🫶 Wishing everyone restful holidays and a happy start into the new year! We look back on many inspiring moments in 2025, and forward to many more interesting discussions and projects in 2026 ✨🎄

🚀 How do citizens imagine their future democracy – on Mars and on Earth? Using large survey experiments in the US and Germany, we explore how people envision democratic governance with and without path dependencies 🪐 Read the preprint here ➡️ osf.io/preprints/so...

#OpenAccess from @psrm.bsky.social - Is ChatGPT conservative or liberal? A novel approach to assess ideological stances and biases in generative LLMs - https://cup.org/48Oh8Co - Christina P. Walker & @joantimoneda.bsky.social#OpenAccess #FirstView #ChatGPT

🌍The latest cleavage: the universalist divide @mrsteenbergen.bsky.social , @dpzollinger.bsky.social , @siljahausermann.bsky.social, @simonbornschier.bsky.social, and @lhaffert.bsky.social provide evidence from the 2024 European Election Study 👇 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

We were happy to welcome @lalamur.bsky.social who gave a brilliant talk on the impact of political talk about feminism when dating 💘 Future research projects and collaborations were also discussed 🤝 - stay tuned! 🤩

Thank you, Stuttgart, for such a wonderful time! Special thanks to DDME team @demolabs.bsky.social with @franziskamaier.bsky.social @seraphinearnold.bsky.social & André Bächtiger! 💜

Yesterday, the DDME Team held a workshop as part of the Freedom Week in Berlin, where participants got to design democracy on Mars! 🚀 💡 It was an inspiring experience to turn survey research into practice and watch participants discuss the pros and cons of involving different actors in the process.

Descriptive representation has comparatively limited appeal for citizens, but is more important for historically marginalised groups. Citizens do not only focus on local politicians, but also seek representation from politicians in other districts www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

“Because of the tremendous wealth of key figures…major corporations have enabled, collaborated with, and turned a blind eye to efforts to suppress, torture, falsely imprison, terrorise and murder dissenters … around the world.” Twitter [gave] the Saudi government a reach well beyond its borders.

NEW - Deepening, Bridging, and Moving Minds in Stressful Times - https://cup.org/4pG5tfo "In highly polarized situations, however, open communication is the only way to communicatively reach out to people." - Simon Stocker, André Bächtiger, Bernhard Kittel & Marco Steenbergen #OpenAccess

Glad to see this out at @ajpseditor.bsky.social! I show that the immigration-crime issue, when salient, can shift leftist cosmopolitans to the Right. This is due to leftist voters being more conservative on crime than leftist parties. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🚨 New paper in @thejop.bsky.social Why do politicians often misperceive what citizens' policy positions are? @simonotjes.bsky.social and I study ~10,000 estimates of public opinion by politicians in Denmark & the Netherlands to uncover the sources of these (mis)perceptions Thread 🧵1/10

I can't wait for our Workshop on "Democracy on Mars" during the Berlin Freedom Week, with my favourite colleagues AND hosted in my favourite place, the Schwarzkopf-Stiftung Junges Europa 🚀 🫰 Sign up if you are in Berlin on November 15th! berlin-freedom-week.com/event/wie-so...

In den Niederlanden gab es am Wochenende rechtsextreme Ausschreitungen. In den 4 größten Ländern Europas führen rechtsradikale Parteien in den Umfragen. Ich verstehe den Fokus auf das Spektakel, aber der Dauerfokus auf Trump, Kimmel, Kirk scheint mir stark zu vernachlässigen was in Europa passiert.

European democracies are harmed by societal polarization, but can benefit from partisan polarization: the former lowers quality and trust, the latter is linked to better democratic quality www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

📢 My last PhD paper is out in Legislative Studies Quarterly 📢 📌 Main finding ➡️ Party control of speaking time in parliament limits MPs’ geographical focus ➡️ Open access increases constituency representation 🔗 Read it open access here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Instagram und TikTok sind die Kanäle, über die sich junge Menschen am häufigsten über Politik informieren. Die Mehrheit folgt sogar politischen Influencer:innen. Unsere Studie mit dem @dpzberlin.bsky.social zeigt, wie die Social-Media-Kommunikation der Politiker:innen bei der Jugend ankommt. (bu)

🚨 New working paper alert 🚨 Missing summer — and the Tour de France? Don’t worry, we got you covered. 🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️ In this paper, we show that being on the route of Tour de France reduces far-right voting. osf.io/preprints/so...

This is a paper I really care about. I feel the core message is very important for social scientists in general, and political scientists in particular. "Quantitative Research in Political Science is Greatly Underpowered." (with A+ co-authors)

God give me the reviewer strength of a well-caffeinated sweetener-loving junior scholar in an investigative mood

How to visually represent different democratic systems? We are currently working with an awesome design studio to figure it out. A sneak peak of a sketch for "Democracy on Mars" is here 👉 www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

❓Are cosmopolitans participatory, technocratic or representative democrats? Despite their active role in society, few analyze cosmopolitans' governance preferences. My preprint uses cosmopolitanism as a multidimensional concept to investigate this question 🤔👇 Any feedback is welcome!

🥳 I'm excited that my project on opinion formation around the future of citizenship has received funding by @dfg.de 🔎 On this highly polarized issue, I will investigate opinion and opinion change in 4 migration societies. 💡This will include an issue-specific analysis of the transnational cleavage.

