In the northern hemisphere, it’s time for a summer break. 🌞 Why not use the well-earned rest to catch up with your democracy reading list? Here are some tips of recent publications from the V-Dem community. Links to the latest books, policy briefs and journal articles in the thread 🧵👇 1(4)

Do you think there is a ”chance” card in here where the American president corruptly interferes on your behalf? But then that interference inadvertently backfires and you lose the game? It would be quite the flex from the developers!

Brief pause from Messi's magic to share my new piece in the Annual Review of Political Science: "Education as a Political Institution" which explains why we should stop treating education as just another public service Open access here: tinyurl.com/yezzkam5

Great compilation of works — this list is a very nice resource for anyone interested in autocratic politics, democratic decline, and related topics.

Area VP not making the point he thinks he's making

The Department of Political Science at Aarhus University is hiring both Assistant Professors and Associate Professors. Assistant Professor: international.au.dk/about/profil... Associate Professor: international.au.dk/about/profil... Please share these opportunities with your networks!

📢 New article 🌟 👥 @plutscher.bsky.social (ISV), @draege.bsky.social, & @chknutsen.bsky.social (ISV) 👉 The effects of government propaganda in electoral authoritarian regimes: Evidence from Turkey 📗 Open Access in European Journal of Political Research 🔗 doi.org/10.1017/s147...

Brutal takedown of the absolute cringeness the Trump administration has now become

Now they're fighting... the Weather Channel

⚽📚 The Ultimate World Cup Research Thread I've set up a little automated thread: every day of the 2026 World Cup (11 Jun–19 Jul) it shares one study on what football does to society: politics, economics, migration, health, crime & more. One paper a day. Kickoff below 👇

Got Theory? @chknutsen.bsky.social and @palinakolvani.bsky.social do. In their WP article they theorize how #regime type and #statecapacity shape the abilities and incentives of #political #leaders to respond to #COVID-19. Read their full article here: doi.org/10.1353/wp.2...

We're hiring 2 postdocs at @uio.no on my ERC-Cog project on how authoritarian regimes shape scientific knowledge. 3–4 years, U. of Oslo. Deadline: 10 Sept 2026. Great dept., terms, well funded, bustling & green Scandi capital. Apply! 👉 jobbnorge.no/en/available-jobs/job/303060/postdoctoral-fello

New publication! "Governing for Growth? Economic Performance and Finance Minister Survival in Democracies and Autocracies" by @jonaswschmid.bsky.social and @jacobnyrup.bsky.social now out in Political Research Quarterly. doi.org/10.1177/1065...

The people who led the negotiating of Trump's slush fund were all Trump's personal lawyers, who had worked with one another. There was no-one there representing the public interest. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/30/u...

The scale of Trump's weaponization of the Justice Department against his enemies www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

IN NEW ISSUE: How do different forms of state capacity protect democracy? D Andersen, @chknutsen.bsky.social & @skaaning.bsky.social argue coercive & administrative capacity affect stability in distinct ways depending on threat: buff.ly/XP4pinB @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #polsci #polsky

Once again: German universities were the envy of the world before the Nazis rose to power and took an ideological wrecking ball to the entire enterprise. If you want to know how long it took for German universities to recover… they haven’t.

We are hiring! Please share 👉 💡 2 PhD positions 🇳🇴 Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen 🗓️ 4 years 💶 Fully funded 👩‍🏫 25 % teaching ⏳ 11 August 2026 🔗 www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

New book on democracy. #OpenAccess Seven Myths about Democracy by Jørgen Møller & Svend-Erik Skaaning, Routledge taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mon.... Challenges (full or partial) misunderstandings about the meaning, trajectory, causes, and consequences of democracy.

🌟 New article 👥 Eelco Harteveld, Lars Erik Berntzen, Andrej Kokkonen, Haylee Kelsall, Jonas Linde & Stefan Dahlberg 👉 The (alleged) consequences of affective polarization: A survey experiment in nine democracies 📗 European Journal of Political Research 🔗 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

IN NEW ISSUE: How do different forms of state capacity protect democracy? D Andersen, @chknutsen.bsky.social & @skaaning.bsky.social argue coercive & administrative capacity affect stability in distinct ways depending on threat: buff.ly/XP4pinB @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #polsci #polsky

I’ve been podcasting again: open.spotify.com/episode/4ZQW...

It was a heavy attack. I'm still shaking, even though we spent the entire time in the shelter. russians erased a block of a residential building in Kyiv, w people still trapped under the rubble. I can't comprehend how anyone living safely in the free world could support this.

📢 New article 🌟 👤Carl Henrik Knutsen @chknutsen.bsky.social (ISV) 👉 Successful liberal democracy as a self-reinforcing condition 📗 Open Access in Journal of European Public Policy 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/1350...

Has US democracy declined under the second Trump administration? For @lseusablog.bsky.social, I've summarized results from a survey of political scientists in the American Political Science Association's Democracy and Autocracy Section: tinyurl.com/3xcnkt46.

New publication! Can propaganda mobilize and demobilize at the same time? @plutscher.bsky.social, @draege.bsky.social & @chknutsen.bsky.social show it can with evidence from two preregistered experiments (N = 6,286) in Turkey @ejprjournal.bsky.social doi.org/10.1017/S147...

