How do people react to different forms of election manipulation in politically polarized settings? New from me at Democratization @democratization.bsky.social, with survey-experimental evidence from Georgia 🇬🇪: doi.org/10.1080/1351...

Polarization and the legitimacy costs of electoral manipulation tactics: survey-experimental results from the 2024 election in Georgia

Elections can be manipulated in a variety of ways, both legal and illegal. Legal, or formal, electoral manipulation is common, while illegal manipulation is somewhat more variable. This variation h...

doi.org

Vladimir Putin, a much savvier authoritarian, made it a point to get all his national security principals to publicly support his war of choice before he launched it. Even in the Kremlin publicity photos of the event, most of them look petrified. www.en.kremlin.ru/events/presi...

Security Council meeting

The President held a meeting of the Russian Federation Security Council at the Kremlin.

en.kremlin.ru

Not loving this new morning routine of waking up, seeing a "truth" so extreme that it has to be fake, then scrolling to find with dawning horror that it is not.

New website! 📖 With updated information on my book manuscript on: ❌ How mass protest fails to prevent election manipulation ❌ How dictators who manipulate more are better at defeating protest ⚖️ What *does* interfere with manipulation efforts colejharvey.github.io/book.html

President Trump at only +2.6 net approval in Oklahoma seems hard to believe, and I'm sure reliable point estimates are hard to pin down for such a small state. But then again my neighbor recently replaced his Trump flag with an American flag, so... 👀

Owen Winter@owenwntr.bsky.social · last yr.

We estimate that his approval is net negative in 36 states plus DC

I am adopting ~10 chapters from this book for my intro comparative politics course this fall!

Joshua Tucker@jatucker.bsky.social · last yr.

1/ 🚨 What if intro political science textbooks were better and cheaper? We built one: ✅ $1/chapter ✅ Modular & flexible ✅ Written by top scholars ✅ Full (free!) instructor resources 🌐 www.politicsexperiment.com Help us spread the word! @rudalev.bsky.social & I are the editors!

It was painful to write an obituary, from an academic's perspective, for one of Russia's most important civil society organizations @themoscowtimes.com www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/07/11/w...

Why Russia's Last Independent Election Monitor Mattered to the World - The Moscow Times

Opinion | After 25 years of work, Russia’s only independent election monitoring organization, Golos, is sadly no more.

themoscowtimes.com

There definitely seems to have been a phase shift this semester

Andrew Heiss@andrew.heiss.phd · last yr.

On the verge of declaring defeat with chatgpt in my asynchronous online dataviz class. Something changed this semester compared to past ones and SO MANY assignments are essentially 100% LLM output.

Денег нет, но вы держитесь! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%2...

There's no money, but hang in there - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Patton Oswalt@pattonoswalt.bsky.social · last yr.

This was so comforting! Whew!

I am genuinely very curious how easily the president will be able to remove from power a man who: 1) apparently has access to / control over govt payroll and Social Security payment infrastructure, and 2) has a large portion of his wealth tied to the idea that he has governing influence 🤔🤔🤔

Judd Legum@juddlegum.bsky.social · last yr.

"Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his Cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man."

Musk's turnout-buying scheme in WI is probably illegal (electionlawblog.org?p=149196). As a social scientist of election integrity, what's interesting here is the effort to build a patronage-based election manipulating apparatus in a society that doesn't have one.

Elon Musk Appears to Be Breaking Wisconsin Law Against Vote Buying in Offering a Chance to Win $1 Million to Anyone Who Voted in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race #ELB

During the 2024 elections, there was a question whether Elon Musk was breaking federal law in offering various incentives only to registered voters, including what was essentially a lottery open only ...

electionlawblog.org

Very encouraging for democratic resilience

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · last yr.

1/🧵 Judges across ideological lines are ruling against Trump at strikingly similar rates (84% liberal, 86% centrist, 82% conservative). This isn't partisan opposition to Trump—it's the judiciary functioning as intended by cutting across partisan lines to uphold the Constitution.

Not to add undue alarm, but two things I have not yet seen in the Discourse: 1) If Musk's team has made code changes to the the federal payments system, what happens if he is sidelined? I.e. if Trump pushes him out, does anyone else know how to cut the checks? www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

A 25-Year-Old With Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System

The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department. It’s also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk has admin privileges over the code that controls So...

wired.com

Perhaps the senior Democratic cohort thinks they can replay 2005 and W. Bush's failed social security reform: Trump overreach ➡️ Dems taking Congress in 2026. But this won't work: the fight is about the rules of the game, not just policy. A few thoughts from a scholar of electoral authoritarianism 🧵

Semafor@semafor.com · 2y ago

Chuck Schumer’s advice for Democrats staring at a long two or more years out of power: Just wait. “Trump will screw up,” he tells Semafor in an interview.

We noticed there wasn't a starter pack on authoritarian politics yet – Now there is! go.bsky.app/UFHn7sS Spread and ask to join!

