🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social): We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys. Short version: It mostly doesn’t. w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social URL: osf.io/preprints/os...

I've been observing academic LinkedIn for a while. Unfortunately I'm not witty enough to write a sarcastic op-ed, so all I can say is posts in academic LinkedIn are so weird

"Switzerland + its stakeholders are recognised worldwide for their integrity + transparency. They are not attractive for illegally acquired assets ... [but] it is likely that there's a high number of unreported cases" - Switzerland's new Anti-Corruption Strategy 🤨 www.news.admin.ch/en/newnsb/sy...

I'm going to do a thread of all the references and context behind Bad Bunny's performance and what it means for Puerto Ricans to see this on the biggest stage. The opening title screen is a street mural in Puerto Rico that comes to life with footballs as coconuts. Follow along!

Disturbingly detailed analysis of my first rewatch incoming

After a short hiatus, Respect the Marble is back: catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/introducin... Introducing a new series The Long Carve: about how to decide which ideas deserves our long-term writing attention, & how we learn to keep writing when the outcome is unknown and uncertain. 🧵

🎉 This is now out in the latest @apsrjournal.bsky.social issue with page numbers! We find that modernization and expanding state reach through railroad construction in Europe tended to produce backlash and separatism among peripheral ethnic minorities.

Während wir auf Trumps geopolitische Eskapaden blicken, geht unter, was gerade im Inneren der USA geschieht: In Internierungslagern werden Menschen getötet. Der neueste, erschreckende Fall ist der des Familienvaters Geraldo Lunas Campos.

#OpenAccess from @jpublicpolicy.bsky.social - The political economy of policy instruments: The Left and collectively governed markets in Germany - https://cup.org/4qjQnMB - @ndurazzi.bsky.social#OpenAccess& Cecilia Ivardi (University of St.Gallen) #FirstView

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.

Amidst mass killings and internet shutdowns the Iranian regime has also found a way to jam access to Starlink: restofworld.org/2026/iran-st... @restofworld.org

I also hope it makes clear how important it is to just read the papers you are citing (gasp!), and if necessary to develop the methodological expertise to interpret them sensibly.

Some reflections from me on January 6 in comparative and historical perspective (first time on substack) open.substack.com/pub/ziblatt4...

kind of darkly funny that "gender studies" is the stereotypical "useless degree" because gender studies will help you understand a large and important chunk of the current psychosis in american life

Tupac tried to scold y'all

“Since the announcement of their hunger strike on 20 October till 10 December 2025, the hunger strike by jailed Palestine Action activists was mentioned a total of 12 times in the British mainstream newspapers.” That is so damning and grim.

There is growing interest in HPE about social conflict in the run-up to the French Revolution. In a new article at Data & Corpus, I describe the Jean Nicolas Database, a database of 8,516 rebellions in France (1661-1789) 👉Article: doi.org/10.46298/dc.... 👉Database: doi.org/10.7910/DVN/... 🧵1/6

I think it’s fairly common that somebody raises concerns about selection bias (as a threat to internal validity) but then others read it as a concern about generalizability (i.e., external validity). The former is way more damning for any attempt to make sense of the data.

Selection on the cases with digitized data. Selection on the questions with easily accessible data. What does this do to knowledge production? Here is a great piece that deals with some of these issues. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Finally completed the 12 part podcast series on Fela Kuti. Well worth it. A complex human being, an amazing artist, a political visionary but also a hugely flawed man. open.spotify.com/show/320MJFB...

Another way to restart the world’s idea machine is to restore funding and grants to universities, researchers, and artists.

It has become received wisdom in Brussels and Washington that there is a new “euro-sclerosis”: that the EU economy is lagging the US This view is wrong A little primer on the measurement of productivity – and why reports of the economic death of Europe are greatly exaggerated🧵

I used MEMES as a teaching tool: Students designed memes to capture a core idea of the course readings. The ensuing class discussion often led to new perspectives on the readings, plus students had fun. The course was on State and Violence @ipz.bsky.social University of Zurich A selection:

!

