Another day, another publication: Our new paper introduces a transformer-based approach to measure how parties talk about each other, capturing who talks about whom and with what stance, with applications to coalition signals in Germany and negative campaigning in Austria. Out now, open access!

🧲 How did #ActEU researchers collect data on political trust? 📽️This animated video explores ActEU's web-scraping tool, one of the largest collections of European political communications 🔗 youtu.be/LwTeWZjWMtE @alexhartland.bsky.social @pfcdgayo.bsky.social @politicsunisaar.bsky.social

Can feed algorithms shape what people think about politics? Our paper "The Political Effects of X's Feed Algorithm" is out today in Nature and answers "Yes." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How can we measure political trust in Europe? 👉 #ActEU researchers have explored this topic with the help of a large-scale survey 🔍 Find out more about the results and test your knowledge of #ActEU findings with this video🔗 youtu.be/aI1tGW13V2s @uni-saarland.de @unidue.bsky.social

Looking for speeches from all German state parliaments? @cgnguyen.bsky.social , Eric Beltermann, Sabine Kropp & Antonios Souris have you covered. Introducing the StateParl Corpus. Now open access with PVS: doi.org/10.1007/s11615-025-00643-5

Two new articles in Party Politics With @gessler.bsky.social Measuring party positions and issue salience with mass media and manifesto data" doi.org/10.1177/1354... With Hanspeter Kriesi "Restructuring party systems in Northwestern Europe" doi.org/10.1177/1354... Feedback very welcome!

The Societal Observatory Using Novel Data Sources (SOUNDS) project is inviting applications for the following position: 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗱𝗼𝗰 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (𝗳/𝗺/𝘅) 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝗿𝗲𝗳: 𝗪𝟮𝟴𝟬𝟭) Paygrade: E13 TV-L 100% Duration: 2 years @ingmarweber.de @politicsunisaar.bsky.social @uni-saarland.de

Looking for RAs based in Berlin/Brandenburg. Please share! 🙏

After a short break, the first panel of the #ActEU Final Conference will begin 👉 Sofie Marien, @anthonyzach.be, @valeriefrey.bsky.social & @alexhartland.bsky.social will discuss political trust in democracy. Keep following the conference on our YouTube channel 👉 youtube.com/live/YVOClu1...

Coming soon: Activating European Citizens’ Trust in Times of Crisis and Polarization This #PoliSci book will explore how trust and legitimacy shape Europe’s representative democracies, introducing the #ActEU framework to assess democratic change and polarization.

We're #hiring: This time we're looking for a project lead assistant for our large-scale #compsocsci project SOUNDS!

Big supply-side takeaway: since the 1960s, parties increasingly drop “party” and classic ideology words. By the early 2020s, nearly 2/3 of parties no longer identify as “parties” in their official name; “movement” references rise in waves (e.g., post-2008).

January 16, 2026: Julian Jaursch from the German Digital Service Coordinator @bnetza.bsky.social will introduce the EU's #DSA Data Access Portal during the series "Show & Tell – Social Media Data in Research Practice". Register here: events.gwdg.de/event/1259/ #digitalservicesact #platformdata

New Publication out! 🔥 Italy’s right-wing politics has changed dramatically over the past two decades. With @gippone.bsky.social and @leonardo-puleo.bsky.social we started from a basic question: Why has the radical right surged inside Italy’s right coalition? Radicalisation or something different?

🎶“The relationship between voters and parties is a complicated dance, with high potential for misalignment” 🎶 Find out more in this #ActEU blog post 👉 www.foederalist.eu/2025/12/acte... ✍️ @alexhartland.bsky.social, Daniela Braun, Giuseppe Carteny, @rosanavarrete.bsky.social & @annreinl.bsky.social

The Call for Papers and Panels for #COMPTEXT2026 in Birmingham (23-25 April) is out; feel free to circulate: shorturl.at/gRg0p! Deadline: January 16!

European parties often miss what voters actually care about. New #ActEU research shows clear gaps between party platforms and voter priorities with consequences for trust and political stability. Read more in our latest #PoliSci blogpost:

Deadline today!! :)

Happy to share that the German Research Foundation DFG funds my new project: “Countering Polarization: The Borda count as a basis for proportional representation”. I am recruiting 2 PhD candidates to join me in Hannover as of March 2026 or later! Feel free to reach out!

And another job ad: We're looking for four student assistants! #hiring

Thrilled to share my new article in Political Psychology: “The psychology of political attitudinal volatility.” In it, I attempt to answer why do some people change their political views more than others? Open access at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... @ispp-pops.bsky.social

Who shares which sources on social media, and why does this matter politically? Our open-access @polcommjournal.bsky.social article shows how far-right French Twitter/X users strategically post and cite sources to achieve their goals. doi.org/10.1080/1058... #polisky #commsky #migcitsky A 🧵:

Several recent studies have found that politicians aren't very good at estimating public support for policies. But we have little idea about whether politicians are good at knowing which issues are more important to voters. Our new publication has a first go at answering this question rdcu.be/eQGm4

🚨Working on economic inequality perceptions and support for redistribution? Sonja Zmerli and I are coordinating a Section about perceived economic inequality at the next @ecpr.bsky.social's General Conference. 👉 Do consider submit your paper! ecpr.eu/Events/Event... @vd-researchgroup.bsky.social

We are looking for a teamlead for our large-scale project SOUNDS! #compsocsci #PoliSky #PoliSci #hiring #JobAlert

Including the symposium on the EP elections 2024, guest edited by @simonhix.bsky.social 👇

💥 OUT NOW: Volume 49, Issue 1 (2026) Lots of exciting research on: 👉 Polarisation: climate change, immigration, democratic deficit 👉 EU politics & voters/citizens 👉 Working class politicians 👉 Political protest 👉 Housing policy 👉 Symposium 2024 EP Elections 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/toc/fwep20/c...

