Thrilled to see Making a Career in Dictatorship featured in The New York Times @nytimes.com My favorite line: “[The book] reads like what you might get if you crossed Hannah Arendt’s ideas about the ‘banality of evil’ with a business school guide on how to get the most out of low performers.”

In the NYT today, @daschloz.bsky.social and I write about how Democrats became policy-pilled and why policy can't substitute for organizational connections to ordinary people.

I appreciate @kschake.bsky.social's efforts to shed light on these vital issues, but I am less sanguine Politicization operates through multiple mechanisms not captured by analyzing the credentials or past partisan commentary of senior officers replacing those who have been fired. 1/

“Policy-as-politics doesn’t work,” Sam Rosenfeld and Daniel Schlozman write about the Democrats’ current trajectory. “Parties can, and historically have, forged stronger, more sustainable connections with voters through other means” — like the art of mass politics.

Applications for the 2026 Journeys in World Politics workshop (10/1-10/3) in San Diego are being accepted (due 6/1). The workshop features Kathleen Cunningham & Leah Windsor as senior mentors. Christina Schneider is our local host! Visit the site below to apply. www.saramitchell.org/journeys.html

New article, w/ my colleagues in Econ! We randomized the type of instrument and timing at which student evaluations are solicited to see if either could make the feedback we got more representative of the student body. In one important way, we find that it can 👇 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Very cool to have the piece I wrote picked up by TPM! Hope people find it useful

ICE Not Only Looks and Acts Like a Paramilitary Force—It Is One, and That Makes It Harder To Curb talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/ice-is-...

Personally I think this is too much money to give to Donald trumps poorly trained but heavily armed Militia

New explainer from me, on understanding ICE as a paramilitary force, in more than one sense of the term 👇 theconversation.com/ice-not-only...

Going straight onto my Intro IR syllabus 👍

Now on #FirstView, Calvert Jones explores whether reforms undertaken by authoritarian governments improve foreign publics' perceptions of their legitimacy. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The admin is proposing indefinite control of Venezuelan oil, but evidence suggests that Venezuelan cooperation will only extend as far as it‘s coerced - and can’t extend past what the crumbing infrastructure can generate. Meanwhile ordinary Venezuelans continue to suffer. @goodauth.bsky.social

🧵Day 3 and we have a new meaning for "running Venezuela," courtesy of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the nation's top diplomat, who is in charge of Venezuela as well as the National Archives. We're going to insist they do what's in the US national interest. Time for some principal-agent theory. 1/

Hey folks, you can preorder my new book Blue Power: How Police Organized to Protect and Serve Themselves at a 25% discount right now from @basicbooksgroup.bsky.social: www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/stuar... (and it's also discounted at bookshop.org, if you prefer that!). Published in April!

A joyous protest in Utica today! My kid repurposed his Halloween costume 🐓

This is the biggest attack on free speech since the McCarthy era but it also has significantly less popular consensus behind it than the second Red Scare. It's being done on behalf of a minority faction led by the most unpopular president in modern history. Organizing against this can win.

📣 We are searching for a tenure-line assistant or associate professor with a focus on the intersection of technology and global and public affairs @josefkorbelschool.bsky.social — please share across your networks. #polisky #psjobs #poliscijobs Apply by September 15. jobs.du.edu/en-us/job/49...

We are hiring in American Politics at Hamilton College this year! We're seeking a scholar of political institutions, broadly understood. Hamilton's been a wonderful place to work, & I'm happy to answer any questions about the position, department, life in upstate NY, etc. apply.interfolio.com/171832

Sharing my latest w/ the Conversation @africa.theconversation.com theconversation.com/coups-in-wes...

I’m currently building a dataset on police forces around the globe. No other country has a force quite like ICE (w/ broad enforcement powers, tactical gear, immigration focus); the most apt comparisons are to secret police in authoritarian regimes rather than border/immigration forces elsewhere.

Thoughtful piece from @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social , who I believe is the only journalist I have spoken to (in my personal capacity as always) who had read my primer on US civ-mil www.vox.com/politics/416...

🚨Report your NSF grant terminations! 🚨 We are starting to collect information on NSF grant terminations to create a shared resource as we have for NIH. The more information we collect, the more we can organize, advocate, and fight back! Please share widely! airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni...

