Citation

• "Memory Lane," blog, Alexandra Cirone, (October 18, 2021). On Piketty's QJE article on stuff long known in political science and his cursory citations to it.

While canonical work in political science (eg, Kitschelt and Inghehart) is cited, there’s a large literature of highly relevant and more recent papers missing. The study of electoral fortunes across country and time using micro-level data, including elections and manifestos, is a cornerstone of political science research. So is the decline of class voting, the strategies of Left parties, and individual-level determinants of voting such as education and income.

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Gethin, Martínez-Toledano, and Piketty also test a number of mechanisms relating to different cleavages, but with little engagement. For example, if we think about the relationship between religion, income, and voting, why not use a simple Google Scholar search to find De La O and Rodden (2008)? Similarly, where’s Gelman (2008) on income? My list here is only illustrative, and not even close to exhaustive.

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It’s possible that “ships pass in the night,” in that scholars are working simultaneously on the same topics and might not realize there is relevant work that needs to be cited (this is one reason for peer review). But I don’t *think* that’s what happened here (and a similar, edited volume seems to do the same). And in the age of Google Scholar, Twitter, and connectedpapers.com, this DOES NOT have to be the case.