Not to mention the changes that made his loss fundamentally more difficult.

To ignore this is akin to arguing “it was cold yesterday so global warming is a hoax”

We’ll talk past each other until we acknowledge we are talking about different concepts of democracy. Democracy can erode in places that remain “democratic!”

To say Hungary was always a democracy because Orban conceded is to deny the loss of civil liberties, press freedom, etc that have transpired

New working paper w Mary Adams Plooster (a fantastic IU grad student) and @nickbichay.bsky.social. We draw on two survey experiments to investigate the effect of partisan anger on partisan dehumanization. We also examine heterogeneous f.x. by trait dogmatism.

www.stevenwwebster.com/research/ang...

Tight race in Dutch election as anti-Islam populist Wilders' hope of power declines - BBC News Wilders was the clear winner last time Dutch voters went to the polls in November 2023, but this time the race is far tighter.

Election day also means a quick round up of my comments in the international media that have been published today. Pick your favorite language 🙂

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Converging to the mean? Moderating ideologies of far-right and far-left parties in government - Nicolas Bichay, 2025 In recent history, the participation of far-right and far-left parties in government coalition has become quite a frequent occurrence in Europe. While much impo...

Excited to see this out today! Where previous work has characterized forming coalitions with radical parties as efforts to 'tame' them, I analyze whether such strategies can work, finding that radical party manifestos published post-coalition do tend to be more moderate than those published before.

Thanks for sharing!

A two-panel figure illustrating the conditional effect of radical-right parties on voter turnout. The left panel, titled "Satisfaction w/ Democracy," shows two data points: 1. For non-radical-right party supporters, the effect is slightly negative (below zero) with a small error bar. 2. For radical-right party supporters, the effect is strongly positive (above zero) with a larger error bar, indicating greater variability. The right panel, titled "Trust in Politicians," also shows two data points: 1. For non-radical-right party supporters, the effect is negative (below zero) with a small error bar. 2. For radical-right party supporters, the effect is moderately positive (above zero) with a moderate error bar. Both panels share the y-axis labeled "Change_After_Radical-Right_Contestation," centered around zero. Error bars in both panels represent confidence intervals.

New study by @nickbichay.bsky.social

Radical-Right parties participating in elections disenchant and demobilize voters, endangering (not "correcting") democracy!

RR participation in elections is associated with lower(!) turnout.

But don't RR parties bring non-voters to the ballots? Not really.

Out today online! I analyze the effect radical right parties have had on voter turnout in Europe. While some have argued the radical right can mobilize voters, I find radical right parties contesting an election -> decrease in trust -> lower voter turnout. t.co/mCC6YdZDmE