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PODCAST

Not Another Politics Podcast

University of Chicago Podcast Network

With all the noise created by a 24/7 news cycle, it can be hard to really grasp what"s going on in politics today. We provide a fresh perspective on the biggest political stories not through opinion and anecdotes, but rigorous scholarship, massive data sets and a deep knowledge of theory. Understand the political science beyond the headlines with Harris School of Public Policy Professors William Howell, Anthony Fowler and Wioletta Dziuda. Our show is part of the University of Chicago Podcast

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All Episodes

00:43:20

Can You Judge A Politician By Their Looks?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/05/24

We all know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but if we’re being honest we all do it on occasion anyway. Could it be that we also elect our politicians just based on how they look? Of course, there’s the old idea of looking “presidential”, but how much power does that really have to sway an election?A famous paper by University of Chicago behavioral scientist Alexander Todorov provides us with some surprising insights. Just by flashing two faces of competing politicians for mere

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00:43:51

Can Citizen Appeals Change Government Action?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/05/10

When citizens directly appeal to their government, are their concerns ignored or taken seriously? It’s an important question for understanding norms around accountability, especially in authoritarian regimes. To find some answers, University of Chicago Professor of Public Policy Shaoda Wang helped develop a clever field experiment evaluating how Chinese regulators respond to citizen appeals about companies violating pollution standards. The experiment is fascinating on its own, but it also provides

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00:49:16

Does Bad Government Breed Populism?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/04/26

Why is populism on the rise across the globe? One story says this movement is driven by anti-elite and anti-establishment sentiment, that they just want to throw the bums out. Another says it’s driven by identity politics, an anti-immigrant pro-nativist ideology. Both stories don’t leave room for much hope. But what if there was another story that not only gives us some hope but supplies a clear solution.A new paper by economist Giacomo Ponzetto from the Barcelona School of Economics provides us

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00:47:25

Do Political Endorsements Undermine Trust In Science?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/04/12

In the runup to the 2020 election, the academic journal Nature made the unprecedented decision to endorse Joe Biden for President. During an era when trust in science has never seemed more crucial, this decision led many to wonder if explicitly political statements increase or decrease public trust in science.Luckily, one PhD graduate from the Stanford School of Business designed a well-crafted experiment to find an answer. Using the Nature endorsement as a test case, Floyd Zhang wrote a paper that

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00:47:00

Do Politicians Spend Money Differently Depending On...

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/03/30

Paper link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3273001

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00:41:02

How Does Representation Work?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/03/15

Paper: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1952717

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00:49:00

The Polarization Of State Legislatures

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/03/01

Paper link: https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jnlpip/113.00000063.html

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00:50:06

Are We In A Period Of Global Democratic Decline?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/02/15

The popular narrative these days is that democracies around the globe are backsliding. If we turn to countries like Hungary, Poland, and Venezuela, this threat certainly is true — authoritarian dictators have contributed to democratic decline. But what does the global picture reveal? Does the claim hold true? A new paper by Anne Meng and Andrew Little investigates this question, by analyzing more objective indicators such as incumbent performance in elections.Anne Meng is an associate professor in

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00:49:56

Political Brokers In India’s Most Marginalized...

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/02/02

On this show, we focus a lot on ideological polarization but it’s important to remember that politics is about more than ideology or even policy victories. It’s about distribution and redistribution of goods and services in return for party support, votes. This view of politics is called clientelism, and it often goes overlooked.One of the landmark papers on clientelism is from Tariq Thatchil, a political scientist at The University of Pennsylvania. It won the award for best paper in the APSR in

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00:37:21

An Algorithm for Detecting Election Fraud

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/01/18

For better or worse, one of the biggest stories in US politics today is the detection of election fraud, or in many cases the lack of election fraud. But determining whether fraud happened in an election can be difficult, even while proving the validity of elections for some has become increasingly important. Wouldn’t it be incredible if we could just plug a set of data from an election into a toolkit that could give us an answer if fraud occurred? Well, one political scientist from the University

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00:30:21

Why The U.S. Isn’t As Polarized As It Seems

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2023/01/05

As we approach the anniversary of the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, we wanted to reflect on where we are as a country and whether politics are really as polarized as they seem. Our co-host Will Howell recently joined another University of Chicago podcast called Big Brains to discuss these very questions. We're going to share that episode with you this week, we hope you enjoy it, and look forward to being back with a new episode in a few weeks.

