Dear hive: Does anyone have an idea on how to recruit *production workers in the Netherlands* for a qualitative study? Asking for a PhD colleague. Slim chance, but all hints would be welcome. Feel free to share as well! Thanks!

Anti-immigration demonstration in the Netherlands escalates. This is exactly what happens when far-right ideas are tolerated and normalised over an extended period of time. The far right gains confidence and grows, both at the ballot box and in the streets. nos.nl/artikel/2583...

The Federal Council wants to cut costs in the ERI sector despite widespread objections. Cuts of over 10 percent per year are planned for the SNSF over the next few years. Above all, this plan jeopardises the innovation potential and competitiveness of the Swiss economy. ⤵️ www.snf.ch/en/9a7Fhnojt...

🚨📢 I am hiring a PhD candidate /research assistant in Swiss Politics and/or Comparative Politics (100%)! 🚨📢 Je recrute un·e assistant·e diplômé·e en science politique en politique suisse et comparée! Please join me @unil.bsky.social, Switzerland! Thanks for sharing! polisky @sspunil.bsky.social

📢 The Federal Council plans to reduce the SNSF's budget by 270 million Swiss francs. The SNSF rejects these cuts. However, in order to be prepared, it has decided to cut costs in consultation with all partners. ➡️https://sohub.io/n2b1 #research #science #CHParl

AHHHHHHHHHH 🫠🫠🫠🫠

I cannot think of a democracy anywhere in the world where this sort of thing could happen. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/b...

The hardest part of academic writing is remembering which synonym for important you haven’t used yet

Mehr Sozialstaat und eine "antifaschistische Wirtschaftspolitik" werden häufig als Mittel gegen den AfD-Erfolg genannt. Doch was ist dran an der These & welche Sozialpolitik wünschen sich die AfD-Wähler tatsächlich? Eine Datenanalyse von @schieritz.bsky.social und mir. www.zeit.de/politik/deut...

Charlie Kirk war nicht "konservativ" oder "rechts-konservativ". Charlie Kirk war ein rechtsextremer Rassist, Sexist und Faschist. Jemand mit Einstellungen, die Teile der AfD moderat erscheinen lassen. Man muss sein politisches Projekt nicht beschönigen, um seine Ermordung zu verurteilen.

🚨 Important paper in Nature: "Systematic attribution of heatwaves to the emissions of carbon majors". www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨📢 We’re hiring a Postdoc in Computational Political Science at the University of Antwerp! 💻 Focus: NLP + ML + political text analysis 🗳️ Project: ERC DEMO-LIES (disinformation in democracies) 🌍 Location: Antwerp, 🇧🇪 📅 Deadline: 16 Oct 2025 www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vaca...

Political science trivia nerd fact:

Another European election, another likely record result for a far-right party: Norwegian parliamentary elections show small gains for the social democrats (Ap) and (if the numbers hold as counting goes on) the historically best ever result for the far-right FrP.

The University of Cologne plans drastic cuts to its Political Science department, potentially abolishing the MSc in Political Science and eliminating the professorships in IR and Comparative Politics. This would severely weaken the social sciences at @unicologne.bsky.social. Petition (de/en) ⤵️

In fact, nothing helps you detect the Swiss language border (the infamous 'Röstigraben') more accurately than maps of direct democratic votes, particularly those relating to health policies, European integration or pensions:

Norway, Respons Analyse poll: Ap-S&D: 30% (+3) FrP~ECR: 19% (-1) H-EPP: 15% R~LEFT: 6% (-1) Sp~RE: 6% (+1) SV~LEFT: 6% MDG-G/EFA: 6% (-1) KrF-EPP: 5% V-RE: 5% +/- vs. 27 August - 01 September 2025 Fieldwork: 06 September 2025 Sample size: 1,001 ➤ europeelects.eu/norway

bsky.app/profile/turn... Another piece of evidence from a great group of scholars showing that social democrats lose electorally when accommodating the far-right - so the questions remain:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Margalit & Solodoch (2025): "In other words, the asymmetric electoral impact of crises stems in part from the fact that the far-right is able to keep votes of disaffected center-right supporters within the right-wing bloc, rather than switching to the left."

Hier 'ne Studie: Sozialdemokratische Wähler wählen sozialdemokratische Parteien, wenn sie Sozialdemokratische Politik machen (okay etwas flapsig formuliert aber ja) muse.jhu.edu/article/964462

At this point, I really wonder why these things are happening over and over again: Do social democrats not see this? Do they not want to see this? Do they not care? Are they convinced it is different in their specific country/context?

Oh look, Labour has spent months targeting the wrong voters.

The actual truth: Wenig hat der Demokratie in den letzten Jahren so geschadet wie die ständige Verharmlosung der extremen Rechten durch selbsternannte "liberale" oder "konservative" Akteure und die komplett absurde Hufeisen-Gleichstellung von radikal-rechten mit links-progressiven Kräften.

