Residents of Zvërnec in Albania have started one of the most important environmental struggles in Europe today. I explain how their protest is really a fight over who has the right to decide over shared land, institutions, and infrastructure indications.substack.com/p/the-common...

“Trump is advancing an expansive project to reposition the US within global critical minerals networks. As of February 2026, at least 18 critical minerals firms have been offered direct financing, guaranteed loans, or equity stakes from federal agencies.” phenomenalworld.org/analysis/tru...

There was a Fidesz ideologue who once said, "What you call corruption is the essence of the system." Seems he was right but we're just learning by how much. The Integrity Authority estimates Orban's rule cost Hungary €160B(!) in corruption. That equals ~2/3 of 🇭🇺 GDP. www.ft.com/content/0c44...

📕 Excited to share *two* new book reviews of ASPRISS: ➡️ Iddo Tavory in Contemporary Sociology journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... ➡️ Ekkehard Coenen in Symbolic Interacton onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... #sociology #phenomenology #academicsky

Central and Eastern Europe is splitting into "factories" and "founders." From Slovakia's slowing auto sector to Poland's AI decacorns and the new defense-spending wave. New piece on Indications: open.substack.com/pub/indicati...

Die Kosten des Nicht-Handelns werden für Deutschland immer sichtbarer – bei Exporten, Industrieproduktion und Jobs. Unsere Studie hier: www.cer.eu/publications...

#Poland is now a $1 trillion economy notesfrompoland.com/2026/04/16/p...

I know this type. I've seen them often enough. They revel in being obnoxious: but not towards the rich and powerful, to whom they fawn. Always towards the weaker and the poorer: towards people who don't have their privileges, such as access to private medical care. They think it's funny and daring.

"Magyar wasn't engaging in a policy debate... His framing was Viktor Orbán and Fidesz are a criminal organization and we need to dismantle this... he connected the impact of the criminal organization to these rural Hungarians' experience." @ambpressman.bsky.social on how Magyar beat Orbán.

Happy to announce I've been appointed affiliate professor at the University of Prishtina! The Senate voted unanimously this week and I'm honestly so excited. Huge gratitude to the Department of Sociology for this opportunity to engage with the faculty and students there!

If you're interested in the overlapping intellectual concerns of fields of International Relations and Historical Sociology, see this neat chart created on the basis of my co-authored chapter with Yannis Stivachtis on the topic visualinternationalrelationsproject.com/pula-and-sti...

Prof Priscilla Alderson and A level student Harry Hubbard have made a series of 4 short videos introducing Critical Realism for A level students: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

How do we reconcile the phenomenological insistence on the singular with social science's need to generalize? I wrote about the three kinds of patterns we can chase—and why the order matters. open.substack.com/pub/indicati...

The Trump administration clearly views the AI industry as far too important to hit with the same tariffs they're subjecting the rest of the economy to, which begs the question of why we're even doing this trade war in the first place www.apricitas.io/p/the-tariff...

Another article in the genre of "the hypocrisy of academic radicalism" but I appreciate the turn to the changing nature of academic structures and political economy of the university that made "decolonizing everything" so appealing for university administrators and the rise of "superstar academics"

How is AI *really* impacting jobs? Henley Chiu, the CTO of Revealera, a jobs data analysis firm, analyzed 180 million jobs listings in 2024 and 2025, in an effort to find out. Chiu found an: -8% drop in all jobs postings -~30% drop in art, photography, writing jobs -22% drop in journalism jobs

I’ll keep pushing this line of analysis because I’m increasingly convinced the clearest path out of this mess is for Dems to adopt a relentless anti-corruption, anti-inequality, anti-oligarchy, pro-democracy platform. The Dem leadership hasn’t realized it yet, but they’re now a reform party.

The story of Schutz in American sociology is more than a history of ideas. It’s a case study in how intellectual migration and translation reshape disciplines. My new publication in JCS #sociology #phenomenology journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

My response to the NYT’s “moderate to win” argument: The data shows the strategy is tapped out. Being seen as moderate by voters doesn’t boost votes, replacing every progressive with moderates would net 0 seats, and the graveyard of defeated D incumbents if full of moderates, not progressives.

“I call it the vicious cycle of a failing strongman—that the more he fails, the more he grows distant from the public, which encourages him to become more of an illiberal strongman.”

You can see pretty clearly in this chart why the "K-shaped recovery" narrative was nonsense prior to roughly this year but is now very real.

A social science that breathes: no spreadsheets, just images that sting. My essay on how the montage of Shifty re-maps time, space & sociality → indications.substack.com/p/montage-an...

A social science that breathes: no spreadsheets, just images that sting. My essay on how the montage of Shifty re-maps time, space & sociality → indications.substack.com/p/montage-an...

We are hiring in US politics! careers.pageuppeople.com/968/cw/en-us...