Beyond the problems identified in the quoted posted, each new post-elections news story like this one (www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/b...) takes my fury to new heights, considering how many pre-election stories were variations on "BREAKING: Trump campaigns in Wisconsin"

How Trump’s Immigration Plans Could Affect the Economy

Expelling noncitizens on a mass scale is likely to raise prices on goods and services and lower employment rates for U.S. workers, many economists say.

nytimes.com

Brian Beutler@brianbeutler.bsky.social · 2y ago

Dispiriting but true: it’s very unlikely that a different liberal policy regime would’ve saved Dems this cycle, but a different information environment very well could have. www.offmessage.net/p/democrats-...

Line stretching to the construction sign was ~15% of the people waiting to vote in Tulsa. Took about 1.75hrs. Inspiring to see the commitment, but sad state of voting in OK. Tulsa (380,000 registered voters) has *2* early polling places. Compare to Durham NC (250,000 RV) with 12 polling places!

Situation in 🇬🇪 developing rapidly; major opposition parties are refusing their parliamentary mandates and the country's president refuses to recognize the official results (which show the ruling party with a narrow majority). civil.ge/archives/631... For background and survey data, see quoted post!

BREAKING: President Zurabishvili Rejects Election Results

After a day of intensive consultations with opposition parties following the 26 October parliamentary elections, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili held a briefing in which she said she would not ...

civil.ge

Cole Harvey@colejharvey.bsky.social · 2y ago

While we Americans are justifiably stressed abt Nov. 5, there's another consequential election coming up--in the Republic of Georgia. Like the US, Georgia is undergoing political polarization and threats to democracy. See my analysis here with original survey data, via PONARS: tinyurl.com/66s3k2t6

While we Americans are justifiably stressed abt Nov. 5, there's another consequential election coming up--in the Republic of Georgia. Like the US, Georgia is undergoing political polarization and threats to democracy. See my analysis here with original survey data, via PONARS: tinyurl.com/66s3k2t6

Survey Data from Republic of Georgia Highlights Risks of Polarization Ahead of 2024 Election - PONARS Eurasia

Image credit/license PONARS EURASIA POLICY MEMO NO. 914 (PDF) The Republic of Georgia will hold highly consequential elections on October 26. This is the first parliamentary election conducted under a...

ponarseurasia.org

Agreed, which makes the prediction markets wildly overconfident in a Trump win, in my (non-betting) opinion:

Brendan Nyhan@brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2y ago

Hot take: Harris nom makes this a more *normal* race. Ds had a below-replacement level candidate and it was suppressing their numbers in the polls and energy and enthusiasm from the base. We should see something closer to what fundamentals models would expect (but caveats on small n, inflation, etc)

So the last 12 hours or so have significantly increased the odds of Supreme Court reform in 2029, though, right?

Bright Side GIF

ALT: Bright Side GIF

media.tenor.com

I have little doubt that SCOTUS will rule in a way that benefits candidate Trump; the question remains how much damage will be done to the constitutional order along the way. [PS: most authoritarian presidential regimes I know have absolute presidential immunity, note how well that works out.]

Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 2y ago

Alito tries to turn things on their head, by saying that to encourage peaceful transitions of power, you need to give incumbents absolute immunity so they will leave and won't worry about prosecution later. This is the most insane thing I've heard today (and there have been many crazy things).

Hello polisky ! To introduce myself on Bluesky: I study authoritarian politics, election manipulation, and geographically Russia, Ukraine, etc. To get started, I wrote a longish thread here on the attempted pogrom in Dagestan two days ago, and what it tells us about 🇷🇺 politics. Thoughts welcome!

Cole Harvey@colejharvey.bsky.social · 3y ago

The Putinite regime has no interest in ethnic or religious conflict in Russia. The whole state project is to depict modern Russia as a multi-confessional, multiethnic federation (of course, some confessions and some ethnicities are more equal than others).

Like Kevin notes here, when the videos from Makhachkala cycled up from regional accounts to more generalist journos/commentators, the vibe shifted to "Look what Putin has done." I think that's right...but in the most roundabout way possible. 1/n on Dagestan and authoritarianism, and RU politics

Kevin Rothrock@kevinrothrock.me · 3y ago

When the Putin regime does atrocities, many foreigners — in a knee-jerk reaction — blame Russian society. Meanwhile, when a community in Russia does grassroots anti-Semitism, there’s a knee-jerk reaction to blame the Kremlin. Neat!

The Republican party has been having hard days doing politics at the politics factory

Darin Self@darinself.com · 3y ago

Really hard to have a functioning majority party when, in reality, that party is actually three factions stacked in a trench coat.

Hello Comparativesky and PoliSkyData 📊 folks! Posting to see if anyone knows of an archive of the precinct-level results for 🇺🇦 Ukraine's 2019 elections. The official databases are 404-ed, and the Wayback Machine archive is naturally spotty. Appreciate any ideas!

@profmusgrave.bsky.social Hello! Could you add me to the Polisky list at your convenience? Thanks for your help; I found the blog post on adjusting to Bluesky very helpful