly positive. Otherwise, the desirability of accelerating science depends on the value placed on the long-run future, in addition to which set of (quite different) forecasts of extinction risk are preferred. I also explore the sensitivity of these conclusions to a range of alternative assumptions.

Manuel Gonzalo, Yamila Kababe, Gabriela Starobinsky et al.

En este trabajo se analizan las oportunidades y desafíos que enfrenta una empresa pública con participación accionaria mayoritaria del Estado ubicada en la Provincia de La Rioja, en el Noroeste Argentino, para la producción de tecnología de tipo tradicional y avanzada. La empresa, Agrogenética Riojana SAPEM, creada en 2009 por el estado provincial, desarrolló recursos y capacidades que la posicionan hoy como una referencia productiva, tecnológica y empresarial para la producción y multiplicación de plantines de olivo, tomates y pimientos y la prestación de servicios a productores de la provincia. Sin embargo, no logró aún avanzar en procesos de mayor complejidad biotecnológica, debido no solo a limitaciones internas de la firma y del propio sector, sino a debilidades propias del desarrollo productivo y científico-tecnológico de la región.

Xiang Zhou, Teppei Yamamoto

The study of causal mechanisms abounds in political science, and causal mediation analysis has grown rapidly across different subfields. Yet, conventional methods for analyzing causal mechanisms are difficult to use when the causal effect of interest involves multiple mediators that are potentially causally dependent—a common scenario in political science applications. This article introduces a general framework for tracing causal paths with multiple mediators. In this framework, the total effect of a treatment on an outcome is decomposed into a set of path-specific effects (PSEs). We propose an imputation approach for estimating these PSEs from experimental and observational data, along with a set of bias formulas for conducting sensitivity analysis. We illustrate this approach using an experimental study on issue-framing effects and an observational study on the legacy of political violence. An open-source R package, paths, is available for implementing the proposed methods.

