Essay on Euro-American Decline: Part 1 The first instalment deals with a debate that recently re-emerged on but which in my view is still a bit confused: [link below]

At ISRF, we're doing a series called 'Dispatches from British Academics." Actual profs are absent from public discussion of universities, and we mean this to be a partial corrective. The first four are here including Lorna Finlayson's Scabology. enjoy-and circulate! isrf.org/search?q=&ta...

Now Out! With Dirk Bezemer: "How Invisible Capital Gains Drive Extreme U.S Wealth Concentration: Evidence from Balance-Sheet-Complete Haig-Simons Accounting" shorturl.at/vck6N

I grew up watching Arte documentaries and if you ever told me I'd be in one on Money, I'd have laughed incredulously. www.arte.tv/fr/videos/12...

We have a new paper out in EPA! 📊 @jhasselbalch.bsky.social Epistemic Derisking: Knowledge infrastructures in energy finance Beyond financial & regulatory tools, we show how states wield energy models to mobilise private capital for renewables & energy security journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Britain needs a transformative state but progressive politicians worry about the gilt cage constraining public investment - here are three steps to get out of the bond vigilantes' hock. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre....

We think of shock therapy as involving the opening of the border to foreign goods and prices. What the UK government is doing to higher ed is shock therapy by border closure.

Functional finance Suppressing finance Taxing the rich Transforming firms The foreign exchange constraint @abenanav.bsky.social’s transition plan has it all. The most intellectually serious and exciting thing you’ll read this month I promise.

Der Iran-Krieg zwingt die Welt zu einer Wahl: geordnete oder ungeordnete Transformation? Deutschland schluckt den Schock, doch ein »Big Green State« ist möglich, schreiben @danielagabor.bsky.social und @benbraun.eurosky.social.

nah Ed, akshually the state is the material condensation of a relative balance of class forces.

"You see, Andy, the ruling class controls the means of production. That gives them power over the state, no matter what you or I think. The government depends on business confidence, signalled via the bond market. At the end of the day, Makerfield—it just doesn't matter. Read a book."

Thread and paper of the day

Is that good? (For the PhD students?)

Looking forward to presenting new work with Leah Downey this Wednesday at FU Berlin. The talk (and paper) engage critically with the compensation-based approach that has come to dominate climate politics in theory & practice, and present an alternative, mobilization-based perspective.

Against Money, the new book by Mason and Jayadev, goes straight for the jugular of mainstream economics. I reviewed it here: jacobin.com/2026/05/agai...

The excellent Mehreen Khan cutting through the fog to name our most invisible bond vigilante, the Bank of England www.thetimes.com/business/eco...

“lower-value human capital” This would be bad enough in an econ paper. But the CEO talking about his own, current employees? We’re in a bad place.

“lower-value human capital” This would be bad enough in an econ paper. But the CEO talking about his own, current employees? We’re in a bad place.

Think I need to buy How to Win a Trade War? (The rest of you have lost the book promotion arms race.)

Together with the terrific @azohra.bsky.social, we curated this symposium on IL and the current moment: lpeproject.org/blog/somethi.... Features wise contributions by @wanshucong.bsky.social @jbentonheath.bsky.social @shaabiranks.bsky.social @richardjoyce.bsky.social & Sarah Sherman-Stokes

It is quite challenging to convince people that this really is more or less what every macroeconomics textbook says, even when you are teaching them out of one of those textbooks.

Looking forward to presenting new work with Leah Downey this Wednesday at FU Berlin. The talk (and paper) engage critically with the compensation-based approach that has come to dominate climate politics in theory & practice, and present an alternative, mobilization-based perspective.

I contributed a book chapter on a key EU policy problem: fiscal consolidation pressures and rising defence spending risk crowding out public investment in the green and digital transition. I discuss options for creating more fiscal space under the reformed EU fiscal rules.

"It is one of those rare books one puts away with the feeling that it cannot be possible that it took so long for someone to write them." Could not have hoped for a better first review!

Yep. @abbyinnes.bsky.social has a great book on this www.cambridge.org/core/books/l...

Why has the taboo on tax increases for the rich (TIR) weakened? Timely piece by Fastenrath & Marx that emphasizes 2 key conditions, based on SPD and Labour (temporarily) embracing tax-the-rich platforms: 1) Competent policy entrepreneurs: "mobilizing on TIR requires public confrontation with..."

Why has the taboo on tax increases for the rich (TIR) weakened? Timely piece by Fastenrath & Marx that emphasizes 2 key conditions, based on SPD and Labour (temporarily) embracing tax-the-rich platforms: 1) Competent policy entrepreneurs: "mobilizing on TIR requires public confrontation with..."

