I was quite pessimistic about the trajectory of American democracy in my last response to a Brightline Watch survey. Clearly I was not sufficiently pessimistic.

Our article on civilian harm and military legitimacy is now available at @iojournal.bsky.social. We believe it has timely implications for events playing out now in the Middle East and beyond. From North Carolina to Northern Iraq, working with Jon and Mara has been a truly rewarding experience!

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

🚨 “Good Description” with @annagbusse.bsky.social 🚨 What sets 'good' description apart from 'mere' description? We develop a framework for evaluating descriptive research, whether we are doing it as scholars or assessing it as readers. Two main contributions... 🔗📄 tinyurl.com/gooddesc

A new Trump administration policy offers cash to migrants undertaking "self-deportation." It was a pleasure to speak with @bloomberg.com on some of the potential pitfalls of this approach, building on my research on a cash-for-repatriation scheme in Pakistan www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This dataset is truly awesome. Check out this example map (especially Latin America) from their report introducing the dataset. Thanks to the authors & contributors! @chriswblair.bsky.social @guygrossman.bsky.social

The most revolting Oval Office presser since Feb. 28 (the Zelensky one). Even just hitting a few of the lowlights of this will leave you sickened and dismayed. BUT it's also clarifying. Anyone who has been talking about "the road to authoritarianism" can stop that now. The road is behind us.

on.ft.com/42gQ4HA How Gatsby foretold Trump’s America

As my colleagues and I wrote in the Daily Princetonian last week, we all have to stand up for our science, and not accept this attack on universities. www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025...

What I feel is ashamed.

Watching Putin’s little stooges try to bully Zelenskyy in our goddamned White House is pretty repulsive.

🚨🚨🚨🚨 New WP (with @benckrick.bsky.social @austinlw.bsky.social) available at the ESOC working paper series: esoc.princeton.edu/wp39

🚨🚨🚨🚨 New WP (with @benckrick.bsky.social @austinlw.bsky.social) available at the ESOC working paper series: esoc.princeton.edu/wp39

1/ Musk seeking control over nerve systems of the federal government. As someone who spent a decade studying how centralized information systems are used for coercion this is a five alarm fire. We need to name it, identify risks, and seek to mitigate their impacts. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/u...

Draw your own conclusions, but Donald Trump is not behaving like a leader who expects democratic accountability for himself or his party next year or in 2028.

@harvardlil.bsky.social is working on this at lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01...

Scholars across many fields are frantically grabbing government data that’s disappearing from the public domain. Is there any forum for sharing access - like an open source, central repository - that all of us who archived data could contribute to for purposes of scholarship and public interest?

The new Gitmo plan is horrifying. As a research aside, I’ve got FOIA’ed data on every migrant and drug interdiction by the USCG from 1997-2017 - haven’t had much time to work with it, but I will say they patrol a huge area as far south as the Galapagos and the Colombian coast.

In @apsrjournal.bsky.social, @sabrinabarias.bsky.social and @chriswblair.bsky.social show that individuals affected by Hurricane Ian reported increased support for climate policy action and more positive attitudes towards climate migrants for up to six months after the hurricane. bit.ly/4g5aBVq

From our new issue: "In the Eye of the Storm: Hurricanes, Climate Migration, and Climate Attitudes" by Sabrina Arias (@sabrinabarias.bsky.social) and Christopher Blair (@chriswblair.bsky.social). www.cambridge.org/core/service...

🚨🚨 Thrilled that my work with @sabrinabarias.bsky.social in @apsrjournal.bsky.social is featured on the cover of the latest issue. 🚨🚨 Article available Open Access here: doi.org/10.1017/S000...

These have to be some of the bleakest sentences ever written.

the trump campaign was literally bought and paid for by the wealthiest people on the planet — openly! — and dim-witted pundits are going on about how voters are tired of "elitist democrats"

New in @iojournal.bsky.social w Jost @ericmin.bsky.social & Schub: We combine computational methods with uniquely rich Cold War archival evidence to study how advisers matter in foreign policy. Where advisers stand doesn't just depend on where they sit. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... polisky