Presidents can go to jail for crimes? www.cnbc.com/2025/09/25/f...

"Per the ACEA, Tesla EV registrations in Europe fell to just 8,837 units in July, a 40.2% drop compared to a year ago. ... Meanwhile, China's BYD (BYDDY), which sells both full EVs and hybrids, saw registrations surge 225% in July to 13,503"

🎓Did you know? In 2024, combined Political Science and International Studies students achieved an impressive 90% law school acceptance rate—well above the national average of 69.4%! 📈

Helpful reminder that the "average consumer", if it was anything other than a mathematical notion, is an idea from a by-gone era in the US economy now that about half the spending is done by the top 10% of earners

Honored to see the review of my book by Eduardo Duran published in @actasociologica.bsky.social Truly appreciate the attention! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

NEW from me @newrepublic.com: If progressives don’t seize this moment to define a democratic, public-minded state capitalism, they will find themselves living in one designed by the Trump administration. newrepublic.com/article/2000...

My book on phenomenology and interpretive social science is now available in (a much more reasonably priced) paperback edition! www.routledge.com/Alfred-Schut...

Extremely honored to have a chapter included in this forthcoming Handbook of 1989 and the Great Transformation, featuring some of the top scholars working on questions of global transformation anywhere and edited by an outstanding group of researchers www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...

Factory robots once replaced assembly lines; now AI targets high-level tasks. Will history repeat itself, or can we steer innovation in emancipatory ways? My latest essay explores the legacy and past promises of automation in the era of Big Tech open.substack.com/pub/indicati...

America has lost 116k manufacturing jobs over the last year—that's the fastest pace of job loss since the early COVID era and worse than any period from 2011-2019. Big drops in the transportation (-49k) & electronics (-32k) industries drive most of the decline

Did the EU blink first, or was it a strategic play? My new article dissects the US-EU trade deal that left many Europeans frustrated. We also draw surprising lessons from the 15th-century Hanseatic League, which once faced foreign tolls and crumbled under disunity. open.substack.com/pub/indicati...

New survey evidence on university faculty views and teaching practices: "The one-dimensional portrayal of US universities as bastions of the political left filled with 'woke' faculty who impose their views on students is at odds w/the findings of this study" scholarworks.brandeis.edu/esploro/outp...

Did the EU blink first, or was it a strategic play? My new article dissects the US-EU trade deal that left many Europeans frustrated. We also draw surprising lessons from the 15th-century Hanseatic League, which once faced foreign tolls and crumbled under disunity. open.substack.com/pub/indicati...

My entry in @asaskat.bsky.social's blog discusses the role of hobbyists and computer groups in co-creating modern computing platforms and the lessons they offer for the AI era, building on Alfred Schutz's classic essay on the well-informed citizen

My latest post discusses the recent turmoil faced by the dollar and the potentials for global shifts in world currencies, particularly the challenges faced by the euro indications.substack.com/p/uncertain-...

My latest post discusses the recent turmoil faced by the dollar and the potentials for global shifts in world currencies, particularly the challenges faced by the euro indications.substack.com/p/uncertain-...

Great read on the historically unprecedented (and exceptionally dangerous) nature of oligarchy in today's U.S.

📣 Thanks to generous support from Fulbright Austria, I am thrilled that I will be spending the Spring 2026 semester as a Visiting Professor of Social Science at the University of Vienna 🇦🇹✨. I look forward to this incredible opportunity to connect with colleagues and fellow scholars across Europe 🌍🤝📚

Different rules of the game would have radically changed history. Our counterfactual simulations show that without colonial transfers, Europe would have been a debtor — and South Asia or Latin America could have become global creditors. [5/8]

Someday we'll have to reckon with the fact that not only are billionaires bad for society, having that much money seems to be genuinely bad for their own mental health. This is a problem we need to address--if not for our sakes, then for theirs.

I had a really enjoyable time at the Schutz Circle 2025 conference held at the University of Vienna last week. With 100+ participants from over 25 countries, it was wonderful to see the many ways the work of Alfred Schutz is explored and developed in a truly global fashion #phenomenology #sociology

Making iPhones in America? What about mattresses? Keychains? Yeah... it's impossible for most small businesses to manufacture in the US. And amid the trade war with China, business owners are struggling to plan for the future of their companies.

Some billionaires still hope that the tariffs can be resolved via "bilateral negotiations." Trump put tariffs on 185 countries. Negotiating bilaterally with each for just two weeks (super optimistic) would take over seven years time! This scenario is exactly what GATT/WTO were designed to avoid

It's annoying when pundits talk about a trade war and compare the current situation to the 1930s. Back then, every major economy was raising tariffs against the other. Right now other countries are still trading. This is more like US trade self-immolation

Oligarchy is the theory that the business elite know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.