How do #autocrats ensure their survival? Do they dismiss #elites altogether or reshuffle them? Using novel measures from #autocratic #regimes and #communist #politburos, Alexander Baturo & @rgolar23.bsky.social answer these questions in their April WP article. doi.org/10.1353/wp.2...

Super excited to see this paper - with the all-time great Alex Baturo - published in World Politics. We conceptualized dictators as human resource managers to provide a unified theoretical explanation on how vertical (i.e. dismissals) and horizontal (i.e. reshuffles)... dx.doi.org/10.1353/wp.2...

Our PhD call is open. Get in touch if interested in doing a PhD on democratization and/or autocratic politics (largely defined) in an inferential/positivist empirical framework. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQB848/p...

We are hiring PhDs and postdocs to work on the ERC project GETGOV, where I am the PI. We will investigate governing elites since 1789. I am sure that it will be a lot of fun and result in great research! Postdocs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... PhDs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

🚨 New in Journal of Politics! 🚨 Do radical right parties need to cut ties with old dictatorships to succeed? 👉 @sergipardos.bsky.social and my study of Spain’s VOX says: ❌ Not necessarily.

EPSA have announced that they will hold a conference in July 2026. 😵‍💫 We understand that there might be some confusion about EPSS and EPSA. 👉🏽 So we thought we would clarify some things. A short 🧵

Populism is contagious: when parties are exposed to populist rhetoric from their rivals, they adopt populist rhetoric in future elections journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨 We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community. 🔗 epssnet.org Here’s a thread with everything you need to know. 🧵

Democratization = new people in the political elite? Nope, in many cases not. This great new article shows that members of the autocratic government very often make it back to government after democratization.

Your weekend reading (and my new article) is out today @poppublicsphere.bsky.social. In this article I develop a novel theory of autocratic revolving doors - the phenomenon of autocratic elites returning to a cabinet position under democracy. doi.org/10.1017/S153...

“when we reason, we don’t have to generate text that expresses our solution and then generate another one and then generated another one, and then among the ones we produce, pick the one that is good...” “And this is what we yet cannot reproduce with machines.”

New publication alert @the-peio.bsky.social Under what conditions are new democracies more committed to human rights? More specifically, what role do former autocratic elites play in shaping ratification of international human rights treaties? link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The second part is out. The cancelled election was a missed maturity test for Romanian democracy, one that won’t save it. www.thejournal.ie/readme/roman...

I wrote a short piece on Romania's (recently cancelled) presidential election and it's implications for democracy. The decision to cancel the second round will do even more damage to an already fragile democracy. There will be follow up piece next week. www.thejournal.ie/readme/roman...

Polisky Dictatorsky Join us today! @vladsurdea.bsky.social (Central European University) will present "The Repression-Dissent Nexus in High-Threat Environments: Evidence from Communist Romania" @anjaneundorf.bsky.social (Glasgow) @rgolar23.bsky.social (DCU) and Eugenia Nazrullaeva (LSE) will discuss

New Publication Alert in Democratization journal on the legacy effects of democratic transitions on individual political attitudes - joint work with the great @anjaneundorf.bsky.social Go to the dark side to find a longer thread about the paper. See here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....