I’m very excited to share that my paper “Cleavage theory meets civil society: A framework and research agenda” with @eborbath.bsky.social & Swen Hutter has now been published online in ‪@wepsocial.bsky.social‬ (w/ open access funding thanks to @wzb.bsky.social‬!) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New article out! @luke-shuttleworth.bsky.social, @k8ebrown.bsky.social & I teamed up to explore whether the concept of 'cordon sanitaire' remains useful in the current stage of mainstreaming of far right politics Read the full article, open access, here 1/ www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Do men see gender parity in representation as detrimental to their interests? What about when women’s representation exceeds parity? And how do such shifts affect men’s fairness perceptions? I address these questions in my article, now published in PRQ. 1/9 
doi.org/10.1177/1065...

The murder of America's world-best higher education sector--a leading export good of the US economy--continues under this lawless autocratic regime, and gets worse

EPSA have announced that they will hold a conference in July 2026. 😵‍💫 We understand that there might be some confusion about EPSS and EPSA. 👉🏽 So we thought we would clarify some things. A short 🧵

Please share this thread. It is important that political scientists, in Europe and across the world, understand why EPSS exists and why we are encouraging people to attend our inaugural conference, in Belfast next June.

New publication in @wepsocial.bsky.social! Are young men becoming more conservative? This debate requires a) more nuance and b) theoretical explanations for often descriptive results. With Amy Alexander and Nicholas Charron, we try addressing both. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Feels like a good time to share this call for papers. Can't wait for EPSS 2026!

So happy to see this out! We have data on 5,000+ voters and 26,000 candidates exploring the effects of sexism across 4 countries 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇧🇦🇺 TLDR: gendered patterns of political competition strongly shape success rates of women candidates. Sexism may lead to voter abstention in the US. More in the paper!

I am looking for a PhD student in Comparative Politics @powimz.bsky.social. My research focuses on political (in-)equality, representation, and responsiveness. I would be grateful if you could help to spread the word. stellenboerse.uni-mainz.de#/jgu/job/49637

Die #Mitgliederzahlen der Parteien Ende 2024 (und die Entwicklung zum Vorjahr) aus der jährlichen Studie von Oskar Niedermayer. Die Entwicklung in früheren Jahren: bsky.app/profile/wahl...

Similar patterns are visible for other attitudes related to social liberalism, gender equality, and multiculturalism. People often tend to neglect/forget that European societies have become much more progressive over the past decades, largely, but not only, due to generational replacement.

Homophobic attitudes have fallen in Western Europe and the United States

Now in an issue @psrm.bsky.social: I show that the 🇩🇰 Social Democrats could have won policy support for a pro-immigrant platform if their messaging were framed in moral terms. Findings provide a central corrective to the popular notion that the Social Democrats were destined to go anti-immigrant 👇🏻

Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump. Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt. Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:

Selten ist die aussenpolitische Naivität und der europapolitische Irrweg der Schweiz so dermassen eklatant sichtbar geworden wie heute. Dass das Ganze am Nationalfeiertag der Schweiz passiert, ist dabei die Pointe.

Academics (including the journal’s founder) told Wiley to pound sand, started an open access journal, and Wiley just surrendered. I think more academics should tell academic publishers to pound sand. They are vampires.

A new great paper coming to important conclusions:

We find support for the second hypothesis: Progressive left voters are more concerned about all types of inequality than conservative center right and especially far right constituencies. 4/n

🚀 Wir suchen Verstärkung 🚀 🧑‍💻 Projektmanager*in (m/w/d), 🕛 32-40 Std./Woche, 📍 Berlin (remote möglich), 📅 Start: sofort, ⌛ ohne Bewerbungsfrist. Alle Informationen zum Bewerbungsprozess: Link in den Kommentaren. 🔗 Jetzt bewerben und Teil des Teams werden. 🤝 (1/2)

My department at Leuphana University offers 6 fully funded PhD scholarships (incl. research funding) for three years. If you are interested in studying democratic resilience (particularly party competition and elections 🤓) and you have a strong methodolgical background: Apply! shorturl.at/kcTbG

Tausende tote Kinder, massenhafte Aushungerung und großräumige Zerstörung: Israels Krieg in Gaza droht, das Völkerrecht zu entkernen. Die Bundesregierung macht sich mitschuldig.

In Kandergrund, Switzerland, a Lynx has attacked and killed many sheep. In this municipality, the far-right SVP got 64% in the last federal elections. Coincidence? Let's wait what political science will tell you soon...

🚨BREAKING: The last journalists working for AFP in Gaza have said they can no longer work for the news agency. They are out of energy and they are starving to death. I have never seen a statement from a news organisation like it. 🧵

Two recently published studies show that individuals who studied humanities or art subjects are more socially liberal than those with degrees in other fields. 1) @maureeneger.bsky.social, @heypaolo.bsky.social &Mikael Hjerm (2025) in @bjsociology.bsky.social: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Far-right parties are doing well – so it’s important that we see them for what they are. Yet, in the UK, the label ‘hard right’ is catching on. Why is debateable. But, argues, @timbale.bsky.social, this misdescription sanitises far-right parties, and we should push back against it bit.ly/4eLRBeC