In debates about the Supreme Court, we tend to focus on the justice who writes the opinion. But what if that’s not where the real power lies?

In this episode, we speak to Jonathan P. Kastellec, Professor at Princeton University, about his new paper that challenges how we think about decision-making on the Court. Instead of opinion authors driving the law, Kastellec argues that power often rests with the median justice within the majority coalition—the key vote needed to hold five justices together. So how does bargaining actually work behind the scenes? Why do some precedents erode gradually while others collapse all at once? And what does this tell us about major decisions—from long-standing rulings to sudden reversals?

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We're off this week for a much-needed spring break, but we wanted to re-share this episode that feels more relevant than ever. Infrastructure in the U.S. now costs dramatically more than in countries like Germany or Croatia—without clear signs of higher quality or better environmental outcomes. Why has infrastructure spending spiraled out of control? Could democracy itself—through litigation, regulations, and empowered citizen voices—be driving costs sky-high?

George Washington University Professor of Public Policy Leah Brooks investigates why the U.S. pays so much more per mile of highway compared to other nations in her paper “Infrastructure Costs”. Brooks reveals shocking findings: from the late 1960s onward, the cost to build highways in America surged dramatically, not because of higher wages or materials, but because of legal battles, environmental reviews, and citizen demands.

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Are Americans really polarized along party lines? Today, we discuss a new paper from our co-host Anthony Fowler, about one of the most common tools researchers use to measure public opinion: simple yes-or-no survey questions.

Most political surveys ask people to choose between two options—support or oppose, yes or no. But Fowler’s research shows that these binary questions can hide important nuance in how people actually think about policy. When researchers analyze these responses, it can make voters appear more polarized—or more ideologically inconsistent—than they really are.

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Is academic dishonesty connected to political power in China? That question is explored in a new paper from Shaoda Wang, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Wang and his co-authors explore how plagiarism detection in graduate dissertations is connected to patterns of cheating in career paths and institutional behavior. What lessons might this hold for politics, meritocracy, and institutional performance elsewhere?

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In this episode, we sit down with Stanford political scientist Andy Hall and PhD candidate Graham Straus to unpack their new paper, “How Accurately Did Claude Code Replicate and Extend a Published Political Science Paper?” — an empirical audit of what happens when an AI agent is asked to replicate and extend a real research project.

Last January, Andy asked Claude Code to generate an extension of an existing empirical political science paper in under an hour. The results were surprising: Claude correctly replicated the original estimates exactly and collected new data with very high accuracy. But did Claude make mistakes? Straus independently audited Claude’s work to see how accurate, reliable, and scientifically sound it really was.

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Do members of Congress vote differently when they are worried about winning their party’s primary election? On today's episode, Ethan and Wioletta interview Anthony about his forthcoming paper, “Do Primary Elections Exacerbate Congressional Polarization?,” which is forthcoming from the Journal of Politics.

Using detailed voting data and the natural variation in primary election timing across states, Anthony and his co-author, Shu Fu, show that primaries play a surprisingly small role in pushing lawmakers to the ideological extremes—accounting for only about 1% of congressional polarization.

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In this episode, we speak with Cory Clark, behavioral scientist and Associate Professor of Psychology at New College of Florida. We discuss her paper, “Taboos and Self-Censorship Among U.S. Psychology Professors," which explores how controversial topics in science are perceived, debated, and sometimes suppressed, and the psychological dynamics of taboo beliefs and self-censorship in academia.

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