When they want to increase public spending, every politician is asked how they will pay for it, but the same is not true (yet) for cutting immigration (because it is incorrectly understood as not having a cost.) I wonder if that will change as the impact on the economy becomes more visible.

So we are already back to the levels of migration of the early 2010s and declining faster... let's hope all those new restrictions, based on previous higher numbers, don't make Britain massively unattractive to those migrants the government DOES wish to attract.

Quite different from my work today substantively + methodologically - but thrilled to share this article based on my undergrad thesis, now out at German Politics & Society 43(3) @berghahnbooks.bsky.social. I analyse how 🇬🇧🇩🇪 state visits portray historical memory + joint future action.

My latest commentary: how to populist-proof your democracy before it's too late… www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🚨 New working paper 🚨 We often see populist parties like Reform UK blame higher energy bills on climate change policies. What are the political consequences of this strategy? Very early draft; comments and criticisms are welcomed! full draft: z-dickson.github.io/assets/dicks...

They polled Brits who their president is. They had no idea.

Wenn @valentimvicente.bsky.social im Deutschlandfunk ist, dann sollte man sich das natürlich auf jeden Fall anhören

that the upfront costs to come and do scientific research in the UK are too high is a well known terrible fact. perhaps more surprising is that scientific excellence has persisted despite all these hurdles, but this limping cannot go on forever. Soon this fun immigration experiment will break.

So delighted to be working with these fantastic people! Thanks for the warm welcome to the LSE.

Some people in the Brandenburg state government must have read Bolet (2021)

🗳️🇩🇪 How do voters react to new political actors? Some suggest that radical right party success can provoke electoral backlash. @antvalentim.bsky.social and his co-authors argue that such backlash can emerge whenever new political actors disrupt the status quo👇 www.lse.ac.uk/european-ins...

Excited to share my first single-authored dissertation paper! I study how voters react to party differentiation in coalitions. Voters like clear partisan signals, but the gains are short-lived and limited to aligned supporters. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Es mag ja nicht viele belastbare Erkenntnisse in der Sozialwissenschaft geben. Aber dass "Destruktion durch Kopieren und/oder Kooperation" nicht funktioniert -- das ist eine. Und doch hat noch jede europäische Mitte-Rechts-Partei gemeint, es besser zu wissen.

The Spanish centre-right is taking a tumble and the far-right is on the rise. I was lucky enough to present some new causal work on Friday at LSE showing that the PP does better when it signals distinctiveness from VOX. ~1.5K tests, same result. Rejecting far-right benefits centre-right

Private Eye offers up an excellently scornful commentary on the relentless polling. It’s become ridiculous and has oversimplified our politics to dangerous levels of stupid and irresponsible.

New data for legislative scholars! Committee Membership Dataset with @bcastanho.bsky.social, @dmpullan.bsky.social and Firuze Taner: Committee assignments for all MPs (Wikidata IDs!) in 14 countries Harmonized roles/policy areas Data: doi.org/10.7802/2940 Working paper: tinyurl.com/vf54r78p ⬇️

Hague in his 1st conference speech as leader: "I am proud to be British. I believe in the United Kingdom, and so do hundreds of thousands of British blacks and British Asians. I want to see men and women from our ethnic minorities playing their full part in the mainstream of our national life..."

Europe can’t secure itself without Turkey. Yet distrust and limited cooperation still block real partnership. How Brussels and Ankara can bridge the gap — read the new paper by Galip Dalay (Chatham House; Oxford Univ., Dahrendorf Programme) europeanmoments.com/changing-wor...

I loved this post (like all in this substack). Reminded me of the argument by Geddes (2003) that most good research ideas come from annoyance with established wisdom that clashes with one's inner sense of how the world works. Really recommend reading this one:

New Etched in Marble post: catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/etched-in-... Timothy Garton Ash has for decades chronicled Europe’s upheavals with a historian’s depth & a journalist’s eye. In my conversation with Garton Ash, one theme stood out: writing as a defense of democracy. 🧵

CALL FOR PAPERS! 📣 We are delighted to announce the 𝗟𝗦𝗘 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲, a two-day, in-person symposium open to early-career researchers, to be held on 𝟮𝟲-𝟮𝟳 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲. 🗓️ Deadline: 31 October 2025 Find out more 👇 www.lse.ac.uk/european-ins...

