We didn't see that coming 👀 😪 @miroslavnemcok.bsky.social, @jfdaoust.bsky.social & Piret Ehin look at the 2016 surprise Estonian government shift to better understand how changes in government, seperate to elections, alter #DemocraticSafisfaction when winner/loser status changes

Die Linke pulled off a surprise win in Germany’s most recent federal election and has suddenly become one of the most closely watched parties in Europe’s progressive politics. Behind the success lies a continuing structural transformation of its geographic support base. A short thread🧵

I have a new paper on the Gallagher index: the most common measure of electoral disproportionality. We often assume it runs from 0 (perfect 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺) to 1 (perfect 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺). But I show that in most party systems, 1 is not a possible value. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Are preferences for authoritarian rule individual predispositions—or can they spread socially? Using field + survey experiments in the Norwegian Armed Forces, we show that openness to strongman rule can spread socially. American Journal of Political Science: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

81 % of eastern German municipalities have fewer residents today than in 1985. Losses cluster especially in Pommerania and rural Sachsen-Anhalt, where towns often shrank by a third or more. Growth is almost entirely confined to larger cities like Berlin & Leipzig and their commuter belts.

I am always struck by how much of the spatial inequality within East Germany is obscured when Germany is considered as a whole. The disparities between Mecklenburg and the Pomeranian parts of the same federal state are particularly revealing.

This paper is obviously relevant today, as we mark the 10th anniversary of Brexit, but I don't want to add to the plethora of takes on current events. Instead, let me zoom out and disucss the (fairly nuanced) implications of our analysis both for understanding British politics over the last decade

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - Growing together or apart? Regional inequality and preferences for inter-territorial redistribution - https://cup.org/4fQY5LU - @dschraff.bsky.social#OpenAccess #FirstView

Growing together or growing apart? 🌱 @dschraff.bsky.social use surve experiments from France and Germany to find whether absolute regional income creates stronger disagreements about sharing resources between regions when income inequality is increasing 💰️

Our project "Struggling Women and Men: Political-Democratic Gender Gaps in a High-trust Welfare State" is looking for a PhD fellow. www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Thank you to #Belfast and the great @epssnet.bsky.social team for a fantastic #EPSS2026 conference. We’re very excited to host #EPSS2027 and look forward to welcome the #EPSS community in Copenhagen 24-26 June 2027! @ucph.bsky.social

New paper in @EJPR: Why doesn’t regional inequality always spark backlash? It also depends on relative regional gains, not just absolute regional income. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

My very personal reflection on the use of AI in social science, perhaps the first of many. yiqingxu.substack.com/p/ai-disarray

New paper, with Patrick Fournier & @zeynsom.bsky.social, out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social! 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... a brief 🧵

niche take: there is no such thing as a "causal" estimate, there are only estimates that converge in probability to your stated estimand and those that don't

social science today: rain and physical activity are just correlated because observational data but iphones cause fertility decline because DiD...

Taking a stand ✋️🧍 These authors 🧵 use survey data across 9 countries to assess the downstreams consequences of #AffectivePolarization & intervene to successfully reduce participants #AffectivePolarization in 6 of the 9, improving interpersonal relations and social norms buff.ly/tHRWa65

I'm pleased to see our paper introducing the Democratic Erosion Event Dataset (DEED), an events-based dataset on democratic erosion, finally out in Nature Scientific Data. In our data, we distinguish between resistance, precursors, symptoms, and destabilizing events www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New publication with Camilla Bjarnøe Jensen, @dschraff.bsky.social and Mads Thau. Flattery seems common in politics. Flattery is the use of compliments and praise (whether accurate or not) aimed at evoking liking for personal gain.

Happy to share that my paper with @tobiasbach.bsky.social, Nick Jacobs and Craig Parsons is now out with @epsrjournal.bsky.social: shorturl.at/c9Mu6 (1/THREAD)

New pub with Camilla Bjarnøe, Kristina Jessen Hansen & Mads Thau What makes political group appeals work? Politicians routinely flatter voter groups but we know little whether it works. We tested class-based flattery appeals using survey experiments in 🇩🇰 Denmark and 🇺🇸 the US.

📑❗️Our article with @grigopop.bsky.social and Graeme Robertson on the effects of Ukraine’s decentralization reform on satisfaction with public services (and democracy) in Ukraine 🇺🇦 was just published in Comparative Political Studies! doi.org/10.1177/0010...

Missed this yesterday - the Parliament of Iceland has now officially voted to date the Referendum on restarting EU accession talks (not on accession itself) for 29 August this year. Polls remain tight, though, so this is far from certain to get a majority.

Fascinating tool. Out of curiousity, if you set net migration to 0% - like the far-right and increasingly broader UK & European politics want - then a country like the UK is projected to shrink to 56 million (instead of grow to 76 million) by 2100:

I was asked by @thelocalsweden.bsky.social whether language tests for citizenship in Europe are ‘integration policy or just political posturing’ and I’m sure you can guess my answer. www.thelocal.com/20260523/are...

Friedrich Merz has proposed to grant "associate EU membership" to Ukraine. It would include: - Participation in EU institutions without voting rights - Step-by-step access to EU-funded programmes - Mutual assistance under Article 42.7 - Snap-back mechanism in case of backsliding Full story.

