Court documents used to convict five men in London for burning a warehouse of supplies for Ukraine included Telegram chats with an account called Lucky Strike. Lucky Strike turned up again in Poland, named as offering $4,000 to a man to burn down a paint factory. www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

2. Our new analysis suggests that protest events in 2025 have occurred across a wider range of US counties than we observed during Trump's first term. And the current protest movement has already reached deeper into Trump country than at almost any point during the first Trump administration.

an insane expansion and abuse of powers that is so clearly rooted in Global War on Terror architecture

Final reminder! Political scientists in the southeast, submit your paper to SoWEPS to get great feedback and hang out in New Orleans on 11/7! We match you with a discussant and everyone reads ahead. Submissions due TOMORROW 9/19: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... #polisky

Two things to add to this: 1) I am much more concerned with party elites and leaders encouraging and stoking violence than shifts in the public from vaguely worded questions. 2) These public shifts in support for violence are almost always downstream of elite rhetoric and narratives.

Political scientists in the southeast (broadly defined), submit your paper to SoWEPS to get great feedback! We match you with a discussant and everyone reads ahead. We're hosting at Tulane on November 9, submissions due September 19: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Come hang out in New Orleans! January, not surprisingly, is a great time to be here! SPSA deadline today. spsa.net/annual-meeti...

Les acteurs russes ont joué un rôle de premier plan en alimentant et en amplifiant de faux récits autour de la junte burkinabè. La junte, à son tour, a été l’un des plus ardents défenseurs de la présence sécuritaire croissante de Moscou en Afrique.

OUT OF EVERY DITCH, A PATH

Come work with me! Tulane Poli Sci is hiring an Assistant Professor in comparative political economy: apply.interfolio.com/172989 I'm not on the committee but happy to answer Qs about dept, NOLA, etc

Great forum to present some work and get some feedback if you have a paper on anything on African politics. Given its virtual format, it's a great place for junior scholars and scholars based on the continent to do an hour long workshop-style discussion of a paper! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Jamelle Bouie Receives the 2025 Carey McWilliams Award The Carey McWilliams Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor major journalistic contributions to society’s understanding of politics. Citation from the Award Committee: The American Political…

We're hosting the next edition of the Southern Workshop in Empirical Political Science (SoWEPS) at Tulane on November 7! Please submit a paper or sign up to be a discussant here by September 19: forms.gle/iB5b4E8mrofq...

We're at the dawn of some bad shit in the Azawad. Again

this is all horrible. alongside devastating blows to PBS and NPR, this bill totally ends US funding to key UN bodies that do frontline work, including UNICEF & OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Completely eliminates US contributions—previously the US was the key funder.

indefensible

This is the reality of Burkina, just when a massive campaign on anglophone social media invents non-existent, crazy achievements by IB Traoré and makes him the liberator of Africa, thanks to AI generated posts. Also, yesterday was another day of debacle for the army, with 11 attacks by JNIM

After noteworthy gains in the previous decade under democratically elected governments, Niger’s military coup in July 2023 has resulted in a deterioration in security, economic wellbeing, and agency for Nigerien citizens. africacenter.org/spo... 1/2

My colleagues @andrewleber.bsky.social & @stano.bsky.social: "If American university presidents do not forcefully denounce these unconstitutional and un-American actions, our universities will soon be shells of their former selves, like (...) other nations that have lapsed into authoritarian rule."

This is horribly unethical. Violating the subreddit’s rules, no meaningful consent, and has the downstream consequence of reducing people’s trust in other posters in a space that seems like it was actually a decent place for dialogue & people being open to changing their minds about important issues

About 70% of the migration flows across West & Central Africa involve temporary, seasonal, and permanent migration of workers, with economic hubs such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria the key destinations. See our Spotlight for more: africacenter.org/spo...

"The same person [...] coordinating all foreign assistance across the department is also [...] the chief humanitarian for the U.S. government, responsible for getting billions of dollars of assistance to the most difficult operating environments with likely 95 percent less staff than before" 1/2

Well this was a fucking ride archive.is/0SrwO

I first learned Rwanda was open to accepting people not wanted in the US via a copy of a diplomatic cable sent in March. A new cable sent today confirmed that the first person had been "relocated" after the US paid the Rwandan government $100,000.

Mobutu couldn’t hold a candle to these guys. “Taken together, the various projects are approaching $1 billion in paper gains even after accounting for the latest round of trade war-induced market gyrations, according to Bloomberg.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

In other news regarding the West African/Sahelian move away from France...

This is very noticeable among students as well. Especially international students are increasingly reluctant to speak, even inside the classroom, because they are - understandably! rightfully! - frightened they might get punished by the regime. It is heartbreaking and it makes me so fucking angry.

We hang together or we hang separately. Could not be clearer what is happening and how universities must respond.

I wrote this in November 2024. It was a difficult thing to write then, and it is a depressing thing to read now. And yet I share it because I think we still need to ask ourselves how far we will go.

I'm sorry, but any major news media outlet not covering hands off protests, tesla protests, or the acts of popular resistance are making a deliberate choice -- to serve power.

ICMYI: reported protests in the US in 2025 are almost certainly outpacing protests during Trump 1.0. In March 2025, we recorded significant growth in the number of cumulative events, and also an uptick in the rate of events (# of protests/week).

it was so cute! bubbles and confetti -- carnival culture does protest

In 2015, University of Cincinnati police killed Samuel DuBose—not a university affiliate—miles away from campus after a routine traffic stop. This doesn’t just make Columbia students and faculty less safe; it makes all New Yorkers less safe.

1/ The number of protests planned for tomorrow is enormous. Given what Trump has done to the economy, and everyone's collective ability to pay for household expenses/retirement I'd expect them to be huge. Find out more at handsoff2025.com

I think this probably has more to do with the dispute with ECOWAS but either way not a sign of an improving geopolitical environment

Nothing.

Fuck yeah, Louisiana. Y'all turned out. Landry wanted 12% turnout to get his extremist constitutional amendments passed. Hot mic with shill Mike Johnson said he worried there'd be 18% turnout. We got ~20% turnout on a weird-ass off cycle weekend election and defeated ALL FOUR by huge margins.

shameful and stupid

NYT story on the importance of VOA for Chinese people seeking information, in which some decline to go on the record because of fear of retribution from Beijing—or Washington

A think I have been screaming about: universities have an obligation to use their endowments to fight against the suppression of freedom of expression: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/o...

“One source of expertise lies in the people & institutions in marginalized communities throughout this country & around the globe who have had decades of experience in navigating a world where simply looking out for one’s own best interests is insufficient for individual or collective survival”

Stop letting people in this administration say they want to make changes to FEMA because it will save money/minimize disaster spending. This is not true. One thing we are very sure about in disaster research is that investing in mitigation & preparedness saves us major money in response & recovery.

NEW: The bill comes after ProPublica’s reporting on the deaths of three Texas women. It specifies that doctors don’t need to wait until an emergency is “imminent” to terminate pregnancies but leaves in steep penalties for those who violate the law. Kavitha Surana & @cassandrajaramillo.bsky.social

And please appreciate that "small" work is useful. Do what is in your capacity -- and surprise yourself with how that can grow and how your democracy-defending actions will be contagious.

Full letter here: sites.google.com/umass.edu/we... Please, consider signing, specially if you are tenured and a citizen.

One of the best things we can do as political scientists right now is not mine words about what's happening when speaking to the press. Shout out to this woman.