For anyone trying to make sense of the attempted erosion of democracy in the USA, this paper offers a very interesting, historically-derived framework: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I think I speak for most of Northern Europe when I scream "I CAN'T BLOODY WAIT FOR WINTER TO END!!!!!!!" 🥶🥶🌧️😬

I have a new article just published in Political Studies: What is Centrism? Open access here: doi.org/10.1177/0032...

Quite aside the shocking moral disregard for women's lives, the report cited here v dramatically underestimates the economic contribution of women's unpaid labour, leading to a deeply fallacious conclusion about women's monetary value. It's what happens when men make decisions without women present

Netflix is suggesting I want to watch "Witty Mid-Life-Crisis Comedy Series" 🤨

📣 Out on #FirstView 📣 In "Complex, Conditional, and Contested", @rainbowmurray.bsky.social analyzes representative claims to explore the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation of women in France 🇫🇷 🌟 Available #OpenAccess 🌟 buff.ly/oWpVWw6

Behold: a genuinely useful flowchart #AcademicChatter

📢 New publication! www.cambridge.org/core/journal... In this article, just published in @politicsgenderj.bsky.social, I look at representative claims made on behalf of women in French parliamentary debates. 1/

BTW, any UK outlets that want a British based Chilean (party and electoral) politics expert, need look no further than our fab @qmulsse.bsky.social colleague @sajuria.com

Re-reading @colmpm.bsky.social’s marvellous “Futures of Socialism”. A very different experience to reading the proof in 2023 and having a horrible feeling of dread, as opposed to now where you go “well, yeah, my worst fears have been realised and exceeded”.

If you are interested in Dutch politics and/or the rise of the far-right in politics then you should follow @stijntvankessel.bsky.social because he really knows what he's talking about AND he has great plants

"‘Whatever It Takes?’ The Policy Implications of Supporting Ukraine". What does supporting Ukraine mean in practice? What are the implications for national security, tax policy, EU relations, energy security & more? 28 Oct 12:00 at @mileendinstitute.bsky.social. us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The co-optation of the themes of the far-right by mainstream parties, in the Netherlands as elsewhere, only serves to normalise the far-right's agenda and strengthen far-right parties electorally. You cannot defeat the far-right by becoming more like them.

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. @rainbowmurray.bsky.social and Nik Gowing on the day's stuff, plus regular panellist Julie Norman on the new book she has co-written on Gaza. monocle.com/radio/shows/...

Great to speak to @greenmirandahere.bsky.social for today's FT Inside Politics about the latest finding from our politics of (im)patience project, w/ @karlpike.bsky.social and @philipjcowley.bsky.social. www.ft.com/content/e984...

If you think this proposed organisational model will work (or, indeed, last very long in reality rather than appearance), then you might want to google 'Robert Michels and "iron law of oligarchy"'.

There's a French saying that perfectly captures this week in French politics: "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" (the more things change, the more they stay the same). On Sunday night, PM Lecornu appointed a government that was almost identical to the govt that had fallen weeks earlier 1/

I'll be on @france24.com (in English) at 21h30 UK time to laugh hysterically at the fact that, after nearly five days of deliberations, false promises and calls for compromise, Macron has nominated as the new French PM... the same guy who resigned on Monday 🤣🤣😦

Last night, France's new prime minister, Sebatien Lecornu, announced his new govt, with a line-up v similar to the preceding govts. Other parties protested. This morning Lecornu resigned. He'd only been in office a few weeks, France's 5th PM in <2 yrs. No side has a majority & no-one will compromise

My contribution to this issue calls for Labour to counter the growing illiberalism in British politics.

For the Guardian, @turnbulldugarte.com and I discuss our research that clearly shows one thing: Labour's anti-immigration strategy will only strengthen Reform and weaken its own electoral prospects. It won't win voters back but ultimately normalizes the far right www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Keir Starmer writes in the Telegraph (where else!?) that Labour “did shy away from people’s concerns around illegal immigration.” Perhaps I was living in a parallel universe when I wrote this for @politicalquarterly.bsky.social in 2014? (Free to read version here: qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/bitstr...)

I just do not understand in what world a Labour advisor is suggesting it would be a good idea to write in the Telegraph. Even if you buy that they need the 'hero' voters and to win them from Reform they are not the type of Reform voter reading the Telegraph.

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. @rainbowmurray.bsky.social and @elisabethbraw.bsky.social on the day's big stories, a report from a cheese festival in Italy, and an excerpt from Monocle's recent interview with Kongjian Yu, who died yesterday, aged 62. monocle.com/radio/shows/...

