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Aidan Milliff

@aidanmilliff.com
1.7K followers 932 following 218 posts

Political Scientist

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Reposted by Aidan Milliff
Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 27/08/2026
Makes sense. Because we’ve clearly already solved all of humanity’s problems with our governments, economies, and social structures.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 25/08/2026
RIP Dolly. This album was not literally stuck in the tape deck of my dad's truck, but it might as well have been. One of my favorites since I was a kid. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HMw...
youtube.com
Wildflowers (2015 Remaster)
YouTube video by Dolly Parton - Topic
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 20/08/2026
If this is an audit study, it's a weird one.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 20/08/2026
Prospective PhD Students (PoliSci, U.S. programs): You *do not need to contact faculty in advance*. If you decide to ignore my advice, at least contact them yourself!! Having a consultant cold-email faculty on your behalf *will not help you gain admission.*
static.klipy.com
Man with Headache Hangover
ALT: Man with Headache Hangover
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Finally, this has gone a bit under the radar, so I want to highlight it: The social, behavioral and economic sciences directorate (SBE) has simply ceased to deliver grants to many of its subareas. Any topic not specifically OK'd by the Trump administration is receiving zero new awards.
All of the NSF’s directorates are awarding fewer new grants, but the hardest hit is the social, behavioural and economic sciences (SBE) directorate, which the White House proposed eliminating in its 2027 budget request to Congress. SBE has so far awarded 84 new grants this year, about 11% of its average, mainly in areas of artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience and decision-making. Much of its portfolio, such as sociology, archaeology, political science, economics and geography, has received zero new awards. “I don’t think they’ve realized yet that there’s no awards,” one NSF staff member says of researchers in those fields. “That’s going to be clear soon.”
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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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Noah Nathan @nlnathan.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Working on this paper was so fun! Excited that it's now out in the world and I hope you can check it out. It builds on broader agendas on the built environment and how space structures social contact from both Paige and I, w/ more info here: paigebollen.com and nlnathan.mit.edu
paigebollen.com
Paige Bollen
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 22/07/2026
Evergreen.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 07/07/2026
I have an unbeatable idea for a PR firm. You pay me $1,000/mo and if Isaac Chotiner calls you, I slap the phone out of your hand.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 01/07/2026
Very cool looking new NBER paper from @mushfiq-econ.bsky.social and Sultan Mehmood on one of the most transformative natural disasters in the history of modern South Asia www.nber.org/papers/w35360
nber.org
How Climate Shocks Produce Armed Rebellion: The 1970 Bhola Cyclone and the Birth of Bangladesh
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
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Sean Ehrlich @seandehrlich.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Now that we’re well into summer, I think it’s time to announce here FSU’s polisci dept’s hiring last year. (I meant to do at the end of the year but forgot.) First up, James Gibson, previously of WashU, will be joining us in the fall as the Regent’s Research Professor. This is a huge coup for us.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 11/06/2026
New policy piece on our @bjpols.bsky.social paper with Paolo Bertolotti, Ali Jadbabaie, and Fotini Christia. What do drone strikes do to civilians nearby? The non-lethal effects are larger than advertised irregularwarfare.org/hidden-costs-of-precision-what-drone-strikes-actually-do-to-civilians
irregularwarfare.org
Hidden Costs of Precision: What Drone Strikes Actually Do to Civilians
New research using cellphone data from Yemen reveals that U.S. drone strikes cause widespread civilian displacement and communication spikes, even when avoiding casualties. These non-lethal disruption...
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Jacob Ware @jacobware.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
"The non-lethal effects of drone strikes have substantial humanitarian and political costs." We are proud to highlight some outstanding new research on drone strikes by @aidanmilliff.com, Paolo Bertolotti, Fotini Christia, and Ali Jadbabaie at IWI.
irregularwarfare.org
Hidden Costs of Precision: What Drone Strikes Actually Do to Civilians
New research using cellphone data from Yemen reveals that U.S. drone strikes cause widespread civilian displacement and communication spikes, even when avoiding casualties. These non-lethal disruption...
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 10/06/2026
I also took the opportunity to write more about one of our puzzling findings: Why do we see so much regional variation in Indians' foreign policy attitudes? I toss out some ideas in this blog post: aidanmilliff.com/blog/indian-...
aidanmilliff.com
Partisanship, Region, and Variation in Indian Public Opinion – Aidan Milliff
What our new Cambridge Element reveals about how public opinion varies across India’s regions.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 10/06/2026
@pstaniland.bsky.social I appeared on Grand Tamasha 🎙️ with @milanv.bsky.social to discuss our new book on Indian public opinion. Check out the episode here: grand-tamasha.simplecast.com/episodes/wha... And the book is free to download until June 15: doi.org/10.1017/9781...
Here's alt text for the image:

