Check out our Cambridge Elements with @raschwartz.bsky.social available online for free until June 3rd: doi.org/10.1017/9781... In it, we build a new analytical framework to understand new forms of democratic erosion in the region.

Excited to share a new paper on youth underrepresentation in German local elections. 🗳️ Analyzing 6,400 candidates in 100 municipalities, we find: Youth are scarce in candidate pools & parties assign them lower list positions. However, voter bias only emerges for top list positions.

This month, Matthias Mader and I started work on our DFG-funded project, GLOBID – Identity and the Globalization Cleavage. We are very much looking forward to the next 3 years and would be delighted to connect with others working on related questions. More at vergleich.politik.uni-mainz.de/globid/

The United States now has the most government restrictions on academic freedom of any high-income country. www.chemistryworld.com/news/academi... Raw data from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social —> academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...

New version of my R package {democracyData} available: github.com/xmarquez/dem...

The special issue of @cpsjournal.bsky.social “Back from the Brink: Countering Illiberalism in Liberal Democracies”, co-edited by myself and Isabela Mares, was just published. The issue includes 8 articles, many of which set new research agendas. A🧵w/overview 1/10 journals.sagepub.com/toc/CPS/curr...

If you are doing any #quarto slidecrafting, i have been trying really hard to keep this page updated with everything I have done emilhvitfeldt.com/project/slid...

Join us in Hannover, Oct 1-2, for the annual meeting of the @dvpw.bsky.social Analytical Political Theory Group! Call for papers: www.dvpw.de/fileadmin/us...

Why I don't expect liberal democracy to go away any time soon: My article on the resilience of liberal democracy, published in @jeppjournal.bsky.social. Perfectly timed to the day after Orbáns defeat and a small spike in "democracy-optimism". There are, I argue, good reasons for such optimism.

BIG day today in Hungary, but at least in the short run, the choice is between authoritarianism and democracy, with liberal democracy at the backburner.

Three 2-year full-time postdoctoral positions in autocratic politics at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University (in connection to projects headed by Jakob Tolstrup and Alexander Baturo). Flexible start date. Application deadline: June 1, 2026. international.au.dk/about/profil...

The summer term at @powimz.bsky.social is just around the corner, and I'm particularly looking forward to my new course on militant democracy and, hopefully, many stimulating discussions with my students!

We are already looking forward to the 2026 "AK Wahlen" @dvpw.bsky.social conference at JGU Mainz on 7–8 May and to welcoming many of you there for an exciting program. The conference is open to non-presenters. Registration deadline: 24 April 2026. More information: www.dvpw.de/gliederung/a...

Last week, we (@clandwehr.bsky.social, my colleague Leonard and I) had the joy of welcoming some great colleagues working on the topic of democracy to Mainz, for the concluding workshop of our project "Conceptions of Democracy among Citizens and Political Elites". Thank you for three wonderful days!

1000 words from me and Alenka Krasovec on this weekend’s parliamentary elections in Slovenia 🇸🇮 ukandeu.ac.uk/the-old-and-...

Jürgen Habermas died today at 96. Few political theorists shaped how we think about democratic legitimacy in modern societies as profoundly. His lifelong question was straightforward but demanding: How can political authority be justified under conditions of pluralism? 🧵

This article by Joep van Lit and Carolien van Ham is very useful for those interested in empirically studying democratic erosion in all its complexities.

📍Democratic Resilience Syllabus 📑 I'm sharing my master’s seminar syllabus on democratic resilience. I *loved* teaching it and had great students. I hope I get to do it again some day. ❤️ If you use it or adapt the syllabus, I’d love to hear how it goes. klaudiawegschaider.com/media/democr...

🗓Am 22. März 2026 ist in #Rheinland-Pfalz #Landtagswahl. Wir in der Abteilung Innenpolitik/Politische Soziologie des @powimz.bsky.social haben im Auftrag der Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Profile für alle zur #Wahl stehenden #Parteien verfasst. ⬇️ www.bpb.de/themen/parte...