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00:45:30

Why Aren't the Majority Of Voters Getting What They...

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/12/21

Lately it feels like politicians are favoring smaller groups of their constituents over the majority of them. If you've been skeptical about whether this favoritism exists, there's a new theory that supports it. Some voters who are more vocal or intense about political issues are more likely to get their local politician's attention, and these smaller groups of constituents are more likely to get what they want.In his new book, Frustrated Majorities: How Issue Intensity Enables Smaller Groups of

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00:44:57

An International Look At Affective Polarization

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/12/07

Paper: https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article-abstract/doi/10.1162/rest_a_01160/109262/Cross-Country-Trends-in-Affective-Polarization?redirectedFrom=fulltext

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00:45:11

Why Aren't There More Moderate Politicians?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/11/23

We took some time off to enjoy the holiday with our families, but in the wake of the 2024 mid-terms, we’re going to re-share this crucial episode and relevant episode. When it comes to polarization, most people in American politics blame the voters. But much of the political science data suggests most voters are actually moderates. So, where are all the moderate politicians? In a new book, “Who Wants To Run?: How The Devaluing of Political Office Drives Polarization”, Stanford political scientist

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00:36:48

LIVE: How Members Of Congress Forge Relationships...

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/11/09

This episode was recorded live at the NASPAA conference in Chicago. With the midterms upon us, we decided to look back at a piece of landmark scholarship that may be able to tell us something about the dynamics of personal interactions between representatives and their constituencies. It’s by political scientist Richard Fenno called “U.S. House Members in Their Constituencies: An Exploration”. We often assume that voters cast their ballots based on ideology and policy, but it could it be more

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00:48:02

What Can We Learn About Polarization From The UK?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/10/26

One theme on our show is trying to make sense of why elites appear to be so polarized when the larger public is more moderate. We almost always study these trends in the U.S. but could we look to another country for insight? A country like the UK perhaps? In her paper “Has The British Public Depolarized Along with Political Elites?” University of Oxford political scientist Jane Green measures the differences between elite and public polarization during the eighties and nineties when the parties

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00:49:33

Are Legislators Beating The Market With Insider...

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/10/12

There might not be a more controversial political hack than members of Congress being legally allowed to trade stocks. Infamously, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, has been regularly accused of insider trading. Recently the House of Representatives has introduced a bill that would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and children, from trading stocks. Although the bill has stalled, it's renewed a really important lingering question: are members of

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00:48:48

Do Primaries Cause Polarization?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/09/28

For years, political scholars and pundits have claimed that primary elections are exacerbating polarization and with the 2022 midterm elections approaching this year has been no different. With many extremist candidates on both sides of the aisle, it certainly feels like this claim should be true, but does the political science back that up? To find an answer we turn to Harvard political scientist James Snyder and his 2010 paper “Primary Elections and Partisan Polarization in the U.S. Congress”

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00:51:42

Can Fact-Checking Counter Misinformation?

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/09/14

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an era of misinformation. From social media to cable news, the spread of false or misleading information about COVID vaccines has been rampant. Some social media platforms have moved more aggressively by trying to flag misleading posts with disclaimers. Can fact-checking reduce the spread of misinformation? And perhaps more importantly, can fact-checks change people's minds about getting vaccinated? In a new study, George Washington University political scientist

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00:47:06

Do People Automatically Reject Policies Of The...

Not Another Politics Podcast ·

2022/08/31

In our hyper-polarized climate, it is often said that partisans determine their policy positions not based on thought and reason but on opposition to the other party. If I’m a Republican and I hear that Nancy Pelosi supports a particular policy, I’ll reflexively take the opposite stance. There is a literature in political science that suggests this is the case, but could it be wrong? In a new paper, “Updating amidst Disagreement: New Experimental Evidence on Partisan Cues”, our very own Will

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