> Promotional graphic for the Grand Tamasha podcast, Season 15. Purple background with bold white text reading "What Do Indians Think About the World?" Below the title, pink text lists the guests: Milan Vaishnav with Paul Staniland and Aidan Milliff. The bottom-left corner shows the Grand Tamasha logo; the top-left shows the podcast and Hindustan Times logos. On the right, circular headshots of two guests (Paul Staniland and Aidan Milliff) appear alongside the cover of their book, *Indian Public Opinion toward the Major Powers*, published in the Cambridge Elements in Indo-Pacific Security series by Cambridge University Press.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 15/05/2026
New research in Science from @dominic-rohner.bsky.social and others: USAID cuts caused violent conflict to spike immediately in areas that received the most USAID support and last for months. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Aiding peace or conflict? The impact of USAID cuts on violence
Less than a week after its inauguration, the second Trump administration issued a blanket stop-work order for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest national human...
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Instituto Juan Linz @institute-juanlinz.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
📣 The Department of Social Sciences at Universidad Carlos III is recruiting for a fixed-term 2-year position in Political Science. This is a two-year opportunity to conduct research, teach, and and collaborate in a vibrant and interdisciplinary academic environment. More info: lnkd.in/eyVbmPRJ
linkedin.com
Visiting Professor in the area of Political Science | UC3M | Social Sciences Department UC3M
📣 The Department of Social Sciences at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid is recruiting a Visiting Professor in Political Science to join its international faculty. This is a two-year opportunity to te...
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 11/05/2026
Super clever idea.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 05/05/2026
Book Alert! @pstaniland.bsky.social and I have a new Cambridge Element out now — and free to download through May 18. It's the result of nine years of digging through historic survey data on how the Indian public thinks about major powers. Read it here: www.cambridge.org/core/element...
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 05/05/2026
Book Alert! @pstaniland.bsky.social and I have a new Cambridge Element out now — and free to download through May 18. It's the result of nine years of digging through historic survey data on how the Indian public thinks about major powers. Read it here: www.cambridge.org/core/element...
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Paul Staniland @pstaniland.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
New book! @aidanmilliff.com and I spent years tracking down survey data from the late 1950s-2025 on how the Indian public has viewed China, the US, and Russia/USSR. We use the data to explore trends and patterns. Cambridge has made it Open Access until 5/18, so go read for free here: t.co/YtNCz74758
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Alyssa Heinze @alyssarheinze.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
We are organizing a pre-conference workshop at EPSS on the Politics of South Asia. To present, discuss, or attend, please submit your info by May 13th: forms.gle/pXaKtTLifJAY... Please circulate widely! If questions, contact me, @aliz-toth.bsky.social or @simonchauchard.bsky.social!
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 13/04/2026
Watching this made me so unbelievably happy. Wout is one of the best characters in professional sports.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 07/04/2026
How is this not a threat to kill innocent people?
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 07/04/2026
Operation Names can also be used for peaceful purposes. aidanmilliff.com/post/project...
aidanmilliff.com
Project Name Generator | Aidan Milliff
Develop secret code names for your projects, just like the pros (claim to)!
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 04/04/2026
[Claude.md that just says “fear me”]
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Will Lowe @conjugateprior.org · 04/04/2026
Now is the time for posting thoughtful discussions of the role of LLMs in academia. I don't have one of those. But Machiavelli does.
CHAPTER XXIII.
HOW FLATTERERS SHOULD BE AVOIDED

