Very happy to share that I am going to be the new Director of the Democracy unit at the @wzb.bsky.social Berlin Social Science Center. I am excited to form a new research unit on democratic politics and to engage with people in Berlin and elsewhere to make liberal democracy more resilient.

Meine Lesenotiz zu #Muskism Ich habe dem Buch und dem Konzept-Entwurf anfänglich viel abgewonnen - am Ende überwogen aber die Fragezeichen. Das liegt wohl aber auch einfach an dem erratischen Analysegegenstand

"Uncrewed Reaper drones were used to protect the crew member once he had been located, by “striking Iranian military-aged males believed to be a threat who got within three kilometers”" Sounds like even more US war crimes – murders – to me. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

I don't see this said enough: the widespread use of generative AI is not only making our jobs as educators harder logistically, but also emotionally. It is genuinely sad to be suspicious of students when you have spent so much time building a pedagogy based on trust and not being a cop. It sucks.

The first results of my research on rebel legitimacy in #Colombia are now available in the Journal of Peace Research. The link to the paper "It takes three to tango: contested authority, violence, and rebel legitimacy in Colombia" is in the first comment!

ayatollah is supposed to be an academic position and you can tell this is true because after an extensive search they went with an internal candidate

Widespread panic in #Beirut after Israel issues unprecedented evacuation order for southern suburbs. Traffic is choked, people rushing to leave & head north. Drones in the air. WhatsApp messages urging ppl to crack windows open to avoid shattering from expected blasts #lebanon

US used Anthropic’s AI tool Claude, along with Maven Smart, another AI system built by Palantir, to choose 100s of targets in the opening day of airstrikes against Iran Claude + Maven Smart were used to suggest "hundreds of targets, issue precise location coordinates, and prioritize" those targets

Here we go again www.bbc.com/news/live/cn...

Dear colleagues, If any of you know the members of the @europeanisa.bsky.social EISA Governing Board, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share this with them. There is a very unfair system in the application for mobility funds, and I believe it requires the attention of senior members.

My colleague @anavelasco.bsky.social raises an important issue, especially for doctoral scholars applying for mobility funds attend the conferences and workshops of @europeanisa.bsky.social. Hopefully, this will be taken up and triggers some debate and critical reflection on the matter!

Zotero 8 is out (www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-8/). If you're not already using, highly recommended!

📣 Are you an early- or mid-career scholar or practitioner passionate about #Democracy and the #RuleofLaw in #Europe? Apply now for the re:constitution Fellowship 2026/2027! @democracyreporting.bsky.social @stiftungmercator.bsky.social

Within the next decade the radical right is going to be the main force on the right in Europe (national and EU level). This includes far-right parties and formerly centre-right parties shifting their position. Moderate conservatism and Christian democracy will largely disappear on the right. 1/

It's officially publication day for our book, The Way Out. Sam and I have worked on this since we first put our heads together in 2019, and it's fair to say that the context shifted under our feet as we were writing and thinking. www.ucpress.edu/books/the-wa...

A good review of where we are as a discipline of conflict studies!

In the new @dissentmag.bsky.social issue, out today, @yguichaoua.bsky.social and I diagnose the crisis of conflict studies in a piece that is part intellectual history, part personal experience. What was conflict studies for? And what can its travails tell us about how wars have changed?

Join us next Monday for our hybrid event on the USA, Venezuela and the Politics of Force @interactfu.bsky.social. We look forward to discussing with @heikekrieger.bsky.social, @lyskulamadayil.bsky.social, Lora Viola and @lawaisbich.bsky.social! More info: www.interact.fu-berlin.de/en/News/conv...

BREAKING: Donald Trump, on his Truth Social account, claims that the US has captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as part of an operation that involved "large scale strikes" on Caracas

I'm not sure if people realize the murder strikes are taking place across a large region. It's quite staggering. www.newsweek.com/map-us-strik...

🚨 Call for Special Issue Papers for Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, please share widely! @ginavale.bsky.social and I are excited to announce the call for papers for our upcoming special issue on insurgent-run education. Proposal deadline is 8 January 2026, and full details are below👇🏼

📣 out now, with @argohdes.bsky.social and Mark Gibney - and in honour of the wonderful Steve Poe, who motivated the 1st edition with @universitypress.cambridge.org tinyurl.com/2s4kh6z3. If you enjoy reading this even a fraction as much as I enjoyed creating it, you’re in for a ride 🤩

Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”

Direct casualties in Gaza likely exceed 100,000. www.demogr.mpg.de/en/news_even...

Upcoming deadlines to apply to Syracuse U's great Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 2-week summer program! Fellowships available to cover the costs! Pls circulate widely! www.maxwell.syr.edu/research/cen...