Every academic has one superpower: the ability to turn a five-minute task into a three-month digression

Studying the logic of state surveillance based on the universe of Italian files finds that states target educated and subaltern groups, with mobilization and radical change potential, from Gemma Dipoppa and Annalisa Pezone www.nber.org/papers/w34492

Apply to join the Transparency International EU (@transparency-eu.bsky.social) team as an Illicit Financial Flows Policy trainee, monitoring anti-corruption and anti-money laundering developments and trends at EU level. Applications due by 7 December 2025 transparency.eu/illicit-fina...

I'm delighted to announce that my paper "How terrorism affects support for democracy" doi.org/10.1007/s111... is now published in Public Choice. Thanks to all my dear colleagues and friends who supported this project in whatever way over the years.😍🥳🍀

Ugly campaigns hurt voter trust. Weak institutions make it worse. New research on negative campaigning in Africa reveals what really undermines democracy. See the data here: goodauthority.org/news/ugly-ne...

www.tagesanzeiger.ch/representati... It's really really frustrating to realize that many economists still don't know that political science exists.

The billions of research funds channeled into the pockets of Elsevier and other commercial publisher in return for very little actual value is one of academia's big inefficiencies that will eventually be replaced by more attractive Community-run alternatives

“Housing shortage – Jews to blame," letter sticker, German Reich, 1938 zwangsraeume.berlin/en/context

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma. It's *scientific publishing*. We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing. Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820 Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_... Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

How are contemporary cleavage structures stabilized in times of declining mass social and political organizations? In this new paper with @davidattewell6.bsky.social @bjpols.bsky.social, we suggest that homogeneous social (educational) networks provide part of the answer. tinyurl.com/49cs8jwp

Papyrus or vellum perhaps? Looking forward to the next “call for parchments”

Attacks on trans rights are often framed as efforts to "protect women." But the reality is that such attacks only protect the patriarchy. Because enforcing a strict sex-based gender binary makes it easier to tilt that binary into a hierarchy where women are subordinate to men.

New paper: LLMs are increasingly used to label data in political science. But how reliable are these annotations, and what are the consequences for scientific findings? What are best practices? Some new findings from a large empirical evaluation. Paper: eddieyang.net/research/llm_annotation.pdf

New podcast on Fela Kuti spotify.link/fWGbrRitIXb

10 years, a tenured prof (a women) told me that the solution to a peaceful (straight) relationship was for the 👩 to be with a younger 👨: "you will be more senior so no tension around the fact that you earn the same/more." This paper echoes this convo: econpapers.repec.org/paper/izaiza... (1/2)

This was a predictable outcome. Israel armed & supported clan-based militias in Gaza. Some of these groups had previously been stealing humanitarian aid. Now, Hamas can go after them as collaborators & use that narrative to go after others who oppose them. Civilians will be caught in the crossfire.

"Many of the CEOs I spoke with didn’t care about democracy per se. For them, democracy wasn’t a moral good. It was a source of volatility. What they wanted was stability... " But "The evidence is overwhelming: countries that weaken democracy do not gain more stability and security, they lose it."

New SI "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" @wepsocial.bsky.social! If you're interested in transforming social & political divides in advanced democracies, this is for you. The intro by @davidattewell6.bsky.social & me maps contributions around 3 challenges for contemp. cleavage research.

This sets me thinking if the current pattern concentration of wealth is a key contributor to authoritarianism because it means there are monopolies that are very sensitive to political pressure and few enough of them that you can blackmail them one by one

This is a paper I really care about. I feel the core message is very important for social scientists in general, and political scientists in particular. "Quantitative Research in Political Science is Greatly Underpowered." (with A+ co-authors)

📖 New Etched in Marble: Mark Blyth on Why AI Won’t Save Your Writing The Brown University political economist talks irritation, PowerPoint & why the page is still the only place where real thinking happens. Read → catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/etched-in-... 🧵

Radical-right parties are often linked to the “left-behind”. But supporting them when stigma is strong is costly. So who is willing to pay that cost early on, before it’s normalized? In my new WP, I argue that breaking political norms is socially stratified. 🧵👇

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.

NEW - Quick. But Impactful? United Nations Quick Impact Projects and Violence against Civilians in Civil War - cup.org/4mZSEdA - @joribreslawski.bsky.social & Jacob D. Kathman #OpenAccess