I do not wish to leave out an important branch of this subject, for it is a danger from which princes are with difficulty preserved, unless they are very careful and discriminating. It is that of flatterers, of whom courts are full, because men are so self-complacent in their own attairs, and in a way so deceived in them, that they are preserved with difficulty from this pest, and if they wish to defend themselves they run the danger of falling into contempt. Because there is no other way of guarding oneself from flatterers except letting men understand that to tell you the truth does not offend you; but when every one may tell you the truth, respect for you abates.

Therefore a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving to them only the liberty of speaking the truth to him, and then only of those things of which he inquires, and of none others; but he ought to question them upon everything, and listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his own conclusions. With these councillors, separately and collectively, he ought to carry himself in such a way that each of them should know that, the more freely he shall speak, the more he shall be preferred; outside of these, he should listen to no one, pursue the thing resolved on, and be steadfast in his resolutions. He who does otherwise is either overthrown by flatterers, or is so often changed by varying opinions that he falls into contempt.

[...]A prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel, but only when he wishes and not when others wish; he ought rather to discourage every one from offering advice unless he asks it; but, however, he ought to be a constant inquirer, and afterwards a patient listener concerning the things of which he inquired; also, on learning that any one, on any consideration, has not told him the truth, he should let his anger be felt.

And if there are some who think that a prince who conveys an impression of his wisdom is not so through his own ability, but through the good advisers that he has around him, beyond doubt they are deceived, because this is an axiom which never fails: that a prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice, unless by chance he has yielded his affairs entirely to one person who happens to be a very prudent man. In this case indeed he may be well governed, but it would not be for long, because such a governor would in a short time take away his state from him.

But if a prince who is not inexperienced should take counsel from more than one he will never get united counsels, nor will he know how to unite them. Each of the counsellors will think of his own interests, and the prince will not know how to control them or to see through them. And they are not to be found otherwise, because men will always prove untrue to you unless they are kept honest by constraint. Therefore it must be inferred that good counsels, whencesoever they come, are born of the wisdom of the prince, and not the wisdom of the prince from good counsels.
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Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
It would be useful if the NYT explicitly stated that the pilot, if captured, would be a POW, that there are laws governing how POWs can be treated, that respect for international law on war shapes how the enemy approaches it, and this is why the US conduct of this illegal war has been so dangerous.
nytimes.com
Missing Airman Raises Concerns That Iran Could Gain Leverage Over the U.S.
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Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 04/04/2026
If I read this reporting correctly, NSF is preparing to shut down SBE (social, behavioral, economic sciences) *in anticipation* of the FY27 budget, despite Congressional instructions that no directorate receive more than a 5% cut in FY26.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 31/03/2026
It was worth a shot.
Claude code terminal readout:

 ▐▛███▜▌   Claude Code v2.1.87
▝▜█████▛▘  Sonnet 4.6 · Claude Pro
  ▘▘ ▝▝    /workspace

❯ sudo open strait of hormuz

● That's not a package I have in my repositories, and geopolitics is outside
  my $PATH.

