Yes. But also, Orbán was in power for 14 years until finally a successful challenger emerged and Orbán's popularity drastically declined. So the interesting question to ask is: Why now? And why was Magyar so much more successful in his anti-corruption messaging than others before him?

New article out today in @iojournal.bsky.social that tackles a pressing question: As the US retreats from democracy promotion, will autocracies abandon liberal norms and return to overt repression? Our @danieladonno.bsky.social Jon Pevehouse and @cjschneider.bsky.social answer: not so fast.🧵1/

Student journalists getting the job done!

If AI pushes the field away from low-quality samples, that’s a win for science (2/2)

Did you know that you can generate your own personal dataset by downloading individual variables through Demscore? Here are the top 5 downloaded variables in the last 30 days: @qoginstitute.bsky.social @vdeminstitute.bsky.social @repdem-org.bsky.social @ucdp.bsky.social @viewsforecasting.org 🧵1(3)

Turkey, 26.10-06.11.25

while turning a blind eye to his assault on Turkish democracy— has only emboldened his crackdown on opponents at home. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/o...

New article out on the relationship between different dimensions of state capacity and modes of democratic breakdown.

My response to the NYT’s “moderate to win” argument: The data shows the strategy is tapped out. Being seen as moderate by voters doesn’t boost votes, replacing every progressive with moderates would net 0 seats, and the graveyard of defeated D incumbents if full of moderates, not progressives.

We are hiring PhDs and postdocs to work on the ERC project GETGOV, where I am the PI. We will investigate governing elites since 1789. I am sure that it will be a lot of fun and result in great research! Postdocs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... PhDs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Faroe Islands, late September 2025

@penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social advertises the new book by Yascha Mounk as explaining “why the noble goals of identity politics are doomed to fail.” In Russia, a slight twist: some passages had to be censored because LGBTQ+ is deemed “extremist” en.zona.media/article/2025...

I'm thrilled to announce my first publication, as well as my first APSR and RCT paper. I am thankful to everyone who contributed to improving this project. 🙏🙏

New WP! We find: Overall male and female cabinet members have the same backgrounds, but women in high ranking positions, and women in contexts with few women in politics have backgrounds that align more with the archetypal politician. With @jacobnyrup.bsky.social tinyurl.com/s4hy3htk

Check out my new piece on Moldovan 🇲🇩 elections with @grigopop.bsky.social

I visited the apartment building ICE raided on Tuesday today. Story to come, but you can walk right in. Half of the apartments have no doors on them. Children's stuff abandoned in some flats. *Citizen* residents told me they were arrested and held for hours in zipties. This is America

Klart for Sampolkonferansen 2025 og geopolitisk spenning i en usikker tid. Organisert av våre dyktige masterstudenter 🙌 Konferansen fyller 40 år i år! Slik bygges akademiske tradisjoner og positivt omdømme 👏👏👏

🚨 New Bright Line Watch report on state of US democracy brightlinewatch.org/violence-red... -Expert ratings ~= since April but ↓ substantially since January -US now most closely resembles an illiberal democracy -Partisan gap in democracy ratings highest since 2017 Full thread of results below

Moldovan voters have given the pro-EU PAS (of President Maia Sandu) a narrow but clear parliamentary majority, despite Russia hybrid warfare tactics. Let's hope that the planned opposition protests are not a foil for even more aggressive Russian tactics.

Przeworski says it cleanly, clearly, and convincingly. What then must we do? www.dissentmagazine.org/article/how-...

CALL FOR PROPOSALS | Open Worldwide 🌍 9th Annual GLD Conference 📍 Aspenäs Herrgård, Gothenburg, Sweden 📅 June 10-12, 2026 🎯 Theme: "Participation and Decision-Making: Studies on Citizen Engagement and Mobilization in Local Governance" Apply Here: bit.ly/4gxyjdO

Important section of the latest CPCS, dedicated to the challenges of “emergency response research” by Ukrainian and Polish researchers following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

I push back against doomsaying and defeatism because, first, it’s misleadingly false, and second, the false belief makes it more likely to come true. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to worry about. It means don’t deny successful societal resistance and grant him power he doesn’t have.

Now with comments... Lots of comments (A long thread) 1/n

My department @uwmadison.bsky.social is hiring an assistant professor with expertise in environmental politics. Send us your application. jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/assista...

I'm looking for some good example articles that sort of announce or release datasets. Specifically this in the area of comparative politics. Any suggestions?

You can find the report here: interactive.idea.int/gsod-2025 I'd be glad to hear what you think about it.

As you've likely heard, today is the International Day of Democracy. A good day to read a report about the Global State of Democracy? I know that can seem like a herculean labour one would rather walk past.

