Simon Jackman
Professor
University of Sydney
Biography
I have three decades of professional experience as a researcher, teacher, mentor, leader and communicator, in political science and data science, in the United States and Australia.
The purpose of my research is to advance democracy by making discoveries about democratic processes and their frailties through the rigorous analysis of data.
Questions I work on include:
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When and how do illiberal attitudes and predispositions — such as authoritarianism and racial prejudice — become politically salient, and with what consequences?
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What drives vote choice in contemporary democracies? Which issues or campaign messages prompt vote choices that reinforce or change voters’ party loyalties?
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Are electoral systems fair or do they help entrench a particular party or incumbents in office?
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How to rigorously measure core concepts of democratic theory and practice, such as democracy itself, electoral fairness, or attitudinal states (political ideologies, trust in democratic processes and institutions, authoritarianism and racial prejudice)?
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How can long-standing data collection tools such as mass surveys remain valid and reliable, as citizens’ participation in surveys decline unevenly across demographic and political groups?
I use Bayesian methods for computation and inference whenever feasible; see my book, Bayesian Analysis for the Social Sciences.
I appear frequently in Australian and international media discussing developments in US politics and their implications for Australia and other US allies.
Current projects:
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small-area estimation: inferring public opinion at the level of parliamentary seats/districts, postcodes, local government areas etc, from macro-level data.
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machine-learning methods for classifying and modelling large corpora of political text: identifying persuasive and persistent campaign messages and narratives, misinformation and disinformation, counter-narratives.
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Australian public opinion and policy towards the US, Australia’s alliance with the US, foreign policy priorities.
Download my CV .
Interests
- Elections and public opinion
- Data science, computational social science
- Machine learning, NLP
Education
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PhD in Political Science, 1995
University of Rochester
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BA Hons (1st class) in Government, 1988
University of Queensland
Academic Roles
CEO and Professor
Leadership of Australia’s premier research institution focussed on the United States and Australia’s relationship with the United States.
Professor of Political Science and (by courtesy) Statistics
Teacher, researcher.
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Teacher, researcher.
Honors & Awards
Gregory M. Luebbert Prize for Best Article
Comparative Politics Section, American Political Science Association
Awarded for “Democracy as a Latent Variable” (with Shawn Treier), American Journal of Political Science.
Best Paper
Awarded for “The Limits of Deliberative Discussion: A Model of Everyday Political Arguments” (with Paul M. Sniderman), Journal of Politics
Leadership Roles
Principal Investigator
One of four PIs leading the design, implementation and curation of the leading study of political attitudes and behaviour in Australia.
CEO and Professor
Leadership of Australia’s premier research institution on the United States and of Australia’s relationship with the United States. Annual budget of $7-10M, responsible to a Board of Directors co-appointed by the University of Sydney and the American Australian Association.
Principal Investigator
One of four PIs leading the design, implementation and curation of the world’s longest running and most authoritative study of mass political attitudes and behavior. Funded by the National Science Foundation at approx USD $9M per 4 yr election cycle.
President
Council Member
Annual Meeting Program Co-Chair
Co-Editor
Task Force on Democracy Audits and Governmental Indicators
Program Committee
UseR! Conference
Research Notes and Reports
Consulting clients
Analysis of polling data, election returns, demographic data; designing and creating donor and contact database. Part of a team that helped elect six “teal” independent candidates to the Australian House of Representatives in Australia’s May 2022 House of Representatives elections.
Expert witness in landmark partisan gerrymandering litigation in the United States Gill v Whitford (Wisconsin state legislative redistricting) and Common Cause v Rucho (North Carolina Congressional redistricting). Helped produce the first affirmative trial verdicts for plaintiffs alleging partisan gerrymandering; cases subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Facebook
Design and analysis of employee experience surveys.
Poll analysis and averaging, predictive modelling ahead of 2012 US presidential election. Successfully predicted winner of presidential election in all 50 states.
Publications
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(2022).
Improving the Measurement of ``Big Five'' Personality Traits in a Brief Survey Instrument.
European Journal of Psychological Assessment.
(2021).
Politically Invisible in America.
PS: Political Science & Politics.
(2021).
Optimal Response Formats for Online Surveys: Branch, Grid, or Single Item?.
Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology.
(2020).
National Polling and Other Disasters.
Morrison’s Miracle: The 2019 Australian Federal Election.
(2019).
Economic and Cultural Drivers of Immigrant Support Worldwide.
British Journal of Political Science.
(2019).
Why Does the American National Election Study Overestimate Voter Turnout?.
Political Analysis.
(2018).
An Audit of Political Behavior Research.
SAGE Open.
(2018).
The Campaign That Wasn't: Tracking Public Opinion over the 44th Parliament and the 2016 Election Campaign.
Double Disillusion: The 2016 Australian Federal Election.
(2016).
Polarization in Less than Thirty Seconds: Continuous Monitoring of Voter Response to Campaign Advertising.
