Christian Oswald
@christianoswald.bsky.social
Research Associate @ Center for Crisis Early Warning, University of the Bundeswehr Munich | PRIO Research School Member | pol. violence & instability | analog player in a digital world | aggressively mediocre
https://christianoswald.net
https://christianoswald.net
Reposted by Christian Oswald
In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps:
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November 27, 2025 at 2:54 PM
In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps:
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/1
Reposted by Christian Oswald
📣 out now, with @argohdes.bsky.social and Mark Gibney - and in honour of the wonderful Steve Poe, who motivated the 1st edition with @universitypress.cambridge.org
tinyurl.com/2s4kh6z3. If you enjoy reading this even a fraction as much as I enjoyed creating it, you’re in for a ride 🤩
tinyurl.com/2s4kh6z3. If you enjoy reading this even a fraction as much as I enjoyed creating it, you’re in for a ride 🤩
The Politics of Human Rights | Cambridge Aspire website
Discover The Politics of Human Rights, 2nd Edition, Sabine C. Carey, HB ISBN: 9781009537919 on Cambridge Aspire website
www.cambridge.org
November 21, 2025 at 1:14 PM
📣 out now, with @argohdes.bsky.social and Mark Gibney - and in honour of the wonderful Steve Poe, who motivated the 1st edition with @universitypress.cambridge.org
tinyurl.com/2s4kh6z3. If you enjoy reading this even a fraction as much as I enjoyed creating it, you’re in for a ride 🤩
tinyurl.com/2s4kh6z3. If you enjoy reading this even a fraction as much as I enjoyed creating it, you’re in for a ride 🤩
Reposted by Christian Oswald
I recently discovered Conventional Comments (conventionalcomments.org) for providing a pseudo-standard set of labels for feedback and just tried it for an article review and it was really helpful to specify issues vs. thoughts vs. suggestions, etc. Hopefully it's helpful for the authors too!
November 17, 2025 at 3:52 PM
I recently discovered Conventional Comments (conventionalcomments.org) for providing a pseudo-standard set of labels for feedback and just tried it for an article review and it was really helpful to specify issues vs. thoughts vs. suggestions, etc. Hopefully it's helpful for the authors too!
Reposted by Christian Oswald
LLMs are now widely used in social science as stand-ins for humans—assuming they can produce realistic, human-like text
But... can they? We don’t actually know.
In our new study, we develop a Computational Turing Test.
And our findings are striking:
LLMs may be far less human-like than we think.🧵
But... can they? We don’t actually know.
In our new study, we develop a Computational Turing Test.
And our findings are striking:
LLMs may be far less human-like than we think.🧵
Computational Turing Test Reveals Systematic Differences Between Human and AI Language
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in the social sciences to simulate human behavior, based on the assumption that they can generate realistic, human-like text. Yet this assumption rem...
arxiv.org
November 7, 2025 at 11:13 AM
LLMs are now widely used in social science as stand-ins for humans—assuming they can produce realistic, human-like text
But... can they? We don’t actually know.
In our new study, we develop a Computational Turing Test.
And our findings are striking:
LLMs may be far less human-like than we think.🧵
But... can they? We don’t actually know.
In our new study, we develop a Computational Turing Test.
And our findings are striking:
LLMs may be far less human-like than we think.🧵
Reposted by Christian Oswald
🚨New paper🚨: Are you interested in key debates about civil war and counterinsurgency? Like questions about causal inference but wish you had a better method for dealing with spillover and carryover effects? Then check out our new paper:
arxiv.org/abs/2504.03464
arxiv.org/abs/2504.03464
Spatiotemporal causal inference with arbitrary spillover and carryover effects: Airstrikes and insurgent violence in the Iraq War
Social scientists now routinely draw on high-frequency, high-granularity ''microlevel'' data to estimate the causal effects of subnational interventions. To date, most researchers aggregate these data...
arxiv.org
November 7, 2025 at 1:10 PM
🚨New paper🚨: Are you interested in key debates about civil war and counterinsurgency? Like questions about causal inference but wish you had a better method for dealing with spillover and carryover effects? Then check out our new paper:
arxiv.org/abs/2504.03464
arxiv.org/abs/2504.03464
Reposted by Christian Oswald
Thanks to the great help by @rstrauch.bsky.social, Gabriele Spilker and the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" @excinequality.bsky.social, version 5.0 of the "Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database" (coverage until 2022) is now available at mmadatabase.org!
Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database
mmadatabase.org
October 29, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Thanks to the great help by @rstrauch.bsky.social, Gabriele Spilker and the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" @excinequality.bsky.social, version 5.0 of the "Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database" (coverage until 2022) is now available at mmadatabase.org!
Reposted by Christian Oswald
We need to have a conversation about random seeds. Don't use 42.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
If your random seed is 42 I will come to your office and set your computer on fire🔥
Figuratively. More likely you'll get a stern talking to.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com
October 22, 2025 at 12:49 PM
We need to have a conversation about random seeds. Don't use 42.
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
blog.genesmindsmachines.com/p/if-your-ra...
Reposted by Christian Oswald
Colleagues: What’s your favorite, accessible resource (reading, video, slide deck) to convince students that regression on observational data—even with many controls—is not often causal. (Quasi-)experimental designs are preferred for causal inference.
October 13, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Colleagues: What’s your favorite, accessible resource (reading, video, slide deck) to convince students that regression on observational data—even with many controls—is not often causal. (Quasi-)experimental designs are preferred for causal inference.
Reposted by Christian Oswald
I'm starting to explore {simDAG}, a nifty #rstats package that has a nice API for specifying DAGs and then simulating data from them: robindenz1.github.io/simDAG/
Simulate Data from a DAG and Associated Node Information
Simulate complex data from a given directed acyclic graph and information about each individual node. Root nodes are simply sampled from the specified distribution. Child Nodes are simulated according...
robindenz1.github.io
October 13, 2025 at 4:14 PM
I'm starting to explore {simDAG}, a nifty #rstats package that has a nice API for specifying DAGs and then simulating data from them: robindenz1.github.io/simDAG/
Reposted by Christian Oswald
New blog post!
Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?
(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)
www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...
Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?
(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)
www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...
If you have two measures of the same confounder, you can just include both of them in your regression model
Sometimes, researchers worry about multicollinearity in situations where it’s actually a non-issue. Here’s one such scenario.
Imagine a situation where you are interested in the effect of X on Y (X...
www.the100.ci
October 13, 2025 at 1:14 PM
New blog post!
Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?
(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)
www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...
Let's say you have two measures meant to capture the same confounder. They're highly correlated. Can you still proceed with your regression analysis?
(I admit, the title is a bit of a spoiler)
www.the100.ci/2025/10/13/i...
Reposted by Christian Oswald
New Working Paper 🚨
I am introducing the new dataset on Parliamentary Elites in Authoritarian Regimes (PEAR). It includes information on the composition of parliaments in 819 legislative terms in 130 autocracies from 1945 - based on over 200k individual-level observations.
tinyurl.com/48h68hmh
I am introducing the new dataset on Parliamentary Elites in Authoritarian Regimes (PEAR). It includes information on the composition of parliaments in 819 legislative terms in 130 autocracies from 1945 - based on over 200k individual-level observations.
tinyurl.com/48h68hmh
October 8, 2025 at 3:48 PM
New Working Paper 🚨
I am introducing the new dataset on Parliamentary Elites in Authoritarian Regimes (PEAR). It includes information on the composition of parliaments in 819 legislative terms in 130 autocracies from 1945 - based on over 200k individual-level observations.
tinyurl.com/48h68hmh
I am introducing the new dataset on Parliamentary Elites in Authoritarian Regimes (PEAR). It includes information on the composition of parliaments in 819 legislative terms in 130 autocracies from 1945 - based on over 200k individual-level observations.
tinyurl.com/48h68hmh
Reposted by Christian Oswald
Why do authoritarian states charge political opponents with non-political crimes? In our @thejop.bsky.social paper with Jennifer Pan & @yiqingxu.bsky.social, we examine how *Disguised Repression* undermines opponents’ moral authority and mobilization capacity. doi.org/10.1086/7342...
October 6, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Why do authoritarian states charge political opponents with non-political crimes? In our @thejop.bsky.social paper with Jennifer Pan & @yiqingxu.bsky.social, we examine how *Disguised Repression* undermines opponents’ moral authority and mobilization capacity. doi.org/10.1086/7342...
Reposted by Christian Oswald
I had the pleasure to teach a 3-day crash course on #LLMs for PhD students.
