Simon Weschle
simonweschle.bsky.social
Simon Weschle
@simonweschle.bsky.social

Associate Professor of Political Science at UNC.
www.simonweschle.com

Political science 25%
Economics 18%
📣 New EJPR publication!

@stefaniebailer.bsky.social, @nathaliegiger.bsky.social and I study citizens’ attitudes toward MPs’ side income disclosure in 7 European countries.

MPs who conceal income are trusted least, even less than those with very high side incomes.
doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100303

Nice write-up of our recent paper on the link between campaign finance permissiveness and the wealth of politicians.
Only the Super-Rich can Run
Campaign finance doesn't just influence winning, it decides who can even stand for elections
open.substack.com
We're hiring at UNC Political Science!

Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Methods (Deadline Oct 24)

unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/307...

#polisky #psjobs #poliscijobs
Assistant Professor
This tenure-track position includes 40% teaching, 40% research and 20% service to the department/college. The service portion includes, but is not limited to search committees, review committees and a...
unc.peopleadmin.com
Just out at JOP (www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....) : Why do so few working-class people hold office? It's not lack of interest. Noam Lupu and I ran 10 surveys in 8 countries and found no evidence of a social class gap in how often qualified people consider running.
🚨 Reposting to avoid any confusion between EPSS & EPSA 🚨

If you want to support non-for-profit, member-led political science association, EPSS is the place to be!

More here 👇🏽
EPSA have announced that they will hold a conference in July 2026.

😵‍💫 We understand that there might be some confusion about EPSS and EPSA.

👉🏽 So we thought we would clarify some things.

A short 🧵

At this point my book is practically writing itself...
Revealed: how Boris Johnson traded PM contacts for global business deals
Exclusive: Leak exposes how former leader has used publicly subsidised office to manage commercial interests
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Simon Weschle

🌟🎉 Celebrating @luciamotoliniac.bsky.social (WashU)—recipient of the 2025 Emerging Scholar Award!
Her research is already shaping the field in big ways.
Come and celebrate with her at the business meeting (Sept 12, Friday, @12pm)
#APSA25 @apsa.bsky.social #EmergingScholar

Reposted by Simon Weschle

The only way to end the gerrymandering wars is proportional representation.
I'm delighted to advertise an exciting job as centre manager, helping me build Oxford's new Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM). We start this academic year and aim to attract as new faculty some of the world's top people in computational, experimental and qualitative methods.
CASSM Centre Manager
Full-timeFixed-term for 5 yearsGrade 8: £48,235 - £57,255 per annum
www.politics.ox.ac.uk
Godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton at world’s biggest AI conf AI4 in Las Vegas. Is asked what could AI gain control of soon?

“Us…they’re just going to be much smarter than us. Imagine you were in charge of a playgroup of 3 year olds…it wouldn’t be very hard to get control of them….
EPSA have announced that they will hold a conference in July 2026.

😵‍💫 We understand that there might be some confusion about EPSS and EPSA.

👉🏽 So we thought we would clarify some things.

A short 🧵

Reposted by Simon Weschle

5/6 🧵In ‪@ajpseditor.bsky.social@luciamotoliniac.bsky.social Klašnja & @simonweschle.bsky.social‬ show that higher pressures to spend in campaigns leads to a wealthier politician pool. Use data on MP wealth from 40 countries, & quasiexperimental evidence from 🇧🇷 & 🇨🇱 https://doi.org/pz7c

Reposted by Simon Weschle

Our paper (w/ wonderful co-authors @rwillh11.bsky.social, @simonweschle.bsky.social, @cbwlezien.bsky.social, and Jim Adams) is now out in print! 🎉 May be of interest to those studying electoral behavior, party strategy, or how citizens use information!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Does political sophistication moderate how citizens use information to infer left-right distances between parties?
Research identifies numerous factors associated with citizens’ perceptions of party ideologies, including the Left-Right orientations of parties’ election manifestos, governing coalition arrangemen...
www.tandfonline.com

Reposted by Simon Weschle

Going to APSA in Vancouver this year and need some additional funding? Applications for the Class & Inequality section support grants are now open!

apsa.secure-platform.com/a/solicitati...
APSA - Login
apsa.secure-platform.com

Now out in @ajpseditor.bsky.social:

@luciamotoliniac.bsky.social, Marko Klašnja and I show that greater pressures to spend more money on campaigning leads not just to more politicians who are rich, but especially to more politicians who are are *super* rich

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
American Journal of Political Science | MPSA Journal | Wiley Online Library
We provide a comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of the relationship between campaign finance pressures and the wealth of politicians. We argue that the heavily right-skewed wealth distri...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community.

🔗 epssnet.org

Here’s a thread with everything you need to know.

🧵

To be fair, he's tweeting that he's upset that he *didn't* get anything out of it, which suggests he thinks the causal effect of campaign finance is zero :)
The #UniKonstanz Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality @excinequality.bsky.social will continue to receive funding in the context of the German #ExcellenceStrategy @dfg.de @wissenschaftsrat.de. Details: t1p.de/ouhyj
In a just-accepted paper at the @thejop.bsky.social , @MelaniCammett, Guadalupe Tuñon, and I examine how campaign finance reforms have unanticipated effects: organized actors gain an edge. In our case, the Universal Kingdom of God Church in Brazil.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Special Interest Trade-Offs: Campaign Finance Reforms and Religious Influence in Politics in Brazil | The Journal of Politics: Vol 0, No ja
www.journals.uchicago.edu

The WaPo-AI summary of the comments section on this piece is quite something

Thanks, Lukas (and your co-authors), I really appreciate it!

Reposted by Simon Weschle

3-Politicians’ private sector jobs and parliamentary behavior, @ajpseditor.bsky.social

Updated report here (based on author’s feedback): ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/i4rdps...

Author: “Thanks a lot to the replication team for their careful analysis, I really appreciate all the work they put into it!”

Also, the APSA Class and Inequality section is finally on here. Give them a follow!
Going to APSA in Vancouver this year and need some additional funding? Applications for the Class & Inequality section support grants are now open!

apsa.secure-platform.com/a/solicitati...
APSA - Login
apsa.secure-platform.com
Herbert P. Kitschelt is the winner of the 2025 Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science. 🏆

He is awarded the prize for " having increased knowledge of the functioning of democratic party systems with exquisite theoretical acuity and impressive empirical breadth and depth."

Reposted by Simon Weschle

Brian, I just got this email too...did you find helpful discussions on this? And has anyone figured out whether the expected royalties from this for authors would be a few cents, or much more? The info on royalties is very opaque, which makes me think it's the former...

Gute Frage, keine Ahnung...
I am keeping a diary of daily events, as they unfold open.substack.com/pub/adamprze... It is available to everyone. I am new to Substack, so please let me know if something is wrong with the link or the file.
Diary
Week 1
open.substack.com

Unwahrscheinlich, selbst wenn sie heute kommen müsste ich das per FedEx zurück schicken, und das fängt bei 100 Dollar an.