  If you have an actual task for me, I'm ready.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
❯
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 31/03/2026
Destroying civilian infrastructure in war is wrong, and probably against the Law of Armed Conflict www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | America Is Abandoning Morality
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 30/03/2026
Astute point in the linked paper (Hathaway with @azmatzahra.bsky.social) about "mistakes" in war: If you don't change procedures to prevent them from happening again, in what way are they really "mistakes"?
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 26/03/2026
Me after I vibecoded a task manager that just eats tasks.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 25/03/2026
TBH people are taken aback by how much a *political science* grad degree is "I Hope You Like Matrices." I turned out to really dig it, but I don't think I knew what I was signing up for...
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 23/03/2026
Intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime in *some* cases. Russian officials were indicted by the ICC in 2024 for strikes targeting Ukraine's electrical grid ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Astonishing. The goal of our war is now to undo the effect of the war we started. Gosh, if only we could rewind to, say, four weeks ago when the Strait of Hormuz was open and normal!
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Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Just a year ago, we heard reducing the deficit was so important Elon Musk had to fire as many scientists, forest rangers and Black women on the government’s payroll that he could find. Now? 🤷🏾‍♂️
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Wesley Morgan @wesleymorgan.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
The peak annual supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was the $196 billion the Bush admin requested in 2008 as the Iraq surge wound down and Afg ramped up. The two Iraq supplementals in 2003, the year of the invasion, added up to $167B. (Invasion one alone was $79B.)
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 19/03/2026
Good reminder for Iran today from Steve Coll’s The Achilles Trap: Betting on “self regime change” is something the U.S. has done before, and lost.
Quote from The Achilles Trap by Steve Coll

Bush administration planners considered an insider coup carried out by military officers to be most likely and most desirable—a quick change of regime that would leave Iraq in the hands of a more manageable strongman. “We made some very overoptimistic assumptions,” recalled David Mack, then at the State Department. “We assumed the chances were great” that military officers would move against Saddam.[19] C.I.A. analysts judged the revolt that spread across the south in early March to be Saddam Hussein’s “most serious political challenge in more than twenty years of power.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 14/03/2026
Good thread. MEU is a very small unit in ground combat terms but a kind of big unit to pull out of the Western Pacific
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Rory Truex @rorytruex.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
open.spotify.com/episode/1GU9...
open.spotify.com
Bonus Episode: The Prospects for Democracy in Iran | Daniel Tavana, Penn State University
Spotify video
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The Associated Press @apnews.com · 12/03/2026
BREAKING: The UN refugee agency says up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war. Follow AP’s live updates.
bit.ly
Live updates: Oil price tops $100 a barrel as Iran attacks on shipping worsen supply concerns
Iran targeted the world’s busiest international airport Wednesday and attacked commercial ships as U.S. and Israeli strikes rocked Tehran, while the United Nations' most powerful body demanded a halt to the Islamic Republic’s strikes on its Gulf neighbors that threaten global oil supplies.
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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
They could have read (yes, I know) this piece by @proftalmadge.bsky.social from [checks notes] *2008* entitled “Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz”! www.caitlintalmadge.com/uploads/8/5/4/1/85419560/closing_time.pdf
caitlintalmadge.com
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 11/03/2026
Wat.
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 10/03/2026
Hey man, none of us signed up for this. 700k displaced by strikes in Lebanon: www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03... Pentagon says 140 service members injured in Iran war: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/w...
nytimes.com
Pentagon Says 140 Service Members Have Been Injured in Iran War
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Aidan Milliff @aidanmilliff.com · 10/03/2026
Apropos of nothing, here's a campaign analysis from 2008 by @proftalmadge.bsky.social www.belfercenter.org/publication/...
belfercenter.org
Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran's potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. According to op...
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Phil Klay @philklay.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through …But we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military.” www.archchicago.org/en/statement...
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Caitlin Talmadge @proftalmadge.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
The aspect of this war that reminds me most of operations in Iraq is the part where we're conducting operations in Iraq. 👀 www.wsj.com/world/middle...
wsj.com
Iraq Becomes Battleground for U.S. Forces Once Again
The U.S. is targeting militias that have carried out dozens of attacks in a show of support for Iran.
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Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
How Congress politicians in India are discussing the boat strike (the guy she's citing is of India's most decorated GOFOs):
We must convey our displeasure to the US for bringing maritime warfare to our doorstep without informing us or taking us into confidence. It’s an issue of concern. 

Strategic autonomy must have moral moorings and anchors. This conflict is needless, open-ended, pointless and will only bring grief to the whole world. 

India must take a stand, convey our concern and ask for hostilities to terminate at the earliest and keep the conflict away from our waters. 

Admiral Arun Prakash
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