Why I don't expect liberal democracy to go away any time soon: My article on the resilience of liberal democracy, published in @jeppjournal.bsky.social.
Perfectly timed to the day after Orbáns defeat and a small spike in "democracy-optimism".
There are, I argue, good reasons for such optimism.
@au.dk is hiring 3 postdocs (2 yrs) on personality cults & strategic communication in autocracies, led by Jakob Tolstrup & Alexander Baturo. They're looking for profiles with text-as-data, survey experiments and/or Chinese politics experience. Start fall 2026. Looks like a great opportunity!
whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!
This is madness.
I'm very excited that you all can now read about Itinerant Rule in the Holy Roman Empire from 919-1519 in the @ajpseditor.bsky.social! Thank you @claranw.bsky.social, @andrejkokkonen.bsky.social and Jørgen Møller for a great collaboration! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The next US president is either Diocletian tier competent or we're gonna be on the market for a new global hegemon.
Remarkable story from Denmark's nat'l broadcaster. "When Danish soldiers were flown to Greenland in January...they brought explosives so they could destroy, among other things, the runways in Nuuk & Kangerlussuaq [to] prevent US mil aircraft from landing" www.dr.dk/nyheder/indl...
Take care Danny. Your enlightened and witty commentary on our beloved spurs is a fireplace that us Norwegian fans can warm our hands on every week in the midst of the freezing Norwegian winter. Love from Oslo
Genuinely just bonkers to watch the USA do this to one of the most successful and innovative hubs of scientific research the world has ever seen. All those years of Free Speech On Campus debates and it turns out they actually wanted less cancer research. Absurd.
Jeg havde ret. Følg med her på kanalen for andre skarpe analyser. For eksempel forudsiger jeg, at hverken Franciska Rosenkilde eller Lars Boje bliver statsminister efter folketingsvalget.
Observed in the wild
In the year of our lord, 2026, an academic journal has gone from accepting .tex file submissions, to only accepting word documents...
(Between an original and R&R submission 🤬).
1/US unprepared for key Iranian strategy -- target key hubs of the global economy. Put pressure on allies and markets to turn interdependence into a weapon. Rather than an alternative to war, economic nodes are being used as a key tactic to degrade political support.
www.euronews.com/business/202...
ayatollah is supposed to be an academic position and you can tell this is true because after an extensive search they went with an internal candidate
Democracy researcher here! Bombing a country to smithereens without a plan is not democracy promotion
"By the time a peer-reviewed paper on current AI limitations appears in a journal, the limitations it documents will likely be fixed." - Great piece on the impact of AI in the social sciences. substack.com/home/post/p-...
The Trump admin has mostly added 3 types of groups to the Foreign Terrorist Organization list:
1. Latin American crime groups, e.g., Venezuelan
2. Iran-backed groups
3. European antifa/left groups
He's used the terrorist designations to justify
1. Maduro grab
2. Iran strike
3. ...?
DeclareDesign used to be a kind of Turing test. Not anymore
Og så finnes det spennende måter å vise hvor uintelligent du er på..
In a world where the US is turning into an authoritarian banana republic, Russia has wrecked its economy trying and failing to conquer its neighbor, and China is turning into a hyper-nationalistic totalitarian nightmare, it is surprising so many people are thinking that Europe is the failing one.
I guess this makes sense. My ‘nearest neighbor’ is @torewig.bsky.social, which is nice :) Not sure exactly who these British birders and Portuguese progressives are, but happy to be hanging out with you!
This is very reassuring!
☀️☀️ Exciting news in Madrid!
We are VERY happy to officially announce the creation of the Instituto Juan Linz (aka “IJL”).
ijlinz.es
The IJL ("Juan Linz Institute" in English) is dedicated to cutting-edge research and teaching in political science, sociology, economic history and more.
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Please consider citing if you are a fixest user!
Steve Levitsky, the co-author of How Democracies Die, on the dangerous place we have reached as Trump escalates:
“Orbán doesn’t arrest journalists,” he said. “And in Hungary if you walk the streets of Budapest or other Hungarian cities, you will not find heavily armed masked men abducting people."
NEW PAPER ALERT! My paper, with @bjornhoyland.bsky.social , on how “policy loss” shapes support for the EU has just been published in @cpsjournal.bsky.social. Check it out!
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I really think there needs to spontaneous protests against ICE happening right now in front of every federal building in the country and especially in Washington D.C. Otherwise those opposed to the Trump administration will not gain enough momentum or control the narrative.
One thing most people don't understand is that we in the US enjoy greater wealth funded by other countries because they assume we are a stable and relatively friendly hegemon.
Three coffins wrapped in Danish flags are carried by 4-6 soldiers each; a cargo aircraft is in the background
I think a good strategy for your non-leftist social media presence (ie everywhere but here) is to give this photo - the remains of Danish soldiers returning in coffins after being killed in America's war in Afghanistan - as wide an audience as possible. Remind people who we're betraying
Seeing people do "here's the savvy take on how and why the US should acquire Greenland" and just feeling so *embarrassed* for them. Have some dignity. You don't need to be an apologist for the world's dumbest autocrat, you're not somehow sophisticated for seeing The Smart Play on imperial vainglory.
If I was the commander in chief of the Imperial hegemon I would simply not dismantle the network of military and diplomatic alliances, favourable trade deals, and broad cultural paramountcy that had made my nation the most wealthy and powerful the world has ever seen.