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 Network.
54 Subscribers
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© 2020 Harris School of Public Policy
Not Another Politics Podcast
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54 Subscribers
Reviews
Champagne Rossi
1 out of 5 stars
Fails to incorporate race into political analysis
This show ignores the deep structural inequality built into America’s political institutions — particularly around race. In a political era shaped by white nationalist politics and converging racial justice movements, the absence of lens that looks at how group hierarchy steers elections and polices is hard to ignore. Feels very ivory tower like, and fails to incorporate the rich political insights present in a diverse metro like Chicago. I listened for about a year. This show feels very exclusive and elitist like a lot of other politics podcasts. I think the hosts could learn a lot by engaging with more black scholars who have the same empirical training, but a much richer appreciation for the role that power plays in American politics.
Ashleyoftheriver
2 out of 5 stars
Some good, but misses a lot
Has some good insights and discussions, but everything is from a right-leaning perspective and directed to that segment. They have missed acknowledging the experiences of disenfranchised groups. They have also made statements and assumptions that for a different slice of the population would not be true, but they act like it is true for everyone. They have also minimized the threat that the far right extremists are.
DeucesWild212
1 out of 5 stars
Just Another Biased Political Podcast
When you know the commentators political affiliation within the first 30 seconds of the show, you might want to think for yourself and find a podcast that encourages you to do the same.
UofC Optimistic Sceptic
1 out of 5 stars
Biased
Based on several that I’ve listen to, it’s not not another political podcast
ADSwbicoi1947$
5 out of 5 stars
Bogus Voter ID
I would like to know - is the author a progressive. All of this voter id discussion is bogus. Did they determine these voters who showed without Id do they have a drivers license? So a few voters show up without the requirements to vote. So blacks and Hispanics vote at lower levels than whites. Blacks and Hispanics vote Democrat. So if we lower requirements for these two groups we nay increase Democrat votes. Which the author obviously wants. He is an activist. How many showed up at the liquor store without Id. In my lifetime the most famous case of fraud reported widely was in Chicago and the Nixon Kennedy election. In that case Democrats paid five dollars for each vote and John Kennedy‘s father paid the bill this is viewed to be a decisive move and now we are faced with widespread activist in the Barack Obama tradition across the country under the ruse of black lives matter or antifa that all support the Democratic Party. It is a party built on fraud and they originated through the Ku Klux Klan many anti-racist efforts to keep black people from voting. Now the Democrats want to accuse Republicans that voter ID laws are racist. I am concerned that you never address in this paper or podcast how much fraud or fraud there is and what other voter ID actually stops VoterFraud. You never even mention it to Jay to focus on the bogus notion that voter ID which is a drivers license for heaven sake’s stops black people and Hispanic people from voting. This is not good editorial or academic research this is activism.
km$!h
2 out of 5 stars
No historical context
More than halfway into an episode on whether Americans really believe in democracy I realized the panelists had not even touched upon the antidemocratic legacy of racism in the U.S. That’s crucial. America has a history of believing that white people, have a right to vote and Blacks don’t. It’s an important part of the conversation that was missing. I couldn’t take the scholars seriously after noticing this absence, not just an elephant in the room but an entire herd of elephants. My apologies if, in the last few minutes of the podcast, the professors noted that, by the way, we didn’t address racism. But it should have been part of the discussion.
owenbradermas
2 out of 5 stars
Politics without politics
Podcast for technocrats who view politics largely as a topic for social science. The hosts filter out most historical context in favor of largely apolitical rationalist analysis that tends to focus on behavior and individual cognition of voters and politicians rather than offering any deeper insights focused on things like class structure, racism, gender norms etc.
IndependentSheila
5 out of 5 stars
It’s ok to be pretentious, if your heart is true!
We need more of this, and fewer 1-hour TV shows that, let’s face it, are designed to convince us of a particular view. Thanks to all three of you for preserving my sanity! Can t wait for the post-election discussions.
BetterThanMFP
5 out of 5 stars
Great informative podcast
It’s refreshing to listen to a podcast where research is not presented as facts and potential downfalls are addressed. You guys are great (and not pretentious at all)! Keep up the awesome work.
CFryd
5 out of 5 stars
Informative and insightful
Such a wonderful podcast. Nice to bring a balanced perspective during polarized times.
Pablosbadger
1 out of 5 stars
Snoozefest.........
Dull.
ballesterosm
5 out of 5 stars
Recommended
Interesting and accesible way to access academic literature that is relevant to current events
benshaver
5 out of 5 stars
Absolutely love the show
Huge, huge fan of the show. Exceptionally interesting and well done!
jmshoes
5 out of 5 stars
This is one of my favorite podcasts.
