My interview with @umich.edu professor Dan Slater on the current landscape of democracy and authoritarianism in the US & abroad. "Short-term extremely pessimistic and long-term at least somewhat optimistic"; watch out for weak authoritarians; fire up the non-cooperation & more @dnsltr.bsky.social

Stackable syllabus! The State in Comparative & World Politics Autumn 2025, @umichpolisci

Question: Why are many people under the impression that Trump and the awful things he’s doing are popular, even though they’re not? Answer: America is still a mostly free country where dissent against Trump’s dictatorial ambitions is widespread, but media keeps making it appear as if it’s not.

Popular youth-led resistance to collusive elite rule is being rejuvenated through mass protest in Indonesia and being strangled through judicial and military repression in Thailand. Curious then that the dominant narrative is that Indonesia, and not Thailand, is in “crisis.”

Indonesia’s protests over lawmakers’ perks reveal frustration: Three decades after the fall of the Suharto dictatorship, political and economic power remain in the hands of the elite. The protests may have died down but the fury is unlikely to fade www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Notable new piece by @dnsltr.bsky.social‬ just out in @jodemocracy.bsky.social /provides a nuanced though brief sketch of Thailand's turbulent political history--& has astute comments on implications of the Thai story for thinking about global trends www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclu...

Thailand's current crisis may finally end the cycle of populism and polarization that has crippled the country's democratic aspirations. But it is also revealing that there are far worse forces undermining Thai democracy. @dnsltr.bsky.social explains: www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclu...

Honored to have contributed to this unfortunately timely @apsa.bsky.social Democracy and Autocracy newsletter edited by @rebeccawai.bsky.social with a piece on Immigration Policy as a “Biomarker” for Political Regime Transformation. 📌 Read all contributions here: lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/...

🧵 THREAD: A fascinating newsletter looks at Trump’s breakthrough with voters of colour, and it reveals something far more significant than conventional politics – the emergence of a new sort of reactionary coalition that cuts across race lines 👇

The connections between IMMIGRATION and AUTHORITARIANBISM are becoming more obvious and tragic by the day. Our latest issue of Democracy & Autocracy @umichDemocracy tackles these connections head-on, from multiple comparative angles: 1/6 ii.umich.edu/emerging-dem...

🔉 NEW! Podcast from @revdem2020.bsky.social featuring @dnsltr.bsky.social on his essay "The Authoritarian Origins of the Third Wave" from our latest issue! 👂 Listen here: revdem.ceu.edu/2025/05/05/a...

💡🧵 3 takeaways from @dnsltr.bsky.social dramatic rethinking of the Third Wave of democratization... Read "The Authoritarian Origins of the Third Wave": muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...

Another year of programming to be proud of @umichDemocracy! ii.umich.edu/emerging-dem...

💡🧵 3 takeaways from @dnsltr.bsky.social dramatic rethinking of the Third Wave of democratization... Read "The Authoritarian Origins of the Third Wave": muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...

“We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion,’” he wrote. “But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”

Mar-CHI-ng! #50501 #HandsOff

Bravo South Korea. This is what proper democracy looks like 👏 on.ft.com/3E7kvI7 South Korea’s president removed from office over martial law bid

What if the 3rd Wave of Democratization (1974-1991) didn't begin with democratization at all? The only global regime wave of the mid-1970s was a wave of communist, peasant-based revolutions. By reinterpreting our past we might reimagine our present. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

My effort in 2022 to apply the “democratic careening” framework to US politics in the Biden years journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Cancer research hasn’t cured cancer. Anti-corruption commissions haven’t eliminated corruption. DEI policies haven’t fixed inequality. Why? Because they’re tackling some of the thorniest problems humanity faces. None of these efforts should end.

The University of Michigan is now occupied territory.

1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.

"BACKLASH" understates how fiercely dominant forces respond to challengers. "SLINGSHOT" better captures how even a slight tug by challengers can lead to an enormous swing against them by the dominant. I raise the idea in this @NationalitiesP symposium: homsy-staging.cambridgecore.org/core/journal...