We covered:
1️⃣ Text Representation and Embeddings
2️⃣ Machine Learning & Transformer Architecture
3️⃣ Generative Models for Social Sciences
The 6 slide sets and 10 notebooks are available on github: github.com/nicolaiberk/...
We covered:
1️⃣ Text Representation and Embeddings
2️⃣ Machine Learning & Transformer Architecture
3️⃣ Generative Models for Social Sciences
The 6 slide sets and 10 notebooks are available on github: github.com/nicolaiberk/...
GitHub - nicolaiberk/llm_ws: Materials for my Workshop on LLMs
Materials for my Workshop on LLMs. Contribute to nicolaiberk/llm_ws development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
September 29, 2025 at 1:38 PM
I had the pleasure to teach a 3-day crash course on #LLMs for PhD students.
We covered:
1️⃣ Text Representation and Embeddings
2️⃣ Machine Learning & Transformer Architecture
3️⃣ Generative Models for Social Sciences
The 6 slide sets and 10 notebooks are available on github: github.com/nicolaiberk/...
We covered:
1️⃣ Text Representation and Embeddings
2️⃣ Machine Learning & Transformer Architecture
3️⃣ Generative Models for Social Sciences
The 6 slide sets and 10 notebooks are available on github: github.com/nicolaiberk/...
Reposted by Christian Oswald
{tinytable} 0.14.0 for #RStats makes it super easy to draw tables in html, tex, docx, typ, md & png.
There are only a few functions to learn, but don't be fooled! Small 📦s can still be powerful.
Check out the new gallery page for fun case studies.
vincentarelbundock.github.io/tinytable/vi...
There are only a few functions to learn, but don't be fooled! Small 📦s can still be powerful.
Check out the new gallery page for fun case studies.
vincentarelbundock.github.io/tinytable/vi...
September 29, 2025 at 12:44 PM
{tinytable} 0.14.0 for #RStats makes it super easy to draw tables in html, tex, docx, typ, md & png.
There are only a few functions to learn, but don't be fooled! Small 📦s can still be powerful.
Check out the new gallery page for fun case studies.
vincentarelbundock.github.io/tinytable/vi...
There are only a few functions to learn, but don't be fooled! Small 📦s can still be powerful.
Check out the new gallery page for fun case studies.
vincentarelbundock.github.io/tinytable/vi...
Reposted by Christian Oswald
#rstats #econsky
fixest v0.13.0 is finally out!
It's still about making OLS and GLM estimations easy.
Some major changes:
- *default* VCOV becomes iid always!
- singletons are removed by default!
See all the changes here:
github.com/lrberge/fixe...
fixest v0.13.0 is finally out!
It's still about making OLS and GLM estimations easy.
Some major changes:
- *default* VCOV becomes iid always!
- singletons are removed by default!
See all the changes here:
github.com/lrberge/fixe...
fixest: Fast Fixed-Effects Estimations
Fast and user-friendly estimation of econometric models with multiple fixed-effects. Includes ordinary least squares (OLS), generalized linear models (GLM) and the negative binomial. The core of the p...
cran.r-project.org
September 10, 2025 at 7:34 PM
#rstats #econsky
fixest v0.13.0 is finally out!
It's still about making OLS and GLM estimations easy.
Some major changes:
- *default* VCOV becomes iid always!
- singletons are removed by default!
See all the changes here:
github.com/lrberge/fixe...
fixest v0.13.0 is finally out!
It's still about making OLS and GLM estimations easy.
Some major changes:
- *default* VCOV becomes iid always!
- singletons are removed by default!
See all the changes here:
github.com/lrberge/fixe...
Reposted by Christian Oswald
Thanks to @jpeaceresearch.bsky.social for giving us the possibility to guest edit a special issue on "Political violence in democracies". Ursula Daxecker, @neerajprsd.bsky.social and I wrote an open access introduction: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Thanks to all authors of 14 articles!
Thanks to all authors of 14 articles!
Political violence in democracies: An Introduction - Andrea Ruggeri, Ursula Daxecker, Neeraj Prasad, 2025
It is well established that democracies experience less political violence than autocracies. Paradoxically, however, this widely accepted fact has led scholars ...
journals.sagepub.com
September 9, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Thanks to @jpeaceresearch.bsky.social for giving us the possibility to guest edit a special issue on "Political violence in democracies". Ursula Daxecker, @neerajprsd.bsky.social and I wrote an open access introduction: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Thanks to all authors of 14 articles!
