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Conor Gaughan

@conorgaughan.bsky.social
1.3K followers 688 following 32 posts

Postdoctoral Research Associate | University of Manchester | Digital Research and Quantitative Politics | PhD from University of Southampton | #PUSB

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Reposted by Conor Gaughan
Lawrence McKay @lawrencemckay.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
I spent way too long this weekend correlating 81 census variables with local election results, so you don't have to. Enjoy! datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QQQ3D/7/
datawrapper.de
Local elections 2026: aggregate-level correlations | Created with Datawrapper
Pearson correlation coefficients between aggregate-level census data and the 2026 local election vote share and swing for each party, for the electoral ward or County Electoral District.
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Ralph Scott @ralphscott.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
🚨 NEW REPORT! 🚨 What is the state of the UK academic job market in politics, and what does this mean for the field and #highered? In a new @psaecn.bsky.social report, @lawrencemckay.bsky.social @williamlallen.bsky.social and I find worrying trends in job adverts and HESA data from 2012-25 #PSA26
psa.ac.uk
Academic Job Market Trends in Politics and International Relations - Political Studies Association
Academic Job Market Trends in Politics and International Relations: Evidence from the UK, 2012-25 Authored by: Dr Ralph Scott, Dr Lawrence McKay, and Dr William Allen Read the full report here   Execu...
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
🚨New publication out in Social Science Computer Review! Non-response in linked survey-to-Twitter/X data differs systematically across several sociodemographic, behavioural, and attitudinal characteristics, and these effects can vary between countries and over time: doi.org/10.1177/0894...
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
🚨There's a really cool funded PhD opportunity at the University of Manchester to work on measuring political rhetoric and influence on social media! If anyone knows of any students in social and/or computer science who might be interested: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
findaphd.com
[HUMS Bicentenary PhD] Conceptualising and Measuring Political Rhetoric and Influence on Social Media at The University of Manchester on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - [HUMS Bicentenary PhD] Conceptualising and Measuring Political Rhetoric and Influence on Social Media at The University of Manchester, listed on FindAPhD.com
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John Denham @jydenham.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Today I’m excited to launch Nation, State and Politics - a Substack exploring the powerful role that ideas of nations and nationhood play in shaping the political forces swirling around us today nationstateandpolitics.substack.com/p/nation-sta...
nationstateandpolitics.substack.com
Nation, State and Politics - An Introduction
Progressive politics cannot afford to ignore the importance of nation, nationhood and state.
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Zoë Crowther @zoecrowther.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
My story revealing that MP Rupert Lowe has been paid £40k from posting on X is in Playbook PM Graph below shows how Lowe has massively overtaken the Reform MPs with his X earnings throughout this year
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Zoë Crowther @zoecrowther.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
Here's a slightly crazy diagram illustrating today's major Cabinet reshuffle You're welcome
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Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte @turnbulldugarte.com · 05/09/2025
Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...
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Philip Cowley @philipjcowley.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Latest @thehousemag.bsky.social piece - on how to rank MPs, inc one of my fave academic studies, which put Diane Abbott to the right of Giles Radice. Also includes Rush reference.
politicshome.com
The Professor Will See You Now: Ranking MPs' politics
Professor Philip Cowley offers a political science lesson for The House’s readers. This week: ranking the politics of MPs
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Jack Bailey @jack-bailey.co.uk · 24/04/2025
Any great PhD or postdoctoral researchers out there who fulfil the attached criteria and who are interested in: 1) Formal logical models of electoral systems 2) Multilevel regression + poststratification 3) Digitising comparative elections data Please let me know! I want to get you to Manchester!
Candidates should not have carried out their main activity (work, studies etc.) in the country of their host organisation (i.e. UK) for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the deadline.

This call is open to researchers either coming to or moving within Europe, depending on the two strands of the scheme (European Postdoctoral Fellowships and Global Postdoctoral Fellowships).

