New Article Alert! “If You Build It, They Will Come.” Infrastructure, Hegemonic Transition, and Peaceful Change, with Simon Curtis is out in @gsqjournal.bsky.social. Thanks to the team there for a really smooth review process. doi.org/10.1093/isag... (1/)

New piece out! Thread coming on it soon (with added Costner references), but if you can’t wait, click away, it’s open access!

The thing about Europe's challenges is that, despite Russian aggression, US abandonment, rise of radical right, it looks increasingly attractive in comparison to totalitarianism in China, bankrupt authoritarianism in Russia, and nakedly corrupt oligarchy in the US. Come along and join the debate!

This ‘agreement’ is less substantive than almost any international accord I’ve ever read. There’s almost nothing in it that constitutes a commitment by either party. on.ft.com/4ihKjzH US-Ukraine minerals deal: the full text

We are pleased to confirm our keynote speakers for the Challenges to Europe-European Challenges Conference: @exadaktylos.bsky.social and @nickkitchen.bsky.social Meanwhile, if you are interested in presenting, abstract submission is open until 20th Jan! More updates to come!📬

[email protected] given the reports of utd being prepared to sell mainoo for PSR reasons, is there a case for making homegrown first team player wages deductible for PSR? How much impact would that have on FFP at Mainoo levels? Or Rashford? @nqatpod.bsky.social

Another great piece from @jburnmurdoch.bsky.social on "Inequality hasn’t risen. Here’s why it feels like it has" www.ft.com/content/b325...

I read right through, and though I initially went ‘Stephen, what are you doing?’ I didn’t feel the need to do anything other than go, hey, this is fun, Bluesky. Love Jurassic Park, love all its silliness.

Roll up! Great opportunity to present work on all things Europe - from populist politics to the Western alliance. I'll be giving a keynote entitled 'Sleeping with a stricken elephant' but don't let that particular imagery put you off - get your abstracts in!

It was MOOCs 15 years ago. Now, it's AI. Wonder what silver bullet the higher-ed consultants and tech set will offer next that will simultaneously lower standards for students and increase workloads for instructors.

How utterly ridiculous. There’s upholding standards in public life, and god knows they’ve been poor over the past few years. but having to resign for a spent conviction, already disclosed to your boss when he appointed you, is absurd. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Very good 😂 But also, check out how much regular inflation expectations have changed.

It would be much more helpful to most readers if we just said ‘purged’.

New data on farms and inheritance tax: a third of farm estates over £1.5m aren’t farmers but wealthy people avoiding IHT by sinking money into farmland. The Budget hits farmers too hard and tax avoiders too lightly. It needs to change.

Putin has staged another performance concerning the "missile": kremlin.ru/events/presi.... He bragged about the specs and promised to start serial production. A master bullshi**er, he delights in intimidation. You can tell from his demeanor here that he thinks his tactic has worked.

Amorin’s physical performance coach has a PhD in hamstring injury prevention. Good news for Mason Mount? Not so fast: sadly, Paulo Barreira’s research failed to identify significant differences between study and control groups @nqatpod.bsky.social researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/57...

IR is the child of the science of imperial management: Foreign Affairs started life as the journal of race development, and it remains focused on imperial powers, with ‘development’ - the white man’s civilising burden - hived off to a strange coterie of enabling post-anti-imperialists 🤷‍♂️

Rivals reminds me of the only fallback idea I ever had if academia didn’t work out: a jodhpur-based posh porn site called the horsebox. What? You’re all watching it already.

I set this up a while back, but the most recent exodus prompted me to re-share. If you want to be added, let me know.