The Abundance movement often points to environmental groups as the obstacles to building. But who actually files the lawsuits blocking projects? It’s not environmental groups. It’s been lawyered-up HOAs protecting property values all along. Regulation by litigation is the problem.

El otro día la gente de More in Common sacó un estudio sobre la polarización en España. Me llamó la atención una diapositiva en concreto:

Un clima político crispado, tensión en redes, miedo a opinar, discusiones con amigos. Todos sentimos la polarización. Pero ¿están las costuras de la sociedad española por romperse o aún aguantan? Hoy publicamos el Atlas de la Polarización para dar respuesta a esta pregunta. 🧵👇

Quiero enfocarme en un dato que suele pasar desapercibido en las encuestas: el tamaño y el perfil de los votantes indecisos. Normalmente hay un porcentaje de indecisos, la cuestión más interesante es saber quienes son los indecisos. 👀SPOILER: Los indecisos son actualmente más de izquierdas. 🧵👇

Nuestro investigador @tarekjaziri.bsky.social es uno de los entrevistados en esta pieza de @elpais.com sobre voto joven y redes sociales 👇

Qué interesante siempre todo el trabajo de More in Common 👇

España ya no comparte una visión común de la justicia (aunque hubo un tiempo en que sí fue así). Un análisis de @tarekjaziri.bsky.social a partir de datos del CIS y de nuestras propias encuestas recientes 👇

@luismmiller.bsky.social explicaba esta semana en El Mundo que la justicia es una de las instituciones mejor valoradas en España, muy por encima de la política. ¿Esa confianza es realmente transversal? 📊 Con datos del CIS (1987–2025) y una encuesta propia, analizamos la evolución por ideología.

We have a new tenure-track job in @lsegovernment.bsky.social at AP level (empirical political science, open subfield): jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/... Please apply and share with colleagues who might be interested!

We spent a year investigating billionaires for @washingtonpost.com. We found: the wealthiest 100 Americans gave $1.1 billion to influence the 2024 elections — 140x more than they did in 2000. And almost all of that giving boosted Republicans. washingtonpost.com/politics/int...

Casi la mitad de los españoles (45 %) conoce a alguien con un discurso antivacunas, y un 59 % ha estado expuesto en el último año a mensajes antivacunas. ¿Significa eso que el escepticismo está muy extendido? ¿O que hay espacio político para crecer apoyándose en esos discursos? 🧵👇

Mamdami’s program fits the tradition of municipal socialism first seen in London in 1889, later in Milwaukee’s so-called “sewer socialism,” and reaching its peak in Vienna from 1919 to 1934. Read more on the excellent Substack of Adam Przeworski. open.substack.com/pub/adamprze...

Thread: part of an ongoing project to erase people of color from military history:

Time to reshare this piece on the pitfalls of following the road Denmark has taken on immigration: ukandeu.ac.uk/denmarks-mig...

💼 For anyone into surveys, public opinion & data: @moreincommonuk.bsky.social is hiring! I joined recently as a researcher for their team in Spain & it’s been great. It is a good chance to bridge academia & civil society research. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

We are recruiting a few different new roles @Moreincommon_ UK, if you're interested in any of them and think you'd enjoy our work do take a look. www.moreincommon.org.uk/about-us/jobs/

¿Ha aumentado la preocupación por el cambio climático tras la sequía, la DANA o los incendios? SPOILER: sí, pero brevemente… y depende de quién. Primera pieza que escribo para nuestro estreno en Substack: un mix de literatura académica, datos y gráficos curiosos 🌡️📊 Echadle un ojo 👇

After 4 years calling on #FIFA for the right to play, since fleeing the Taliban takeover in 2021, the Afghan footballers have just competed in their first international tournament. 👏 🔗 Learn more: sportandrightsalliance.org/fifa-recogni... #AfghanWomenUnited

Last chance to turn it off. On Monday, November 3rd, Microsoft will start using your LinkedIn data for AI training. And remember, you're opted in by default. To toggle it off 👉 Account - Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Data for Generative AI Improvement.

Just reposting this: Wilders (PVV) may have lost seats, but combined the Dutch far right is still as big as ever. Only down by ~1 percentage point since last elections.

It's Monday morning, so time to share my new Substack: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle... (caution: I'm very far from being a sociologist so pls do provide feedback)

Here I am again to witness my academic funeral.As I did some years ago with my job at Oxford, here I come to advertise my EUI chair. It has been a great job and I am happy to answer Q's. Also, fyi, I am not (yet) leaving the EUI. I do need, however a new name for my chair:suggestions very welcome.

We have just advertised a Full Prof position in the Political and Social Sciences department at the EUI (@eui-sps.bsky.social). Here are the details. Please spread the word, and get in touch if you have any questions. www.eui.eu/Documents/Se...

