My latest weekly roundup of reading and listening recommendations, taking in right-wing ideological lineages, wider implications of the war in Iran, and cultural representations of American suburbs, among other themes. 🧵
Map of the Peak District National Park, designated 13 April 1951
Happy birthday to the Peak District National Park, designated #otd 13 April 1951. Originally 555 square miles of moor and valley, the 'great north roof of England.' It would never have happened but for one woman... 1/4
New piece! @richardhayton.com on the rise of Reform UK as well as its influence on, and symbiotic relationship with, the Conservative Party.
Thanks to everyone who has donated to my fundraiser for @mssocietyuk.bsky.social so far
On track to humiliate myself as a stand up comic in the near future!
If I reach £600 milestone this week, I'm going to upload some cringe video content to whet the appetite
www.justgiving.com/page/not-bei...
Not at all convinced by this morning's Bluesky collective wisdom that Burnham would have walked it. Rather ignores the fact that Labour's problems are structural as much as they are about personalities. Seems to me that Starmer missed the chance to puncture Burnham's balloon by letting him lose...
Tough morning for Goodwin, but doubt it hurts as much as when I beat him in the 2014 Political Studies Association Executive Committee elections.
A grid of horizontal stacked bar charts titled “How Former Conservative Voters Have Voted Over Time.” Each panel represents a group of voters defined by the election year in which they voted Conservative (e.g. 2005 Tory Voters through 2025 Tory Voters). Within each panel, bars show the proportional distribution (0–100%) of how those voters reported voting in other general elections (2005 to 2025). Bars are colour-coded by party: Conservative (blue), UKIP/BXP/Reform (teal), Liberal Democrat (yellow), Labour (red), Green (green), Other (light grey), and Don’t Know/Would Not Vote (dark grey). Across all panels, Conservative remains the largest share in most years, with noticeable variation over time in support for UKIP/BXP/Reform, Labour, and other parties. The x-axis shows proportion, the y-axis lists election years, and the legend appears at the bottom. Source: British Election Study Waves 1–30.
Listening to the ghosts of Tories past - and moving to the 'centre' - is not a great idea for Kemi.
If you track how Tory voters in each GE have voted in other elections, it's not clear that the Cameronite coalition has fled the Tories for centrist parties.
In an era of populism, universities make an easy political target. Public opinion reflects a growing suspicion, with research-intensive universities distant from ‘left behind places’ .
A solid base of citizen support is urgently needed to survive.
Might you be able to email me a copy of this? (Paywalled). Thanks so much.
Cartoon showing Robert Jenrick stuck with a Union Flag at the top of a lamppost as Kemi Badenoch walks away with the ladder that got him up there.
Brilliant by @bjennings90.bsky.social (www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...)
📣 New #openaccess #BJPIR article out now!
'No more Mr nice guy? A leadership trait analysis of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer' by @consuelothiers.bsky.social, Benjamin Martill & Alan Convery
🔗 buff.ly/zW78fKh
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social
A new year, another Tory defection to Reform, another opportunity to repost my paper from this time last year on the ideological and electoral interrelationship between the Conservatives and Farage's party. Free to access.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
📣 @polstudies.bsky.social now publishes research notes that make big points, weigh in on critical debates, and provide novel empirical contributions in under 5k words. This week, read the latest cutting-edge research contributions in this new format that we've published in 2025
More ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
🎉 New publication 🎉 Why do #youngpeople vote for the #AfD? This question has kept our research project busy for quite some time, so I'm beyond excited that our first article - co-authored with @timonscheuer.bsky.social - is now out in #GermanPolitics! 🤩 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
damn. rip, mani
Clear out toys now!
Love being reminded to do this every year. It's a win/win all round
Labour poster from April 2024: 'Tory Tax double whammy'
Guess that Labour won't be reviving this 2024 poster for a little while then. #budget
The second Global Tipping Points Report has been launched today. Please see our press release here: www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article...
Find the full report here: global-tipping-points.org @gsiexeter.bsky.social #TippingPoints #COP30
Abstract
New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵
And here: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli.... Don’t think he promised to eat any books if proved wrong though.
Screenshot of account deletion process on academia.edu
Just deleted my academia.edu account after 17 (!) years -- the company's exploitative new terms of use are outrageous, and it's a shame such a blatant commercial sell-out is able to operate under the .edu top-level domain. If you are still on academia.edu, please consider deleting your account too.
He's already on the first- and third-year undergraduate Politics syllabus here at Cambridge, so perhaps we should add him to the second-year syllabus, too? #zombieuniversity #brains
Realise I'm late to this, but this really is an excellent piece of writing by Ian Dunt.
We are delighted to announce that the winner of the #BJPIR John Peterson Best Article Prize for 2024 is Johanna Rodehau-Noack for her article ‘Counting bodies, preventing war: Future conflict and the ethics of fatality numbers’.
🎉 Congratulations to Johanna!
Please share this thread. It is important that political scientists, in Europe and across the world, understand why EPSS exists and why we are encouraging people to attend our inaugural conference, in Belfast next June.
📣 Have you heard? The BJPIR has achieved a new Impact Factor of 3.4!
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@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social
I didn’t have a great deal of hope for this column, but it turned out to be a damn good read.