⏰ Only 7️⃣ days left to apply for the #PreDoc and #PostDoc positions in the VARICRIS project❗ #PoliSky #PoliSkyJobs #polsci 🌐

„Die Begriffe „Krieg“ und „Genozid“ sollten nicht gegeneinander ausgespielt werden“ - @amenzel.bsky.social und ich haben als Friedens- und Konfliktforscherinnen ein Plädoyer für diskursive Mehrgleisigkeit geschrieben debatte.krisol-wissenschaft.org/die-begriffe...

Tobias Lenz & Fredrik Söderbaum's article in our latest issue demonstrates the significant changes in comparative realism over the past decade. It's free to read now! 📘 👉 buff.ly/XREtDrU

What a fantastic talk this morning by @enzonussio.bsky.social for our second seminar of the 2025-2026 Civil War Paths Seminar Series, discussing violence against ex-combatants in Colombia!

3 PhD scholarship in digital war studies, University of Edinburgh: edin.ac/4hVNTAL

🚨 Applications Now Open for the EUI PhD Programmes 2026-2027! 📊 Economics |⚖️ Law |📘 History | 🏛 Political and Social Sciences Join the EUI's 50th PhD cohort! Apply by 15 January 2026 (14:00 CET) for the academic journey of a lifetime! 👉: eui.eu/phd #EUIPhD #PhDOpportunity

That’s it from us. Happy weekend!

Sari Shrayteh‘s talk deals with predictions as part of popular culture in unstable situations, eg coffee readings, palmistry, or astrology in the news during wartime

The second panel today starts with @roykaradag.bsky.social on "Death by Historical Analogy: The Illegitimate Victimhood of Palestinians in Germany" #RethinkingViolenceDVPW

We start our workshop with the first panel on “Legacies of war and Violence“ with Jan Busse, recounting the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict as a history of political violence

Next is Wolfgang Minatti, with a presentation on legitimacy through violence, drawing on fieldwork in Colombia

Now, @amenzel.bsky.social is offering comments, encouraging as to go back to the “classics“, linking the presentations with work by Ferguson and Kalyvas, and bring out clearer the questions and puzzles that we seek to address in our research. Whom are we writing for? Whom are we writing against?

We are hiring a PhD student to join us at the @hertiesecurity.bsky.social (start Sept. 2026)! If you want to conduct research on topics related to digital authoritarianism, state repression, contentious politics or social movements online, then this job might be for you!

📢 Exciting news from EAFIT University in Medellín 🇨🇴! The Politics and Development Area of the School of Finance, Economics, and Government is opening 3️⃣ tenure-track positions to join our interdisciplinary School. 👇 More details in the next posts.

Imitating the results of human creative labour while blackboxing the processes behind (which largely consist of acts of appropriation, extraction, exploitation & waste of energy) is what genAI is all about. Presenting it is a neutral guide means depoliticizing a highly political technology 7/

@ckreudersonnen.bsky.social and I are happy to announce two open research positions in our joint DFG-funded project VARICRIS (👉 bit.ly/varicris). We are recruiting a #PostDoc and a #PhD candidate 🧵: #PoliSky #PoliSkyJobs #polsci 🌐

⏳ Excited to share my new piece, published in @millennjournal.bsky.social! I explore how imagined futures of emergent and disruptive tech loop back to shape present-day politics of war - and how the early history of military ballooning (1783-1907) shows us this recursive logic at work.

NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites The style is now unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war

I had the privilege this week of being awarded the title of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences from the @eui-eu.bsky.social after successfully defending my thesis on the EU sanctions policy.

🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 big congratulations Dr. Lepeu 🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾🍾

So wichtig wie #openaccess ist, so schön ist der Tag, an dem das Buch dann gedruckt vor einem liegt. 😀 "Österreichs #Neutralität" ist nun auch über den Buchhandel oder den Verlag (www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7...) erhältlich (EUR 50,00). Zur PDF-Version geht es hier: www.neutralitaet.info

Ein paar Zeilen (naja: 🧵, 16) zu den aktuell diskutierten #Abschiebungen nach #Syrien, die Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention - #EMRK und den Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte - #EGMR, der über die Einhaltung der EMRK zu wachen hat. Und warum #Karner grade einen Fehler macht: 🧵

📢New #PAG21 Notes from the Field 📝 In their Notes from the Field "Writing Brave Women," @jzulver.bsky.social & @kiranstallone.bsky.social reflect on the process of writing their upcoming book written about and with feminist activists from around the world. 🌟#OpenAccess🌟 gendersky buff.ly/NGzPIo1