Can't make this up: 'The AfD parliamentary group supports the trip and, according to a spokesperson, will cover the costs. The goal, they said, is to keep communication channels with Russia open.'

Terrific project on #YouthWings by some great colleagues. Read and share!

Not a bad place to spend a Friday teaching

“We are pleased to accept your paper in its current form…” 🤩

Andrej Zaslove and I wrote down our thoughts on the recent Dutch election results, noting the continuing relevance of the far right and the hollowing of the (liberal) centre. 👇 @qmul-sse-cgd.bsky.social @qmulsse.bsky.social

I am sooo ready for this

"It is this nativism that has seeped so deeply into the mainstream, rather than the populism." Excellent post-election interview with @sldelange.bsky.social 🇳🇱

I completely agree with @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social that the term "democratic fascism" wrongly insinuates that today's fascism has a "democratic" character. The fact that it operates - for now - within a democratic system does NOT make it democratic. blnreview.de/en/ausgaben/...

📊 now in English @fesonline.bsky.social: Gender gap in voting behavior in Germany📊 It's about the “big picture” since 1953 & current trends 2021-2025. The gender gap keeps growing, especially among the young. -> Longer trends are continuing & partly accelerating. library.fes.de/pdf-files/a-...

🆕 What happens when the #RadicalRight looks fondly to the past? 🇪🇸🇵🇹 @populismblog.bsky.social & @steven-vanhauwaert.bsky.social introduce #AuthoritarianNostalgia — exploring how supporters of VOX and Chega connect today’s politics with memories of 🇪🇸 and 🇵🇹 authoritarian eras. #Populism 📖

I see that some reviewers don’t even bother to hide the complete use of chatGPT anymore, like literally just copying and pasting the output of the command “describe the paper and find its strengths and weaknesses.” And I am seeing that from a position of a reviewer, (luckily) not the (poor) author.

🚨New publication! My article “Far-right parties and gender policies in contemporary Türkiye” is out now. I analyze the Victory Party, New Welfare Party & Free Cause Party and map their gender policy positions. Free access: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/INVR6...

You can also reach out for further details, advise, and/or information about working at @hait-tud.bsky.social to me, but I can already tell you it’s a great place to work and Dresden is beautiful and cool place (not to mention is very close to Prague and Berlin)!

Except for a clear consolidation of the far right, another worrying observation from the 🇳🇱 election is that a (populist) radical right party move towards more “extreme” and outside of the “system” (i.e. the case of the FvD) doesn’t necessarily mean a road to oblivion.

🚨 Job alert! 🚨 (English in comment) An meinem Lehrbereich ist zum 1.2.26 eine Postdoc-Stelle (100%) zu besetzen. Gesucht wird ein*e Kandidat*in mit Kenntnissen in quantitativen Methoden sowie Expertise in einschlägigen Themenbereichen. Mehr hier: www.verwaltung.uni-halle.de/dezern3/Auss...

On the “defeat” of the far right in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 The total number of far-right seats in the Tweede Kamer: 2021: 28 2023: 41 2025: 42 👈 And I don’t even count BBB here, which has radicalized significantly in the last year.

With the official prognosis giving one additional seat to PVV and one to FvD compared to the ext poll, the narrative should really not be that the Netherlands/Jetten has beaten the radical right. The far right bloc remains remarkably stable.

🗳️ First exit polls from the Netherlands: Wilders’ PVV appears to shrink from 37 to 25 seats. Make no mistake — the far right remains strong. Support hasn’t disappeared; it’s shifted across parties. The Dutch political landscape is more fragmented than ever — and the far right is no exception. 🇳🇱

Election day also means a quick round up of my comments in the international media that have been published today. Pick your favorite language 🙂 www.bbc.com/news/article...

With comments by yours truly

Geert Wilders failed in government, but the far right retains its grip on the Netherlands | Cas Mudde

This Wednesday, Dutch voters return to the polls to e a new parliament. 🇳🇱 No fewer than 27 parties are running, and in a political landscape that has become notoriously fragmented and volatile, many voters make their final decisions only at the last minute. 👇

New publication for everyone interested in climate politics, far-right climate obstruction, and the role of elite cues! 📚 "Climate action versus environmental protection?" now out in @environmentalpol.bsky.social (with Matthias Diermeier). www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... (open access!) (1/5)

Russia: J. Wondreys and M. Zulianello. “Choosing Who to Hate? The Extreme and Radical Right's Foreign Policy Between Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Russophilia”. In: Swiss Political Science Review online first (2024). http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12633.

