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Alex Coppock

@aecoppock.bsky.social
6.7K followers 1.5K following 637 posts

Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University alexandercoppock.com Persuasion in Parallel: alexandercoppock.com/coppock_2022.h… Research Design: Declaration, Diagnosis, and Redesign: book.declaredesign.org

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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
🤖thorson_bot🤖 "I don't know if you've considered this before, but is it possible that people say one thing on surveys but they actually think something else?"
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
agreed that more experiments would be better!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
New from Hainmueller and Laitin on the causal effects of becoming a citizen on wages. Short story: the observational ests overstate the premium relative to the experimental ests. Authors conclude "observational averages should not be used as causal forecasts for policy" doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
screen shot of the article with "observational averages shouldnot be used as causal forecasts for policy" highlighted
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Fantastic, thank you for this, it'll go straight in the pipeline!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
bsky.app/profile/elle...
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
tom dont bore us, take it to the chorus
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
yiiiiikes. had to look up what might have been meant by "distaff side"
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
When oh when will polling outfits stop asking "more/less likely" questions? No way does this promise make 27% of the country *much less likely* to vote R, No way does this promise make a different 11% of the country *much more likely* to vote R!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
ok that's a fabulous use of AI
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Florian Foos @florianfoos.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Applications are open for EuroWEPS Berlin.👇There is also some change in the EuroWEPS organising committee. @pavisuri.bsky.social is taking a step back, while @aalrababah.bsky.social & @ewirsching.bsky.social are joining starting with this edition. A big thank you to Pavi & welcome to Ala and Elisa!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
countdown to LaTeX pronunciation discourse
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
AHH you're killing me. never thought id be on the Alice Cooper side of this GIF lol HA
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Gustavo Diaz @gustavodiaz.org · 12/08/2026
Not on the committee but happy to chat!
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Martin Naunov @naunovmartin.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Northwestern poli sci is hiring in quant methods! I'm not on the committee, but I AM excited to welcome new junior colleagues. We're also hiring in IR -- separate search, same amazing department (and university!)
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Northwestern is hiring in quant methods (assistant level, tenure track) Please repost and share with those you think would be good candidates, thank you! polisci.northwestern.edu/about/facult... #psjobs #psjminfo #poliscijobs
Assistant Professor of Quantitative Political Methodology (Tenure-Track)
The Department of Political Science at Northwestern University invites applications for a full-time position in Quantitative Political Methodology at the rank of Assistant Professor, tenure-track, to begin Fall 2027. We emphasize methodology with a strongly applied perspective: successful candidates will maintain an active, independent research program that includes methodological contributions in their own right, while also teaching quantitative research methods courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels and applying those methods to substantive questions in their area of expertise. We are especially interested in candidates whose work bridges data-driven/computational approaches with design-based inference, though we welcome applicants making cutting-edge contributions in either of these traditions or in other areas of political methodology. Successful candidates' substantive research agendas may be in any area of political science or may cross boundaries; as with all Northwestern faculty, successful candidates will be expected to provide service to the department, the university, and the profession.Aerial photo of Northwestern's beautiful lakeside campus with political science's new building circled
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I think so. Vivid political context, overtime difference, huge levels of sensitivity bias, design large enough despite list experiments' general lack of precision. haven't done / seen the design checks, but supposing they pass, I think this is a great example (though not a typical one!)
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Just an enormous difference in Russian support for the war when comparing direct question estimates with experiments from list experiments. Also, peep those CIs! sensitivity bias has to be HUGE (which it apparently is in this case) to be detected with Direct - List
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
We are so grateful to the many authors who conducted these experiments and posted their data (or shared when we asked) -- synthesis like this obviously depends on the efforts of others. If you've read this far thank you! If you're so moved, please share the top post, quoted below:
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
A favorite part was the "estimand census", in which we enumerated all of the estimands estimated in the published papers, but also all the the estimands that *could have been* estimated given the design. We (a) add many new published quantities and (b) show how little overlap there is for most qs
figure of the estimand census.
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
The headline finding is that the effects of religious messages average about a percentage point. The effects vary widely, from precisely estimated 0-point effects to precisely estimated 10-point effects! We do not understand why, though we try to sort through some possibilities.
screenshot with this text: 

