Read on Twitter
I've read a lot of interesting threads on twitter where ppl present their work. I think it's great and more fun to read than a short description of a published paper (although that's another reason why I'm on twitter). So I'l give it a shot too but also share why I thought
sometimes quitting academia. So, my ongoing research is on electoral systems choice. I've started to work on that during my PhD in 2017 bc I read a lot on electoral systems and social policies and became interested in the origins of political institutions. The work that scholars
such as Boix, Calvo, Rodden etc. have done was fascinating. However, as someone who reads a lot historical stuff, some of historical developments were at odds with the theoretical approaches (at least for me). To get started, we (most of my work on PR is with Patrick Emmenegger)
picked two cases that were very prominent in the literature: Belgium and the Swiss cantons. The latter was a prominent case in Rokkans work in which PR was introduced to grant minorities some political representation. After going to the archives, we were pretty confident that
this wasn't the story that was going on. However, why did we find large cross-party coalitions in favour of PR in a lot of cases? We argue that at some point, incumbent parties thought PR can no longer be avoided. Yet, they can introduce PR themselves and influence the fine print
As we show, PR was introduced with considerably lower district magnitude or large electoral thresholds (about 15%) when incumbent parties adopted PR. In addition, their seat share losses were also lower; in some cases, they also gained additional seats.
The paper is available here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2019.02.002
What about Belgium? The socialists were electorally weak and reformist before the adoption of PR but most argue that the Catholic Party opted for PR to limit the advances of the left and to save the liberals. Again, we
What about Belgium? The socialists were electorally weak and reformist before the adoption of PR but most argue that the Catholic Party opted for PR to limit the advances of the left and to save the liberals. Again, we
surveyed all primary & secondary sources that we could find. What was going on was that the liberals increasingly cooperated with socialists by submitting joint lists to large, urban multi-member districts. The Catholics were aware that there was a real chance to lose a number
of those districts and that they could find themselves in a minority position soon. FPTP in SMDs was no alternative bc we show that voters in urban districts were hardly concentrated. Thus, they opted for low magnitude PR bc they were confident to keep their majority despite
some losses. The theoretical implications as well as more information can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773919000225
While writing those papers, we also worked the link between pre-PR systems and electoral reform. Inspired by the paper of Isabella Mares and @LucasLeemann, we looked
While writing those papers, we also worked the link between pre-PR systems and electoral reform. Inspired by the paper of Isabella Mares and @LucasLeemann, we looked
at MP voting behaviour on PR in four different votes in CH. What we found was at odds with existing approaches. Parties and MPs that benefited from disproportionalities opposed PR on average (no surprise here). However, if they are confronted with strong socialists challengers,
their propensity to oppose PR even increases. We argue and provide evidence that incumbent parties relied often on gerrymandering before the introduction of PR. This gave them a instrument to contain advances of insurgent parties, most notably the socialists. The paper is
Currently under review and I hope I can share it in the nearer future. Speaking of socialists, I always wondered whether interparty coordination was a big deal if liberals and conservatives faced a strong and radicalized socialist party. It's a prominent argument in the
literature but I was never satisfied with the evidence that was forwarded. Thus, I've had a look at a most likely case: Imperial Germany. Strongest prewar socialist party and highest fragmentation in the non-socialist camp. The descriptive evidence as well as the results of the
RDD suggest that cooperation against radicalized left parties were, on average, not a problem. The working paper can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324831648_A_Socialist_Threat_Radical_Party_Entry_and_the_Formation_of_Electoral_Alliances_in_Majoritarian_Systems
Right now I'm working on a paper where I review and discuss existing approaches, measurement problems and make some suggestions about how to advance the literature. In addition, we are currently in the process of collecting data on electoral outcomes in the last election before
the adoption of PR and geo-reference electoral districts for eight European countries. We want to show how electoral geography, next to spatial proximity, drove district mergers in the transition to PR and explain, why low magnitude PR systems exist in the first place.
Lastly, why did I consider quitting during the project? I have published in sociology, CPE and even a methodical WP that went through a review process. I've had a lot of rejections and even buried a paper bc I thought (and still think) it wasn't good enough. Most of the time, I
had the feeling that the process was fair and only on very few occasions, I thought a reviewer was misunderstanding the paper on purpose or had some general reservations. However, it was differently when I started submitting my papers on PR. On average, the hostility of reviewers
was astonishing (if that's the right word). Some reviewers were already hostile when we quoted certain authors in a tone that was perceived too positively, others claimed that we've written complete nonsense and a lot of comments were in-between. Of course, you can get bad
reviews in every field, but in this subfield, it was at least one reviewer every single time. It's not a problem if this concerns only a side project of yours but for me, it's my major independent postdoc project. After that, it's either tenure, another larger project with more
funding or "perish" (as we say in academia). If you don't get any noticeable publications from your first project, you can guess which option is more likely. My personal advice for other younger scholars: Don't do research on an issue where a lot of people already developed
theories. Even if you care about the issue, try to find something that is new and hope that others will find it interesting too. What kept me going was that my PhD and side projects were comparatively successful and that I still have a lot of other ideas. Thanks for reading!
