Why do the Walloon social democrats have the most ethnocentric electorate of Francophone Belgium? I lay out some hypotheses (and cool graphs!) – out now in @sampolmaandblad.bsky.social

Are you a junior scholar attending #ecprgc25 or #apsa25? Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to join a dynamic international research team at @sciencepoulb.bsky.social! 📢 Cevipol is hiring a full time postdoc researcher 🗓️ 1-year contract (possible extension) 📍based in Brussels 💼 Project: NOTLIKEUS

I'm hiring another postdoc (research-focused, for almost 5 years) for my @erc.europa.eu project on the educational cleavage! I'm looking for someone with strong quantitative text-analysis skills (e.g. #NLP, #LLM, etc.) to study the role of political actors in cleavage formation.

How much competition within the right field? ❗Segmentation is eroding, especially among young voters❗ New article out by @siljahausermann.bsky.social ‪@dpzollinger.bsky.social @mrsteenbergen.bsky.social and myself @ipz.bsky.social @wepsocial.bsky.social tinyurl.com/ycxfx2aj A short 🧵 1/7

Submitted the thesis everybody

Some afternoon thoughts on UK politics and AI exposure and how it’s so different by geography politicalwhiteboard.substack.com/p/the-collar...

I have a new paper out in @wepsocial.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... The paper situates discussions about the Educational Cleavage in a longer temporal context (back to the Medieval time) to show that there have ALWAYS been conflicts between educational groups. (1/3)

Cannot stress enough how great this years’ #PolEtmaal2025 has been. Amazing people, warm (!) atmosphere and (as it turns out) great running trails 🤩 Thank you to all the organisers @rug.nl!

Only 10 days left to apply for this phd position on education-based identities, status, and political attitudes! Open to those interested in sociology, social psychology, political science, communication science or indeed a combination of all. jobs.vub.be/job/Elsene-P...

💡New article: 'Uncorking Europeanisation: the resilient journey of small #Georgian winemakers in the pursuit of the #EU market' by Margherita Gobbat 👉 doi.org/10.1080/2159... 🇬🇪🇪🇺 @adamfagan.bsky.social @lenkabustikova.bsky.social @andreapirro.it @petrkopecky.bsky.social

I'm recruiting 2 PhD researchers to work with me on a project studying how social groups influence vote choices! Info on the position and how to apply 👉 www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... Please share with interested students who would like to move to beautiful Leuven!

Er zijn voor politieke wetenschappers en nieuwsmedia geen excuses meer om te werken met slechte steekproeven, aldus politicoloog @swyngedouwm.bsky.social. De nieuwe steekproef, The Social Study, toont hoe het wél kan. www.sampol.be/2025/05/the-...

Fresh from the press: "Rethinking political space in Europe: the modernisation and globalisation dimensions" together with @nilsjungmann.bsky.social We challenge dominant assumptions about the structure of political conflict. a 🧵1/ x

How researchers at Bocconi guessed the Pope using network analysis ⬇️ www.unibocconi.it/en/news/netw...

1 more week to apply to one of 2 postdoc positions, 5-years each, in my @erc.europa.eu project!

I probably relate to this quote more than I should.

🚨 Talking about harassment in politics hurts your political career. Yes, even in 🇸🇪. And, yes, for both women & men. Here’s what me and @sandrahkansson.bsky.social found in our Political Behavior paper using both experimental and descriptive approaches: link.springer.com/article/10.1... 👇

Two weeks left to apply for a post-doctoral position in my project on social cleavages and political party competition in Europe. Thanks for helping me alert interested researchers!

1/7. In case you haven’t been following, here is a short summary of the misnamed Russian-American "peace process" regarding Ukraine.

In the coming months, I'll be recruiting two PhD students to work with me as part of the Voting & Democracy research group at @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social. So watch this space if you want to join the team and work on this lovely campus!

The results are highly geographically clustered, even after accounting for demographics. Areas with a history of heavy industry or mining seem to be much more economically segregated than the rest of Britain:

New paper out at @cpsjournal.bsky.social! With Ian McAllister, we examine how party competition and party positions condition the presence and size of an age gap in voting for the left. A short 🧵 below! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

🤔 Wordt ook a/d KU Leuven een vrouwelijke arts de nieuwe rector? Severine Vermeire is kandidaat en lanceert inspraakronde o/d toekomst v/d universiteit 🚀👩🏼‍⚕️ 👉 severinevermeire.be

ECR Seminar Series! 📅 Feb 28 | 🕑 14:00-15:00 CET Topic: Machine Learning in Causal Inference 🎤 Speaker: Guido Priem (KU Leuven): A Conjoint Experiment on Religious Tolerance 💬 Discussant: Jorien Veldwijk (Erasmus Uni Rotterdam) More information: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... @ecpr.bsky.social

On Jan 29, Germany's conservative CDU/CSU broke a longstanding taboo by accepting votes from the far-right AfD. How did German citizens respond? A preliminary analysis of an ongoing survey suggests that the conservatives might have actually benefited from their move (at least in the short term). 1/5

“If the centre-left is to have any chance of prevailing in today’s hostile political conditions, it needs to ensure that the conflict between the interests of the top and those of the rest, as well as the legitimate demands of the less well-off majority are at the heart of public debates.” 👇

@liesbethooghe.bsky.social & Gary Marks measure the extent to which political parties on the contemporary socio-cultural divide are cleavaged. doi.org/10.1080/0140... Part of the forthcoming Special Issue "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies". #polisky #academicsky

Damals-Zeit

We also coded the share of workers in US cabinets over time!

