„Profit margins are already near historic highs. Energy and fertiliser stocks are surging in anticipation of stellar profits. The people who own those assets will be fine. Workers facing rising prices and stagnant wages will not.“

On Sunday, one of Germany’s largest states went to the polls in a closely contested election. What can we learn from the results & how do they relate to looming deindustrialization in one of Germany’s industrial heartlands? A thread with some decriptive patterns from data on 1,101 municipalities. 🧵

1/ I have done a data dive on ‘The Two Deprivations’ and the govt’s Green-Reform dilemma: parables.substack.com/p/the-two-de... It references the work of @luketryl.bsky.social @robfordmancs.bsky.social

Yesterday, @spiegel.de reported that members of the SPD urged the CDU to re-evaluate their stance towards the LEFT. Our (@wurthmann.bsky.social & @sarahwagner.bsky.social) reserach note shows generational differences in the evaluation of cooperation between the parties. doi.org/10.1007/s116... A🧵

2) Abandoning identity politics Contrary to public beliefs, the centre-left has all but abandoned identity politics. Having become parties of incremental centrism and problem managers they have given up on shaping identities in the knowledge economy. What would a progressive working class identity

The US is often seen as an extreme case where polarization erodes democracy bc partisanship now permeates all everyday sociability and affects. But this is now being contradicted by a whole number of studies. Besides the really interesting new work by @jonadejong.bsky.social, there is... (quick 🧵)

I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war

“the principles of international law” rather prohibit bombing countries because their leaders “lack legitimacy”.

Good morning. I've got a banger new post out today that develops a new method for placing voters on the left-right ideological spectrum, and adds a new, "non-ideological"/affordability axis to usual way we chart & think about US voters (esp swing voters). www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-l...

Crazy support numbers for Zohran Mamdani among young women: 84% (!) of women aged 18-29 voted for Mamdani in the NYC Mayoral Election. But also important: young men voted MUCH MORE STRONGLY (67%) for Mamdani than old men (37%).

"Die Mehrheit in diesem Land ist rechts, aber bekommt trotzdem eine linke Politik" – dieser Satz ist also nicht analytisch gemeint, sondern strategisch. Er ist nicht da, um etwas zu beschreiben, sondern um etwas zu planen. www.zeit.de/politik/2025...

Real existierende linke Akademiker:innen mal wieder anders als manche denken: „Radical left support increases for those who study more than their parents and do not achieve upward class mobility, as well as for those who experience upward class mobility but continue to struggle financially“

An important new paper from my talented, but BlueSky-less PHD Jose Lopes www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Lesenswert!

Nur zur Einordnung: Kosten illegaler Grenzkontrollen: pro Quartal ca. 30 Millionen € Kosten durch Jens Spahn verursacht: ca. 3,5 Milliarden € Kosten durch Steuerbetrug CumCum: ca. 30 Milliarden € Zusätzliche Gelder, die wir für das Deutschlandticket gebraucht hätten: 800 Millionen.

Warum wir beim Klima zwar alle in einem Boot sitzen, es aber entscheidend ist, dass manche im halbgefluteten Maschinenraum mitfahren und andere auf dem Sonnendeck: Neuer Artikel zu Klima, Klasse und Konflikt, mit @steffenmau.bsky.social und @thomaslux.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

"Panel data on 41 million voters from 2008 to 2020 and an original survey of 24,433 respondents demonstrate that exposure to partisan neighbors increases party switching." www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

OK, a🧵: Our new paper studies workers' political consciousness in times of class demobilization. We show there's more to workers' politics than right-wing resentment. Listening to workers, we reconstruct their moral critiques of money, power & recognition. Link journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The takeaway: 👉 Accommodating the radical right on immigration doesn’t win back voters. 👉 It alienates the progressive base. 👉 And it raises the salience of the very issue the radical right owns. In short: it’s electoral self-harm.

✨Very happy to see my paper "Attitudinal ambivalence toward multiculturalism" out on @jeppjournal.bsky.social ! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/8 🧵

Kann man Autobahnen eigentlich wieder abreißen?

Class and race gaps in voting are widening a lot. I just got results from the CES and voter turnout among low-income people has been declining steadily since 2012 - across racial groups. Only 25% of Black and Hispanic people in households making less than $30k/year voted in 2024. (small thread)

In the 19th century as the socialist movement grew in Europe, it faced a choice: whether to participate in elections. The anarchists said no. The remaining socialists waded into electoral battle. This book analyzes that decision and its consequences #booksky

Berlin! Am 19. August stelle ich mein neues Buch vor. Wer Fragen hat oder welche sucht oder einfach was klären will: kommt vorbei, das wird super! www.rosalux.de/veranstaltun...

What Abou-Chadi et al. show here is not just that conservative migration positions won't help social-democrats to attract voters, but also that left positions on retirement (that is allowing for early retirement) make social-democrats most attractive (and right positions make them less attracitve).

New article out in World Politcs. We analyze how different groups react to varying programs of social democratic parties. We find less trade-offs than often assumed. Generally, more left-progressive programs increase support among social democratic potentials muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

The oligarchy is not invincible www.laborpolitics.com/p/zohrans-hi...

Ich habe gestern beim DGB eine Keynote darüber gehalten, warum das beste Mittel gegen den Rechtsruck eine Erneuerung des demokratischen Klassenkampfs ist. Statt Defensivität braucht es ein vorwärtsgewandtes Projekt zur Vertiefung der sozialen Grundlagen der Demokratie.