Teamed up with the excellent Jan Hruška ( Masaryk Uni 🇨🇿 / Adam Mickiewicz Uni Poznań 🇵🇱) to explore how upper chambers can guard against democratic backsliding. A neglected topic.Our new piece in Democratization: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 
Free eprints: www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

In our new paper in G&O, we show that US legislators have more people-centred process preferences, while German legislators are more balanced between people-centred and elite-centred preferences overall - but party affiliation matters. Link to the paper: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Elections in #Slovenia next month. For those looking for a primer on the development of the party system over the past few decades and insights into the last elections in 2022 check out our article in @europe-asia.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

⏳ Final 7 days for Early Bird rates! Join the MethodsNet Summer School 2026 in Vienna. Rigorous methodological training for researchers, by researchers. Secure your spot at the best rate before February 25. Register now: docs.google.com/forms/u/1/d/... #MethodsNet #AcademicSky #ResearchMethods

NEW PUBLICATION “How the Media Cordon Sanitaire Crumbles: Lessons from Germany” now out in @prxjournal.bsky.social 🔓 doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2026.2621808 I’m very happy that this paper is out – this project is particularly important to me.

SAVE THE DATE für alle Fans der #Demokratieforschung: 1. bis 2. Oktober Jahrestagung des AK Demokratieforschung 2026 an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin @dvpw.bsky.social @dvpwtheoriesektion.bsky.social @dvpw-regieren.bsky.social @akpf-dvpw.bsky.social @ecib-dvpw.bsky.social @dvpw-ipe.bsky.social

Und nun ist auch der Party-Check Rheinland-Pfalz online! Parteipositionen werden in den kommenden Tagen bei Dataverse hochgeladen.

New article and special issue! Just out in Comparative Political Studies: “Countering Illiberalism in Liberal Democracies: Information, Legacies, Temporalities", the intro to a special issue on countering illiberalism in liberal democracies. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... Thread 🧵1/7

Out for @ejprjournal.bsky.social with @lucatomini.bsky.social! With many data, e.g. @vdeminstitute.bsky.social & @demerosiondec.bsky.social, we show comparative patterns of democratic survival related to resistance actions during autocratization episodes in democracies. Here: shorturl.at/gOhba

Publication alert ❗📘👀 New open access article on autocratization and democratic survival on @ejprjournal.bsky.social together with the brilliant Guido Panzano (Kiel): what configuration of resistance actions account for democratic survival during autocratization? www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Geehrt wird sie für ihr herausragendes Engagement in Forschung und Lehre und ihre bedeutenden wissenschaftlichen Beiträge zur Erforschung der digitalen Parteienkommunikation. Wir gratulieren @jasfitzpatrick.bsky.social zu dieser außergewöhnlichen, hochdotierten und hochverdienten Auszeichnung!

🚨 Join us for the next edition Summer School for Women* in Political Methodology in Mannheim 🚨 7 days of hands-on advanced methods + networking for PhDs, postdocs & early-career researchers. Free of charge (limited travel support). Deadline 1 March 2026: summerschoolwpm.org #methodsky #polisky

It was a very special day when my book arrived, and I got to open the package with my family :) Constitutional Change under Autocracy explores how autocrats use constitutional amendments not as mere legal tweaks, but as strategic tools.

By way of preparing for teaching and making sense of current events, I spent today trying to synthesise the demand-side literature on democratic backsliding (see figure below). The starting point of most of this literature is simple: Do voters punish politicians who violate democratic norms, or do

🎧 JETZT REINHÖREN: #Forschungspodcast #MindsOfMainz – #DerGutenbergTalk | Folge 28: Demokratie im Fokus: Warum Politische Theorie heute die Gesellschaft bewegt | mit Prof. Claudia Landwehr 👉 www.magazin.uni-mainz.de/minds-of-main…#Demokratiei#Politikwissenschaftf#PolitischeTheorieie

📢📢 Happy to announce a new update to the PPEG database! The data now covers - > 3.000 parties - 1.100 parliamentary elections - 402 presidential elections - 2.044 cabinets across 73 countries (1945 - 2025, Oct 31). All info: ppeg.wzb.eu We hope that data is helpful to the community!

