Shana Tova U Metuka to everyone else celebrating!!

Paper submitted for review!!

Now that it's up online, I guess it's official: I'm on the job market! I study democratic backsliding, authoritarianism, and nonviolent resistance. My dissertation focuses on the nexus of domestic and international factors in shaping opposition to democratic erosion: polisci.msu.edu/graduate/hir...

Thanks to the folks at APSA for organizing a great conference, and Vancouver for being a great host city! cc @janzilinsky.bsky.social

First in person APSA ✔️! I had the pleasure of presenting my job market research on opposition to democratic backsliding, meeting old and new friends from around the world, and exploring Vancouver.

Had the pleasure of presenting my dissertation work on international pressure and opposition to democratic backsliding this morning at APSA in Vancouver. Grateful to attendees, @lgamboa.bsky.social and @orcunselcuk.bsky.social for discussant comments, and an excellent discussion on backsliding!

APSA and Vancouver bound! I’m thrilled to have organized the panel, “democratic backsliding and opposition resistance,” taking place tomorrow at 8am PT. I’ll be presenting findings from my dissertation on international pressure and opposition to democratic erosion along with some great scholars.

I’m pleased to share that my review of @alexislerner.bsky.social’s new book is out @iajournal.bsky.social. It’s an excellent book that draws attentions to street art as a tool oppositions can use in dictatorships but also how dictators can co-opt such strategies. academic.oup.com/ia/article-a...

APSA paper submitted! I'm excited to share that I'll be presenting one of my dissertation papers, in which I examine the effect of international rhetoric on opposition movement behavior in backsliding democracies, using an original dataset of US Secretary of State speeches. I'm also on the market!

🚨 New in Journal of Politics! 🚨 Do radical right parties need to cut ties with old dictatorships to succeed? 👉 @sergipardos.bsky.social and my study of Spain’s VOX says: ❌ Not necessarily.

Today officially marks my first day as a predoctoral fellow @snfagora.bsky.social! I'll be working with @consueloamat.bsky.social on lots of cool things related to nonviolent resistance and democracy. I'm grateful for this opportunity and the many people in my department @ MSU for their support.

Finally, a paper from my dissertation submitted for review!!

Now that it's up online, I guess it's official: I'm on the job market! I study democratic backsliding, authoritarianism, and nonviolent resistance. My dissertation focuses on the nexus of domestic and international factors in shaping opposition to democratic erosion: polisci.msu.edu/graduate/hir...

Before my PhD, I worked mostly in arts and media. Regimes invest lots in AV media, but Pol Sci largely doesn't engage it. So I was thrilled to see images in the proofs for Film-Making the Nation Great Again with @draege.bsky.social. We analyze autocrats' AV instrumentalizations of history.

My undergrad RA, Jeanette Dompreh, recently presented some descriptive results from the data collection she's been helping me with for my dissertation on US Secretary of State rhetoric and pro-democracy movements. One of the most exciting parts about working with undergrads. Check it out!

Overleaf down for anyone else by any chance?

Anyone I know have experience solving issues with text data in R or Python? I'm having spillover of my speech data into my metadata cols (e.g., location) and trying to figure out how to merge those back into the actual speech data col. Any and all help much appreciated. Thank you!!

Book review accepted and forthcoming in @iajournal.bsky.social! I had the pleasure of reviewing @alexislerner.bsky.social's book on the role of graffiti in resistance to dictatorship. Lerner makes "a compelling case for expanding the study of dissent beyond mass mobilization and digital activism."

This has been in the works since early 2023, but it finally happened: Israel’s AG was fired. This was halted after mass domestic and international pressure initially but those things have since largely dwindled, especially internationally. www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-f...

Has anyone I know ever had an unexpected event during survey design? I’ve been reading @jordimunoz.bsky.social’s excellent work on this but I had some questions. Thanks in advance!!

Great work by my friend and colleague, @abbycassario.bsky.social!

I’m thrilled and honored to share that I’ll be a predoctoral fellow during the 2025-2026 academic year at the SNF Institute at John's Hopkins working with Consuelo Amat on all things nonviolent resistance and democratic backsliding, and finishing my dissertation by the middle of 2026. More soon!

Feeling really grateful and thankful to the Polarization Research Lab at Stanford for agreeing to fund my study with Hannah Ridge on democratic backsliding! More details to come soon.