I served on NSF review panels for 2 years, with incredible, dedicated colleagues who put immense effort into ensuring a rigorous review process. To see these grants terminated, and this careful work thrown out, is devastating. What a waste of time and talent. I am so sorry to everyone affected.

Oof, in a day filled with bad news on the NSF front, this one is particularly hard to take. Journeys has done so much to support and mentor women in international relations. Our whole field is worse off without financial support for it.

The Fourth Circuit is famously succinct. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Elite civil society actors--universities, law firms, corporations--should take a look at the economic free-fall Trump has just caused and consider: is this someone who seems poised to consolidate further popular support? Is his power on the upswing, necessitating preemptive surrender?

Join @stevelevitsky.bsky.social & me on April 3 at 4pm ET. We’ll catch up on the current state of backsliding and resistance in the US. Register below.

They are coming for every university, if you think you’re safe because it hasn’t been yours yet I don’t know what to tell you. Join AAUP, refuse to comply, organize your colleagues

I can't access the USIP website anymore 😬

Friends, colleagues, everyone: This is a statement affirming the value of U.S. higher education in the face of Trump's attacks. Nearly 400 people have already signed. Please join us: Sign and share. Thank you! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

From our new issue: "I’m from the Government, and I’m Here to Help: Public Perceptions of Coercive State Power" by Jessica Blankshain, Lindsay Cohn, and Danielle Lupton. #APSRNewIssue www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It was a delightful surprise to hear political scientist Adom Getachew narrating the tour of Project a Black Planet, an exhibition on Pan-Africanism at the Art Institute of Chicago today. Turns out she was one of the curators. If you’re in town for #ISA2025, go check it out!

I wrote angry about the purging of the US military. saideman.blogspot.com/2025/02/why-...

If you're just learning about the Bolsonaro news, I strongly recommend reading @hsulli.bsky.social & @edebruin.bsky.social's piece in @goodauth.bsky.social that details the steps Bolsonaro and his allies took to prepare for losing the 2022 presidential election. goodauthority.org/news/brazil-...

“Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. He is trying to substitute perception for reality. He is hoping that perception then becomes reality. That can only happen if we believe him.”

Psyched about the final proofs for this paper (w/ @edebruin.bsky.social @gabriellalevy2.bsky.social & Livia Schubiger). As soon as the manuscript is up on the @apsrjournal.bsky.social website, I will do a thread describing the paper!

On the anniversary of the attempted coup in Brazil, @edebruin.bsky.social and I wrote about the coup plot, the continuing efforts to bring transparency and accountability, and how Brazil compares to countries across the globe. @goodauth.bsky.social

Cool cool cool, glad I got my kids up at 5am to get to the airport 😂

Just received proofs for our article "Out-Competing Rivals: Armed Group Governance and Civilian Attitudes in Colombia," forthcoming at @apsrjournal.bsky.social (w/ @edebruin.bsky.social @gabriellalevy2.bsky.social and Livia Schubiger). I'll post a thread here in the coming days!

Short-term: Lots about November 5 was poli-sci-normal and not a particularly sound impetus for massive intra-Dem recriminations. Long-term: The party's central crisis remains class dealignment and there's no quick or easy way out of it. democracyjournal.org/arguments/th...

Hi new followers! I study the military & democracy in the U.S. and beyond, military professionalism and strategy-making. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how politicians in declining democracies around the world turn their militaries into political allies. Here is a sample of my work:

Thrilled to join @carriealee.bsky.social on the U.S. Army War College's "A Better Peace" podcast for this discussion of how politicians seek to turn the military into their partisan ally in eroding democracies around the world. warroom.armywarcollege.edu/podcasts/pol...

When you're talking to undecided voters, mention the candidates' actual policy proposals. Surveys show that Harris's are far more popular than Trump's (www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...), but many voters are unfamiliar with them.

Very nice write-up in the @chronicle.com of our recent study (with Ann Owen & Steve Wu) emphasizing the difficulties of mitigating gender bias in qualitative student evaluation comments, & how we revised our T&P guidelines at Hamilton in response: www.chronicle.com/newsletter/t...

Is anyone else having issues with Lucid Theorem right now? We're seeing very slow uptake for surveys and haven't figured out what the issue is yet. Curious if others are also having problems!