#OpenAccess from @psrm.bsky.social - “Sleeping with the enemy”: partisanship and tolerance in online dating - cup.org/3USYaD9 "...the influence of partisanship is on par with conventional criteria like physical appearance" - Yara Sleiman, Georgios Melios & Paul Dolan #FirstView

We have a paper on how Labour's strategy is disastrous. There's an exclusive coverage in @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

❓Are cosmopolitans participatory, technocratic or representative democrats? Despite their active role in society, few analyze cosmopolitans' governance preferences. My preprint uses cosmopolitanism as a multidimensional concept to investigate this question 🤔👇 Any feedback is welcome!

Das bemerkenswerte hier ist, dass die Verschiebung eben nicht 2015 passiert sondern 2017. Genau dann wenn Politik und Medien anfangen sich auf die aufsteigende AfD und ihre Themen einzuschießen. Wenn Migrationspolitik verschärft wird und Migranten dämonisiert werden. Es ist nicht Migration an sich.

Neue Studie des @diw.de: Weniger Geflüchtete fühlen sich in Deutschland willkommen. Unsere Studie ⬇️ zeigt, wie die Solidarität (unter Erwerbspersonen) mit (Ukraine-)Geflüchteten in den letzten Jahren zurückging und sich die Einstellungen ihnen gegenüber deutlich eintrübten.

Do party alliances shift voter views? 🤝 A study in 🇩🇰🇩🇪🇬🇧 finds that when mainstream voters see their party cooperating with radical right parties, they’re more likely to adopt nativist views. Alliances may normalize exclusionary ideas. 🔗

🚨New Publication🚨 Using the entire #Canadian Election Study (1965–2021), I examine voter turnout by class, education, & income over time & test whether the offerings of political parties impact these relationships. Available #OpenAccess in @cjps-rcsp.bsky.social #polisky doi.org/10.1017/S000...

My first paper is out in @bjpir.bsky.social ! 🎉 It looks at a novel dataset of local climate mini-publics in the UK, and how organisers justify their implementation. Full paper: journals-sagepub-com.libproxy.york.ac.uk/doi/epub/10....

Wer Spiegelei oder Beerdigung oder Reanimation sagen kann, kann auch Richter:innen sagen #relax

How do populists define “the people”? @tiondelisa.bsky.social examines how right-wing populists construct ingroup identity through opposition. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/GEvXWhB @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social @uoypolitics.bsky.social @sagepub.com #polsky #polsci #ECRs

Last week, @franziskamaier.bsky.social @anjarieker.bsky.social @vanessaschwaiger.bsky.social presented work on governance preferences, social divides, and methods of assessing citizen preferences at the EPSA (now @epssnet.bsky.social) in Madrid☀️ Thanks for great feedback and conversations! ✨

In unserem Beitrag über #Bürgerwünsche zur Reform der #Parteiendemokratie in der neuesten #APuZ zeigen wir das Potenzial von #Mischsystemen aus direktdemokratischen, expertokratischen und repräsentativen Elementen für die #Demokratie. 👇 🔎🗳️ www.bpb.de/shop/zeitsch...

Rokkan and Lipset forgot the most important cleavage

Our @demolabs.bsky.social crew is on the way to Madrid for #EPSA - looking forward ☀️📚🚀 @anjarieker.bsky.social @vanessaschwaiger.bsky.social

🚨 “We just need to recognize that we’re all citizens of this country.” –– Politicians + citizens often stress a shared national identity when trying to bridge racial, partisan, or other group divides. @stysyropoulos.bsky.social & I show why such “shared” identities are doomed to fail. 🧵1/9

Some clear leftist and rightist traits (based on current political science) do not resonate with a large proportion of European citizens. The cultural elements of the left–right concept are not perceived in the same way across Europe link.springer.com/article/10.1...

🚨New Publication 🚨 link.springer.com/article/10.1... Does attitude manipulation affect voting intentions? 🧵

New blog post! In which I explain the issue with mediation analysis and sketch out one way to deal with the underlying causal inference problem -- in just a bit over 1,000 words! If you have never found the time to read up on this, now is your chance. www.the100.ci/2025/03/20/r...

Published Today in PSRM: Based on a novel “Multiple Unexpected Events during Survey Design” (MUESD), I contextualize previous findings suggesting that Europeans become more empathetic toward migrants when exposed to migrant suffering. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... A Summary Thread: 1/15

Want a pop science summary? Check out this write up here: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

How should Europe structure its response to the threats coming from the White House and elsewhere? Together with @marcobuti.bsky.social, Roel Beetsma & Kalin Jansve, we developed a plan @bruegel.bsky.social ⤵️ www.bruegel.org/analysis/thi...

Too many political parties do exactly that: treating public opinion as fixed. To a large extent Trump and other far right actors do the exact opposite: they create realities and force it on the public. We need democratic parties to turn to public opinion leaders creating realities!

Legislators are poorly informed about bills ex ante, but responsive to policy information and able to vote as-if informed about bills' impacts ex post link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1/ 📣 PUBLICATION ALERT: Our paper on the effect of BLM protests on the 2020 presidential election has been published in @polbehavior.bsky.social ! Joint work with my great friend and co-author @gmelios.bsky.social #Polisky #Econsky