What a bracing indictment of the culture at Stanford, and with it the challenge to all of higher ed. We have exactly the same problem with our students. It’s short on solutions, but so are we all.

BERLIN, four events next week: Monday @ Roter Salon (sold out): criticaltheoryinberlin.de/en/event/mus... Tuesday @ re:publica: re-publica.com/de/session/g... Tuesday @ Einstein Forum: www.einsteinforum.de/en/veranstal... Wednesday @ Chapters books: www.chaptersberlin.com/events/power...

i blame Herr Andy Burnham

When I moved to London 5 years ago, I did not think that I would ever wonder if it was safe to move through the city just because of the color of my skin. Today, this is the case. Yet again. Far-right agitators and thugs are roaming the streets. Empowered and emboldened by the rhetoric and politics

If you want to know how and why we've ended up in a situation where tens of thousands of people rally in support of a far-right influencer, backed by wealthy North American fascists, I just wrote a book about it. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

🎉🚨New Publication 🚨🎉 Beyond thrilled this is finally out! First large-scale, cross-national database of parties' social group appeals — who they speak to, the stance they take towards the groups, and whether a policy is mentioned. 55 years, 8 European countries, fully public and available here:

new from me at FORCES OF PRODUCTION! a short history of the transition from goods to services alongside some recent discussion from @rajakorman.bsky.social and @conorsen.bsky.social on What Is Going On With Healthcare www.forcesofproduction.com/p/services-o...

Presider trading www.ft.com/content/f921...

The *cost of living tsar*, a CEO and Lord, proposes “to arm shop security staff with truncheons and pepper spray to combat shoplifters.” God help us.

AI companies are writing their own constitutions. Meanwhile, a shared vocabulary for contesting algorithmic power has been traveling across red and blue states, from legislatures to civil society. New from me in @science.org: "A Civic Grammar for AI Rights" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵

📢 JOB ALERT! Fully funded 3-year PhD in Climate & Comparative Politics at @sciencespo-cee.bsky.social. Starting in September. The project is on the political consequences of climate policies in carbon-intensive communities across Europe. 🗓 Deadline: May 17 www.sciencespo.fr/centre-etude...

I wrote about the debate over whether Democrats should talk about “climate,” which is kind of a nonsensical question, and how it’s sort of like a debate over whether to talk about capitalism newrepublic.com/article/2103...

Every single member of the History Department at Uni of Nottingham is at risk of redundancy. Every single one of us.

“Badly need 81 likes but have only 30 clear-name followers” – high-stakes Westminster politics or early Bluesky days?

I'm writing something about public pension funds & data centers & risk -- this total mess strengthens my goal to get elected to the MA PRIM Board! have a friend who works for MA state government? Pls send them to my website so that they can vote before May 22nd!! lenorepalladino.me

really interesting piece by @danielagabor.bsky.social and @benbraun.eurosky.social on 'decarbonized sovereignty' in light of the recent high-level conference in Santa Marta, Colombia on transitioning away from fossil fuels

"Why are oil prices not higher? In short, America’s selling while China ain’t buying" "the US has responded by cranking up exports, while China has slashed imports" www.ft.com/content/ae62...

as gilt markets tremble, time again for my 'Bank of England has too much fiscal power, in the wrong hands' chat with Andy Haldane. On Politics: Do bond markets and the Bank of England run Britain? www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...

Die deutsche Politikwissenschaft hat ein Problem im Umgang mit Israel-Palästina, kritisieren @roykaradag.bsky.social & @anavelasco.bsky.social. In Journals & Fachkonferenzen komme das Thema kaum vor. Das Ergebnis: Die PoWi sei zu Israels Kriegen hierzulande analytisch schlicht nicht urteilsfähig.

My new essay in @foreignaffairs.com on the connections between energy and geopolitical sovereignty that the Iran energy shock has revealed.

Just published! My book, Easting the West: Theorizing the Postliberal Conjuncture from China, is now available online for institutional users with subscription to Oxford Scholarship Online! academic.oup.com/book/62722 The print version will come out next month.

Trump's petrowars threaten to unleash carbon shock therapy around the world - disorderly decarbonization and deindustrialisation. The answer, we argue w @benbraun.eurosky.social, is decarbonised sovereignty, a pathway for the Santa Marta coalition. www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/aga...

This week in infrastructures of academia: Liberal market economies: Canvas hacked for ransom to be paid in bitcoin. Berlin: Hold my beer – entire uni main building closed from one day to the next mid-semester because we suddenly realized it’s s death trap.