Thanks to all authors of 14 articles!
Reposted by Christian Oswald
I recently updated my #Rstats package {optweight} for the first time in 6 years(!), and I want to give it the attention it deserves with an announcement and mini thread.
In short, {optweight} uses optimization to estimate balancing weights in observational studies.
#episky #statssky #causalsky
1/
In short, {optweight} uses optimization to estimate balancing weights in observational studies.
#episky #statssky #causalsky
1/
Optimization-Based Stable Balancing Weights
Use optimization to estimate weights that balance covariates for binary, multi-category, continuous, and multivariate treatments in the spirit of Zubizarreta (2015) <doi:10.1080/01621459.2015.1023805>...
ngreifer.github.io
September 9, 2025 at 2:31 PM
I recently updated my #Rstats package {optweight} for the first time in 6 years(!), and I want to give it the attention it deserves with an announcement and mini thread.
In short, {optweight} uses optimization to estimate balancing weights in observational studies.
#episky #statssky #causalsky
1/
In short, {optweight} uses optimization to estimate balancing weights in observational studies.
#episky #statssky #causalsky
1/
Reposted by Christian Oswald
Nature research paper: Epidemiology models explain rumour spreading during France’s Great Fear of 1789
go.nature.com/4p2RjF1
go.nature.com/4p2RjF1
Epidemiology models explain rumour spreading during France’s Great Fear of 1789 - Nature
Epidemiological methods are used to show that the Great Fear of 1789, a series of peasant insurrections in rural revolutionary France, was driven by deliberate political action rather than spontaneous fear.
go.nature.com
August 27, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Nature research paper: Epidemiology models explain rumour spreading during France’s Great Fear of 1789
go.nature.com/4p2RjF1
go.nature.com/4p2RjF1
Reposted by Christian Oswald
link 📈🤖
Challenges in Statistics: A Dozen Challenges in Causality and Causal Inference (Cinelli, Feller, Imbens et al) Causality and causal inference have emerged as core research areas at the interface of modern statistics and domains including biomedical sciences, social sciences, computer scie
Challenges in Statistics: A Dozen Challenges in Causality and Causal Inference (Cinelli, Feller, Imbens et al) Causality and causal inference have emerged as core research areas at the interface of modern statistics and domains including biomedical sciences, social sciences, computer scie
August 26, 2025 at 4:17 PM
link 📈🤖
Challenges in Statistics: A Dozen Challenges in Causality and Causal Inference (Cinelli, Feller, Imbens et al) Causality and causal inference have emerged as core research areas at the interface of modern statistics and domains including biomedical sciences, social sciences, computer scie
Challenges in Statistics: A Dozen Challenges in Causality and Causal Inference (Cinelli, Feller, Imbens et al) Causality and causal inference have emerged as core research areas at the interface of modern statistics and domains including biomedical sciences, social sciences, computer scie
Reposted by Christian Oswald
Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life?
Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...
Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...
August 25, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life?
Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...
Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social)
Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf...
Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...
Reposted by Christian Oswald
Armed conflicts involve governments, rebel groups, militias, communal factions, and foreign forces — all interacting in complex ways. The result? A web of violence that can feel overwhelming to understand.
That's why we launch the Conflict Networks Explorer
peaceobservatory.com/conflict-networks
That's why we launch the Conflict Networks Explorer
peaceobservatory.com/conflict-networks
Peace Observatory
Peace observatory website.
peaceobservatory.com
August 22, 2025 at 7:20 AM
Armed conflicts involve governments, rebel groups, militias, communal factions, and foreign forces — all interacting in complex ways. The result? A web of violence that can feel overwhelming to understand.
That's why we launch the Conflict Networks Explorer
peaceobservatory.com/conflict-networks
That's why we launch the Conflict Networks Explorer
peaceobservatory.com/conflict-networks
Reposted by Christian Oswald
🚨 Just accepted at @bjpols.bsky.social!
Paolo Bertolotti, Fotini Christia, Ali Jadbabaie, and I use 12 billion Yemeni cellphone records to study the effects of U.S. drone strikes on civilian mobility and displacement.
