Two things can be true: we’re a competitive authoritarian state with all sorts of efforts to put a thumb on the scale of who has power AND we have sufficiently free and sufficiently fair elections that every month we see the party in power lose.

2nd Round R&R ➡️ Conditional Acceptance 🥳

Got a fellowship rejection and an interview invite for a different fellowship within minutes of each other. The job market really said: stay humble, stay hopeful, stay glued to your inbox.

Job market season is such a rollar coaster. Got a game-changing R&R!

One more piece of evidence that the defining problem of an AI world is not “how do we harness the genius machine?”, it is “how do we contain the lying machine?”

Thank you @yusakuhoriuchi.bsky.social and @kmatush.bsky.social for an amazing Global Public Opinion workshop! Great scholars and conversations ! Wonderful to see @jkertzer.bsky.social @jonathan-renshon.bsky.social @eunajo.bsky.social too!

Congratulations to @yusakuhoriuchi.bsky.social and @kmatush.bsky.social for the launch of the Global Public Opinion Lab (GPOL) at Florida State! Lots of exciting plans in the works! (I couldn't take any pictures of public opinion, so here's one of Spanish moss)

Presenting this afternoon Peace Science - last panel of the day 😊 With @yusakuhoriuchi.bsky.social , @kmatush.bsky.social , and Eun A Jo!

New version just uploaded 😊

Democracy isn’t just a value—it’s national security. New WP with @yusakuhoriuchi.bsky.social @kmatush.bsky.social & @eunajo.bsky.social finds that across 4 close US partners (UK, Canada, Australia, NZ), backsliding sharply reduces public support for intelligence sharing—even with the US.

Was just in a behavior workshop today and this piece is still so helpful for people to consider when designing experiments and interpreting (null) effects!

Website: rikioinouye.org

@rinouye.bsky.social examines how racial and religious identities of countries in conflict shape public support for them. He argues identity isn’t just another factor, but a lens shaping how people interpret strategic and material information, with real consequences for conflict support.

An instant post about that Japan deal. It's basically a joke paulkrugman.substack.com/p/about-that...

The last two months have been rough with three rejections. But today I got a great R&R! 🥳

The first people to hear that CBS was canceling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” reacted to the news loudly, and viscerally, with a chorus of “No!” that turned into a sustained round of boos.

700 diplomats at State are set to be laid off. This amounts to 60% of all foreign service officer currently based in DC. 60%! State Department to Soon Begin Mass Layoffs www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/u...

There are going to be a lot of euphemisms and double talk in the days to come. So give the Times credit for telling it straight: "The United States has entered Israel’s war against Iran." www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...

This is nothing like Iraq or Afghanistan from a public opinion standpoint. In both cases, large majorities supported military action. This time, large majorities oppose it. Chart from the great @gelliottmorris.com. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/polls-amer...

By bombing three nuclear sites in Iran, the U.S. has joined Israel’s war against the country. Now it is bracing for Iranian retaliation.

There's no declaration of war, and no AUMF that covers this. Entering this war is wrong on the merits; we had a perfectly peaceful way to address Iran's nuclear program. It's also unlawful. A democratic republic should not be able to enter a war of choice on one man's say-so.

No one knows where the conflict with Iran will lead from here. My guess is what has happened today will resolve little. My guess is the conflict will remain sporadic and the biggest X factor will be that Bibi does not want it to stop. Bombing Iran into an effective enduring deal seems unlikely.

Breaking News: President Trump said that the U.S. had bombed Fordo, Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear facility, as well as two other sites.

THIS

IR scholars (Tomz and Weeks 2013, RPP 2024) have asked if the public supports preemptive strikes on nuclear sites against democracies vs. non democracies. Never thought I would see it happen, but we’ve just done so against Iran. No congressional approval. @jlpweeks.bsky.social

Congratulations to Charlotte Fitzek, Rikio Inouye, and Etienne Gagnon who received Honjo Scholarships from @JAANewYork to support studies that "will help further US-Japan relations." @rinouye.bsky.social

New working paper! When US aid leaders are diverse, public support for them and US aid rises. Who people see shapes how they feel. Diversity is a #ForeignPolicy asset. 👉 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... w/ Soohyun Cho and Simone Dietrich #PoliSci #ForeignAid #DiversityMatters #USForeignPolicy

Thanks for the shoutout. Didn't know it was out already. If folks can't get access without forking over loot let me know.

It's hard to find the words. NSF just terminated the grant for Journeys, a mentoring workshop that tried to tackle underrepresentation of women in international relations. Future scholarship will be the worse for it. But this photo from our last gathering will motivate me to keep fighting.

Friends and colleagues at #fsu, I am so sorry, and I hope you are safe!

New in PNAS Nexus : 🇺🇸 U.S. democratic backsliding hurts its image abroad 🤝 But it doesn’t erode foreign policy cooperation—yet. Tested this via survey experiments in 12 countries (N = 11,810) 📄 doi.org/10.1093/pnas... #Democracy #USPolitics #PublicOpinion #ForeignPolicy

It’s that time of year! CfP for in-person Workshop on Race and International Relations organized by Zoltán Búzás. Abstracts due this month (Dec. 20) on any topic related to race, racism, anti-racism in IR broadly defined. Enthusiastically recommend, esp. for jr scholars raceandrights.org?page_id=31

Political scientists who have been following the attempted autogolpe/constitutional crisis in South Korea! Please consider joining 600+ Korean political scientists calling for the impeachment of President Yoon. We would appreciate your solidarity! Link: bit.ly/3Bfxc2j #polisky #dictatorsky

A new working paper with Rikio Inouye (@rinouye.bsky.social, Princeton) and Daniel Corstange (Columbia) on the current conflict in Gaza! --- "Unraveling American Sympathies toward Israelis and Palestinians." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers...., #polisky