Jonathan Mellon
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View article: The Brexit realignment amid electoral volatility: The role of party blocs in the 2024 General Election
The Brexit realignment amid electoral volatility: The role of party blocs in the 2024 General Election Open
Brexit accelerated the long-term realignment of how demographic groups vote in Britain. However, Europe is no longer salient to voters, support for the pro-Brexit Conservatives has collapsed, and the 2024 UK General Election was the most v…
View article: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Cadet Education
Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Cadet Education Open
This paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on integrating artificial intelligence (AI) technologies into educational settings while addressing the challenges within military institutions. Specifically, we investigate how the United St…
View article: Who lacks voter identification? The electoral implications of the Elections Act 2022
Who lacks voter identification? The electoral implications of the Elections Act 2022 Open
The Elections Act 2022 requires voters to present photo identification at general elections in Great Britain and local elections in England. In this article, we use data from the British Election Study Internet Panel to identify who does a…
View article: Regularized Regression Can Reintroduce Backdoor Confounding: The Case of Mass Polarization
Regularized Regression Can Reintroduce Backdoor Confounding: The Case of Mass Polarization Open
Regularization can improve statistical estimates made with highly correlated data. However, any regularization procedure embeds assumptions about the data generating process that can have counterintuitive consequences when those assumption…
View article: Rain, rain, go away: 194 potential exclusion‐restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable
Rain, rain, go away: 194 potential exclusion‐restriction violations for studies using weather as an instrumental variable Open
Instrumental variable (IV) analysis relies on the exclusion restriction—that the instrument only affects the dependent variable via its relationship with the independent variable and not via other causal routes. However, scholars generally…
View article: Do AIs know what the most important issue is? Using language models to code open-text social survey responses at scale
Do AIs know what the most important issue is? Using language models to code open-text social survey responses at scale Open
Can artificial intelligence accurately label open-text survey responses? We compare the accuracy of six large language models (LLMs) using a few-shot approach, three supervised learning algorithms (SVM, DistilRoBERTa, and a neural network …
View article: Volatility, Realignment, and Electoral Shocks: Brexit and the UK General Election of 2019
Volatility, Realignment, and Electoral Shocks: Brexit and the UK General Election of 2019 Open
The 2019 UK General Election had seismic consequences for British politics. After three years of political turmoil following the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU), the 2019 election marked a victory for the…
View article: Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty
Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty Open
This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of con…
View article: Tactical Voting and Electoral Pacts in the 2019 UK General Election
Tactical Voting and Electoral Pacts in the 2019 UK General Election Open
The Brexit cleavage continued to define politics in the 2019 general election. This posed a challenge for parties and voters on each side of the debate: how to coordinate in favour of their side in each seat. In this note, I examine the ex…
View article: Which Promises Actually Matter? Election Pledge Centrality and Promissory Representation
Which Promises Actually Matter? Election Pledge Centrality and Promissory Representation Open
Parties make hundreds of campaign promises but not all are seen by voters as central to a party’s offering. Studies of government promise fulfillment accept that not all promises are equivalent but in practice treat all promises equally be…
View article: Members of Parliament are Minimally Accountable for Their Issue Stances (and They Know It)
Members of Parliament are Minimally Accountable for Their Issue Stances (and They Know It) Open
For incumbents to be accountable for their issue stances, voters must sanction incumbents whose positions are “out of step” with their own. We test the electoral accountability of British legislators for their stance on Brexit. We find tha…
View article: Replication Data for: Which Promises Actually Matter? Election Pledge Centrality and Promissory Representation
Replication Data for: Which Promises Actually Matter? Election Pledge Centrality and Promissory Representation Open
Parties make hundreds of campaign promises but not all are seen by voters as central to a party's offering. Studies of government promise fulfilment accept that not all promises are equivalent but in practice treat all promises equally bec…
View article: Replication Data for: Members of Parliament are minimally accountable for their issue stances (and they know it)
Replication Data for: Members of Parliament are minimally accountable for their issue stances (and they know it) Open
For incumbents to be accountable for their issue stances, voters must sanction incumbents whose positions are `out of step' with their own. We test the electoral accountability of British legislators for their stance on Brexit. We find tha…
View article: Rain, Rain, Go Away: 195 Potential Exclusion-Restriction Violations for Studies Using Weather as an Instrumental Variable
Rain, Rain, Go Away: 195 Potential Exclusion-Restriction Violations for Studies Using Weather as an Instrumental Variable Open
Instrumental variable (IV) analysis assumes the instrument only affects the dependent variable via its relationship with the independent variable. Other possible causal routes from the IV to the dependent variable are exclusion-restriction…
View article: How Do Coronavirus Attitudes Fit into Britain’s Ideological Landscape?
How Do Coronavirus Attitudes Fit into Britain’s Ideological Landscape? Open
Coronavirus upended British politics in 2020 but where does it fit into the ideological map of party competition? Recent British elections have seen a shift from economic left–right competition between the major parties to competition on t…
View article: Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty
Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty Open
This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to include conscious and unconscious…
View article: Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty
Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty Open
This study explores how researchers’ analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to include conscious and unconscious…
View article: Correlation with Time Explains the Relationship between Survey Nonresponse and Mass Polarization
Correlation with Time Explains the Relationship between Survey Nonresponse and Mass Polarization Open
While elite polarization in US politics has been well established, there has been substantial debate about whether US mass opinion has polarized in recent decades. Cavari and Freedman (2018) suggest the apparent polarization of the US publ…