For my DFG-funded project “German Sexual Identity and Election Study” and my ERC-funded project “VisibleQueers”, I am looking for three student assistants (m/f/d) to provide dedicated support and active collaboration. Please share! www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/en/three-stu...

One of my best (former) MA students, ever 👇

Our first take on just concluded 🇨🇿 elections (campaign, results, implications) with @havlikv.bsky.social whogoverns.eu/the-return-o...

This is by far the most positive thing about this election. Konecna run a hateful campaign and don’t be mistaken, there is a very little difference between any extreme right party and her so-called radical left coalition.

Close to 90% counted, no one (ANO+AUTO vs. SPOLU+MAYOR+PIR) has majority without SPD

🇨🇿 With over 60% counted, ANO and AUTO are clearly over performing, SPD and STACILO/Communist underperforming, the latter might not (fingers crossed) make the threshold, the government doing maybe even worse than expected, turnout again very high for Czech standards

I have a first bold prediction for the Czech elections that just concluded (we will know the results tonight): No center-left party will make the threshold. I’ll go even further, no center-left party will get over 0.5% of vote shares. Mark my words!

🇨🇿🗳️ Excited about the upcoming #CzechElection ? Find some excellent studies in the thread below 👇👇 @adamfagan.bsky.social @andreapirro.it @lenkabustikova.bsky.social

🇩🇪 German Reunification Day! In 2020, I wrote about how Germany's east–west divide links to #AfD success. Today, the article remains relevant — but the AfD’s rise across Germany shows that this is not only an east-west story. ➡️ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @politicalquarterly.bsky.social

The time has finally come! 🩸🎃

Had a chance to hear about a lot of great and inspiring research these past couple days, as well as to see some old friends and colleagues and meet some new ones! Kudos to @manesweisskircher.bsky.social and the @rexklima.bsky.social team for organizing and bringing this fantastic lineup to Dresden!

Cat on a Ferrari :)

Top comment on the #farright riots in the Netherlands by 2 top people

🚨 New article out! 🚨 How societal-level women’s empowerment 📣✊ shapes the gender gap in protest, boycott & petition signing 🗳️ 👉 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

“One battle after another” is really all you need to see these days.

Fancy a drink?

It’s always so nice to be lucky enough to have a reviewer whose feedback and suggestions clearly lead to an improvement of one’s paper. Especially, considering that, more often than not, one can easily get all 3 reviewers, who clearly do not even read, or don’t know how to read, one’s paper

I will be teaching a few nee classes this semester and was wondering what are the best new(er) books on democratic erosion and normalization of the radical right? Will be glad to hear any recommendations (of course feel free to promote your own work!).

Former Czech president Miloš Zeman has endorsed the national-populist left, communist-led Enough! bloc. No real surprise there - the nationalistically inclined rump of the Social Democrats are there too. The bloc is hovering just over the 5% threshold so the endorsement may matter.

Czech populist radical right SPD gives you their own shitty beer if you vote for them…I guess that explains those 12-13% in the polls.

You can denounce Kirk’s tragic death without portraying him as some great guy. It’s really that simple.

The Russian drone attack against Poland might have been a mistake. But unless someone makes it brutally clear to the Russians that it was their mistake, then it is no mistake at all.

You may disagree with, even abhor, his views and the person he was, yet still feel sick and horrified about what has happened. He was a father of two young children. They did not deserve this.

📘 64.4 Are youth party members more radical than leadership? A 🇪🇺 study of 4,000+ youth wing members finds larger numbers of radicals especially on the centre-left with longer tenure than aligned members #PoliticalScience #YouthPolitics #PartyCohesion Read more: buff.ly/12M2XwC

The Economist again making the mistake of treating what they call "hard right" as a unitary actor pursuing broadly consistent policies. Yet this is only true (to an extent) about "wokeness" & migration. On everything else they are very divided. www.economist.com/leaders/2025...