Academici verenigt u, en steun de Leuvens studentenpers! Ik ben alvast een trotse ambassadeur van het mooiste magazine van Vlaanderen @vetobe.bsky.social ❤️

*Attention PhD students and Early Career Researchers* - Call for papers! With support from @ukandeu.bsky.social I will be hosting a workshop event for PhDs and ECRs on April 23rd, just after Easter. A chance to present in a supportive environment & meet new colleagues. Details attached

#OpenAccess from our new issue - When Group Appeals Backfire: Explaining the Asymmetric Effects of Place-Based Appeals - cup.org/4hsHP1f - @lhaffert.bsky.social, Tabea Palmtag & @dschraff.bsky.social

Happy that our project with Eva Jaspers and David Kretschmer has been selected for the LISS panel Grant! We aim to use a factorial experiment to examine where citizens draw the line between tolerable and intolerable religious expressions. Feel free to reach out! odissei-data.nl/project/reli...

Nieuwe @volkskrant.nl column. Over ons.

In case you were wondering how things are going in Germany & on X, after Elon Musk announced his support for the far-right "Alternative für Deutschland" (AfD) in the upcoming Federal election: The chart below shows sums of tweets x impressions by members of parliament over the past 7 days...🧵⤵️

Online first: "Freedom for all? Populism and the instrumental support of freedom of speech" by @albertostefanelli.bsky.social Koen Abts & Bart Meuleman doi.org/10.1080/0140... #polisky

Here we go: one of the largest Flemish newspapers, @demorgen.be has just left X.

We often define the ideological space in terms of the economic and cultural dimensions; how does this resonate with ordinary citizens? This is the question Thomas and I explore in a new Element, analyzing answers to open-ended survey questions 🧵 cup.org/4gEYCOj

📢 VACATURE 📢 GASPAR is op zoek naar een PhD student/Assistent Politieke Wetenschappen (6 jaar) 📅 Deadline: 21 januari 2025 jobs.ugent.be/job/Gent-Ass...

Turns out that the cultural cleavage is alive and kicking in Belgium's French-speaking region So why have we (still!) not seen the rise of a Francophone far-right party? I present some answers in @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social!

Interesting insights about the online diet of 🇧🇪 voters: - Greens aren't on Facebook - Far right isn't on Instagram - But both are still on X 👉 @lucaskins.bsky.social and Caroline Close in @sampolmaandblad.bsky.social: www.sampol.be/2024/12/onli...

New Cambridge Element 'Cleavage Formation in the 21st Century' by Simon Bornschier, @lhaffert.bsky.social, @siljahausermann.bsky.social, Marco Steenberge & @dpzollinger.bsky.social out now! Read #OpenAccess here: cup.org/3ZLtQ0o #cambridgeelements #politics

Silja Häusermann, Michael Pinggera (@ipz.bsky.social), & I have a new paper out in European Sociological Review! We study under what conditions citizens support future-oriented welfare reforms. We particularly point at second-dimension positions (GAL-TAN). (Thread) academic.oup.com/esr/advance-...

📣 The new issue of The European Green Journal is out with an excellent line-up of articles by experts on the far-right. In my piece “Not in Power, but Shaping It: The Ascent of Vlaams Belang”, I reconstruct the normalization of the far right in Flanders👇 www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/not-in-power...

📣We are hiring!🔥I'm looking for a PhD & Postdoc. 🔍Research focus on far-right parties, movements & ideologies in int'l perspective, with emphasis on the ways in which the far right is embedded in everyday culture. (2 further positions available, please share!) uni-tuebingen.de/fakultaeten/...

Belgian political X-odus today, although it looks like it’s mainly left-wing progressives joining. Curious to see whether the (far) right will make its way here as well.

De Morgen trekt naar nieuwe oorden! Volg ons hier op Bluesky voor een ruime kijk op de wereld en jouw leefwereld. #duidelijkdemorgen www.demorgen.be

Great opportunity to get familiar with one of the coolest, yet underused, techniques in social sciences!

Here's a starter pack on people working on Class Analysis, broadly understood. Follow these people and let me know who I am missing (including yourself)! go.bsky.app/VTirGYT