It's hard to overstate the amount of work the Southampton team put into this, or what a gift this dataset is to those interested in UK public opinion. Also, this project taught our team a LOT about the historical irregularities in the archive. I so appreciate Will's patience as we learned.

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

Oh wow, absolute power corrupted you absolutely? That’s so weird, I got absolute power last year and my subjects say I’ve only gotten wiser and more virtuous

I've been pondering this all day. One minor concern in the grand scheme of things: it feels like a death knell for US-based academic conferences. Can't imagine people are going to happily ungate their children's social media and get their irises scanned for the pleasure of attending #APSA.

It's not just social media. Looks like visitors to the US from Europe and other countries that are part of the visa waiver program will have to submit an enormous amount of data about themselves and their families, including DNA, if proposed new rules are accepted

NEW from me - NSF cancels grant scheme for social science research. Seems the NSF quietly archived ALL calls for DDRIG grants in the SBE directorate. This is a massive blow for PhD students wanting to do cutting-edge social science research. 🏺🧪

Based on our new PPRNet research briefs @tabouchadi.bsky.social, @siljahausermann.bsky.social, and I argue in The Guardian that building alone won't solve the housing crisis. Housing is fundamentally redistributive, and progressive policy must treat it as such. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Some of us have been advocating this going back since chatGPT launched. It also has other benefits: correcting someone else's work is actually a really good way to learn something yourself.

Underappreciated lesson from 2016: most fake news was run for profit (not ideology) & right-wing fake news thrived because it sold better than left-wing fake news. X takes that to next level with a social media platform designed for right-wing users, intentionally incentivizing right-wing fake news.

Great new research by @simonotjes.bsky.social Joes de Nastris & Marijn Nagtzaam The local level offers so many opportunities to test our (usually) national level-based theories. And there is soooo much data! 😍 doi.org/10.1177/1354...

TRUMP [after spending 5 minutes with Zohran]: surplus value, it’s a very wonderful thing, very wonderful, and they’re stealing it. Can you believe that? We’re going to be looking very strongly at the bourgeoisie, what they’re up to

I would not have known that my books are in the database if I hadn't seen this post. If you're a writer check yours!

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

2/🧵 New piece with @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social in @NewRepublic: We analyzed 60,000+ respondents in the 2024 Cooperative Election Study. Gen Z has the lowest racial resentment of any generation. The generational shift overwhelms the education divide that supposedly defines modern politics.

Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. " www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...

Why do parties do what they do? Excited to share my 2nd dissertation paper, just published in @jeppjournal.bsky.social In the paper, I argue that parties seek internal unity and try to keep the team together: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/11 🧵

I am taking particular pleasure in the complete collapse of trans-as-unbeatable-wedge-issue narrative this morning. It might be an 80-20 issue in voters minds, but it has to be on voters minds to matter. The results in VA demonstrate that it is very much not on voters minds.

I knew it would take less than a day for a tiktok dj to make something.

Our recent paper on civil society and cleavage formation (w @eborbath.bsky.social & @swenhutter.bsky.social) was featured in the Research-in-Brief series at @stanfordcddrl.bsky.social. Check out their summary of the project here 😊 cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/news/civil-s...

For over 5 years I've been working in fits and starts on a massive, unwieldy data digitization project, organizing and OCRing over 15k pages of microfilmed British candidate speeches from the interwar period with limited time & money but at last the finish line is in sight and it feels amaaaazing!!

Paths to Power (PtP) is out in @bjpols.bsky.social! It is a database with data on cabinet members' social profile globally from 1966-2021. This is a great team effort with @chknutsen.bsky.social, @peterla.bsky.social, @inalkristiansen.bsky.social. But many more helped us along the way 🙏 A short 🧵

hello from Nashville, where I am very deep into my crafting/diy era

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...

Thank you so much to @davidattewell6.bsky.social and @dpzollinger.bsky.social for their fantastic stewardship of this great special issue; their introduction here is an excellent read on contemporary puzzles of cleavage formation, highly recommend!