Me when I get a string of notifications about all the great work that my peers have just published 👍👏😃🎉😔

I'm looking for someone UK-based with web-scraping skills who can scrape a substantial amount of data for me from the French parliamentary website in exchange for a fixed (negotiable) one-off fee.  French language skills are not essential as full instructions will be provided. 1/2

I've never been more grateful not to be the monarch. Poor dude really taking one for the team for the next 48 hours #StateVisit

"I'm not a racist. I just hate foreigners, ethnic minorities, people of other faiths and anyone who doesn't look like me. That doesn't make me a racist, it makes me a patriot!" 🙄

My child - who was born after CDs became effectively obsolete - wants me to buy this: storeuk.taylorswift.com/products/the... I struggled to understand why someone who has never seen a CD player would want a CD. "To support the artist & get the poster and things." Technology changes, fandom doesn't

For once, Macron has been lightning fast in nominating a new PM: Sébastian Lecornu, current Defence minister, little known in France despite having served as a minister throughout Macron's two terms as president. A Macron loyalist who comes from the right, so everyone on the left is furious. 1/n

Quelle surprise! Bayrou lost the confidence vote and yet another French government falls. See my thread below for insights into why this happened and what might happen next

French govt is widely expected to fall later today as PM François Bayrou has called a confidence vote that other parties do not support. While outcome is predictable, resolution is not - lots of options on the table but none provides an elegant solution to the current crisis in French politics 1/n

This is an excellent thread based on an excellent paper, but if you only have time for one post, this is the one. Bottom line: progressive parties (eg Labour) do themselves more harm than good by trying to copy the far-right's (eg Reform) anti-immigrant rhetoric

Angela Rayner's position was untenable once she was found to have breached the ministerial code; she had to resign. But, as a working-class woman in high office surrounded by wealthy men, she had a symbolic importance that makes her resignation a real loss to British politics

Kids are back at school! ➕No more spending all day feeding them/ taking them to holiday clubs/ entertaining them/ hosting their friends/ dealing with their noise ➖back to receiving 100s of daily school emails, taking them to after-school clubs, washing uniform, helping with homework etc #MentalLoad

In 2017, when my child was 4yo and into fairy tales, I rewrote Sleeping Beauty to make it empowering for women. 8 years later, my child is finally old enough to read my version and appreciate it for what it is 😁 1/4

Latest Daily on Monocle Radio. @rainbowmurray.bsky.social and Simon Brooke on the day's stuff, plus Joanne Briggs on her extraordinary memoir "The Scientist Who Wasn't There", an attempt to figure out who her father actually was. monocle.com/radio/shows/...

I owe my life to #VJday. My Grandad was in the navy during WW2 and was about to go to the frontline near Japan where he almost certainly would have died, but mercifully the war ended just in time. Otherwise I would never have been born.

The patterns in my regression tables got a whole lot more interesting when Word randomly decided to change my font to wingdings 🤨

Don't judge a book by its cover... this will be a more entertaining read than its (slightly odd) title suggests, from someone who knows all the quirks of our political system and knows how to describe them in ways that are engaging, informed and often very witty

Reviewer 2: Your paper is a square. Squares are bad. Turn it into a circle. Me: painstaking revisions to turn that square into a circle. R2: Your paper is now a circle. I don't like circles. It is lacking sides and corners. Turn it into a rectangle. Me: 🤯🤬 #PeerReview #AcademicSky

One week left until the deadline! Happy to discuss the position with anyone interested in applying.

When I was a kid, trying to play an adult computer game, I had to answer pop-culture questions to prove my age. I didn't know any of the answers, so had to use trial & error & keep guessing until I got in. Now, BlueSky verifies my age by scanning my face. (Wrinkles? Check!) How times have changed.

And there was much rejoicing 🥳

Every 4 Aug since 2018 has been a shitty day for me, and every 4 Aug for the rest of my life will be a shitty day. And every 17 Nov. And every 30 Dec. Every year, three guaranteed shitty days. I hope that number does not increase any time soon. 😞

I am always hearing how the #NHS is "broken", but I still think it's frickin' awesome. It takes such good care of me and my family. I am so grateful to live in a country where quality healthcare is free at the point of access 🙏❤️

New job opportunity! Come work with me at @qmpoliticsir.bsky.social on my major project on the political representation of men. You: PhD in relevant area, strong quantitative methods skills, interest in representation. The job: 18 months full-time, London or remote qmul-jobs.tal.net/vx/appcentre...

New job opportunity! Come work with me at @qmpoliticsir.bsky.social on my major project on the political representation of men. You: PhD in relevant area, strong quantitative methods skills, interest in representation. The job: 18 months full-time, London or remote qmul-jobs.tal.net/vx/appcentre...

MAYBE DON’T EMAIL ME AT THE WEEKEND, THEN.

A very important read about far-right parties - and the dangers of using euphemisms to describe them - by my @qmpoliticsir.bsky.social colleague @timbale.bsky.social