About
I’m a senior researcher at mySociety, working across the climate, transparency and democracy programmes.
In the past I’ve worked on renting campaigns, such as the campaign to end letting fees.
I write about elections and representation and have an MSc in Democracy and Democratisation.
I’m a Python developer/data scientist, and can be found on GitHub.
You can follow me on Twitter or email me at alex@alexparsons.co.uk.
If emailing for mySociety reasons, use alex.parsons@mysociety.org.
Featured work
- Reforming FOI
- Participation vs representation
- Equal seats, unequal voters: The gap between numerical and political representation
- Retrospective on lettingfees.co.uk
- Did They Write Back? A Mandate Divide in Response to Constituent Casework in Devolved Bodies
Recent blog posts
- It’s weird when we pick prime ministers without elections
- Function pipes in Python
- Mutable function defaults
- Connecting a BBC Micro Keyboard to a Raspberry Pico
- Week notes 20 Feb
- See more.
Recent mySociety work
- Prototyping week 5: Improving energy efficiency in the private rented sector
- PACAC makes the positive case for FOI, but there is more work to do
- New report: Improving oversight of Access to Information
- New research: joining up local government and citizens in climate action
- Categorising local government services for emissions reduction
- See more.
External blogs/publications
- When people decide whether to write to their MP, does the MP’s gender matter? (LSE British Politics and Policy)
- Evidence from Scotland and Wales: representatives elected via party lists are less likely to reply to constituents (Democratic Audit)
- "The City & The City & The Squirtle": What can China Mieville teach out about Pokemon Go? (CityMetric)
- From coconuts to GPS: A brief history of navigation (CityMetric)
- From Titan's Doom Mons to Mercury's Pourquoi-Pas: how did the landscape of space get its names? (CityMetric)
- See more.