Polihot

PAR — 2026-09-03 Original The Practice and Origins of Performance Measurement: Assessing the Sunnyvale Model, 1984–2023

PNAS 123/36 pp. e2530532123-e2530532123 2026-09-03 Original Leveraging generative AI for causal inference with unstructured data Kosuke Imai, Kentaro Nakamura Abstract We introduce GenAI-Powered Inference (GPI), a statistical framework for causal inference using unstructured data, including text and images. GPI leverages open-source pretrained Generative AI (GenAI) models-such as large language models and diffusion models-not only to generate unstructured data at scale but also to extract low-dimensional representations that are guaranteed to capture their underlying structure. Applying machine learning to these representations, GPI enables estimation of causal effects while quantifying estimation uncertainty. Unlike existing approaches to representation learning, GPI does not require fine-tuning of GenAI models, making it computationally efficient and broadly accessible. We illustrate the versatility of the GPI framework through three applications: 1) estimating the effects of Chinese social media censorship while adjusting for textual confounders, 2) isolating the impact of specific image features from that of other correlated features in the same image, and 3) assessing the persuasiveness of political rhetoric. An open-source software package is available for implementing GPI.

PSJ 54/4 2026-09-03 Original From Policy Legitimization to Blame Avoidance—Discursive Strategies During Denmark's Mink Culling Crisis

PAR — 2026-09-01 Original The Role of Public Administrators in Building a Robust Liberal Democracy Eva Sørensen, Jacob Torfing

CQ — pp. 1-20 2026-09-01 Original The Origins of Land Finance: Local Resistance and Top-Down Imposition Saul Kriger Wilson Abstract Abstract Land sales have been a significant source of revenue for Chinese local governments since the early 2000s. Contrary to popular belief, local governments did not turn to land finance to make up for lost tax revenues after the 1994 tax sharing reform. Rather, both before and after 1994, corrupt land sales were widespread, as officials sold land far below market prices in return for bribes. Even as the fiscal incentives for local governments to adopt land finance increased in the 1990s, state agents continued acting on their own personal interests rather than the institutional interests of local governments. Local governments only began to sell land at higher, market prices when an anti-corruption campaign launched by the central government made doing so a political imperative in the early 2000s. Local governments were much more responsive to political imperatives than to fiscal incentives.

APSR — pp. 1-18 2026-09-01 Original Measuring Partisanship and Representation in Online Congressional Communications MICHAEL KISTNER, MICHAEL HESELTINE, ROBERT ALVAREZ, MAYA FITCH, LUCAS LOTHAMER, ELIZABETH SIMAS

PAR — 2026-09-01 Original Increasing Equitable Access in Public Service: A Descriptive Study About Accessible Materials Michelle Allgood Abstract ABSTRACT As the digital footprint of public service expands, the need for accessible materials for individuals with disabilities grows. Public servants must consider accessibility in the creation of all materials, from websites to PDFs to audio and visual media. However, research around accessible material creation in public service has been limited. This study uses data from a 2024 survey of MPA alumni from five universities to identify their familiarity with accessible material creation, including their awareness of their own organization's policies, processes, and training. The findings reveal that respondent awareness of their own organization's practices was correlated with higher familiarity in generating accessible materials. However, many respondents did not know about their organization's practices, identifying the need for increased dialogue about this essential element of social equity and inclusion. As such, suggestions for organizations to improve their practices around accessible material creation along with ideas for continued research are shared.

CQ — pp. 1-17 2026-09-01 Original Feminized Revival: Han Chinese Dress, Gender and Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China Fuyun Wei Abstract Abstract Women hold disproportionate authority in China’s contemporary Hanfu revival, where Han-ness operates through implicit cultural codes rather than explicit ethnic claims. Recent scholarship highlights how Han-ness circulates as a moral, etiquette-centred grammar of “proper culture.” Drawing on 18 months of ethnography across six sites in China, this article shows how gender mediates that grammar and shapes the performances of Han-ness. Women, as arbiters of taste and propriety, enact an assertive banal nationalism through aesthetic and organizational labour. Men, marginal within the field, perform defensive overt nationalism through didactic historical narratives and moralized claims to legitimacy. To explain this pattern of identity formation and boundary making, I advance the notion of gendered everyday nationhood. The article contributes to scholarship on nationalism by showing how embodied practices sustain national belonging, and how mundane evaluation and boundary policing reproduce nationhood in everyday life.

APSR — pp. 1-18 2026-09-01 Original Are Voters Myopic or Looking for Improvement? MARKUS PRIOR, TALBOT M. ANDREWS Abstract Abstract Timing of valence outcomes plays an important role in key theories of electoral choice, and different models place different emphases on past and future outcomes. Whereas sanctioning models consider only retrospective evaluations as an accountability mechanism, selection models hold that voters use past and proposed future conditions to infer the incumbent’s ability to deliver benefits. Drawing on four surveys run on six different samples, we demonstrate that voters prefer improving conditions in both retrospection and prospection. In retrospection, this pattern is difficult to distinguish from overweighting of temporally proximate conditions, which gave rise to the notion of “the myopic voter.” Distinguishing the two processes, we find that people do not ignore early datapoints and reward improving conditions (in both retrospection and prospection). This preference for improvement does not simply reflect an uncritical heuristic for upward trends. People are not universally myopic and many genuinely value improving aggregate conditions retrospectively and prospectively.

GOV 39/4 2026-08-31 Original Why Some Critical Junctures Lead Nowhere: Exploring Dynamic and Static Policy Paths Katrine Skagen Abstract ABSTRACT Some critical junctures fail to cause significant change in practice. Inspired by historical institutionalism, this article develops the concept of dynamic and static policy paths to explain why some critical junctures do not lead to change, while others do. Combining insights from policy process literature and policy implementation, it conceptualizes critical junctures through four elements: framing, targets, instruments, and actors/institutions. Based on two case studies, the article argues that the importance of framing and targets has been overexaggerated, and that a dynamic path will not occur unless there is also a significant change in instruments and actors/institutions. In Denmark, a climate policy agreement created a new policy direction for agriculture in which climate policy is a key component. In Norway, a climate policy agreement did not change the trajectory of sectoral policy and climate policy development has remained stagnant. Thus, differences in the critical junctures led to different policy paths.