Katie Wilson, Seattle's progressive challenger to incumbent mayor Bruce Harrell, has now pulled ahead by less than 100 votes after the most recent ballot count

Today my doctoral diploma arrived, and tomorrow I have my first flyout. Yeehaw

The call for papers for the 11th Emerging Scholars Conference in Public Law at UT Austin is now open! This year’s theme is "Bastion of Democracy: The Role of Courts in Navigating Democratic Governance."

The deadline is Wednesday, October 15. Submit your abstract here: lnkd.in/gxyZ6SCRhttp...

I'm on the 2025-26 academic job market in political science!

I recently completed my PhD and am now a postdoctoral researcher at the Comparative Constitutions Project. My research examines constitutional design, public participation, and Latin American politics using mixed methods.

mattjmartin.com

First dissertation spinoff idea

The last paragraph of my dissertation

New working paper — From Data to Demos: Public Consultation and the Logic of Will-Confirmation in Constitution-Making

37 interviews with Chilean and Cuban drafters reveal how elites interpret citizen input to align with their constitutional preferences

Download: mattjamesmartin.github.io/research/

Thinking of this passage from "The Power of the Powerless" by Václav Havel (1978).

Presenting my paper "Constitutional Cherry-Picking" at #LSACHICAGO2025 this Saturday (2:45 PM, East Tower)!

As public consultation grows in constitution-making, elites selectively leverage input to frame decisions as the "will of the people."

Download: mattjamesmartin.github.io/research/wor...

My first album «cuerpo» drops Friday, May 2 🌀 10 lofi tracks for the body & everything it carries. Album art by the endlessly talented io.artist (find him on IG)

Havana is drowning in trash. According to official estimates, more than 30,000 cubic meters—equivalent to 1,000, 20-foot shipping containers—pile up on the streets every day. Fuel shortages and a lack of truck parts have crippled waste collection, turning routine service into an impossible task.

Today I created a dynamic n-gram search tool for my textual (transcript) data. Search n-grams, view results with speaker info, toggle metadata, click to see context, and filter by keywords or segment IDs. Adjustable context via slider. Export matched segments to an Excel file. Yeehaw

Page proofs for my first solo-authored article are here. Coming soon! #polisky

Academic job market got me like

Day 13 of fieldwork: Finding out how accurate this meme truly is

My first post is dedicated to my fiancé and my three cats because I miss them very much during fieldwork