Join us! Die Abteilung für Innenpolitik & Politische Soziologie sucht zum 01.04. eine*n neue*n Kollegin*en. Wir bieten: volle Promotionsstelle (EG13) für drei Jahre (Verlängerung um 3 Jahre möglich), flexible Arbeitszeitregelungen, kollegiales & forschungsstarkes Team. Mehr Informationen hier👇

We're looking for a colleague (postdoc) 📢 @politikuhh.bsky.social 3+3 years Doing your own research while teaching 2.5 courses per semester Research agenda with links to our team (democracy, digital politics, political competition/behaviour) DL 🗓️ 05/01 stellen.uni-hamburg.de/jobposting/6...

Now also with page numbers: In this article published in ZfVP, I reconstruct the concept of anti-pluralism and examine why, from a theory-conceptual perspective, it is particularly well suited to identify potential autocratizers 👉 doi.org/10.1007/s122...

@sonjapriebus.bsky.social Aleksandra Maatsch& me are organizing a workshop on 'Opposing challenges to democracy across contexts' in Frankfurt (Oder) 26-27 March 2026. Do you have a paper that might fit? ➡️Call for Papers (📆Deadline: 05/12) www.dvpw.de/informatione...

Pretty excited to share this. We worked on a monster for the past year, getting LLMs (AI, those ChatGPT kinds of things) to qualitatively code the levels of populism in political speeches with holistic grading. Enjoy. populism.byu.edu/large-langua...

Together with @kenbenoit.bsky.social we offer a hands-on workshop on @instats.bsky.social for qualitative researchers to use LLMs for annotating texts, images, audio, etc. without requiring deep programming skills but with the full flexibility and fun of R. instats.org/seminar/ai-p...

New article out in @polstudies.bsky.social! Why do opposition parties in authoritarian regimes so often fail to coordinate, even when unity could help them win? doi.org/10.1177/0032... In this article, we highlight two overlooked drivers of opposition fragmentation 🧵

Are you conducting research combining qualitative cross-case methods (comparative case studies or QCA) with process tracing? ➡️ ** We are looking to show-case your work** ⬅️ 🧵 1/

🚨 Job alert! 🚨 (English in comment) An meinem Lehrbereich ist zum 1.2.26 eine Postdoc-Stelle (100%) zu besetzen. Gesucht wird ein*e Kandidat*in mit Kenntnissen in quantitativen Methoden sowie Expertise in einschlägigen Themenbereichen. Mehr hier: www.verwaltung.uni-halle.de/dezern3/Auss...

Very proud of my PhD student @kwalz.bsky.social who successfully defended his thesis on "Pathways to breakdown resilience" today and is now Dr. (des.) Kevin Walz 🎉 Watch out for his book to learn how accountability can stop autocratization! In Picture: Kevin🧑‍🎓, Natasha Wunsch, 2nd supervisor and me 😀

Heute um 16 Uhr begrüßen wir Natasha Wunsch (Université de Fribourg) in unserer #Forschungswerkstatt. Das Thema ist wirklich spannend: "Democratic Commitment: Why Citizens Tolerate Democratic Backsliding". Alle sind herzlich willkommen!

Diesen Mittwoch in der Forschungswerkstatt Politikwissenschaft @powimz.bsky.social : Nathasha Wunsch stellt ihr neues Buch vor! 16 Uhr in P5 - wir freuen uns schon 🎉

Im Rahmen unserer Forschungswerkstatt bieten wir im Wintersemester 2025/26 wieder ein spannendes Programm zu verschiedenen Themen an. Wie immer gilt: alle sind herzlich willkommen!

📢Can free academia withstand democratic backsliding? Why some universities wither while others survive. Read the recently published article in #ISPR. Together with Katrin Kinzelbach and @silindberg.bsky.social (Open Access): doi.org/10.1177/0192...

Application period for New Europe College (Bucharest) fellowships in humanities and social sciences: nec.ro/fellowships/... Especially if you recently got your PhD and are looking for a 1-year fellowship it is a wonderful place to work, with a scholarship that will completely cover expenses here