We Find:
🧵: 1/3
Paolo Bertolotti, Fotini Christia, Ali Jadbabaie, and I use 12 billion Yemeni cellphone records to study the effects of U.S. drone strikes on civilian mobility and displacement.
We Find:
🧵: 1/3
August 20, 2025 at 7:48 PM
🚨 Just accepted at @bjpols.bsky.social!
Paolo Bertolotti, Fotini Christia, Ali Jadbabaie, and I use 12 billion Yemeni cellphone records to study the effects of U.S. drone strikes on civilian mobility and displacement.
We Find:
🧵: 1/3
Paolo Bertolotti, Fotini Christia, Ali Jadbabaie, and I use 12 billion Yemeni cellphone records to study the effects of U.S. drone strikes on civilian mobility and displacement.
We Find:
🧵: 1/3
Reposted by Christian Oswald
🚀 Exciting news: The Peace Observatory is live!
👉 peaceobservatory.com
The Peace Observatory is now the world’s largest repository of peace negotiation summaries.
It covers 11,000+ rounds of negotiations and 3,000 agreements across 1,300+ armed conflicts worldwide (1989–2023).
👉 peaceobservatory.com
The Peace Observatory is now the world’s largest repository of peace negotiation summaries.
It covers 11,000+ rounds of negotiations and 3,000 agreements across 1,300+ armed conflicts worldwide (1989–2023).
Peace Observatory
Peace observatory website.
peaceobservatory.com
August 21, 2025 at 11:35 AM
🚀 Exciting news: The Peace Observatory is live!
👉 peaceobservatory.com
The Peace Observatory is now the world’s largest repository of peace negotiation summaries.
It covers 11,000+ rounds of negotiations and 3,000 agreements across 1,300+ armed conflicts worldwide (1989–2023).
👉 peaceobservatory.com
The Peace Observatory is now the world’s largest repository of peace negotiation summaries.
It covers 11,000+ rounds of negotiations and 3,000 agreements across 1,300+ armed conflicts worldwide (1989–2023).
Reposted by Christian Oswald
🚀 gratia 0.11.0 is out!
Now has a paper in JOSS — please cite 📄 doi.org/10.21105/jos...
Experimental parallel processing ⚡
New assemble() for building plots 🎨
Better support for complex families + new diagnostics 🧪
Lots of bug fixes + polish ✨
👉 gavinsimpson.github.io/gratia/
#Rstats
Now has a paper in JOSS — please cite 📄 doi.org/10.21105/jos...
Experimental parallel processing ⚡
New assemble() for building plots 🎨
Better support for complex families + new diagnostics 🧪
Lots of bug fixes + polish ✨
👉 gavinsimpson.github.io/gratia/
#Rstats
An R package for working with generalized additive models
Graceful 'ggplot'-based graphics and utility functions for working with generalized additive models (GAMs) fitted using the 'mgcv' package.
gavinsimpson.github.io
August 18, 2025 at 6:32 PM
🚀 gratia 0.11.0 is out!
Now has a paper in JOSS — please cite 📄 doi.org/10.21105/jos...
Experimental parallel processing ⚡
New assemble() for building plots 🎨
Better support for complex families + new diagnostics 🧪
Lots of bug fixes + polish ✨
👉 gavinsimpson.github.io/gratia/
#Rstats
Now has a paper in JOSS — please cite 📄 doi.org/10.21105/jos...
Experimental parallel processing ⚡
New assemble() for building plots 🎨
Better support for complex families + new diagnostics 🧪
Lots of bug fixes + polish ✨
👉 gavinsimpson.github.io/gratia/
#Rstats
Reposted by Christian Oswald
I am hiring! 1-2 post-docs to join my project on political violence in democracies at @uupeace.bsky.social!
We are looking for 1–2 postdoctoral researchers to join the project “Political Violence in Democracies”, led by @hannefjelde.bsky.social
📌 Full-time, 2-year postdoctoral position
📆 Start Date: Dec 1, (or by agreement)
📍 Location: Uppsala
⏳ Apply by: Oct 1
Read more: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
📌 Full-time, 2-year postdoctoral position
📆 Start Date: Dec 1, (or by agreement)
📍 Location: Uppsala
⏳ Apply by: Oct 1
Read more: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
August 19, 2025 at 7:19 AM
I am hiring! 1-2 post-docs to join my project on political violence in democracies at @uupeace.bsky.social!