Our goal with this exercise was to evaluate the
generalizability of three main claims in this literature:
(1) religious treatments are especially effective because
of their religious character, (2) effects are larger for
religious affiliates than nonaffiliates, and (3) effects are
larger for high religiosity types than low religiosity
types. Our summary conclusion is that none of these
claims is correct in general.
While it is true that some estimates of the effect of
religious messages (both compared with pure control
and compared with a secular alternative) and the effect
of religious endorsements are strongly positive, these
patterns do not hold across the many contexts we study.
Most of the estimates we report cannot be distinguished
from zero, nor can the meta-analytic averages. For this
reason, we are skeptical of the claim that religious
treatments are especially effective because of their
religious content. Our analysis of heterogeneity
strongly contradicts main claims (2) and (3). In just
3 of the 66 opportunities we study do we find statistically significant evidence of effect heterogeneity by
religious affiliation or religiosity. This lack of heterogeneity appears to be quite generalizable across contexts and across the three classes of estimands we focus
on here.
These are not the conclusions one would draw from
reading the abstracts of the papers we include. We
hand-coded each abstract for whether they make a
positive claim about an average treatment effect, a null
claim about an average treatment effect, or a heterogeneous effects claim. This exercise, while somewhat
coarse, gives us a sense of the headline claims in the
field: 64% of the abstracts make positive treatment
effect claims, 32% make null claims, and 46% make
heterogeneous effects claims.screenshot with this text: 

While our meta-analytic average estimates were all null,
we did also document substantial heterogeneity across
studies. A natural question is, what explains why some
effects are large and others are not? We do not know.
Poring over the forest plots in Figures 2–4 like tea
leaves, we came up with a few post hoc possibilities for
the heterogeneity across studies. First, it could be that
treatments that are especially naturalistic, in the sense
of being similar to real-life religious communications,
are more effective than shorter, seemingly artificial
treatments. We find that religious message treatments
that are higher on this dimension are more effective
(3.4 points, SE: 1.5 points, p= 0.036) than messages that
are lower. Second, it could be that some outcomes are
more malleable by religious message than others; tolerance toward immigrants, refugees, former combatants, and religious out-groups might be one such
domain. However, we do not find evidence that messages that target tolerance are more effective (4.1
points, SE: 2.1 points, p ¼ 0:067 ) than messages that
target other outcomes. Third, we attempt to characterize which messages “stick to religion” in the sense of
emphasizing the religious foundations of the persuasive
attempt, under the theory that such messages will be
more persuasive (Djupe and Neiheisel 2022). As it
happens, we find no differences in message persuasiveness (−0.5 points, SE: 1.7 points, p ¼ 0:785 ) by this
variable, though we readily admit that our own coding
of treatments as “sticking to religion” or not might
differ from others’ judgments. We do not put great
faith in the success or failure of these explanations,
since the studies vary in many uncontrolled dimensions,
and since we coded these messages’ style and substance
after having seen the results of the meta-reanalysis.
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Our (with Radha Sarkar) meta-reanalysis of the experimental religion and politics literature is now out at @apsrjournal.bsky.social Open-access link: doi.org/10.1017/S000... Brief thread
title page of journal, that reads:

The effects of religious messages and endorsements on political attitudes: A meta-reanalysis
Sarkar, Radha, Coppock, Alexander. 2026. The effects of religious messages and endorsements on political attitudes: A meta-reanalysis. American Political Science Review.

