As someone who studies politicization of democratic militaries this statement on X is a five- alarm fire. It creates an undeniable permission structure for overt partisan behavior by mil. It's part of a concerted effort by civilian leaders to turn the U.S. military into a partisan aligned force.

The APSA Democracy and Autocracy Section is partnering with @apsgworkshop.bsky.social to launch a new series of public-facing panels. Our first event on April 9 (12:30 to 1:30 PM EST) will focus on attacks on media freedoms. You can register here: tinyurl.com/3ds284p6. Please join us!

the most corrupt administration in history, every day a Teapot Dome level scandal

I’ve been a journalist for 27 years. I’ve reported major stories about mass surveillance, torture, war, the military-industrial complex, police black sites, etc. But this is the most important story I’ve ever had the horror/honor to work on. For it is a story about the current phase of a genocide.

📢 TWO WEEK REMINDER!: DPIR seeks a Departmental Lecturer in Comparative Politics to provide teaching and supervision at the undergraduate and graduate level and contribute to the Departmental examining and graduate admissions processes. 🗓️ CLOSES: Noon (BST) 10 April: www.politics.ox.ac.u...

A public online panel moderated by DPIR’s @scottrw630.bsky.social focussing on how the media is attacked during episodes of ‘democratic backsliding’ will be held from 5.30-6.30pm BST, Thu, 9 April. Find out more: https://tinyurl.com/ydk92yfy

Join us for our first APSG-APSA Democracy & Autocracy roundtable! With Anya Schiffrin (@columbiasipa.bsky.social), Bardia Rahmani (Harvard), Erin Baggott Carter (USC, @hooverinstitution.bsky.social), @linettelim.bsky.social (@ucdpolitics.bsky.social) and @scottrw630.bsky.social (@ox.ac.uk).

As the United States turns 250, the country’s population is more racially and ethnically diverse than in previous decades. Three-quarters of U.S. adults see racial and ethnic diversity as a good thing for the country. Read more about Americans’ views on diversity here: www.pewresearch.org/...

📣 New job at Oxford's Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM)! 📣 The Departments of Politics & IR (DPIR) and Social Policy and Intervention (DSPI) are hiring an Associate Professor of Causal and Experimental Methods. Come work with me and amazing Oxford peeps! Deadline NOON April 27th.

Important new research shows the number of Americans who are neutral about democracy exceeds those who oppose it. These neutrals are NOT inattentive. They are: uninformed, cynical, ambivalent, conditional. @nathumbehav.nature.com Democracy supporters speak out! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Soon CBS, CNN, & TikTok will all be owned by Trump-megadonor Larry Ellison.   Trump's billionaire buddies are buying up more of our media & jeopardizing our independent press.   State Attorneys General have the power to stop this merger, they must act. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

New paper in Research and Politics with @scottrw630.bsky.social We ask a simple question: can politics shape ageism? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Good for Rayner. Glad to see someone in the party stand up against what I agree is ‘un-British’ - changing the rules arbitrarily on people who made big life commitments. It’s about keeping your word.

‘Trump is aiming for dictatorship’. That’s the verdict of the world’s most credible democracy watchdog | Martin Gelin

V-Dem v.16 is now released, w. updated scores for 2025. Most countries remain stable from 2024, but some clear improvements (on diff’t democracy indices), incl. S. Korea, Sri Lanka & Mauritius. Largest declines came, by far, in the US. This figure shows 10-yr changes on the Liberal Dem. index.

“Those in command of Iran today are veterans of asymmetric wars in Iraq & Syria. They are now applying the same strategy to fighting the US on the battlefield of the global economy” - @valinasr.bsky.social on Tehran’s long game strategy giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.” — Pete Hegseth, war minister, speaking of CNN today. In public. Orbánization of the media is having a moment because of Hegseth's performance. Read Greg Sargent's interpretation. bsky.app/profile/greg...

Want a thoughtful perspective on Iranian politics and society? Come join me tomorrow at noon EST on Substack Live for a discussion with @danieltavana.bsky.social. We'll talk about the inner workings of the regime, divisions within Iranian society, and prospects for democracy. Session link in replies

📢 We are hiring an Assistant Professor in Middle East Politics. Come and work with us in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University. Details here: durham.taleo.net/careersectio... Closing date: 7 April 2026

New, from me: Trump's retribution against Anthropic is over the top. But it should cause Democrats to think about how they will deal with contractors like Musk or Ellison when they return to power. What do you do with vendors working to oppose you? 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/procuremen...

key questions for journalists to ask: did the military consider any of the risks to human life or the environment when bombing an oil facility in/near a city of close to 10 million? if US did it, was it a result of hegseth's rejection of the law of war?

More than 400 desalination plants are in the Gulf. More attacks on such plants would be devastating--one of the many worries running through my mind over the last few days as this war widens. 90% of Kuwait's drinking water, for ex, comes from desalination. Low's piece below is a good refresher.

