To economists, who once served as the technocratic face of postsocialist politics, we should add architects as a new actor in that same tradition. A useful read on how world architects played a key role in Albania's corrupt environmental destruction thealbanianmechanism.substack.com/p/architects...

Architects Must Pay for This

Preliminary note: Without making any promises, this is the first post of a less structured series of texts engaging with Albania, crossposted at theExit. The previous texts of The Albanian Mechanism f...

thealbanianmechanism.substack.com

The world we live in. The Dutch architect Reinier De Graff's 2025 letter to Albanian PM Edi Rama, asking him to cancel democracy and proclaim himself an autocratic ruler, although "one with taste". The letter appears in a recent architectural volume published by the PM's office

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...

Reclaiming The Commons

Why environmental mobilization in Albania has proven an effective entry point for commons claims

indications.substack.com

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...

Reclaiming The Commons

Why environmental mobilization in Albania has proven an effective entry point for commons claims

indications.substack.com

“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...

Trumpian State Capitalism | Ilias Alami & Thea Riofrancos

Critical minerals security and US economic interventionism

phenomenalworld.org

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...

AI used to hunt Viktor Orbán’s alleged corruption

Head of Hungary’s anti-graft body says €160bn may have been siphoned off during ex-PM’s 16 years in power

ft.com

📕 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...

China shock 2.0: The cost of Germany's complacency

Germany is ground zero of the second China shock, but Berlin is not fighting back, even as the shock erodes the country’s engineering sectors that are vital to its economic security.

cer.eu

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

Poland has not joined world's top 20 economies, new IMF figures show

notesfrompoland.com

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!

„Kthimi dhe qarkullimi i trurit”: Profesori i njohur i Universitetit Virginia Tech, Besnik Pula asociohet me UP-në

Universiteti i Prishtinës (UP) është universitet publik në Prishtinë, Kosovë. Është universiteti më i madh dhe më i vjeter në Kosovë.

uni-pr.edu

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...

Critical Realism for A level students - YouTube

In these four short videos, Professor Priscilla Alderson and A level student Harry Hubbard introduce the critical realist approach to the social sciences.

youtube.com

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...

The Tariff Exemption Behind the AI Boom

Data Centers get Tariff-Free Imports. Why Shouldn't we All?

apricitas.io

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"

‘Decolonization’ as neoliberal ideology: Anthropological theory and the political economy of the modern university - Matthew Doyle, 2025

Current management-led proposals to ‘decolonize the university’ within elite Anglo-American institutions ideologically legitimate their restructuring as transna...

journals.sagepub.com

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

What’s really going on with AI and jobs?

Record-breaking layoff reports, Amazon's mass firings, and a slump in entry level employment. Is AI behind it all?

bloodinthemachine.com

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.

The New York Times Argues “Moving to the Center Is the Way to Win.” But the Data Shows the Strategy Is Tapped Out.

Democrats already run moderates in nearly every swing district. It's not enough. A data-driven response to the case for centrism as a core electoral strategy.

data4democracy.substack.com

“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.”

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Trump's deranged threat to fire federal workers and his killing of NY-NJ project are backfiring: Both are now big issues in VA-NJ gov races! And new CNBC poll shows indys blaming Trump/GOP over Dems by 58-21. On the pod, @simonwdc.bsky.social explains all this well: newrepublic.com/article/2019...

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.

Colby Smith@colbylsmith.bsky.social · 10mo ago

New w/ @bencasselman.bsky.social: Wealthy Americans, buoyed by a booming stock market, are spending freely. Lower-income households, stung by inflation and a slowing labor market, are pulling back www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/b... @nytimes.com

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...

Details | Assistant Professor, U.S. Politics & Political Institutions | Careers | Division of Human Resources | Virginia Tech

careers.pageuppeople.com

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

Former French President Sarkozy handed 5-year jail term in stunning downfall

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy will soon be imprisoned after he was sentenced to five years in jail on Thursday.

cnbc.com

"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"

European buyers now prefer Chinese cars over American autos: Study

President Trump's trade war is doing reputational damage to the US in surprising ways, at least when it comes to the auto sector.

finance.yahoo.com

🎓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%! 📈