I really enjoy listening to them discuss political science research. Very fair and unbiased, of which we really need more.
NathanAndrew63
5 out of 5 stars
Unique and Poignant
Like the title says, this podcast is unique. This podcast avoids the political entertainment that is present in much of the media and other podcasts. Instead, this podcasts focuses on academic studies and the inferences therefrom, which enables the listeners to delve into what actually happens in political systems. I also find this podcasts to be nonpartisan that should appeal to a variety of persuasions. Lastly, while the cohosts of this podcast are academics, it is understandable, so you don’t have to be an academic.
Ann&Cali1003
5 out of 5 stars
Fantastic
This is an amazing podcast! Thank you for doing this! But it would be even better if you could talk about two different research with opposite conclusions or arguments on a topic.
StarkeyDuncan
5 out of 5 stars
Interesting Listen
It’s great to see behind the scenes how academics think about politics.
BigEinThumb
1 out of 5 stars
So pretentious
Unsubscribing it’s just too stuck up. This is why liberals lose and I am liberal.
browngangbc
2 out of 5 stars
It started out so well, but has turned out to be an opportunity to bash Trump. Very disappointing.
Unsubscribing because of the Trump bashing.
Rationalizable
5 out of 5 stars
Engaging Podcast
This is a fantastic podcast. Engaging and interesting, well-delivered, and so relevant to our current political era. Highly recommended!
whitney4077
5 out of 5 stars
So happy I came across this!
Wonderful podcast! Exactly what was missing in my podcast arsenal.
dhaggag
5 out of 5 stars
Necessary!
Thoughtful and deeply-needed as we make sense of today’s political realities. Must listen.
LynnetteSolange
5 out of 5 stars
Excited for no more political spectacle
I’ve been looking for a pod that covers politics using a critical and academic approach. I’m so tired for the spectacle of politics and the way most media feeds into that spectacle. I’m stoked to hear how the show develops!
gsigurds
5 out of 5 stars
What a breath of fresh air!
Everyone who thinks about politics must tune into this.
kdee1155
5 out of 5 stars
Pushing the theorists!
Loved this. I particularly enjoyed Anthony Fowler pushing his colleagues at the end to make some leaps from theory to practice. I’ll be listening for the next episode.
Vkatina
5 out of 5 stars
A thinking person’s political podcast
YES! This podcast is a such breath of fresh air!!! It’s like sitting around the coffee table asking your favorite college professor what’s “really” going on in politics. It’s an intelligent and engaging look at the research behind today’s headlines. I love how the hosts are willing to pressure test what the evidence tells us - or not. You have to respect academics for not speculating and making things up. The world needs more “thinking” podcasts like this one!
johnburnsss
5 out of 5 stars
Brilliant and thoughtful
This podcast is a wonderful listen.
Azeem S.
5 out of 5 stars
Insightful and entertaining!
A fascinating way to consume modern research in political economy and see how it can shape the way we view our world!
Slooper24
5 out of 5 stars
Excellent pod that we need right now
Down-to-Earth experts share timely analysis of what matters most in the American politics space. Great length and you know it’s reputable coming from the Harris School at UChicago.
helenesmith
5 out of 5 stars
enjoyable listen
I look forward to continuing to learn how new advances in political science affect the actual world of politics. The engaging tone of the hosts and their up-front decision not to go along with the guest’s reasoning if they perceive flaws in the argument makes this the most fun podcast of the year so far.
oakparkguy2208
5 out of 5 stars
Cuts through the noise
If you want to know what we really know about America’s big, meaty political questions, this is the show for you. Not just partisan opinions and hacks. The discussion gets at the actual knowledge that exists about the topics that drive our news cycle. The hosts are engaging and informative! You’ll feel more confident in your opinions.
BillyBobJoe1675309
5 out of 5 stars
Evidence not anecdotes and punditry
A trio of professors are telling us what actual political science has learned about topics that I care about, in a way I can understand. Glad to see something not infused with polarization and trump obsession
charlieb7052
5 out of 5 stars
Refreshing And Informative
Do you want to understand how the research and theory of politics affects the reality? Are you sick of the polarized pundits and talking heads? This is the show for you. Incredible discussions of politics science and how it’s relevant today!
Podcast information
- Amount of episodes
- 83
- Subscribers
- 54
- Verified
- No
- Website
- Explicit content
- No
- Episode type
- episodic
- Podcast link
- https://podvine.com/link/..