Political Communication in Real Time: Theoretical and Applied Research Approaches.
(2015).
All That Glitters: Betting Markets and the 2013 Australian Federal Election.
Abbott’s Gambit : The 2013 Australian Federal Election.
(2014).
A Generational Model of Political Learning.
Electoral Studies.
(2013).
Do Attitudes about Immigration Predict Willingness to Admit Individual Immigrants?: A Cross-National Test of the Person-Positivity Bias.
Public Opinion Quarterly.
(2011).
Cosmopolitanism.
Facing the Challenge of Democracy.
(2010).
Primary Politics: Race, Gender, and Age in the 2008 Democratic Primary.
Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.
(2010).
Bayesian Analysis.
Encyclopedia of Political Science..
(2009).
To Simulate or NOMINATE?.
Legislative Studies Quarterly.
(2009).
Bayesian Analysis for the Social Sciences.
Wiley.
(2008).
Measurement.
The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology.
(2008).
Measuring District-Level Partisanship with Implications for the Analysis of U.S. Elections.
The Journal of Politics.
(2008).
Regression Models for Count Data in R.
Journal of Statistical Software.
(2008).
Democracy as a Latent Variable.
American Journal of Political Science.
(2006).
The Limits of Deliberative Discussion: A Model of Everyday Political Arguments.
The Journal of Politics.
(2005).
Pooling the Polls over an Election Campaign.
Australian Journal of Political Science.
(2005).
Incumbency Advantage.
Mortgage Nation: The 2004 Australian Election..
(2004).
BAYESIAN ANALYSIS FOR POLITICAL RESEARCH.
Annual Review of Political Science.
(2004).
``The Most Liberal Senator''? Analyzing and Interpreting Congressional Roll Calls.
PS: Political Science & Politics.
(2004).
The Statistical Analysis of Roll Call Data.
American Political Science Review.
(2004).
What Do We Learn from Graduate Admissions Committees? A Multiple Rater, Latent Variable Model, with Incomplete Discrete and Continuous Indicators.
Political Analysis.
(2003).
Voter Decision Making in Election 2000: Campaign Effects, Partisan Activation, and the Clinton Legacy.
American Journal of Political Science.
(2003).
Bayes Factor.
SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.
(2003).
Bayes' Theorem, Bayes' Rule.
SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.
(2003).
Generalized Additive Models.
SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.
(2003).
Generalized Least Squares.
SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods.
(2003).
Political Parties and Electoral Behaviour.
The Cambridge Handbook of the Social Sciences in Australia.
(2002).
Democratic Discussion: The Role of Reasons and Political Sophistication in Political Argument.
La Démocratie à l’ṕreuve : Une Nouvelle Approche de l’opinion Des Français.
(2002).
Pluralistic Intolerance, Political Culture and Democratic Theory.
La Démocratie à l’ṕreuve : Une Nouvelle Approche de l’opinion Des Français.
(2002).
The Institutional Organization of Choice Spaces: A Political Conception of Political Psychology.
Political Psychology.
(2001).
Multidimensional Analysis of Roll Call Data via Bayesian Simulation: Identification, Estimation, Inference, and Model Checking.
Political Analysis.
(2001).
Voting: Compulsory.
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences.
(2000).
Estimation and Inference Are Missing Data Problems: Unifying Social Science Statistics via Bayesian Simulation.
Political Analysis.
(2000).
Estimation and Inference via Bayesian Simulation: An Introduction to Markov Chain Monte Carlo.
American Journal of Political Science.
(1999).
Correcting Surveys for Non-Response and Measurement Error Using Auxiliary Information.
Electoral Studies.
(1999).
Non-Compulsory Voting in Australia?: What Surveys Can (and Can't) Tell Us.
Electoral Studies.
(1998).
Pauline Hanson, the Mainstream, and Political Elites: The Place of Race in Australian Political Ideology.
Australian Journal of Political Science.
(1998).
Beyond Linearity by Default: Generalized Additive Models.
American Journal of Political Science.
(1997).
Liberalism, Public Opinion, and Their Critics: Some Lessons for Defending Science.
The Flight from Science and Reason.
(1995).
Some More of All That: A Reply to Charnock.
Australian Journal of Political Science.
(1994).
Forecasting Australian Elections: 1993, and All That.
Australian Journal of Political Science.
(1994).
Bayesian Inference for Comparative Research.
American Political Science Review.
(1994).
Measuring Electoral Bias: Australia, 1949– 93.
British Journal of Political Science.
(1992).
Split Parties Finish Last: Preferences, Pluralities and the 1957 Queensland Election.
Australian Journal of Political Science.
(1991).
Bias and Responsiveness in State Legislative Districting.
Legislative Studies Quarterly.
(1991).
Candidacies and Competitiveness in Multimember Districts.
Legislative Studies Quarterly.
(1991).
Electoral Redistricting and Endogenous Partisan Control.
Political Analysis.