Category: Uncategorized

Easy Google geocoding in Stata

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For the un-initiated: Geocoding is the fine art of converting addresses into geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude). Thanks to Google and some other providers like OpenStreeMap, this is now a relatively painless process. But when one needs more than a few addresses geocoded, one does not rely on pointing-and-clicking. One needs an API, i.e. a software library that makes the service accessible through R, Python or some other programming language.
geocode is a user-written Stata command that gives access to Googles API from within Stata. It takes a variable containing address strings and returns two new variables containing the latitude/longitude information

Putting candidates in their place with R

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Counting the number of mainstream candidates living in a constituency is a point-in-polygon problem: each candidate is a co-ordinate enclosed by a constituency boundary. R function overlay from package sp carries out the relevant operation. Counting candidates and mapping their number is easy if you remember one thing: VECTORISATION

Islam ‘does not belong in Germany’?

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It’s silly season all over again: On the eve of this year’s ‘German Islam Conference’, Volker Kauder, head of the Christian Democrats in parliament and one of Merkel’s key alleys, declared that ‘Islam is not part of our tradition and identity in Germany and so does not belong in Germany.’. As an aside, he added that Muslims do belong to Germany and enjoy their full rights as citizens. Phew!

English Voters Prefer Local Candidates, Ceteris Paribus

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The effect of geographical distance between candidate and voter on vote likelihood in the UK is essentially untested. In systems where constituency representatives vie for local inhabitants’ support in elections, candidates living closer to a voter would be expected to have a greater probability of receiving that individual’s support, other things being equal. In this paper, we present a first test of this concept using constituency data (specifically, notice of poll address data) from the British General Election of 2010 and the British Election Survey, together with geographical data from Ordnance Survey and Royal Mail, to test the hypothesis that candidate distance matters in voters’ choice of candidate. Using a conditional logit model, we find that the distance between voter and candidates from the three main parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat) matters in English constituencies, even when controlling for strong predictors of vote-choice, such as party feeling and incumbency advantage.

New blog on Polish Party Politics

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Confused by Civic Platform’s current calamities? Let down by Law and Justice? Perturbed by perm-prone Palikot’s movement (ok, enough of that!)? Ben Stanley, my man in Warsaw, has the answers on his new Polish Party Politics blog.  For starters, he brings us lots of beautiful maps like this, which shows the gap between  pro-enlightenment forces…

Who is going to succeed Kurt Beck?

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You have to be a German state politics aficionado with a certain local bias to find this mildly interesting, but this week we learned that Kurt Beck, the longest-serving German minister president, is having talks with the select group of people who might succeed him. These talks are obviously confidential, so obviously someone leaked the…

Law profs: Dissolution of NRW parliament not strictly necessary

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Events in North Rhine-Westphalia are quickly becoming the stuff of legends. The end of the red-green minority government on Wednesday has triggered a series of reshuffles that would make Machiavelli dizzy. And yes, the dissolution of parliament might not have been a constitutional requirement. Sorry for any inconveniences caused.

Snap Election in North Rhine-Westphalia

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Much to everybody’s surprise, the minority government in North Rhine-Westphalia collapsed today. Minority governments are a rarity in Germany. The federal constitution, reflecting Germany’s inter-war experience of unstable governments and intense political strife, practically rules them out. Constitutional details at the state level differ but the general assumption is that the government needs the reliable…