"I am a huge fan of mixed methods research. I think that research becomes richer and more credible when one can deploy multiple methods to solve the same problem. For example, [using randomised experiments along with observational data] can balance precision in estimating causal effects with a rich view of how things work in the real world, outside of the confines of an experimental setup."
- Dr Blake Miller shares their favourite research method as part of our 30th Anniversary celebrations. Read the full close-up with Methodology faculty.

Blake Miller is an Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science in the Methodology Department at the London School of Economics. They received their PhD in Political Science and Scientific Computing from the University of Michigan in 2018 where they were also a graduate research affiliate in the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies. Before coming to LSE, they were a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Dartmouth College Program in Quantitative Social Science. For more information, please visit www.blakeapm.com.

Research interests

Blake's methodological research develops methods in machine learning and natural language processing, especially supervised learning, to facilitate large-scale text analysis in the social sciences.

Blake's substantive research explores China's political communication under authoritarian rule, focusing on how the Chinese Communist Party has built a new surveillance-driven security state in an often bitterly contentious partnership with tech giants. Blake’s coauthored work also explores how the Chinese state manages social organizations in China trading off the costs and benefits of civil society through mechanisms of party supervision and repression.

In addition to work on China, Blake researches how illiberal political actors manipulate media to politically mobilize social and religious conservatives, often through provoking outrage and disgust at perceived norm-violations of minorities. Blake's current research explores how these methods of political mobilization can lead to increased support for violence and punitive policies against LGBT+ individuals and other vulnerable minority groups.