- Last upload date
- March 15, 2023
- Last fetch date
- March 25, 2023 6:23 PM
- Upload range
- WEEKLY
- Author
- University of Chicago Podcast Network
- Copyright
- 2020 Harris School of Public Policy
susbcribers
- Not Another Politics Podcast Feb 15 · 50m Are We In A Period Of Global Democratic Decline?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 the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. Link to paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=43273070 comments0
- Political Brokers In India’s Most Marginalized CommunitiesOn 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 2018, and it’s called “How Clients Select Brokers, Competition and Choice in India’s Slums”. Their investigation prompts a re-thinking of the dynamics of clientelism and perhaps even holds some lessons for how to re-think the ideological view of politics as well. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5310a4d8e4b05a56d51f81c8/t/5b4cbc711ae6cf1a9051724e/1531755638231/Auerbach_Thachil_APSR.pdf0 comments0
- An Algorithm for Detecting Election FraudFor 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 of Michigan, Walter Mebane believes he may have developed just such a toolkit. It’s called “election forensics”. Much like machine learning algorithms, when tested in the field it does seem to perform fantastically well, but figuring out exactly how it works can be a complicated web to untangle. We give it a shot on this episode.0 comments0
- Why The U.S. Isn’t As Polarized As It SeemsAs 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.0 comments0
- Why Aren't the Majority Of Voters Getting What They Want?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 Voters to Get What They Want , University of San Diego political scientist Seth J. Hill uses new empirical evidence to tackle a question that has been floating on the radar: Is democracy broken or are politicians becoming more undemocratic with their approach to win votes?0 comments0
- Not Another Politics Podcast Nov 23 · 45m Why Aren't There More Moderate Politicians?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 Andrew Hall argues that the reason we don’t have more moderate politicians is actually quite simple…there just aren’t any incentives for them to run.0 comments0
- LIVE: How Members Of Congress Forge Relationships With Their VotersThis 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 personal than that? Fennon took a novel approach to answering that question that he calls “soaking and poking”. We explore what his discoveries can tell us about our current elections and how representatives think about their interactions with their constituents. Paper: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1960097#metadata_info_tab_contents0 comments0
- What Can We Learn About Polarization From The UK?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 actually depolarized. Did elite depolarization lead to public depolarization, and what lessons do this data hold for the US?0 comments0
- Are Legislators Beating The Market With Insider Information?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 Congress actually advanced investors, and how much are they benefiting from inside information? In a 2014 paper by University of Chicago's Andy Eggers and Stanford University's Jens Hainmueller titled, Political Capital: Corporate Connections and Stock Investments in the U.S. Congress, they look at a wide data set of investments made by hundreds of members of Congress between 2004 and 2008, to see whether or not they're getting an unfair advantage. The results may surprise you.0 comments0
- Do Primaries Cause Polarization?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”. The findings are surprising and may have some key insights for how we should think about primary elections in the U.S.0 comments0
- Can Fact-Checking Counter Misinformation?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 Ethan Porter decided to look at COVID-19 misinformation spanning across ten countries, from Brazil to Nigeria, to the United States. He and his co-authors evaluated factual corrections in these ten countries to see whether or not they changed people's beliefs and whether they got vaccinated.0 comments0
- Not Another Politics Podcast Aug 31 · 47m Do People Automatically Reject Policies Of The Opposite Party?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 Howell and Anthony Fowler demonstrate that more robust research designs leads to a completely different conclusion. The American public may be more open to deliberative policy positions than we think; they just need to be given the option.0 comments0
- Does The Economy Affect Elections?The midterm elections are fast approaching, and with rampant inflation one of the main concerns for Democrats is the state of the economy. It’s commonly accepted that some voters cast their ballots solely on the price of gas and bread, but does the science back that up? There is a classic paper by political scientist Gerald Kramer from 1971 that can help us answer that question. It systematically evaluates the relationship between changes in the various dimensions of the economy and two party vote share over the better part of a century. On this episode, we discuss that paper, what it can tell us about the Democrat’s chances in the 2022 midterms, and if the possible effects of the Inflation Reduction Act.0 comments0
- Best Of: Does Ranked Choice Reduce Strategic Voting?Something curious has happened in American politics. Andrew Yang of 2016 presidential election fame has launched a third party, The Forward Party, and he's attracting some attention. A key feature of this party is a belief in ranked choice voting and raising up the possibility that through ranked choice voting, we might recover our our democracy. We're taking a week off to spend time with family, but we wanted to resurrect our discussion with our colleague Andy Eggers, who has written at length on ranked choice voting and the relationship between ranked choice voting and strategic voting. We hope you enjoy it. And we'll be back in two weeks with a brand new episode of Not Another Politics Podcast.0 comments0