I am over the moon to announce that #COMPTEXT2026 will take place at the "Institute for Data and AI" at the University of Birmingham. Look out for the imminent CfP on all channels. And go and tell your friends. Looking forward to hosting y'all in April 2026 #sciencerocks ‪@comptext.bsky.social

Join our CSS department @gesis.org! Postdoc/senior researcher position, tenure track! All info at: www.gesis.org/institut/kar...

Although not yet available to read (January 2026!), very happy to see our book on political trust online. Co-edited with @mfair.bsky.social and available open access, we think it'll be a useful addition to the field. www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/a-r...

Shout-out to all #PoliticalTrust researchers interested in attending the first @epssnet.bsky.social conference in #Belfast @annakern.bsky.social, @danjdevine.bsky.social, @cvalebeek.bsky.social, @hannesbey.bsky.social and I are coordinating 3 trust panels!

Very pleased to say my new article is out @polstudies.bsky.social ! In it I compare single individuals to those with partners with different past vote choices/party identifications and demonstrate that this is associated with an individual's own vote choice. doi.org/10.1177/0032...

📣 New Preprint! Have you ever wondered what the political content in LLM's training data is? What are the political opinions expressed? What is the proportion of left- vs right-leaning documents in the pre- and post-training data? Do they correlate with the political biases reflected in models?

We are looking for a project manager for our large-scale project SOUNDS! Learn more: bit.ly/SOUNDS-Manager #compsocsci #PoliSky #PoliSci #hiring #JobAlert

Their lecture was followed by @giucarny.bsky.social and @alexhartland.bsky.social, who continued the discussion by presenting further perspectives and examples on assessing polarization and analyzing the sentiment and topics of political posts.

More than 20 new elections ❗️ Albania 2017, 2021 Bosnia-Herzegovina 2022 Canada 2021 France 2022 Germany 2025 Greece 2023 May Hungary 2022 Israel 2022 Japan 2021 Latvia 2022 Malta 2003, 2008, 2013, 2017, 2022 Portugal 2022 Serbia 2023 Spain 2023 United Kingdom 2024 United States 2024

🚨📢 We’re hiring a Postdoc in Computational Political Science at the University of Antwerp! 💻 Focus: NLP + ML + political text analysis 🗳️ Project: ERC DEMO-LIES (disinformation in democracies) 🌍 Location: Antwerp, 🇧🇪 📅 Deadline: 16 Oct 2025 www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vaca...

The University of Cologne plans drastic cuts to its Political Science department, potentially abolishing the MSc in Political Science and eliminating the professorships in IR and Comparative Politics. This would severely weaken the social sciences at @unicologne.bsky.social. Petition (de/en) ⤵️

💡📚 Passionate about emotions, gender & migration? We’re hiring a Research Associate for the #PROTEMO project at @uni-saarland.de! 🌍 Focus: migrant women’s experiences of domestic violence & how emotions, security & politics intersect. 📝 Apply by 10 Sept 2025 👉 www.protemo.eu/news-post/we...

The amount of data available is greater than ever, yet remains mostly unused by social scientists & #PoliSci researchers. The Societal Observatory Using Novel Data Sources (SOUNDS) aims to change that - and receives 29 million Euro in funding from Saarland's state gov!🎉 Read more: bit.ly/SoundsPM

I have a new paper out in @wepsocial.bsky.social looking at immigration rulings in the UK (doi.org/10.1080/0140...). It's a short read, but the two main findings are: 1) the success of an immigration appeal depends a lot on who the deciding judge is 2) BAME women are (surprisingly) strict judges

🚨 New paper in Science Advances @science.org Can changing how we argue about politics online improve the quality of replies we get? T HeideJorgensen, @gregoryeady.bsky.social & I use an LLM to manipulate counter-arguments to see how people respond to different approaches to arguments Thread 🧵1/n

How is #polarisation reflected on social media❓ @uni-saarland.de's @alexhartland.bsky.social responded to this question in his presentation at the #ActEU mid-term conference 🎓 Check it out on YouTube 👉 youtu.be/3l9XQFZAlQU

🚨Job Alert W2 (TT W3) Professorship in Computer Science "AI for People & Society" @saarland-informatics-campus.de/@uni-saarland.de is looking to appoint an outstanding individual in the field of AI for people and society who has made significant contributions in one or more of the following areas:

Do LLMs represent the people they're supposed simulate or provide personalized assistance to? We review the current literature in our #ACL2025 Findings paper and investigating what researchers conclude about the demographic representativeness of LLMs: osf.io/preprints/so... 1/

📣 NEW PAPER ALERT! 🚨 "School subject choices in adolescence affect political party support" Just published in @wepsocial.bsky.social with @nspmartin.bsky.social and @rolandkappe.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1080/0140... 🧵👇

I am happy to share that our work titled "Exploring LLMs for Automated Generation and Adaptation of Questionnaires" has been accepted to the ACM Conversational User Interfaces (CUI) Conference 2025. Check our work: doi.org/10.1145/3719... @cui.acm.org #CUI2025 #ACM

🤖💬 Can AI tell the difference between toxic speech and emotionally charged political debate? Liliia Mairova and Ariq Suryo Hadi P. provide some interesting insights in the next blogpost of the Observatory: politics.i2sc.net/blogposts/to...

Extremely happy to see my first single-authored paper published! Check it out in @ersjournal.com 👇