What an awesome collaboration with @celytadeas.bsky.social and @matejjung.bsky.social! In our new paper, we ask whether political belief systems in CEE are becoming more coherent and aligned with left-right ideology among generations without direct experience of state socialism. TL;dr Nope.

One of the best events on CEE. Apply while you can.

I’m a historian of fascism. What is happening in Minneapolis is fascism.

Apologies for being self-referential but

Within the next decade the radical right is going to be the main force on the right in Europe (national and EU level). This includes far-right parties and formerly centre-right parties shifting their position. Moderate conservatism and Christian democracy will largely disappear on the right. 1/

"international law must be followed" is european for "thoughts and prayers"

Just came across this case a couple of days ago while on a hike with family. Landau, the wealthy picturesque town in South-Western Germany close to where I grew up, voted to retain street names associated with the NS-regime:63% on a turnout of almost 70% (concurrence with federal election).

So, here it is. Thanks to a new state law that was NEVER DEBATED, Indiana University has committed itself to abolishing majors in African-American/African Diaspora Studies: American Studies; Art History; French; Italian; Religious Studies etc. DOZENS of majors. www.ipm.org/news-section...

*Register data* results now published for whole Germany: 37% of women under 25 voted for die Linke in the German federal elections in 2025. Also very striking to see that the AfD was the strongest party among *all age groups of men except those older than 60*.

It should not be lost on anyone that Minnesota Rep Melissa Hortman, who was shot to death in her home last night by an assassin, was a gun safety advocate who worked tirelessly to protect her constituents from gun violence.

Melissa Hortman, who was assassinated last night, was the Speaker of the Minnesota House in the 2023-2024 session, when Democrats ran the state government. That means she had a leading role in shepherding the many landmark reforms that Dems adopted in that period—an important legacy. Brief 🧵.

If you were an enemy who wanted to undermine the US, especially its economic power and security, you simply could not do any better than the first four months of the Trump 2.0 administration.

Appeal from colleagues at Harvard: "...we also call upon our fellow institutions of higher education in the United States to declare their willingness to facilitate the immediate co-enrollment of Harvard’s international students., including formal acceptance of transfer for immigration purposes."

New publication @wepsocial.bsky.social w/ Timothy Hellwig and Lawrence Ezrow! We argue and show that non-centrist/extreme governments prioritize their core supporters over the median voter when making policy. However, this strategy is likely to backfire at the next election. tinyurl.com/ynexbzwh

📢 Excited to share my publication in the EJPR! I examine ideological alignment, arguing for asymmetry—left-wing partisans are more aligned than the right. Analyzing 15 countries, 20 issues, and two time points, I reveal evidence and limits of this asymmetry. 🧵 doi.org/10.1111/1475...

It is legally impossible to deport citizens. This is not deportation. Removing citizens to foreign prisons, knowing to a certainty that they will be subjected to treatment that violates the U.S. constitution, doesn’t deserve any label that connotes legal legitimacy.

i am fascinated by the outright refusal of people in the professional political commentary class to just consider the possibility that there is no plan and that trump really is a braying idiot with the more acute case of narcissistic personality disorder on record

Here’s Elon cutting pediatric brain cancer research 👇🏻

I decided to start a #thread 🧵 of stories about legal residents and tourists being (illegally) arrested, detained and/or deported by the Trump regime. I'll only post stories from serious sources, as rumors and conspiracies are really not needed in this authoritarian moment.

Meanwhile, in Rome: demonstration in support of Europe (Yes, you read that correctly - now they’re waving European flags not in Tbilisi or Kyiv, but in the heart of ‘old Europe’)

Suspension of Hungarian citizenship. A new constitutional amendment would allow for the “suspension” of Hungarian citizenship for dual nationals. This is a thread on the possible consequences, the terrible historical examples, and legal problems.

Nearly a year after the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico, how do Slovaks perceive political violence today? See my colleagues' analysis ⬇️

🎉 New paper in PNAS: Urban highways are barriers to social ties https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2408937122 Highways are barriers that cut opportunities for social ties. We quantify this effect by overlaying the US highway network with millions of social ties from Twitter.

The ugly truth: Europe has been more generous to Russia than Ukraine.

It can't get any worse! [It gets worse]

I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.

How many federal workers would DOGE need to fire to make up for Musk not paying his fair share of taxes? Answer: 677,000. That's 44% of the entire non-DoD federal workforce. Again, this power grab is not about the budget. It’s about politics.

This is where we are now: An elementary school at Fort Campbell has removed all books from its library that so much as *allude* to slavery or the civil rights movement. The wholesale erasure of history in real time.

“Most vilified”?! “Most powerful”?! “Hard right”?! I see at the Economist we have given up even attempting serious reporting on the upcoming German election

Male-female friendships are a under-rated driver of gender equality. When women can fraternise freely, they can share ideas, gain respect, & build empathy with men who care about their wants & welfare. Countries with high male-female friendships score better on equality 👇

In the Czech Republic,we tend to be quite suspicious about Munich conferences where peace is said to be negotiated. Just saying.

In #Germany, a watershed moment: Just hours after commemorating the Holocaust, the centre-right has accepted the support of the #farright #AfD to pass a (largely symbolic) motion against immigration, tearing a massive hole into the so-called 'firewall', Germany's variety of the cordon sanitaire.

🛡️ How can parliaments become more gender-sensitive? In her latest blog, @profsarahchilds.bsky.social examines the role of male allies and champions—or whether something less heroic might be key to driving change. 📖 Read the full piece: www.johnsmithcentre.com/research-blo...

Worth noting that the authors of the paper coded whether the person asking the questions is male and female. They do find evidence that it is male academics that are systematically more hostile to women (they seem to especially do it in job market talks, although those are longer seminars, etc)

8️⃣ We know v. little about our own societies. The polls and the exit polls (!) were off by at least 10 p. We need massive investment in social sciences & survey research. We can not rely on Western grants alone to finance research on domestic dynamics. There is a lot to (re-)build in 🇷🇴 academia.

I will be teaching Introduction to Political Science next year. Does anybody teach a similiar class and want to share their syllabus with me? Or do you have any recommendations what to include (or drop)??? Thank you!

Please help! There was a web where you could visualize how election polls work by sampling colorful balls from a population of colorful balls. It was a great way of teaching sampling error and I forgot what website it was. Does anybody know? Or do you have other great resources?

People working on politics and gender: don’t miss out on the best conference! Panel and paper proposals are now open for #ecpg24 in Ghent 8-10 July. ecpr.eu/Events/Event...

I’m glad this keynote by @popovaprof.bsky.social was recorded. I had no idea that a conference speech could be so powerful before I saw it.

@profmusgrave.bsky.social can I join polisky? Thank you!