Researchers should be in possession of a doctoral degree, with a maximum of 8 years full-time equivalent research experience.
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Lawrence McKay @lawrencemckay.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
Mega presence for @sotonpolitics.bsky.social at @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social! #PSA25 @dbonansinga.bsky.social and @profannikawerner.bsky.social on populism @rikkidean.bsky.social on democratic resilience @elizabethjevans.bsky.social on feminism Myself on urban-rural divides in trust (1/2)
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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Just a couple more days left to apply for this one day PhD/ECR event in Manchester next month - travel and accommodation covered!
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Ralph Scott @ralphscott.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
📣 CALLING ALL QUANT SOCIAL SCIENTISTS! 📣 Do you know of causally identified research that estimates the effect of higher education on political attitudes? @elizabethsim0n.bsky.social and I are currently working on a meta-analysis on this question and we need your help!
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University of Manchester School of Social Sciences @uomsoss.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Join Dr Alexandru Cernat & Dr @conorgaughan.bsky.social sky.social for a session on Open Data & digital footprints. Learn about anonymizing and linking digital data to surveys, the DIGSURV project, and an online MSc in Data Analytics and Social Statistics. Register: zoom.us/webinar/regi...
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Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte @turnbulldugarte.com · 19/03/2025
You can also see a short summary & discussion of our @psrm.bsky.social paper @bbcmaryam.bsky.social’s excellent The World Today show from Monday 🦸‍♀️ doi.org/10.1017/psrm...
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Gender and Inequalities Centre at Southampton @gain-centre.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
🚨We are so excited to announce that we are hosting the PSA Women & Politics @psawomenpol.bsky.social 2025 Annual Conference here in 📍Southampton! The conference, Troubled Times: Gender and Politics in the 21st Century, will be held from 📅 17 to 18 June! More details are in the CFP linked below.
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ITV News (Official) @itvnews.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
UK’s poorest households now worse off than poorest households in Slovenia Analysis shows if wage growth continued in line with the pre-2008 trend, the average worker in the UK would be earning £12,000 more per year today, Business and Economics Editor Joel Hills reports www.itv.com/news/2025-03...
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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Just over two weeks to go to apply for this exciting PhD and ECR event here in Manchester at the end of April - with funding to cover travel and accommodation. Get your abstracts in now! Get the word out to your colleagues and PhD students!
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Jon Mellon @jonmellon.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Helpful NYT article showing 30 exclusion restriction violations for studies claiming covid is an instrument for their preferred x variable nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/09/upshot/covid-lockdown-five-year-charts.html
nytimes.com
30 Charts That Show How Everything Changed in March 2020
It can be easy to forget, or look away from, the pain and disruption of the pandemic. The numbers will be there to remind us.
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Still a real lack of right-wing presence among UK politicians so far, but overall is looking good 🇬🇧🦋
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Zoë Crowther @zoecrowther.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
The majority of Labour, Lib Dem and Green MPs are now on Bluesky And many of these MPs appear to be regularly posting on this platform
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Our article 'A Crisis of Political Trust?' led by @viktorv.bsky.social is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social! We use >3,000 surveys in 143 countries between 1958 and 2019, finding that trust in representative institutions has generally been declining in recent decades. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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Ed Kelly @edmundkelly.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Happy to share that my paper (w/ James Tilley) is now out in @bjpols.bsky.social We show that expenses misconduct by British MPs was not associated with political distrust among their constituents. Open access here: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
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Kenn Rushworth @kennrushworth.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
I'm assisting @robfordmancs.bsky.social in organising this ECR event for UK in a Changing Europe. Get your papers in, come to Manchester, enjoy the rain, have a drink, go home, tell your mates how good it was.
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Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte @turnbulldugarte.com · 27/01/2025
Another great paper from @sotonpolitics.bsky.social in BJPOLS. This is from one of our great PhD candidates
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Marvin Stecker @marvins.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
First ever publication alert! Do you credit all the software you use in your research?👀 In a new article in Computational Communication Research, we investigate when software gets mentioned in research articles and what makes a tool more likely to be cited. Read it here: doi.org/10.5117/CCR2...
doi.org
Tools of the Trade – When Are Software Tools Mentioned in Computational Text Analysis Research? | Amsterdam University Press Journals Online
The use of computational methods for text analysis has been rapidly gaining a foothold in computational social science. Yet, little is known about the reporting practices of the software tools utilise...
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Check it out if you haven't already! 👇🏻🚨👇🏻
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Really cool work by @chanret.bsky.social and @vlazarov.bsky.social! Speaking of left-right positions of UK MPs, it turns out that their social media followership is also an extremely effective way of generating ideology estimates too 👇👀👇 doi.org/10.1017/S000...
Left-right positions of UK MPs in the last parliament (2019-24)
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Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Among MPs with an estimated ideological position (i.e. those who were MPs in 2023 - see www.cambridge.org/core/journal...), the most likely to vote for assisted dying were on the centre-left