- Did Voter Turnout Drop in Communities of Color After Shelby?Nearly a decade ago, the Supreme Court effectively removed the "preclearance" process in its Shelby County v. Holder decision. That process had been implemented for decades as part of the Voting Rights Act and required places with a history of racial discrimination to get approval from the Justice Department before changing their voting procedures. When the Shelby decision came down, voting rights advocates and mobilization groups panicked. There were widespread fears that this decision would dramatically reduce voter participation in communities of color. Did they? The University of Rochester's Mayya Komisarchik and Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Ariel White sought to answer that question in their recent paper, "Throwing Away the Umbrella: Minority Voting after the Supreme Court’s Shelby Decision." In this episode, we speak to Komisarchik about the impacts of the Shelby decision and whether our fears about countermobilization and voter suppression tactics have held true.0 comments0
- Do Local Minimum Wages Represent Local Preferences?Advocates for the striking down of Roe by the Supreme Court say this will improve our politics by allowing people’s preferences to be better represented at the State level. But do State and local governments accurately match the preferences of their citizens when responding to their demands? It’s a difficult question to answer, but one paper by NYU political scientist Julia Payson and co-author Gabor Simonovits at Central European University, “Locally controlled minimum wages are no closer to public preferences” provides a possible answer by way of locally set minimum wages. When local governments increase their minimum wages, do they accurately match local preferences? The answer is surprising, and has implications for policies beyond just minimum wage.0 comments0
- Roe & Departure From Precedent In The Supreme CourtThere’s long been a belief that the Supreme Court rarely departs from precedent. But as the court appears to intend to strike down Roe, we’re wondering what the data tell us about how consistent the Supreme Court has been at honoring precedent. And, is the Supreme Court more likely to depart from precedent in constitutional cases than other types? To break it all down, we spoke to Washington University law professor Lee Epstein, about her 2015 paper, "The Decision To Depart (or Not) From Constitutional Precedent: An Empirical Study of the Roberts Court", co-authored by William M. Landes and Adam Liptak.0 comments0
- Not Another Politics Podcast Jun 8 · 49m Revealing New Data On Who Donates To CampaignsThere are many questions surrounding the nature of money in politics, but one of the first order questions we should be asking is who exactly is donating that money? We now have access to more data than ever due to a dramatic increase in small donations through online fundraising platforms. Georgetown University Economist Laurent Bouton digs through this new data set in a recent paper “Small Campaign Donors” to answer all sorts of questions like: do big or small donors give more strategically, has there been an increase in donations to extremist candidates, and are the coasts influencing elections more than the rest of the country by donating more money?0 comments0
- Best Of: Fixing the FilibusterAs the academic year draws to a close at The University of Chicago, our hosts are busy attending to the last minute activities of a professor. So, this week we wanted to re-share one of our favorite episodes interrogating a radically different proposal to fix the filibuster rather than abolishing it altogether. The filibuster is still one of the most contentious aspects of our politics today, and how it changes or doesn't change has a powerful impact on the most pressing political issues of the moment.0 comments0
- Nuclear Brinkmanship In UkraineOne of the biggest questions surrounding the conflict in Ukraine is to what extent the shadow of nuclear war affects the degree of involvement by Western countries. Much of the literature in nuclear deterrence theory assumes the incentives of mutually assured destruction are strong enough to avoid a nuclear war, and hence the existence of nuclear capabilities in Russia and the West should not play much of a role in how the conflict progresses. But one paper by a late University of California Berkeley political scientist calls this theory into question. On this episode, we discuss Robert Powell’s “Nuclear Brinkmanship, Limited War, and Military Power”. In it, Powell builds a model that explains how conflicts can lead to nuclear war even under mutually assured destruction, but also how threat of that war changes the dynamics of any conflict from the beginning. Both findings give us a number of insights into the current situation in Ukraine.0 comments0
- What Happens When Fox News Viewers Watch CNN Instead?When it comes to cable news, Fox and CNN have pretty partisan viewers. So, what would happen if Fox viewers tuned into CNN for a month? Would they suddenly adopt different views more aligned with CNN? UC Berkeley political scientist David Broockman and his colleagues wanted to find out. When they paid Fox News viewers to watch CNN, they found that Fox News viewers became more supportive of vote-by-mail, and less likely to believe that then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden wanted to eliminate all police funding. The findings have made huge waves in the media, so we decided to take our unique microscope to the paper to see if we can get a fuller picture of what these findings tell us.0 comments0
- Does Russian Propaganda Influence Ukrainians?By now, we've heard a lot about how state-owned Russian television is distorting the truth about the war in Ukraine. But Russian TV doesn't just reach Russian viewers. Some Ukrainians can receive its analog television signals. To understand how this propaganda influences Ukrainians, we turned to New York University political scientist Arturas Rozenas, to talk about his 2017 paper, " Electoral Effects of Biased Media: Russian Television in Ukraine".0 comments0
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Keywords
© 2020 Harris School of Public Policy