College students endanger no one. Authoritarian states endanger everyone.

The US won the geopolitical lottery having Canada and Mexico as neighbors. This kind of offensive nonsense is doing so much damage, not just to America's standing in the world, but to our security.

How much universities cave like big corporations will speak volumes about how much universities have (or hopefully haven’t) become like big corporations.

I’m not confident that protests will defeat Trumpism (though protest we must), but I’m confident that Trumpism will be defeated. 1/8

my take is that your willingness to accept this gulf of america nonsense is an indicator of your willingness to accept much worse things coming from this administrator

Any research out there on whether expressing outrage over truly outrageous policy proposals tends to expand or shrink the Overton window?

THIS. An executive order is literally just the president telling executive branch employees "as your supervisor, do X." They are only meaningful if the president has the legal authority to implement X, which must be granted by some ACTUAL LAW either in a statute or the constitution. Period.

i mean, the president's executive order isn't a goddamn law! as far as this doctor is concerned, who cares what the president says!

From Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University: slate.com/life/2025/02...

DEI should have always been called *DEIO*. Its goal is Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in *OPPORTUNITY*. That makes it as 🇺🇸 as apple pie. We need to mend it and defend it, not end it.

It is simply not enough for universities to say, “Our grants & research offices are looking into how research will be affected by the latest directive.” University leaders must actively and very publicly make the case for the kind of work many of us do. The silence on this front is deafening.

What to know about the fight to defend democracy in and by Europe? Check out the this launch event on European Democracy Support: 🗓️ Date: 11 Feb 2025 🕘 Time: 09:00 - 12:00 CET 📍 Location: Residence Palace, 1040 Brussels, Belgium @europeandemocracyhub.epd.eu‬ docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

When a new president doesn't like things in the existing budget, they get to work with the new Congress to pass a new budget without the things they don't like. They don't get to remove things (or threaten to remove things) they don't like from the existing budget by fiat.

Border czar Tom Homan is on CNN complaining that Chicago is “very well educated” and people “know their rights” too well for ICE to be able to enforce mass deportations. Good work, neighbors.

An incredible photo from Berlin this evening. An estimated 100,000 have been on the streets in the German capital today to protest against the Far Right and fascism in Europe. #Resist (📸 Ricarda Lang)

Looks like the CDU is willing to rely on AfD votes to push through new harsh anti-asylum measures next week. They will likely get Lindner’s FDP votes and Wagenknecht’s BSW as well. A terrible mistake they’ll come to regret.

Contra the continuity thesis for the GOP’s capitulation to Trump www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

@ UCT Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance w old friends and new - on #democracy and #development , part of @ CEU hub network!

I had an identity crisis last fall (am I working on the small stuff instead of the big stuff?). So I wrote a short piece reflecting on the connections between CPE/PE and Lukes' radical view of power. Thoughts? Newsletter also includes many more great contributions by @noamlupu.bsky.social & others!

🎅🎁🦌 ICYMI!!! Santa was extra pressed for time this year, but he brought a third and final 2024 issue of Democracy & Autocracy as part of his rounds, on a theme all gift-givers like him can appreciate: UNEQUAL DEMOCRACIES. 1/6 ii.umich.edu/emerging-dem...

Buckle up for what @dnsltr.bsky.social tabbed "democratic careening"

I find this continuity thesis quite helpful and persuasive but one fact always rankles me: if DJT was merely a natural outgrowth of existing American conservatism, why did the GOP establishment wait so long to rally behind him, then bend the knee almost entirely once he started racking up primaries?

“Some see all Russians and their cultural heritage as irredeemably tainted by imperial thinking, a view heavily influenced by post-colonial studies in American academia.” That’s….. like the opposite of what I’ve learned from post-colonial studies. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/w...

A commonly held notion is that Germany's far-right party AfD is especially successful in the country's more rural areas. However, a look at the party's election results in over 10,000 municipalities suggests that the link between rurality and AfD support is rather diffuse. A simple thread. 🧵👇