In this editorial, we present the new guidelines for research transparency and open data when publishing in European Political Science. These standards are drawn from the Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines. In introducing these guidelines, we take an opportunity to reflect on the importance of research transparency, the challenges that it faces, and offer a few suggestions to encourage and foster a culture of open data.

Over the last decade, the field of political science has been exposed to two concomitant developments: a surge of Big Data (BD) and a growing demand for transparency. To date, however, we do not know the extent to which these two developments are compatible with one another. The purpose of this article is to assess, empirically, the extent to which BD political science (broadly defined) adheres to established norms of transparency in the discipline. To address this question, we develop an original dataset of 1555 articles drawn from the Web of Science database covering the period 2008–2019. In doing so, we also provide an assessment of the current level of transparency in empirical political science and quantitative political science in general. We find that articles using Big Data are significantly less likely than other, more traditional works of political science, to share replication files. Our study also illustrates some of the promises and challenges associated with extracting data from Web of Science and similar databases.

Theories of policy responsiveness assume that political decision-makers can rationally interpret information about voters’ likely reactions, but can we be sure of this? Political decision-makers face considerable time and information constraints, which are the optimal conditions for displaying decision-making biases—deviations from comprehensive rationality. Recent research has shown that when evaluating policies, political decision-makers display biases related to heuristics—cognitive rules of thumb that facilitate judgments and decision-making—when evaluating policies. It is thus likely that they also rely on heuristics in other situations, such as when forming judgments of voters’ likely reactions. But what types of heuristics do political decision-makers use in such judgments, and do these heuristics contribute to misjudgements of voters’ reactions? Existing research does not answer these crucial questions. To address this lacuna, we first present illustrative evidence of how biases related to heuristics contributed to misjudgements about voters’ reactions in two policy decisions by UK governments. Then, we use this evidence to develop a research agenda that aims to further our understanding of when political decision-makers rely on heuristics and the effects thereof. Such an agenda will contribute to the literature on policy responsiveness.

This article reflects on a pedagogic experiment of engaging with research methods in the teaching of an undergraduate course on “Contemporary Russian Politics” at Newcastle University (UK). We argue that the incorporation of an explicit and systematic discussion and practice of research methods in a Comparative Politics course is important for three interconnected reasons. First, by introducing students to different aspects of the political system and processes of a state or a region, Comparative Politics courses provide a perfect structure for discussing and practicing a variety of research methods. Second, Comparative Politics courses allow us to work with different kinds of data and support our students to become more critically aware data-users. Finally, they provide us with ample opportunity to reflect on identity construction and positionality: how do we interpret the Other—whether it is a state or a region, how do different data and research methods shape our understanding and knowledge of the Other, and how are our understandings of Self linked to our interpretations of the Other?

There are many ways of quantifying the success of political science departments, all of which have advantages and disadvantages. The most relevant international rankings consider factors such as research quality, research quantity, or academic reputation. None of the established rankings consider how frequently departments place their alumni into the academic job market. As this criterion should arguably be among the most important ones for prospective graduate students, this paper analyzes original data on the educational background of faculty members (N = 3548) at highly reputable political science departments in North America and Europe to create an up-to-date ranking based on academic placement records. The insights from this article provide guidance to undergraduate and graduate students when considering different options for the pursuit of a Ph.D., and hopefully also motivate departments to place greater significance on their placement records through increased transparency. In addition, the data highlights the large gender gap in placement success across all departments.

Political polarisation is a pressing political issue, as it can worsen democracy and has been rising in many countries in the past two decades. However, the exact scope of the problem is unclear, because conflicting measurements and conceptualisations have created disagreement about which countries are polarised. Scholars usually only measure one type of polarisation, even though multiple types are salient to the concept. Furthermore, little comparative data are available that measure multiple types of political polarisation simultaneously. This article introduces the comparative political polarisation index (CPPI), which provides a comparative measure of political polarisation that incorporates multiple dimensions of polarisation. This article first conceptualises political polarisation as a four-dimensional concept, operating through ideological and affective aspects and at the mass and elite levels. Then, it creates a comparative index that uses cross-national surveys and party manifesto data to measure all four types in more than 100 countries and over 25 years. This article finds that polarisation has not uniformly risen; only elite affective polarisation rose in this time period. Both types of ideological polarisation stayed stable, and mass affective polarisation decreased. These results encourage a closer look at the relationship between different types of polarisation and specify causes and solutions focused around particular types, rather than viewing political polarisation as uniform.