There is a legal provision in immigration law that someone married to a US citizen can stay in the US while there visa is pending. Immigration officials have long recognized it to allow residency during the wait time. The DHS has just stopped following this part of the law.

This March as we celebrate International Women’s Day – we celebrate Women in Politics and International Relations Explore inspiring collaborations between female students and their supervisors, shared in their own words: www.politics.ox.ac.u...

SCOOP — Body camera footage obtained as a result of my lawsuit against the DC Metropolitan PD confirms DOGE and the Trump administration openly admitted they were entering private property when they raided the building on March 17, 2025. That didn't stop MPD from breaking down the doors. My report:

How do everyday people in authoritarian regimes think about politics? And how do the public's attitudes shape the way autocrats govern? Tony Zirui Yang and I have a new chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Authoritarian Politics that reviews academic research on these questions: doi.org/10.1093/oxfo...

📢 We are hiring: Combined Postdoc position at V-Dem Institute and GLD! Applications are open for a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Cross-National Survey Methodology in Political Science. Application: web103.reachmee.com/ext/I005/103... 🧵1(4) #Polisky #PoliSciSky #PoliticalScienceJobs #PostDoc

Foreign influencers help authoritarian regimes: while they may not sway domestic audiences already saturated with propaganda, they can reshape the perceptions of more credulous foreign publics journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Iran seems set on a strategy of deliberate escalation, trying to threaten as large a swathe of the region as possible, to increase political and economic pressure for a ceasefire. www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

The DFG (German Research Foundation) has a programme funding stays of up to three months at German academic institutions for researchers in early career phases and of all disciplines from MENA (www.dfg.de/en/news/news...) and Sub-Saharan Africa (www.dfg.de/en/news/news...).

People explain the real impact of politically-motivated changes to the settlement rules on their lives, the Home Office responds with "We make no apology ..." IME people in power who use the "no apology" formula know full well that they are doing something very wrong

Peep this from @anthlittle.bsky.social & @tompepinsky.com. We CAN learn even from biased estimates if we do exactly what @stablemarkets.bsky.social is saying. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

📢 APPLY NOW! DPIR, in association with University College, wishes to appoint a Associate Professor of the International Relations of the Global South. 🗓️ CLOSES: Noon BST, Tue 14 April: www.politics.ox.ac.u...

• ~3.2M Afghan refugees are currently in Pakistan • ~3–4M Afghans are estimated to be in Iran • Afghanistan already has ~6M+ internally displaced people • Gulf states host ~30M+ migrant workers If multiple fronts destabilize at once, even small % moving becomes major regional migration event.

Sadly not surprising, but this is really failing to meet the moment as leader of the opposition.

Reports of attacks on American facilities in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. Missiles also reported aimed at Saudi Arabia

Qatar & Bahrain’s airspace has been closed. Here in the UAE, there are reports of explosions heard in Abu Dhabi & airspace is now closed. Many people who live in these countries fled wars in Iraq, Palestine & beyond. News like this is traumatic for them. Keep them & all civilians in your thoughts.

Needless to say, POTUS's airing of grievances on social media against Iran does not provide a predicate for using military force under either US or international law. A lawless, unnecessary war of choice—waged on the whims of one man.

Following up some of my morning thoughts: "Labour’s basic electoral problem comes from the fact that left-leaning voters are indeed choosing to vote against rather than for parties. The problem is that progressives aren’t just voting against Reform. They are now actively voting against Labour."

@martamiori.bsky.social and I have been writing, since 2024, about why Labour's 'Reform' challenge and emphasis was based on a misunderstanding of Labour's vote. Here for anyone interested: politicscentre.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Over the past eighteen months, the political science consensus on the nature of Labour's vote has been absolutely correct - and yet also completely ignored by pundits and strategists who continue to get it wrong.

Good that some Labour politicians draw the right conclusions. I am a broken record on this but Labour is repeating the same mistakes that other social democratic parties made in Europe. Some fragmentation is unavoidable but this is mostly the result of the strategic mistake to abandon progressives.

The Paramount/WB merger is a consequence of government corruption and everybody involved should be prosecuted and the eye-popping fines should be clawed back from shareholders

Interestingly, Netflix pulled out after Sarandos had a meeting with Trump today. Presumably Trump had a part in this.

The CNN domino falls, and the media landscape is getting very competitive authoritarian-y… www.nytimes.com/2026/02/26/b...

This really feels like an Orban/Erdogan situation in which the aspiring dictator is making sure his friendly oligarchs control as much media as possible www.cnbc.com/2026/02/26/w...

After the arrests of powerful men across the world, you might be asking why the US has so much trouble holding its leaders accountable for lawbreaking. Since Nixon, all three branches of government have worked hard to ensure they can break the law with impunity www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

I'm glad to see accountability for academia's bad apples. But I also hope that resignations like this one won't be the end of the story. Because we still need to reckon with how the structures and cultures in "elite" academia have created ripe conditions for rot. 1/🧵 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/u...