It's Monday morning, so time to share my new Substack: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle... (caution: I'm very far from being a sociologist so pls do provide feedback)

Paths to Power (PtP) is out in @bjpols.bsky.social! It is a database with data on cabinet members' social profile globally from 1966-2021. This is a great team effort with @chknutsen.bsky.social, @peterla.bsky.social, @inalkristiansen.bsky.social. But many more helped us along the way 🙏 A short 🧵

New Working Paper 🚨 I am introducing the new dataset on Parliamentary Elites in Authoritarian Regimes (PEAR). It includes information on the composition of parliaments in 819 legislative terms in 130 autocracies from 1945 - based on over 200k individual-level observations. tinyurl.com/48h68hmh

🚨 Why do people protest against authoritarian regimes even when facing extreme danger? 🚨 In our new paper on Romania's 1989 Revolution, we find that communities exposed to the communist Gulag showed 5x higher dissent levels. doi.org/10.1177/0010... 1/🧵

And if you want to learn more about how people make a career in dictatorship, pre-order the authors' (Christian Gläßel and @ascharpf.bsky.social) new book "Making a Career in Dictatorship": global.oup.com/academic/pro...

1/ How does migration affect political attitudes? Using 380k obs from 104 sending & 28 receiving countries, @filipkostelka.bsky.social, Nicolas Sauger & I find some migrants’ attitudes align with locals, while others exceed origin-host context, reshaping ideological space. 👉 doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

Join us next week! @javierpadilla.bsky.social (@thegraduatecenter.bsky.social) will be presenting his work on how oligarchic cleavages shape liberalization and democratization and @alucardi1.bsky.social (@itam-mx.bsky.social) and @emisimison.bsky.social (@qmpoliticsir.bsky.social) will discuss.

In two weeks, I will be presenting at the @apsgworkshop.bsky.social my paper on how Brazilian oligarchies shaped democratization.

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. 🧵👇

Another week, another blog:) this one is for my academic friends entering the European postdoc job market. laurenleek.substack.com/p/the-postdo...

Looking for the explanation of who votes for Spain’s new (really new) far-right party, SALF, which made it into the EP for the 1st last year? @javierpadilla.bsky.social @canalejoalvaro.bsky.social & @bertous.bsky.social have you covered with this great data-rich paper! doi.org/10.1177/2053...

📝Why has a Bukele-style far-right party emerged in Spain—even though VOX already exists? In our new paper, @javierpadilla.bsky.social, @canalejoalvaro.bsky.social and I explain the unexpected rise of SALF ("Let the Party Be Over") in the 2024 EP elections: journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.... 1/3