CSMonitor editors share their favorite people to follow on Twitter

6. National: The Monkey Cage

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The Monkey Cage on Twitter.

The Monitor's National section recommends The Monkey Cage, the Twitter account for its namesake blog. Political wonks and news junkies will find useful commentary rooted in political science.

The Monkey Cage is a blog established in 2007 by George Washington University professor John Sides. He aimed to publicize political science research and offer commentary on political events and issues, according to the blog’s inaugural post. The blog is featured on The American Prospect’s website.

Washington editor Peter Grier (@petergrier) says The Monkey Cage provides a lot of great political commentary that is actually based on political science.

Mr. Sides was named Blogger of the Year in 2011 by The Week. The Week’s staff called him the Nate Silver of political science, writing that he makes an impact on voter behavior by “injecting wisdom of the academy into everyday political discourse” through the blog.

“Sides and his dogged band of social scientists pipe up, in clear, concise, and witty posts, whenever the political debate strays too far from the evidence,” the staff wrote. 

The Monkey Cage regularly tweets links to its articles about working papers, government, human rights, and other topics in domestic politics. It also retweets a number of professors and political scientists.

While the blog does focus on government and theory, it offers insight on some more personal or fun aspects of politics as well. If you’ve ever wondered how major events like the Iraq War have influenced theory, or perhaps what congressional members tweet about, you’ll enjoy what The Monkey Cage has to say.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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