Author copies for Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics by me & @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social arrived today! If you re-post this by Sept 30 we'll put you in a drawing & send the winner a free signed copy anywhere they happen to be on the planet.

👏Applause offers a revealing lens on party competition! In a recent article @wepsocial.bsky.social (w/@[email protected]), we study how applause reflects party and coalition unity, ideological agreement, political exclusion, issue ownership, and the electoral cycle! (1/6)

400 days to save US democracy. My latest, based on a long summer in the US. How Trump is exploiting structural weaknesses of the American system & why all democrats must want Democrats to win November 2026 midterms. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Whatever the accuracy and value of “Democracy Indices”, this is truly remarkable and again shows the striking disconnect between the U.S. legacy media and U.S. political reality.

The murder of America's world-best higher education sector--a leading export good of the US economy--continues under this lawless autocratic regime, and gets worse

Thank goodness presidents can be held accountable for abusing their powers to corrupt justice and advance their own self-interest. <Touches earpiece> What's that? Congressional copartisans will never impeach/remove their own president, and SCOTUS declared the president immune for official acts? 🫠

Just watch the NYT ignore this or normalise it.

Labour one year in: Starmer once told his MPs to stop looking at Twitter and get some work done. Now he should tell his staff to stop looking at the front pages and get some governing done inews.co.uk/opinion/labo...

I reviewed @stephanieternullo.bsky.social's excellent 'How the Heartland Went Red' for @oxfordpolrev.bsky.social. Using rich ethnographic analysis, this fascinating book provides a novel take on how place creates and sustains partisan allegiance. oxfordpoliticalreview.com/2025/04/30/r...

I know y'all just want to watch the #ESC in peace, but 📢 :The Spring 2025 update to the Eclectic, Erratic Bibliography on the Extreme Right is out! 180 new titles added, making it the second-largest update ever. Radical right research is growing fast. Like the #RadicalRight ☹️ #PoliticalScience

Is it possible to agree more than 100%? If so, I agree 1,000% (at least) w @stephenkb.bsky.social’s piece.

First major @overleaf.com outage (I think) since the day I needed to submit my first PhD application. Glad that I got through my thesis submission without one at least... 'Don't leave it until the last minute' gets a whole new significance!

Holman Hunt's painting of May Morning on Magdalen Tower in 1890, and the scene today.

"Eine Lektion aus Ländern, in denen Autokraten Universitäten auf Linie gebracht haben, ist, dass sich unabhängige Institutionen wie Gewerkschaften und die Welt der im weitesten Sinne akademischen Berufe gegenseitig unterstützen müssen."

Loved working on this paper. We have too narrow a view of economic self-interest in politics. People also support policies and parties that protect those we care about…the family is a key focal point for these concerns.

Popes are hardly ever capable of escaping the traditions of the Roman Curia, jfyi. Sometimes they go full on political, and their words matter. But rarely they are as emancipated as Francis was. If you want a data-based take on this I and others have written on it - just ask a political scientist…

I think the Atlantic piece is probably the scoopiest scoop of the last few decades. And it has clarified one thing - other than the total idiocy of sending opsec over group chats - Hegseth and Vance have a genuine animosity towards Europe. Something for us all to ponder.

In other decades this would be an era-defining scandal with hearings on the Hill and possible legal consequences. This will run for a day on Twitter and everyone will admit they can't do anything. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Very happy that our paper (w/ @dziblatt.bsky.social & E Dinas) has been accepted @bjpols.bsky.social . We've seen the center right increasingly adopt far-right rhetoric. Our experiment in 🇩🇪 finds that this erodes anti-prejudice norms *more* than when the far-right employs similar rhetoric. 1/3

Day 12. When social media - in the years to come - becomes even more the Wild West of what is true and not true, real or AI, trusted, reliable sources are going to become SO important. I think we need to think about how we claim/strengthen these spaces, urgently...good political science being one.

How frequently do far-right speakers attack prevailing historical interpretations in their parliamentary speeches and what characterizes these attacks in their sentiment & content? We investigate these questions in a new paper, out open access @bjpols.bsky.social. (1/) cup.org/4hZpJVk #polisky

Hey #polisky, can you please help @katharinalawall.bsky.social and I? For a joint project, we are looking for public opinion, post-electoral surveys for state elections in Germany. These surveys would need to include variables tapping whether someone voted, who they voted for, their gender & age.