The DEC research group is now welcoming expressions of interest for Marie Curie postdocs. If you are interested in joining a stimulating and healthy environment I'm happy to chat about research avenues, group activities, and what it's actually like to work here!

Feel free to repost and DM me :)

It’s not the first time I’ve said this on Bluesky: you will always learn something from reading Matthew

Thanks for this Tom!

Grateful for the opportunity to present joint work with @galais.bsky.social & @mguinjoan.bsky.social today at the @tact-forsed.bsky.social conference in @charlesuni.cuni.cz - Almost as important, it is my first time in Prague 🫶

Probably the most talented early-career political scientist out there just became a doctor!

If you have a project, budget, or call for applications that suits her profile, you’d be wise to reach out to her.

Do it and thank me later 😉

“Plaid Cymru remain in the strongest position - Reform faces far greater constraints, yet there should be no mistake: winning a third of seats would represent a remarkable result.” - @jaclarner.bsky.social #Senedd26 #Wales #Cymru
www.itv.com/news/wales/2...

Polling enthusiasts, you're going to like this one! 🤩

What if AI just makes us work harder? Employees have reported increased momentum, but also a feeling of having more to do

"Just because you can turn to AI at a moment’s notice doesn’t mean you should. There is something to be said for planning ahead before interacting with the AI, and for blocking out time without it — leaving space for the human in the loop to stop, to reflect [...]" giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

How welfare policy affects immigration attitudes Social policies shape public opinions on immigration. A study by Alina Vrânceanu and Bilyana Petrova shows that in Western Europe, generous welfare systems – perhaps counterintuitively – make natives…

🌀

👣 @alinavranceanu.bsky.social & @bpetrova.bsky.social show that in Western Europe, generous #welfare systems – perhaps counterintuitively – make natives more favourably inclined toward #immigrants.

💸Indeed, cutting benefits risks exacerbating anti-immigrant sentiment
👇🏾

The Green Gender Gap: Environmental attitudes and pro-environmental vote choice across Europe Does gender matter for how we engage with green political ideas? Using more than twenty years of data across 36 European countries, this paper identif…

Still controlling for gender without thinking about why? You can cite me💚👩‍🔬💚

I show that the gender gap in progressive climate and environmental views is a persistent empirical regularity that cannot be explained by differences in socioeconomic background, political ideology, or risk aversion.

Article - Nuffield Politics Research Centre

@martamiori.bsky.social and I have been writing, since 2024, about why Labour's 'Reform' challenge and emphasis was based on a misunderstanding of Labour's vote. Here for anyone interested: politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Join us tomorrow for this exciting talk by @klaramueller.bsky.social in the MZES Social Science Data Lab!

Details and Zoom link ⬇️

It has been great to navigate this paper with amazing @gefjonoff.bsky.social . Started expecting angry right-wing men to feel threatened by feminism and found out more than one surprise 👇

Thrilled to share our new paper with amazing Agus.

We show that non-traditional families, especially open and age-gap couples, face substantial prejudice. Even LGB couples encounter bias, highlighting persistent inequalities in societies often seen as tolerant.

"What makes them [novels] his is their tone and his extreme control of its variations: the voice is rational but also romantic and rueful, aware that self-assertion can shade into bullish solipsism, that the pursuit of freedom can lead quickly to delusion, of the self or others."

Departure(s) by Julian Barnes review – this final novel is a slippery affair Memoir merges with fiction as the author reflects on failed love, ageing and the end of life in this last instalment to his writing career

My favourite author 'departs', and I can't help feeling a bit sad. Can't recommend enough *The sense of an ending*, a book that changed my life when I was in the midst of shattering changes. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Why did antisemitism rise in Germany during the Covid pandemic? And why was this increase concentrated among political centrists, rather than on the fringes?

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

@kanol.bsky.social @wzb.bsky.social @uni-hamburg.de @politikuhh.bsky.social @socfub.bsky.social

What Is Centrism? - Karl Pike, 2026 Centrism, an ambiguous political term, requires greater analytical scrutiny. After summarising conceptualisations of centrism – and of a centre in politics – th...

I have a new article just published in Political Studies: What is Centrism? Open access here: doi.org/10.1177/0032...

I really enjoyed reading this article, now available in @bjpols.bsky.social:

In recent years in Spain, when the Left governs, voters seem to undergo an ideological realignment and become more right-wing in their policy preferences.

doi.org/10.1017/S000...

🧭 in our #NewIssue (30.3)
The study by @galais.bsky.social & @ruizhdezmaria.bsky.social reveals that sadness can reduce support for far-right parties in Spain, whereas anger—the most studied emotion—shows only a limited reinforcing effect

🔓 Read the article
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

🚨New article in @electoralstudies.bsky.social🚨

New method using open-text survey, parliament speech analysis & conjoint experiment to detect policies/issues where all of:
1) bottom-up public demand
2) elites are neglecting it
3) would motivate vote choice if party adopt it

tinyurl.com/44ryyybc

🧵

Apologies for being self-referential but

¿Aceptan igual la democracia quienes ganan y quienes pierden las elecciones? El aumento de la polarización y de opciones políticas autoritarias podría generar una brecha en el compromiso democrático entre ganadores y perdedores electorales. No obstante, datos de elecciones rec...

Arrancamos el nuevo año con una entrada de @damjantomic.bsky.social, @sergiferrer.bsky.social, Enrique Prada y @ehernandez.bsky.social.

Muestran que, contrario a lo que podíamos esperar, los ciudadanos siguen bastante comprometidos con las reglas democráticas.

www.eldiario.es/piedrasdepap...

January 6 in Historical Perspective January 6, 2026

Some reflections from me on January 6 in comparative and historical perspective (first time on substack)

open.substack.com/pub/ziblatt4...

New article out in @bjpols.bsky.social 🎉

Why do elections remain widely supported even as democratic checks and balances erode around the world?

Election Outcomes and Affective Polarization in the United States - Joseph B. Phillips, Seth B. Warner, 2026 Do election outcomes exacerbate affective polarization? While polarization often rises during campaigns and correlates with democratic backsliding, isolating th...

Out now and open access with @sethers.bsky.social at Political Research Quarterly! How do election outcomes shape affective polarization among Americans? 🧵 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

An Evaluation of Biases in Wellbeing Estimates Using Interviewers Versus Online Data Collection in the Global Flourishing Study Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

Another gem for public opinion folks from Econ: the authors find notable differences in responses to well-being questions if they are obtained via a telephone interviewer (CATI) or online (CAWI) www.nber.org/papers/w34599

When Push Comes to Shove: How Americans Excuse and Condemn Political Violence - Political Behavior What factors do Americans find most important when evaluating acts of political violence? Normatively, details regarding the violent act (e.g., the target and violence severity) should determine the p...

Which factors affect how Americans react to political violence? Our paper in @polbehavior.bsky.social addressing this question just got a volume and issue number! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Revealing long-term trajectories of public opinion and polling in Britain: a new resource of historical data from the Gallup Poll in Britain, 1955–1991 From the 1930s to early 2000s, the British affiliate and later subsidiary of the Gallup Organization conducted around three thousand surveys of public opinion in Great Britain. While the records of...

For the historical polling nerds out there, an article about our project with @ropercenter.bsky.social that digitised ~800 surveys by Gallup poll in Britain between 1955 and 1991 has been published in JEPOP. The merged dataset contains over three-quarters of a million respondents.

Congrats John! Looks great, I'll definitely read it soon