New paper with Anders Sundell published in West European Politics: Ideological bias in policy implementation: public opinion and policy outcomes in 43 democracies www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

OK Sunday 8 am is not the best panel time. I get it. BUT tomorrow I'm presenting idealstan alongside 3 other banger papers on ideal points & measurement modeling. You want to know the latest & greatest in quantitative measurement, this is it. West 120 @ 8 am 🫡 #apsa2025

The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.

For those who still follow the debate. #vdem

📊 New dataset and paper alert! We’re proud to launch the Opposition Movements and Groups (OMG) Dataset, 1789–2019: a global dataset covering 1,452 mass mobilization movements. It was just published in Comparative Political Studies. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Below follows a 🧵

🏛️ Today is the last day of #ecprgc25 in Thessaloniki, and your last chance to come by the #DEMSCORE booth in the Exhibition area of the Law Building. If you do, you could f ex find out more about a useful DEMSCORE #DataHack👇 #Polisky #PoliSciSky #SocialScience #CompSocialScience @ecpr.bsky.social

❓Are expert’s pessimism about global democracy affecting their coding of democracy locally, and thus greatly inflating estimates of global democratic backsliding? Find out in the new V-Dem Working Paper: v-dem.net/media/public... ❗Spoiler alert for 🎞️ and 🧵 1(6) #PoliSciSky #Polisky #ExpertCoding

Download “Global Trends and Expert Perceptions: Pessimism and the Assessment of Democratic Backsliding”: v-dem.net/media/public... By @kailmarkvart.bsky.social, @danpemstein.com , Brigitte Seim, John Gerring, @chknutsen.bsky.social, and Yunus Orhan #Democracy #ExpertCodedData #DemocracyData 6(6)

tl;dr Although there is a relationship between perceptions of global democracy trends and perceptions of local democracy, there is little evidence that this relationship is causal or that it meaningfully drives expert coding behavior. 17/17

Excited to introduce a new working paper with @danpemstein.com, @chknutsen.bsky.social and other colleagues not on Bluesky! We use experimental and observational data to investigate the degree to which general biases affect expert perceptions of specific cases. 🧵 1/17 v-dem.net/media/public...

I have worried a bit about how reports on the state of democracy that are (1) based on data from expert surveys that may then (2) be read by the coders, could create a feedback loop that would bias future measures. Good to see some empirical tests of this, and that it's not a problem for V-Dem.

Excited to introduce a new working paper with @danpemstein.com, @chknutsen.bsky.social and other colleagues not on Bluesky! We use experimental and observational data to investigate the degree to which general biases affect expert perceptions of specific cases. 🧵 1/17 v-dem.net/media/public...

This week #DEMSCORE is at the #ECPR General Conference 2025, at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The DEMSCORE team will be available throughout the conference at our booth in the Exhibition area of the Law Building. A virtual booth is accessible via the event app: ecpr.eu/app #ecprgc25 #PoliSky

🏆We are happy to announce that #DEMSCORE has received the 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆 & 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗰𝘆 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 Award, in the framework of Acquisition International’s Non-Profit Organisation Award 2025🎉 #SocialScienceData #SocialScience #PolDataSky #PoliSkyData #PoliSciSky #PoliSky #AcademicSky 1(3)

This August marks five years since the Kushtau protests in Bashkortostan, one of the few successful grassroots protests in Russia’s modern history. In the final chapter of MT's series on the protests, we explore how the protests unfolded — and their legacy:

We are looking for 1–2 postdoctoral researchers to join the project “Political Violence in Democracies”, led by @hannefjelde.bsky.social 📌 Full-time, 2-year postdoctoral position 📆 Start Date: Dec 1, (or by agreement) 📍 Location: Uppsala ⏳ Apply by: Oct 1 Read more: www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Now with page numbers! Really happy to already see excellent work applying these findings to similar projects regarding LLMs. For example: doi.org/10.1017/S104...

Thanks for the endorsement, @kailmarkvart.bsky.social! This work was only possible because there's a large coding project with full transparency in its procedures and data, and with unrestricted access. Kudos (again) to the @vdeminstitute.bsky.social for providing this huge public good.

"Negotiations w/ Moscow have been led by real estate developer Steve Witkoff, a foreign policy neophyte, while career experts have been sidelined, maligned & forced out of their jobs." “It’s safe to say that Trump does not have a single policymaking person who knows Russia & Ukraine advising him..”

State Dept’s HR reports finally dropped yesterday. Lost of important sections are gone: election misconduct, corruption, LGBT & women’s rights. Freedom of assembly is gone! For those following the TNR space, that section remains but reports mention only a handful of cases, omitting key incidents.

My team at the Crowd Counting Consortium (@djpressman.bsky.social, Soha Hammam, & Chris Shay) has finalized our participation estimates for No Kings Day on 6/14. Here are five key takeaways🧵:

Now with page numbers! Really happy to already see excellent work applying these findings to similar projects regarding LLMs. For example: doi.org/10.1017/S104...