Alexander Davenport
@alexanderdavenport.bsky.social
Postdoc at the Czech Academy of Sciences, PhD from EUI. Studying voter behaviour, political attitudes etc. My book, 'The Unfulfilled Electoral Potential of West European Liberal Parties', is out now with OUP. https://www.alexanderdavenport.eu/
1/ New piece on the NEIS Center Substack by @luukschmitz.bsky.social: conditionality in industrial policy isn't just a safeguard against waste — it also has real costs. And those costs are systematically underweighted in the current debate. neiscenter.substack.com/p/industrial...
Industrial Policy Conditionality: A Guide for Users
Public debate treats conditionality as a single dial to be turned up or down to impose stricter discipline on private actors. That framing obscures the choices that actually matter.
neiscenter.substack.com
Just think, they might get wiped out in Wales and most of their strongholds while getting shellacked in the marginals and turning a bunch of safe London seats *into* marginals!! Now to take a big sip of Darjeeling and check the local and devolved election results.
Even before this….let’s accept for a moment that Labour do have more to fear from Reform. Labour have done essentially everything that Luke and Morgan wanted and it hasn’t worked. It’s like saying the fact you have to win football matches validates Igor Tudor!
RDCK98@comradekenobi.bsky.social · 3mo agoThese takes are going to age like milk when the Scottish and Welsh results land
It's admittedly a professional obsession of mine but parties don't seem to realise how common this combination of positions really is among voters! (The problem is harnessing them, as they vote much less cohesively than voters on the traditional left/right, as the graph shows)
Sharon 🪳🌹@sharonk.bsky.social · 3mo agoi think what's funny about the contemporary Labour Right is that everyone involved, (including the post-Blairites) have forgotten why Blairism won elections Blairism was a combination of both economic liberalism and a cultural progressivism (outside of FP). Blue Labour basically hates both elements
💭 A growing share of W European electorates hold a set of ideological positions to which only liberal parties can adequately cater, argues @alexanderdavenport.bsky.social. 🌍️ This shift in ideology presents liberal parties with a great opportunity to reshape politics in the region. 👉️ bit.ly/47A0A08
Could there be a new opportunity for liberal parties?
A growing share of Western European electorates holds a set of ideological positions to which only liberal parties can adequately cater, argues Alexander Davenport. While this has yet to bring increas...
bit.ly
Very interesting new paper by @jonnekamphorst.bsky.social, Alexander Davenport, Marcus Heagly, @eliasdinas.bsky.social and @arnoutvanderijt.bsky.social questioning the idea of a momentum for winners of US Presidential primaries: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
This thread is mostly terrible for the Tories but honestly, 37% and a clear lead on “can deal with Britain’s economic problems” for the 2026 Conservative Party is just astonishing testament to the stickiness of people’s deepest assumptions about longstanding political parties
Luke Tryl@luketryl.bsky.social · 5mo agoThe only metric the Conservatives as a party have meaningfully improved on is represents a fresh start and they're still under 30%, though, they do outperform other 3 top polling parties on dealing with economic problems and competence, but not much else.
Many thanks, Roi! And couldn't agree more - I drew on these articles a great deal when writing the book!
Roi Litvak-Zur@roizur.bsky.social · 6mo agoThis all sounds very familiar and correct. I've made similar arguments in these papers: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... link.springer.com/article/10.1... Congrats, Alex 👏🏼 👏🏼
Excited to announce that my new book, 'The Unfulfilled Electoral Potential of West European Liberal Parties', is available in both online and print formats with Oxford University Press as of today! academic.oup.com/book/62000 Below is a brief summary of the arguments:
Sorry, but the guy who has survived longer an achieved more of his priorities than anyone else in politics over the past two decades, who has outmaneuvered multiple leaders of two larger parties and reoriented politics around his priorities is not “bad at politics”. This is cope.
Sam Bright@writesbright.bsky.social · 6mo agoA thing we've forgotten over the past 18 months but is becoming increasingly clear again: Nigel Farage is quite bad at politics
Studying politically-oriented subjects such as arts, humanities and social sciences is associated with democratic citizenship; education appears to encourage democratic support and engagement through the cognitive benefits it confers www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com