Abstract
The experimental study of the effects of religious messages and endorsements by religious leaders on political attitudes has a relatively short history yet has coalesced around three main claims: religious treatments are especially effective because of their religious character, effects are larger for religious affiliates than nonaffiliates, and effects are larger for high religiosity types than low religiosity types. Here we meta re-analyze the experimental record (58 treatment-outcome pairs drawn from 43 studies reported in 26 papers) to probe the generalizability of these claims. Our findings indicate that these three headline claims do not generalize straightforwardly across contexts: effects are large in some cases and close to zero in others, and we find no evidence in favor of the claimed heterogeneities by religious affiliation or religiosity. Based on a census of the estimands in this literature, we offer suggestions for future research that would enhance commensurability and synthesis.
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Sofia Elverdin @sofiaelverdin.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
I'm thrilled to share that my dissertation has been selected as the co-winner of the Best Dissertation Award from the APSA Women, Gender, and Politics Section. Many thanks to the award committee, and to mentors and colleagues who offered support along the way!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I really hope that Sociology reforms. My main work is reanalyzing other scholars' experiments in service of meta-analysis. It's only possible because transparency is embraced so thoroughly by our political science community. Most exps are posted; i'm getting ~80% when I email for the rest.
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Mashail Malik @mamalik.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
We have a new paper out on what the large conjoint literature tells us about public opinion on immigrant characteristics:
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Marcel Roman @mfroman.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
🚨NEW PUBLICATION🚨 in Science Advances. We meta-reanalyze 100 conjoint experiments to assess which immigrants citizens prefer around the world. Our evidence reinforces existing findings, identifies novel insights, and provides a basis for future research 1/n www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Which immigrants do citizens prefer? A meta-reanalysis of 100 conjoint experiments
Meta-reanalysis of 100 conjoint experiments reveals patterns of similarity and variation in public immigration preferences worldwide.
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Thank you Pam! ❤️
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Department of Comparative Politics UiB @sampol.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
🌟 New article 👥 Eelco Harteveld, Lars Erik Berntzen, Andrej Kokkonen, Haylee Kelsall, Jonas Linde & Stefan Dahlberg 👉 The (alleged) consequences of affective polarization: A survey experiment in nine democracies 📗 European Journal of Political Research 🔗 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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Martin Naunov @naunovmartin.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Thrilled this is finally out in its JOP-formatted version! Hope it's useful to anyone working on LGBT politics, (electoral) discrimination, status differentials within & across identity categories, and non-textual experiments. Main findings in quoted thread. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....
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Marko Bajlovic @marko.tech · 17/05/2026
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 11/05/2026
He talked about description as well, including the specific recommendation to avoid associational language, simply because it has become so ambiguous (so not "is SES associated with Y" but rather: do people of different SES differ on average in Y).>
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Oooh, that is FORTUITOUS timing, i love it. CONGRATS!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
can you say what "enough conditions" means? I had been understanding this to mean something about setting up an experiment in which the design sets the likelihood, but your response suggests otherwise. I have in mind Seth Hill's "cautious bayesians" conclusion that depends on that assumption
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APSA @apsa.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Read this #OpenAccess article by Amanda Sahar d’Urso in American Political Science Review, "What Happens When You Can’t Check the Box? Categorization Threat and Public Opinion among Middle Eastern and North African Americans"
politicalsciencenow.com
What Happens When You Can’t Check the Box? Categorization Threat and Public Opinion among Middle Eastern and North African Americans
What Happens When You Can’t Check the Box? Categorization Threat and Public Opinion among Middle Eastern and North African Americans By Amanda Sahar d’Urso, Georgetown University Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Americans are politically visible yet institutionally invisible, long categorized as “white” by the U.S. government despite neither self-categorizing nor racially assigned as such. Most forms—across public and private sectors—still lack a “MENA” category option.
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
in my branch of social science, we often run up against the problem that because many likelihood functions are permissible, any pattern of updating is consistent with some version of Bayes rule. Am I right that the proposal here is a design where subjects "must" adopt the design-set likelihood fn?
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Rafe Meager (they/them) @economeager.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
this is so interesting, i think this is basically a kind of ecological study
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
from the titles in your list and those of your followers, I'm thinking you and I are the same kind of nerd and that you will love The Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky Narrated by Mel Hudson I'm now through to book four which just came out last month.
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Robb Willer @robbwiller.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Climate change impacts are here, but public support for action remains polarized. Which climate messages move people? In a ~13,500-person megastudy, we tested 10 of the most-cited messages. Six increased pro-environmental attitudes in the U.S.—but only by 1–4 percentage points. 🧵
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Once again asking people not to post about poll results without links to the surveys, and not to repost anything that cites poll results without links to the surveys. This is not (primarily) about credit, it's a data credibility check.
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Lol I had a BAD IDEA that i pitched to possible collaborators and they said "no professional upside to that idea Alex" and then i forgot to email you back with apologies and now im embarrassed in public.
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Two half-baked thoughts (that might already be in the paper, sorry!!): 1) meta-analysis serves a "summary" function that might help us learn from the glut of papers 2) I think the "estimate-density" of papers will go up as competition increases (i.e. "metaketa" style work)
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Congrats, what great news! Bravo!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Honestly, you should just change your handle to @andrew.37035397.phd !
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
are you advocating *silicon sampling*??? [ducks]
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Friends, you've been submitting great proposals for this project and we're now coming up to capacity. We're closing proposals on April 15th; please send yours in!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Nice new entry in the persistence literature
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Institute for Replication @i4replication.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
🧵1/ Our first meta-science paper (with 350+ coauthors) is published today in Nature. It presents one of the largest-ever reproducibility projects in economics & political science. Here’s what we found 👇
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
oh wow I need to read closer, 10 years ago!!
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Re: your conclusion ("it depends on the research question") -- I still don't understand what RQ is answered by the estimator that controls for downstream things. The fraction of the descriptive change in happiness not explained by the mediation model, supposing the mediation model is 100% correct?
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American Political Science Review @apsrjournal.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
From our FirstView article: What Happens When You Can’t Check the Box? Categorization Threat and Public Opinion among Middle Eastern and North African Americans by @asdurso.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1017/S000...
doi.org
What Happens When You Can’t Check the Box? Categorization Threat and Public Opinion among Middle Eastern and North African Americans | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core
What Happens When You Can’t Check the Box? Categorization Threat and Public Opinion among Middle Eastern and North African Americans
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Alex Coppock @aecoppock.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
100% agree. be the change!
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