Which border matters most? An analysis of how different types of internal boundaries affect voting behavior, by Jona-Frederik Baumert www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The Swedish 🇸🇪 Parliament just approved a law that would create a tiered citizenship scheme, with a 1st class (mostly for the native born) that cannot be revoked and a 2nd class (mostly for the naturalized) that can: www.svt.se/nyheter/inri... Only two parties (Left and Green) voted against.

On 7 May 2026, Britain ran a PR experiment: Scottish Parliament: a Mixed-Member Proportional system Welsh Senedd: a (new) Low-Magnitude Party List system Same day, same political context, different outcomes. Which version of PR would be better for Westminster? 🧵

In further embrace of flexibility over unity, German foreign minister Wadephul today held a speech calling for institutional reforms in EU foreign policy. Some aspects are standrd German positions, such as majority voting, but Wadephul also called for using Enhanced Cooperation in foreign policy.

🗣️ Do citizens believe parliamentarians when they call out autocratic behavior? A survey experiment by @jmvanlit.bsky.social, @mauritsmeijers.bsky.social & Carolien van Ham suggests that credibility depends on government/opposition status and consistency 👇️ 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

NEW - The First Wave of Globalization and Electoral Populism in the United States - https://cup.org/4vVZx50 - Ze Han & Helen V. Milner #OpenAccess #Populism

Very happy to see our APSR paper out today. Figure 2 tells the main story: in Norway, criminal backgrounds become rarer at each step from citizens to candidates to elected officials. Additional analyses point to political parties as key gatekeepers. cup.org/3OKSdbH

Technical but important step - for the first time since Croatia joined in 2013, the EU has today started drafting an accession treaty, with Montenegro:

From our FirstView: The Green Transition and Political Polarization Along Occupational Lines by VINCENT HEDDESHEIMER, @hannohilbig.bsky.social and @erikvoeten.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1017/S000...

🚨 New paper in the @apsrjournal.bsky.social: Nils-Christian Bormann and I propose to model the electoral effects of ethnic and other cleavages with a new *Covoting Regression Model*. A short on the method and our results on ethnic voting in Sub-Saharan Africa. doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Do citizens care who makes policy? In Germany, some policies can be adopted either by federal or state governments. But do voters have preferences over which actor adopts a policy? Turns out, they mostly do not. New paper out @epsrjournal.bsky.social 🧵 1/8 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I am looking for a postdoc to join my team at the University of Bremen. 5-year-contract, top-up to 100% possible for most of the contract period. Apply by 04 May 2026. If you have questions about the position, send me an email! www.uni-bremen.de/en/universit...

Hungary: National parliament election Turnout at 3:00 PM CEST 2010: 46.78% 2014: 45.02% 2018: 53.64% 2022: 52.75% 2026: 66.01% Source: Nemzeti Választási Iroda ➤ europeelects.eu/hungary #Hungary

🧠 Do citizens take information into account when forming an opinion about new policy proposals or do they just follow their priors? @jannikfenger.bsky.social suggests they do by exploiting panel data on EU referendums in Denmark and the UK 👇 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

New paper out in @thejop.bsky.social : "Immigration, Public Housing, and Support for the French National Front." How does expanding public housing affect far-right support? The answer depends heavily on local conditions, and specifically on local immigrant shares. Paper: doi.org/10.1086/736361

People who normatively endorse greater influence by ordinary citizens simultaneously show limited willingness to exercise such influence, posing significant democratic challenges journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🚨 Just shipped a major update to GERDA, the German Election Database. - State elections update: new years + mail-in - 3 new election types: Mayoral, County, European - Municipal elections: 1984-2025 - Meinungsbild public opinion - New website & features german-elections.com

Die Bundesregierung macht falsch, was man nur falsch machen kann. Statt eine gesellschaftliche Vision zu entwickeln für ein besseres, gerechteres, prosperierendes Land macht sie Angst, baut Druck auf, verteilt Lasten ungerecht und belehrt das Volk, "es sei zu Opfern bereit". So verliert man Wahlen.

🤔 When is migration politicized? Chendi Wang examines how the three factors problem pressure, public salience, and political pressure contribute to politicization 👇 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The flagship journal of the European Sociological Association, European Societies, makes published articles free for everyone & does not charge authors a publication fee. Authors of quantitative work are required to openly share data & code. No @asanews.bsky.social journal shares all these traits.

Man sieht auch absolut keinen Rechtsruck unter Arbeiter:innen, wenn man Rechts-Links-Positionierungen anschaut. Der Teil der Arbeiterklasse, der vorher schon rechts war, hat in der AfD eine Partei gefunden. Linke Arbeiter wurden dagegen vergessen und demobilisiert.

🗳️ Planning Europe’s elections just got easier. The updated Europe Elects Election Calendar is your one-stop hub for every vote across the continent—from local races to the next EU Parliament election. Check the full schedule: https://europeelects.eu/calendar

📢 Out Now! V-Dem Dataset v16 & the V-Dem Institute Democracy Report 2026 💾 The V-Dem Dataset: v-dem.net/data/the-v-d... 📰 The Report "Unraveling The Democratic Era?”: v-dem.net/publications... 📈 Explore the new data with the V-Dem Graphing tools: v-dem.net/graphing/gra... #PoliSky #PoliSciSky 1/3

Trouble brewing in German European politics - research from @dpa.com released over the weekend shows that cooperation between the EPP and the far-right including the ESN/AfD on migration policy is far more extensive than argued by Manfred Weber: