⛓️ ‘The case for neutrality as academic freedom’: a response Political neutrality in the face of injustice serves to maintain the status quo. Responding to Hana Kubátová’s blog piece, Adam Standring underlines the moral necessity of organisations like ECPR taki...

My response to that:

theloop.ecpr.eu/the-case-for...

⛓️ Scholarly societies and political crises: the case for neutrality as academic freedom Political statements hinder the difficult conversations central to the mission of institutions of higher learning and scholarly associations. When institutions like ECPR speak collectively on politica...

European Consortium for Political Research. Myself and Catherine drafted an open letter to the ECPR which got 450+ signatures. The response from the ECPR was complete head-in-the-sand stuff.

One of the ExCom then put out this:

theloop.ecpr.eu/the-case-for...

The wording of this is so similar to that adopted by the ECPR when @catherinemoury.bsky.social and I attempted to challenge their position on Israel and Gaza.

Down to paying lipservice to improving the lot of oppressed scholars.

Institutions circling the wagons.

New phone, who dis?

This opinion is legacy thinking from the 'Mandelson as master of the dark arts' school, rather than politics is always about cliques, favours and influence.

Our new piece, collectively authored by the Editorial Board of @econsocjournal.bsky.social, reflecting on the state today.

@campolis.bsky.social

Link to the full piece below:

Four hundred and nineteen experienced qualitative researchers from 32 countries invite readers of Qualitative Inquiry to consider their position on use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) for qualitative research. We hold the position that analytic approaches such as reflexive thematic analysis are human research practices requiring a subjective, positioned, and reflexive researcher and therefore the use of GenAI in such approaches is not methodologically congruent. We additionally reject GenAI for reflexive qualitative approaches on the grounds of social and environmental justice.

I did not sign this but I 100% would if I could

"We Reject the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence for Reflexive Qualitative Research"

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The personal emotional investment in such an uncharasmatic and broadly unlikable figure is really something to behold. And that's before you get to his politics.

Why do Public Debates Escalate? Trigger Points and the Moral Dynamics of “Hot Politics” Escalating, emotionally charged, and moralized forms of controversy are a central feature of contemporary politics. Our study develops a framework for understanding how political debates between ordi...

Knife crime! Pronouns! Meat bans! Some political issues lead to "hotter", more emotional and polarizing debates than others. We show how these "trigger points" reveal a contested structure of moral expectations and how they get weaponized by polarization entrepreneurs. OA @bjsociology.bsky.social 🧵

Starmer won't resign today. He will resign after the catastrophe that will be the local elections in May

Stephanie Burt | Twee as Fuck The music that showed me who I wanted to be, what I wanted from life, was the music that came out on Sarah Records. The...

‘In the songs’ combination of joy and scepticism, heady complexity and hits-the-first-time riffs, I found an art, and a worldview, that looked like a life I might live. Some of us wore badges and T-shirts that read “Twee as Fuck.”’

Stephanie Burt on Heavenly’s revival.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ap...

What's the Greek for 'rule by middle-managers'?

It will never not be hilarious that one of the singular virtues of Starmer, as presented by his boosters, was his competence:

Stop Greed, Build Green: A Working Class Climate Strategy The US is staring down deepening cost-of-living and climate crises. A framework that focuses on immediate relief, robust regulation, state capacity, and massive investment can move us towards a stable...

For more, see our white paper: stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/posts/whitep...
And policy agenda: stopgreedbuildgreen.climateandcommunity.org/posts/agenda

This is a cutting from the LRB with the line, "Making economic arguments to voters who feel oppressed by economics is risky: they're quite likely to tell you to go fuck yourself".

John Lanchester summed this up in the LRB in 2016:

The question of facts vs. vibes reminds me a lot of the Brexit debates and the idea that people could be won over if you just showed them the economic data, combined with the sneering tone with which this was articulcated.

"Marx’s beef with capitalism was not that it created inequality or poverty; pre-capitalist societies did that. His complaint was that it created new forms of domination, oppression and alienation"

Spot on.

I've been following this BlueSky debate on inequality with interest.

A lot of people do seem to be relishing the opportunity to scold the left on their political rhetoric. This measured response by Chris Dillow seems to me to be appropriate.

Does anyone know any journals open to commentary/review/perspective pieces on the topic of food systems research in the region of 10k-12k words?

We just got knocked back by One Earth.

The production is gorgeous. We went from one extreme to another on production, after this we played a 1994 edition of Kenizia's Modern Art.

We played Middle Ages at LeiriaCon, a couple of weeks ago, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Starmer is letting Trump use British bases but will call you 'mean' if you point that out.

I'm finding it particularly emotionally difficult to reconcile social media feeds filled with, on the one hand, images of death and destruction in the middle-east, threats of violence and the worst of humanity, and on the other hand images of the moon, earth and stories of scientific success.

relatable < competent

In my housing module we begin with a discussion on how many places we've lived, conditions etc.

My definition is basically anywhere you've lived long enough to receive mail

The number of cases where political dithering pays off are minimal but finally Starmer has found one

The biggest single difference between this US administration and previous ones is that this one doesn't feel the need to flatter European liberals.

What's the point of conjunctural analysis? - Matthew Thompson, 2026 With conjunctural approaches to urban research fast proliferating, along with the compounding crises they seek to study, now's the time to ask: what's...

New article out: What's the point of conjunctural analysis?

doi.org/10.1177/2754...

Iran war energy crisis equal to 70s twin oil shocks and fallout from Ukraine war, says IEA chief Fatih Birol says effect on energy markets of Iran bombings and closure of Hormuz strait not initially understood by world leaders

How long until we find out that a few people, probably with close ties to the president (or including him), have made an absolute fortune from this?

Worth noting that liberal politics, bereft of any coherent analysis of the current conjunction, exists principally now to validate the position that better things aren't possible