Great write-up of an important study by @tevoelker.bsky.social and @dasalgon.bsky.social. Far-right actors have been very successful in setting the political agenda. Many in politics and media still ignore this. They argue "immigration is important to people, hence we need to talk about immigration"

🚨 New paper out! Very happy to see our (Tom Arend, @fabioellger.bsky.social and mine) paper out at the @bjpols.bsky.social. We explore how voters react to new, disruptive political actors. 1/3

🆕💼 Today marks a new chapter: I'm starting as a Researcher at @moreincommonuk.bsky.social in Spain! After 4 years working on my PhD, it was time for the next step. Grateful to my supervisors and colleagues, I learned so much and will miss working alongside them.

The AfD qualified for three mayoral run-offs in cities in North Rhine-Westphalia today, and lost all by big margins. The lesson is not that we have overdone the AfD's rise, but that we do perhaps sometimes underestimate the counter-mobilisation effects - including in east Germany, incidentally.

For the Guardian, @turnbulldugarte.com and I discuss our research that clearly shows one thing: Labour's anti-immigration strategy will only strengthen Reform and weaken its own electoral prospects. It won't win voters back but ultimately normalizes the far right www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Trains are being nationalised in the UK. Didn't know that would also apply to airport trains. This whole process flying a bit under the radar it seems? This should be a major policy win for the left, but the government is mostly busy talking about something else.

In light of Keir Starmer's turn on immigration & debates in the UK about Denmark as an example to follow, I was invited by @ukandeu.bsky.social to reflect on what the research tells us about lessons to draw from Danish migration policy. Here's my take on the pitfalls: ukandeu.ac.uk/denmarks-mig...

Worrying development in the Netherlands.

I got stuck measuring local UK inequality, so I wrote a Substack about it: "The UK's Local Inequality Problem: Big Debates, Bad Data" Do share your data and thoughts! open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Spain's La Vuelta halted in Madrid as police clash with pro-Palestinian protesters reut.rs/4mf5i7O

1/ How does migration affect political attitudes? Using 380k obs from 104 sending & 28 receiving countries, @filipkostelka.bsky.social, Nicolas Sauger & I find some migrants’ attitudes align with locals, while others exceed origin-host context, reshaping ideological space. 👉 doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

Really good and really really interesting. To a large extent, it goes against my expectations, and yet it does cover it's bases well enough that I may have to accept that maybe norms are a bigger part of the far right story than what I initially thought.

Cool work! The League in Italy has historically been the party of small-to-medium Norther Italian businesses so annecdotally the argument checks out. Also speaks to the evidence of this recent paper: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Radical-right parties are often linked to the “left-behind”. But supporting them when stigma is strong is costly. So who is willing to pay that cost early on, before it’s normalized? In my new WP, I argue that breaking political norms is socially stratified. 🧵👇

Radical right accommodation really does not work. New paper out with this exceptionally talented team @katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk doi.org/10.31235/osf...

Desgraciadamente, importantes partidos y medios de comunicación continúan dando eco y espacio a la idea de que la inmigración trae crimen. ¿Pero qué dice la evidencia? A esto respondo en mi nueva entrada en @nadaesgratis.bsky.social nadaesgratis.es/santiago-san...

It’s striking how much these patterns are similar across many European counties (both the center left one and the radical right one). And yet there’s much work to be done in shifting the discourse from competing narratives that have little empirical backing.

No hace falta tener hijos para verse afectado, basta con ser humano, pero como padres y madres recientes lloramos especialmente el asesinato masivo de niños. Por @txepeligro.bsky.social en M&P de @elpais.com

What people expect fascism to look like versus what it often looks like in real life

Many UK media are actively contributing to Reform’s rise. The non-stop reporting and exaggeration of anti-migrant protests that don’t get more than a few hundred people on the street, the portrayal of extreme minority opinions as mainstream, the constant obsession with Farage.

📢 I've written the @financialtimes.com Free Lunch newsletter today on the rise of populism & its economic implications 📢 No surprise: populism makes for very bad economics, with clear negative impacts regardless of whether it is left-wing or right wing variety Free-to-read link👉 on.ft.com/4fViP31

✨Very happy to see my paper "Attitudinal ambivalence toward multiculturalism" out on @jeppjournal.bsky.social ! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/8 🧵

Once again, PBC is back and calling for your applications! As always, this is a no-budget but heart-rich story — and we can’t wait to see your proposals!

This is quite interesting, suggesting that less (gender) equal nations have higher rates of cross gender friendships

NEW - Media Platforming and the Normalisation of Extreme Right Views - cup.org/4mmVIAL "exposure to uncritical interviews increases agreement with extreme statements and perceptions of broader support in the population" - @dianebolet.bsky.social & @florianfoos.bsky.social #OpenAccess

España y la paradoja de la densidad 🏘️ Decimos que España está 'vacía' y es cierto: gran parte se ve blanca en mapas de población. Pero OJO: en densidad superamos a Finlandia, Suecia, Estonia, Irlanda o Grecia. Estamos casi en media europea de hab/km². ¿Cómo se explica? Hilo:

NEW - How Mainstream Politicians Erode Norms - cup.org/4lfeHvD "we find that statements by mainstream politicians lead to more norm erosion than similar statements by radical-right politicians" - @valentimvicente.bsky.social, Elias Dinas & @dziblatt.bsky.social #OpenAccess