Vorschlag zu Höhe des Mindestlohns von der Kommission: Ab 2026: 13,90 € Ab 2027: 14,60 € Damit dürfte das nächste Wahlversprechen der SPD gebrochen werden, wenn es nicht zu einem politischen Eingriff kommt.

Today, the German Federal Election Officer released data on voting by age and gender for the 2025 election. Contrary to popular belief, AfD support is still not strongest among the youngest voters, but rather among the middle-aged (males). Support is also still much lower in older cohorts. (1/3) 🧵

*Register data* results now published for whole Germany: 37% of women under 25 voted for die Linke in the German federal elections in 2025. Also very striking to see that the AfD was the strongest party among *all age groups of men except those older than 60*.

How is regional loss of manufacturing jobs linked to populism? In a new paper in @pvs-journal.bsky.social, @mbayerlein.bsky.social, Anne Metten & I find that industrial decline in Germany shapes electoral support for left-wing rather than far-right populist parties. A thread. 🧵👇 shorturl.at/RIjCr

In this new article, we study voting for the BSW from a policy space perspective with @gles.bsky.social data. Findings: -BSW voters tend to be left-nationalist -Depending on prior party support, either nationalist or economically left-wing positions predict switching to BSW doi.org/10.1080/0964...

Der Korken aus der Flasche: Was hat den Höhenflug der Linken ausgelöst? Ein 🧵dazu, warum der Einfluss der Brandmauerdebatte selbst und der Rede von Heidi Reichinnek auf den Wahlerfolg der Linken über-, und das Überschreiten der 5%-Hürde in Umfragen unterschätzt wird. (1/xx)

Very happy to share our new article in JoP @thejop.bsky.social, where we explore how parties forge links with social groups (here: social classes) through different appeals and how citizens respond to such appeals. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10....

Ein Blick auf den Stadt-Land-Gegensatz. Abgebildet für jede Partei ihr nach Bevölkerungsdichte mittlerer Wahlkreis: 50% ihrer Stimmen sind urbaner, 50% ländlicher. AfD im Westen stärker und damit etwas urbaner, BSW ähnlich wie Union (weil Ostdeutsch), Grüne bleiben stark urban, Linke urban wie nie.

Some thoughts and pointers on the upcoming German elections on Sunday. Nearly all polling institutes have released final polls in the last days that show a very similar picture. It is nearly certain that the CDU/CSU will come out on top and Friedrich Merz is going to be the next Chancellor. 1/

Aktuell liegen 3 Parteien in den Umfragen an der 5%-Hürde. Doch was bedeutet das für ihre Wahlchancen? Neue Studie mit @christinagahn.bsky.social! Wir zeigen, dass Parteien, die auch nur knapp unter der Sperrklausel liegen, eine signifikant geringere Chance haben, ins Parlament einzuziehen. 1/7

Ständig ist von der „Mehrheit der Bevölkerung“ die Rede, die dieses oder jenes will. Nur seltsam, dass der Wunsch nach Umverteilung dabei fast nie erwähnt wird.

My paper (w/ @turnbulldugarte.com) is now out on: ❓How do people derive social class of representatives and the public? The headline is that working-class parliamentarians are less likely to be perceived as such (compared to otherwise identical lay public) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Dass viele sonstige Parteien im Februar nur eingeschränkt zur Wahl stehen werden könnte noch relevant werden für den Einzug von Linke und BSW. www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/kamp...

Die Partei, die davon profitiert, wenn ständig über die AfD gesprochen wird, bleibt die AfD. Was es bräuchte ist klare Abgrenzung und nicht über jedes Stöckchen springen. Was wir haben sind Annäherung und Normalisierung mit gleichzeitigem Hype und Sensationalisierung.

Überzeugendes, empirisch unterfüttertes Plädoyer von @lwestheuser.bsky.social stheuser und @johannasiebert.bsky.social für einen "Klimapopulismus", der Klimapolitik als Gerechtigkeitsfrage zwischen "einfachem Volk" und den Profiteuren der Klimakrise politisiert. Leseempfehlung!

Vielleicht noch bemerkenswerter an Weidels „Remigrations“-Aussage finde ich den Satz davor in der Rede: die Forderung „Rückführung im großen Stil durch[zu]führen“. Fast 1:1 Scholz-Zitat - so normalisiert man die Agenda des neuen Faschismus @spdde.bsky.social

🚨 How are more ambitious climate policies feasible politically? We have published 4 new research briefs on the political viability of climate policies. You can find all the briefs on our website. Here is a 🧵summarizing the briefs. Please share. politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/progressive-...

Class consciousness still shapes voting, but in a different way than in the past. That's the key finding of a study with @thomaslux.bsky.social now out in English. We chart how class identity, interests and status link with voting for the left and right in Germany. A🧵 library.fes.de/pdf-files/a-...

Wie links ist das #BSW? 🚩 Mit dieser Frage haben sich @drphilphil.bsky.social, @wurthmann.bsky.social und @pluggedchris.bsky.social für die EU Wahl beschäftigt und die Wahlprogramme inhaltlich bestimmt. Ich habe mir nun die Selbsteinschätzung der Wähler:innen angesehen: 🧵 www.dvpw.de/blog/ist-das...