2/@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I set out 3 puzzles: How does a new cleavage work without strong intermediary orgs? How to reconcile cleavage theory w fragmented party systems? How are structural divides (e.g. ed) mobilized indirectly in political conflict today? www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

6/ @mierkezat.bsky.social, @eborbath.bsky.social, and @swenhutter.bsky.social argue that civil society still shapes contemporary cleavage formation, but with a more varied, volatile, and external pressure-based orientation to parties than the membership orgs of old. bsky.app/profile/mier...

@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social! Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan: 🧵⬇️

Getting organized for the 2026 CES conference (deadline fast approaching); if you have a paper you're planning to present that is either on 1.) group appeals, or 2.) contemporary sources of social closure, lmk and we can see whether there's enough overlap for a shared panel submission! #polisky

This. No TT/non-TT/VAP job will be offered to an int'l candidate, since it requires an H1-B until the green card is issued. This process takes at least a couple of years.

Taking a closer look at @mierkezat.bsky.social @swenhutter.bsky.social & @eborbath.bsky.social's paper on cleavage formation and civil society and cannot recommend it highly enough! Really insightful theorizing, e.g. on changes in the form of civil society and its effect on group-party linkages:

Here are some #APSA panels that explore the relationship between parties, CSOs, and democracy *in European Politics* featuring papers by brilliant jr women; @francescayton.bsky.social @maajanmor.bsky.social and what are sure to be sharp comments from uber smart and sharp @mierkezat.bsky.social!

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.

💥 Online first in West European Politics: "Cleavage theory meets civil society: a framework and research agenda" by @mierkezat.bsky.social @eborbath.bsky.social & @swenhutter.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Quite on the nose; from A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

New Working Paper! Why do policies that reinforce unequal opportunities persist? Some blame elites. I argue less secure families defend these "boundaries" against reform and call this "boundary defense". I test this on a 2010 referendum against school reform in Hamburg. Link: osf.io/preprints/soc...

Another fantastic piece out in our "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" special issue! (co-edited with @davidattewell6.bsky.social ) @mierkezat.bsky.social et al investigate the role of civil society in contemporary cleavage formation.  There are a few more SI contributions still to come!

Ever asked yourself how to detect and extract social groups from texts with computational social science? @haukelicht.bsky.social and me have a solution for you out at @bjpols.bsky.social. You can also find the pre-trained models on huggingface!

📢 Call for papers: "Political Identities in Europe" workshop, Nov 13-14, 2025 @uvahumanities.bsky.social @theresakuhn.bsky.social How are political identities constructed across Europe? Deadline: Sept 26, 2025. 🔗 Info & submission: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Interesting new article that fits nicely within "The Building Blocs" research agenda (t.ly/us7kj), which we recently contributed to: t.ly/Dg6zK We, as scholars of Europe, can learn from scholars of MENA, SE Asia, etc, who have long emphasized the role of civil society for party competition.

Highly recommend giving it a read! What a fun and insightful writing journey. Also, I’m new here on Bluesky, excited to connect!

🔔 Very happy to see our paper published open access on cleavage theory and civil society! 📖 We have tried to sketch a new research agenda, that I think has a lot of potential. I very much enjoyed working on this! Check Alex's thread below 👇 & read the paper: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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....

Vicente Valentim Receives the 2025 Robert A. Dahl Award for “The Normalization of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand” The Robert A. Dahl Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor an untenured scholar who has produced…

This from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social hit me over the head like a mallet of truth. This is the thing. This is what I’ve been trying to warn people about perfectly crystallized. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/o...

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.

Trying to put together a list of restaurant & bar recs for friends coming to Vancouver (my hometown) for #APSA2025 has evolved into a ... slightly different project #polisky

The European Political Science Society is now accepting paper & panel proposals for its annual conference! 📢 Call for Papers: EPSS 2026 – Belfast
 🗓️ June 18–20, 2026
 📍 ICC Belfast
 📬 Deadline: Nov 7, 2025 🧵