مجید طامه

Introduction One of the most important tools for studying the history and culture of any nation or tribe is to recognize the language and linguistic materials of that nation. Linguistic data can be divided into written and unwritten or oral. The amount of written data has constantly fluctuated in different historical periods for various reasons, and it is sometimes much and sometimes very little. Unwritten linguistic data, although much more than written data, do not receive much especial attention because they are not written down. For the unwritten linguistic data, we can mention songs, poems, proverbs, stories and in general what is related to oral literature. Place names or geographical names are other linguistic data that are often unwritten and usually older than others. Apart from being historically and culturally valuable, these place names can also be considered in linguistic studies, and by examining them, various information from different linguistic and non-linguistic aspects can be obtained. The science that examines place names from a historical, geographical, and especially linguistic point of view is called toponymy. The study of toponyms is important since it can provide valuable information in recognizing the anthropological and cultural characteristics of ethnic groups and it can also explain the role of social, geographical, ethnic, political, religious, etc. observations in naming places.  In general, there are three main characteristics in any toponym or geographical name: 1) geographical location, 2) historical background, 3) linguistic structure and concept. Thus, toponymy interacts with other sciences such as geography, history, archeology, linguistics and anthropology. In general, based on the type and species, the place names are divided into the following categories: 1) oykonyms or place names that refer to residential areas. 2) hydronyms or place names that are used to name geographical features related to water, such as rud ‘river’, čašme ‘spring’, daryâ ‘sea’, etc.  3) uronyms or place names that are used to name the elevation of the earth, such as kuh ‘mountain’, tappe ‘hill’, dašt ‘plain’, etc. (Refahi Alamdari, 2015, p. 98; Ahdian and Bakhtiari, 2009, p. 185).   Methodology In the study of languages and dialects, place names are of special importance, because these names are usually taken from the local languages of the same region and are part of the spiritual and cultural heritage of the people living in those areas. Undoubtedly, their scientific study, in addition to their linguistic value, is very effective in recognizing the historical identity of the ethnic groups living in those areas and in understanding the way of thinking and view of the people who coined and used these names. Most of the toponyms are oykonyms or the names of residential areas. Some researches have been published about oykonyms so far, but most of these studies are dedicated to the etymology and derivation of these words and the basic words seen in the complex oykonyms structure have been less studied. In this article, it is tried to study and analyze similar basic words in oykonyms which are related to nature and natural phenomena. Certainly, the analysis of common words in oykonyms is as valuable as the study of affixes and topoformants used in these words, but so far they have not been properly studied. So far, no independent work on the subject of this article, i.e., words related to nature and natural phenomena in Iranian oykonyms, has been published.   Discussion From the very beginning of creation, man has been in close contact with nature and its phenomena and components, and this deep connection and the impact that nature has on human life, and sometimes it is beyond his understanding, has led him to sanctify some components of nature. This sacredness is mainly focused on the sky and what is happening in it on the one hand, and on the other hand it is concentrated on the earth and its related issues. The earth and its natural features were also sacred in the human mind, and sometimes the inaccessible or lesser-known parts of the earth were known as the place of the gods. From the beginning, these attributes led to the use of the words related to heaven and earth in naming new places where human beings lived. Although the earth and the sky did not have that initial sanctity in the human mind, because human life was completely dependent on them, the use of the words of these two areas in new names continued and is still common today. In Zoroastrianism, the sky is the first tangible creature of Ohrmazd. In most Zoroastrian texts it is stated that the sky is made of stone, but due to the brightness of the sky, it is also said it was made of metal. The sky was mostly considered to have four bases or divisions, as follows: the star, the moon, the sun, and the infinite light bases. Of course, under the influence of Babylonian astronomy, Zoroastrians have sometimes considered seven levels for the sky (Tafazzoli, 2004, p. 365). In the Islamic era, the sky has been considered as a kind of sanctity and in some verses of the Quran, the sky has been used to mean the spiritual world and the kingdom of heaven (Mojtahed Shabestari, 1995,p. 363). The most important feature of the earth attracted human attention is its fertility, which is why it is sanctified in human thought. In Zoroastrianism, the earth was divided into seven parts or countries and apparently had three floors. Also, in various parts of Bundahiš, various topics have been mentioned about the creation of the earth, mountains and rivers and their duties (Afifi, 2004, p. 545-547). In naming modern Iranian oykonyms, both the name of the sky and the names of the objects and phenomena seen in the sky have been used, as well as the name of the earth and the natural features on it. Of course, the use of words related to earth is much more common in oykonyms. This kind of naming has a long history, and it should not be considered as a new topic. In ancient Iran, naming places with the names of words related to nature was common, but because we do not have many texts, we have little evidence in this regard. In the Zoroastrian beliefs of ancient Iran, nature and its components were sacred and were under the protection of God. Naturally, such beliefs could influence the naming of their places of residence. Unfortunately, due to the shortage of written materials from ancient Iran, this can not be sufficiently and thoroughly studied, but the few oykonyms left in the written sources, both primary and secondary, show that such names were common in ancient Iran. Unfortunately, in the surviving texts from ancient Iran, there are very few oykonyms in which the words related to the sky are used. Meanwhile, the name of the sky has no evidence in the oykonyms, but there is evidence of the name of celestial bodies. One of the oykonyms in which the name of one of the celestial bodies is mentioned is the word pātišuvari- ‘the people of Pātišuvar’. The oykonym Pātišuvar is composed of the two components pātiš ‘towards, in front of’ and uvar- ‘sun’ and on the whole it means ‘lying towards the sun’ (Tavernier, 2007, p. 29). Apparently, the place name Padišxwārgar in the Sassanid era is a remnant of this form of Old Persian (Schmitt, 2014: 233). In modern Iranian oykonyms, the use of words related to the field of nature is quite common, but even today, words related to land and natural features on it have a higher frequency in making toponyms. These words are used both in derivation and in combination with topoformants in Iranian oykonyms. This research examined the oykonyms made with words related to nature in two parts: words related to the sky, celestial bodies and phenomena, and words related to the earth and natural features on it.    Conclusion In Iranian oykonyms, both complex and derivative, there are common basic words that can be divided into different categories. Among the common basic words in Iranian oykonyms, we can mention the words of the field of nature. The use of the natural words in toponyms have a long history, and it can generally be classified into two areas: sky and earth. The frequency and use of these words in oykonyms are different and in addition to Persian words, they also include words from local languages. These words are used in different ways in oykonyms and different features are seen in their construction. One of the interesting features in these oykonyms is the accompanying of two words from the field of nature next to each other, which sometimes may even belong to two different languages in Iran. For example, in the oykonym Âsmân-Bulâghi, the word Âsmân ‘sky’, which is a Persian word related to the field of the sky, is accompanied by the word Bulâghi ‘spring’, which is a Turkish word from the field of words related to the earth. In general, words related to the two fields of sky and earth are morphologically associated with a lot of names, adjectives, and numbers, and semantically with different categories, and can form a single oykonym.

G. Cox, J. Fiva, Daniel M. Smith

The concept of electoral competition plays a central role in many subfields of political science, but no consensus exists on how to measure it. One key challenge is how to conceptualize and measure electoral competitiveness at the district level across alternative electoral systems. Recent efforts to meet this challenge have introduced general measures of competitiveness which rest on explicit calculations about how votes translate into seats, but also implicit assumptions about how effort maps into votes (and how costly effort is). We investigate how assumptions about the effort-to-votes mapping affect the units in which competitiveness is best measured, arguing in favor of vote-share-denominated measures and against vote-share-per-seat measures. Whether elections under multimember proportional representation systems are judged more or less competitive than single-member plurality or runoff elections depends directly on the units in which competitiveness is assessed (and hence on assumptions about how effort maps into votes).

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