This blog post summarizes our research on Venezuela (academic.oup.com/jpr/article/...), the US (www.cambridge.org/core/journal...) and Turkey (www.cambridge.org/core/journal...) @ejprjournal.bsky.social @poppublicsphere.bsky.social @jpeaceresearch.bsky.social

Delighted to share a short blog post on the dark logic of visual "strongman" propaganda — drawing on survey experiments in Venezuela, Türkiye and the US!

And with colleagues I have a working paper that uses your work with @annemeng.bsky.social as a springboard to examine some observable implications of global pessimism bias for expert coding.

That said, there are really interesting avenues for research on plausible expert biases using coder-level data. @nilsweidmann.bsky.social, @melinaplatas.bsky.social and @sarahbush.bsky.social have great work on this topic in different contexts... doi.org/10.1177/0010... doi.org/10.1177/0010...

🌊 #Illiberal Wave No.46 💪 @plutscher.bsky.social, @draege.bsky.social, @karstendonnay.bsky.social & @chknutsen.bsky.social draw on 3 experiments across Venezuela, Türkiye + the US to show that visual strongman #Propaganda can deter opposition movements + mobilise supporters. 👉️ bit.ly/48vkRV3

It’s the 250th year of American independence, and the Pope and the King of England are reminding Americans of their revolutionary values, principles, and ideals Somewhere, John Adams is confused as fuck

In June, Switzerland will vote on what is so far the most radical far-right popular initiative launched by the Swiss People‘s Party SVP: capping the population at 10M (currently ≈9.1M). In this thread, I’ll break down what it’s about and how it fits into broader findings on Swiss direct democracy

Alle sier demokratiet er på vei ned. Men hva om det motsatte er sant? I siste episode av Filter LYD snakker vi med en av verdens ledende demokratieksperter, som mener ryktene om det liberale demokratiets død er overdrevne. På Spotify eller der du lytter til podcast.

Those of us in the pro-democracy movement can and should hold both of these positions. 1. We unequivocally reject violence. 2. We will unequivocally oppose efforts by this administration to use last night as an excuse to try to suppress criticism and criminalize dissent.

Det ble vedtatt å utrede lobbyregister i går. I den anledning har @ma1ken.bsky.social og jeg skrevet om utsiktene for å faktisk få det på plass. Politikerne har ikke vist at de er villig til å innføre sterkere regulering av seg selv, så vi er ikke kjempeoptimisiske. www.altinget.no/artikkel/det...

New version of my R package {democracyData} available: github.com/xmarquez/dem...

Why I don't expect liberal democracy to go away any time soon: My article on the resilience of liberal democracy, published in @jeppjournal.bsky.social. Perfectly timed to the day after Orbáns defeat and a small spike in "democracy-optimism". There are, I argue, good reasons for such optimism.

Millions of people in Sudan are surviving on just one meal a day, as the country's food crisis deepens and threatens to spread, per report published on Monday by a group of non-governmental organizations.

@au.dk is hiring 3 postdocs (2 yrs) on personality cults & strategic communication in autocracies, led by Jakob Tolstrup & Alexander Baturo. They're looking for profiles with text-as-data, survey experiments and/or Chinese politics experience. Start fall 2026. Looks like a great opportunity!

Why I don't expect liberal democracy to go away any time soon: My article on the resilience of liberal democracy, published in @jeppjournal.bsky.social. Perfectly timed to the day after Orbáns defeat and a small spike in "democracy-optimism". There are, I argue, good reasons for such optimism.

A lot of Orbán's American fans are saying that this election proved he was never an authoritarian in the first place. This is completely wrong — and, in fact, betrays a complete misunderstanding of both Hungarian politics and modern authoritarianism. Here's why.

Better-paid local politicians reduce corruption and increase procurement efficiency primarily through selection rather than electoral incentives doi.org/10.1017/S000...

With Hungary’s crucial election a few days away, its National Election Office has published a list of accredited international observers (n. 859). Having spent nearly a decade researching the behavior of international observers, I decided to take a closer look 😊 www.valasztas.hu/en/internati...

So what happens next? Assuming Orbán’s Fidesz is declared the winner, look for the 153 fake observers to be paraded before the media so that their positive endorsement of the flawed poll can be quickly and loudly disseminated. Ignore them, wait for the preliminary statement of the OSCE/ODIHR.

@plutscher.bsky.social, @draege.bsky.social und @chknutsen.bsky.social untersuchen am Beispiel der Türkei, welche Auswirkungen Regierungspropaganda in elektoralen (im Gegensatz zu besser erforschten geschlossenen) Autokratien hat (OA 🔓): doi.org/10.1017/S147...

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - The effects of government propaganda in electoral authoritarian regimes: Evidence from Turkey - https://cup.org/3NGDtu8 - @plutscher.bsky.social, Jonas Bergan Draege & @chknutsen.bsky.social#OpenAccess #FirstView

🆕 #Propaganda & #Authoritarianism 💭 Philipp M. Lutscher, Jonas Bergan Draege & @chknutsen.bsky.social explore how government propaganda shapes political behaviour in polarized electoral authoritarian regimes using preregistered survey data from Turkey

Very happy and proud to have co-authored this paper in @ejprjournal.bsky.social, with @plutscher.bsky.social & @chknutsen.bsky.social 😊 doi.org/10.1017/S147... Please see Philipp's 🧵 below for the main findings 😊