R&R for one of my pieces on democratic backsliding and again at a top journal!!

Back in Tel Aviv for a little bit: DM me if you want to meet/grab coffee.

Introducing CongressData and Correlates of State Policy Our new open-access article in Nature Scientific Data: rdcu.be/evEpj

I'm very pleased to share that my paper, "Introducing CongressData and Correlates of State Policy," coauthored with @mattgrossmann.bsky.social and Caleb Lucas is now out (open-access!) at Nature Scientific Data. nature.com/articles/s41...

There are competing definitions of anti-semitism, but if you are using stars of David and arrows to connect different Jewish people in a conspiracy theory, you are 100% there.

Not so hot take: open-ended responses to surveys can be *wild* sometimes.

I’m thrilled to share that my paper, coauthored with @mattgrossmann.bsky.social and Caleb Lucas, was just accepted for publication at Nature Scientific Data!

Proportionally, the estimated 100-200k Pride marchers in Budapest today would correspond to something approaching 1m in London or New York. And this in a country that has now spent 15 years under illiberal, authoritarian rule. What a symbol of hope.

Absolutely incredible turnout for Budapest Pride! So proud of all the organizers, including some old friends, who estimate hundreds of thousands— major embarrassment to Orban

And…that’s a wrap on IQMR! Incredibly grateful to have been an open pool attendee and being able to have learned so much about qualitative and mixed methods and meet people from around the world!!

📌The special issue "Illiberal Regimes and International Organizations" is now published as Vol. 20 Issue 2 in RIO! @the-peio.bsky.social link.springer.com/journal/1155... Summary thread with each piece-- 🧵

We've been wondering how this war plays out politically for Netanyahu. It's the best case scenario for him, and from an Israeli standpoint he desrves a lot of credit. Well, first poll after the war show no real movement in his favor. 49 for his bloc, 61 Zionist opposition, 10 Arab parties.

Question to people working with text data/NLP: I'm struggling to extract specific paragraphs from my speech dataset. TLDR: I only care about one speaker's remarks, but have been trying to keep them while dropping other speakers. Any leads or resources to figure out how best to do it? Many thanks :)

A very nice start to two weeks here at IQMR in Syracuse! Also a very gorgeous run along the lake.

Thrilled to be at IQMR for the next two weeks diving deep into mixed methods!

After large-scale disasters autocrats often shift the blame on others to save their popularity. Our 🚨new paper🚨, just accepted at Perspectives on Politics, shows that this tactic is prone to backfire. With @edwardgoldring.bsky.social & @fapaydin.bsky.social . shorturl.at/v6wIV%E2%AC%...

What a time to be fielding a survey experiment on (checks notes) protests against backsliding...(no, not fielding it in the US).

R&R didn't convert :/ Question: how common is this in political science?

This started with the Kurdish minority. As, for instance, @liselhintz.bsky.social suggests, and some work in progress of my own, majorities are often willing to condone backsliding against minorities even though such policies often end up targeting them, as well. newsaboutturkey.com/2025/06/05/f...

🚨New publication! By now, we know 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 democratic institutions autocratizers undermine, yet we (w/ Gorazd Ordanoski) ask: 𝑯𝒐𝒘 do they attack them? We present three sequential repressive steps: 1️⃣ legitimization rhetoric 2️⃣ legal engineering 3️⃣ coercive control 🔓🧵 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

How is one supposed to work when they get a "Pending Decision" notification from Manuscript Central?

New preprint w/ @grahn.bsky.social & @joenoonan.se What happens when the world's most powerful democracy rolls back core liberal values? 🇺🇸 In this paper, we show how US liberal retrenchment, especially on women’s rights & LGBTQ+ equality, damages US global standing. 📄 doi.org/10.31219/osf...

Minor R&R resubmitted! Fingers crossed we can get it over the finish line and have it out and official soon!!

here’s Sarah Milgrim’s LinkedIn blurb.

Good to be back in Europe for a little while! I’ll be in Paris for a few weeks for professional and personal reasons. If you’re in town I’d love to grab coffee!

JUST IN: Judge Howell rules that the Trump/DOGE takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace was illegal and should be treated as null and void. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...

Was a treat to present my dissertation research at the famous Workshop in International Politics at the University of Chicago! Terrific feedback and very engaged!