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Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Interesting paper and a super useful dataset of MPs' positions in the replication data. At a glance, I'd say the method works better for more obscure MPs (e.g. it correctly identifies almost all of the Socialist Campaign Group as very left-wing but not Corbyn). Neat!
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Christopher Barrie @cbarrie.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
This looks v cool! And useful for when they all (hopefully) migrate here 👏
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Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte @turnbulldugarte.com · 20/11/2024
New (and first) paper from one of our fantastic PhD candidates at @sotonpolitics.bsky.social out in @bjpols.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S000... @conorgaughan.bsky.social will be on the job market soon(ish) so you should keep an eye on him if you're looking to hire in computational social science
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
"In future, there may be the potential for generating new estimates using this same method via alternative social networking sites, if we see significant uptake by UK politicians." (p.12) 🦋⛅🦋⛅
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Michael Bang Petersen @m-b-petersen.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
A mapping of how Bluesky is becoming the new Scientific Twitter mikeyoungacademy.dk/bluesky-is-e...
mikeyoungacademy.dk
Bluesky is emerging as the new platform for science - Mike Young Academy
Scientific Twitter is about to find its true successor. And it is not X. This, our latest release, shows that the Bluesky network of scientists is growing — and growing.
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UK in a Changing Europe @ukandeu.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
🌍 "Whether someone voted Leave or Remain in 2016 is not just a good predictor of their views on Brexit, but a reflection of different world views across a range of topics" 🚨🆕 @jydenham.bsky.social @conorgaughan.bsky.social & Tim Oliver on how English voters view the world & the UK’s place within it
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
🚨 New blog out with UKiCE: 🚨 A taster of some of the work @jydenham.bsky.social, Dr. Tim Oliver and I have been working on 👇🏻 Seven years on, Brexit identities still divide foreign policy views in England and these views cut across a range of areas from the E.U to climate change
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John Denham @jydenham.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
Great working with So’ton PhD candidate @conorgaughan.bsky.social on this research. Taster for longer paper on English and Scottish foreign policy views. With Tim Oliver Loughborough also. ukandeu.ac.uk/how-people-v...
ukandeu.ac.uk
How people voted in the Brexit referendum still shapes their view of the world - UK in a changing Europe
John Denham, Conor Gaughan, and Tim Oliver unpack British Academy polling exploring the different world views of English voters.
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
Great to see this article out! Looking forward to future studies of the Bluesky network...
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
Bluesky annoyingly doesn't allow you to edit posts, so the correct DOI link is here: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
doi.org
Estimating Ideal Points of British MPs Through Their Social Media Followership | British Journal of Political Science | Cambridge Core
Estimating Ideal Points of British MPs Through Their Social Media Followership
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 08/11/2024
🚨Happy to share that my first academic paper has been published by @bjpols.bsky.social! Using work from my PhD thesis, this research provides estimates of left/right position of UK MPs (2019-2024) using their Twitter/X follower networks. Open Access: doi.org/10.1017/S00071…
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 17/09/2024
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #288,456!
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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 26/08/2024
This is a fantastic data-driven account of Elon Musk's online radicalisation - with some very nice visualisation. www.wsj.com/tech/elon-mu...?
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Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte @turnbulldugarte.com · 26/08/2024
Made a starter pack. A (non-inclusive) list of kind and supportive political scientists. Includes supportive mentors & colleagues, as well as friendly & fun peers :) go.bsky.app/S4LPfwu
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Shaun Lintern @shaunlintern.bsky.social · 24/08/2024
Twitter alternative? News publishers see potential in Blue Sky
pressgazette.co.uk
Twitter alternative? News publishers see potential in Bluesky
Twitter alternative Bluesky may still be a minnow among the social media giants, but news publishers appear to see potential in the platform.
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 23/08/2024
After a lull for most of the year since Bluesky dropped its invite-only system in Feburary, the number of new posts and profiles containing the words Twitter/X and 'refugee' or 'asylum' has spiked again over the last three weeks.
A line graph that shows the number of weekly new posts and profiles on Bluesky that combine the words 'refugee' or 'asylum' with Twitter/X since February 2023. The graph shows a notable spike over the last three weeks.
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 07/12/2023
The political science network on Bluesky is now at just under 1,600 users with almost 74,000 unique connections! I've also published this network as an interactive graph so if anybody wants to find themselves, follow the link: conorgaughan2.github.io/polisky_netw... (*Not mobile-friendly)
A network graph of political scientists on Bluesky, connected by followers and coloured by community groups.
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 07/11/2023
I have 5 more invite codes going spare if anyone knows of anyone still trying to get themselves over here!
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Johannes B. Gruber @jbgruber.bsky.social · 11/10/2023
New #rstats package incoming! 🚀 With the fantastic @benguinaudeau.bsky.social and @favstats.bsky.social, I introduce: {atr} A package to get and post things here on BlueSky! jbgruber.github.io/atr/index.html
jbgruber.github.io
Wrapper for the AT Protocol behind Bluesky
atr wraps the AT Protocol (Authenticated Transfer Protocol) behind Bluesky <https://blueskyweb.xyz>. Functions can be used for, among others, retrieving posts and followers from the network ...
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Conor Gaughan @conorgaughan.bsky.social · 26/09/2023
Testing out Blue Sky's API and mapped out the Polisky network using members of @profmusgrave.bsky.social's Political Science feed! The nodes are connected by which users follow each other in the network, coloured by modularity class and sized by their in-degree (i.e: number of followers).
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