UNC cuts all six area studies research centers, effective 2026 As part of the University's plan to make $70 million in budget cuts across the institution, Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations Nate Knuffman projected that cutting 14 centers and institutes in...

UNC’s Institute for the Study of the Americas was instrumental to my graduate school career. Multiple grants — including during COVID to conduct surveys — and a FLAS. Without them I wouldn’t have been able to complete my dissertation. This is horrible news.
www.dailytarheel.com/article/a4ee...

A reminder to apply to our workshop on dem resistance/backsliding -- including attitudes, institutions, etc (very broadly construed!) -- in LatAm at the LBJ School by 10/15! Details below 👇

🌟 Latin Americanist Meetups (LAM) at #APSA2025!
📍 Malone’s, 608 W Pender St, Vancouver
🗓️ Fri, Sept 12 @ 6PM — 16-min walk from Convention Centre
✨ Drop-in, no RSVP, pay your way
✨ Come & go freely
Questions? Ask @ndelacerda.bsky.social 🍻 #LAM #Vancouver

Super excited about hosting this workshop at the LBJ School @utaustin.bsky.social with Diego! Apply by 10/15, and see below for more details 🌎

We are hiring!
Not on the search committee, but happy to chat if you want to learn more about LBJ. The past year has been wonderful, and it is a great (and growing) community of awesome people.

Cueing Without Parties: Experimental Evidence from Peru - Political Behavior Citizens infer policy information from partisan cues, yet their utility varies cross-nationally. In weakly institutionalized democracies with short-lived political parties and volatile party systems, ...

🚨 NEW RESEARCH ALERT 🚨

My latest article is now available at @polbehavior.bsky.social!

"Cueing Without Parties: Experimental Evidence from Peru" explores how citizens navigate politics in contexts without stable parties and deeply-rooted partisan predispositions.

📖 doi.org/10.1007/s111...

Priority Theme Spotlight: Omar García-Ponce and Isabel Laterzo – EGAP Author: Max Méndez Beck

For today's spotlight, we are highlighting work by @garciaponce.bsky.social and @isabellatingley.bsky.social Read more about their paper, “Who is to Blame? Youth Crime and Attribution of Responsibility in Urban Mexico” on the EGAP site.

(5) "Progressive Ideology and Support for Punitive Crime Policy: Evidence from Argentina and Brazil" by Isabel G. Laterzo @isabellatingley.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Also thanks to the team @lawfaremedia.org and @tylermcbrien.com for giving us a space to talk about this paper! Fun to work with another @claremontmckenna.bsky.social alum after almost 10 years out!

Democratic Accountability and Support for Democracy: Evidence from a Natural Experiment Following attempts to undermine democracy, institutions can withstand these challenges by holding anti-democratic actors accountable. How do such accountability measures shape public democratic suppor...

You can find our working paper at @apsa-preprints.bsky.social here: cup.org/43y0dBt

These findings suggest a more optimistic view of public responses to institutional accountability: rather than triggering backlash, formal legal action against powerful political figures can reinforce democratic values

Among Bolsonaro voters (first round) we found no discernible changes in support for democracy.

These results are robust across a variety of estimation strategies, and when considering second round Bolsonaro voters instead of first round.

We found that individuals interviewed after the charges were announced were more supportive of democracy. This is particularly true for those who did not vote for Bolsonaro in the past Brazilian presidential election.

These charges were announced 8 days after we began our survey, creating a natural experiment that allowed us to establish the causal effect of institutional accountability measures on democratic attitudes.

Brazil’s former President Bolsonaro charged over alleged coup that included a plan to poison Lula Brazil’s top prosecutor Paulo Gonet has formally charged former President Jair Bolsonaro with attempting a coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat.

On Feb 18 the PGR charged Bolsonaro with orchestrating a coup attempt to remain in power and prevent his successor (Lula) from taking office. The indictment included allegations of a plot to poison Lula and assassinate a Supreme Court Justice (Moraes)

apnews.com/article/bols...

We explore how criminal proceedings against democratically elected executives influence citizen’s support for democracy using the fortuitous timing of Brazilian Prosecutor General’s (PGR) announcement of the indictment against Bolsonaro during our online survey

Check out our new article in @lawfaremedia.org - with @ndelacerda.bsky.social and Ayelén Vanegas - which covers our our working paper "Institutional Accountability and Support for Democracy: Evidence from a Natural Experiment". You can see the article below.

Thanks so much Gabby! Hope to catch up at APSA.

Thankful for my diss committee at UNC + for the award committee!

Very happy and grateful to learn that my dissertation was awarded the APSA Human Rights Section Best Dissertation Award. Great motivation to keep working on the book & another round of fieldwork in Brazil this summer

Great paper just out!

New important research by Guillermo Trejo & @natanski.bsky.social on violence against local journalists in Mexico's drug war.

"Silencing the Press in Criminal Wars: Why the War on Drugs Turned Mexico into the World’s Most Dangerous Country for Journalists"

Link here: bit.ly/4h1R74j

Excited to have a new review article up – on Land and Politics – at Annual Review of Political Science. To understand inequality, development, identity, conflict, state-building, and more, you have to understand the power of land!

thanks for sharing this! I'm curious re your data/time period for some of the stats for homicide and police fatalities. Some of the countries in lat am seem to be in surprising places (e.g., uruguay)

Reposting this in case useful to anyone this year! Includes info on negotiating, etc.

In a post-peak public engagement world where mainstream papers have dropped outlets like the Monkey Cage, what avenues exist for academics to get their work and insights in front of a wider public audience or directly to policymakers? A thread of examples from my own experience. 1/

How Paraguay’s dictator turned infrastructure into a tool for repression Infrastructure can drive development, but history shows it can also be used for political control. Paraguay’s roads under Stroessner's dictatorship highlight this dual nature, providing valuable lesso...

🆕 How Paraguay’s dictator turned infrastructure into a tool for repression

Felipe González Queen Mary Uni, Josepa Miquel-Florensa TSE, Mounu Prem Einaudi Institute & @stephanestraub.bsky.social WorldBank explore how infrastructure can be exploited for political power: voxdev.org/topic/infras...

EGEN The Empirical Study of Gender (EGEN) Working Group

HUGE AMAZING news. Please share!!!

EGEN, the Empirical Study of Gender Research Network, announces its 2025 prize competition, up to $5000, for cutting edge research on gender and politics.

Due Feb 1, 2025

www.egenpolisci.org

#gendersky #polisky @egenpolisci.bsky.social @mirya.bsky.social