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Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

@alichtenheld.bsky.social

Political Scientist | Professor @unileiden.bsky.social | Author, "Guilt by Location." Expert on forced displacement, conflict, peacebuilding. Consultant for USAID, World Bank, State Dept., others. @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social PhD. Crossfit enthusiast.

20 Posts274 Follower278 Folgt
Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The capitulation of civil society organizations is perhaps the most important political story of 2025. For every 1000 pundit pieces on what Democrats need to do to win moderate voters, there is 1 piece on the politics of civil society--businesses, unions, congregations, universities, nonprofits, etc

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A very positive sign that, nearly a year after Kirk's death, many if not most of the people punished for speaking truthfully about him have won legal cases against their former employees and compensation. Again, panicked compliance with Trumpism has only *cost* institutions.

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD@alichtenheld.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Sanctions are among the most widely used tools of US foreign policy and, according to most research, among the least effective. To learn about why that verdict may be misleading, check out my new co-authored article in @isq-jrnl.bsky.social

Balancing Act: Coercion, Terrorism, and Regime Stability

Abstract. A substantial literature seeks to understand the drivers and consequences of foreign policy instruments that states employ to change the behavior

tinyurl.com

David Rothkopf@djrothkopf.bsky.social · 4mo ago

The amount of money in Musk's bank account is not a measure of his genius or even the "value" of his companies. It is rather a measure of the gullibility of investors and the greed of the industry that is designed to harness that to fuel their own wealth creation.

Anjali Dayal@anjalikdayal.bsky.social · 5mo ago

“The dismantling of USAID, according to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children,” Gawande wrote.” hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-s...

USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...

hsph.harvard.edu

Joshua Foust 🪖🎮@joshuafoust.com · 5mo ago

The single most defining thing Elon Musk has ever done is killing untold numbers of people by having DOGE illegally raid and disband USAID. Not rickets, not cars, not even the CSAMbot on X. It’s this, and so many media pundits just choose to unsee it.

Andrew Blum@ablum.bsky.social · 4mo ago

A lot of critics of various kinds of aid should be reflecting right now. A faux-savvy question people often asked in DC to make themselves look hard-noted and results-based, was, "Would it matter if tomorrow you no longer existed? What would be different?" Well... thehill.com/homenews/adm...

USAID shutdown linked to sharp increase in violence across Africa: Research

New research suggests the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) led to sharp increases in violence throughout Africa.  African countries that received the most supp…

thehill.com

Elizabeth N. Saunders@profsaunders.bsky.social · 7mo ago

🧵Feels like shouting into the void, but it is essential to note that the Trump/Rubio gutting of the State Department and blowtorching of US diplomatic capacity and credibility is an accelerant to this spiraling war and will seriously undercut US/allied efforts to pick up the pieces after. 1/

Ryan Briggs@ryancbriggs.net · 8mo ago

I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.

It must be very hard to publish null results Publication practices in the social sciences act as a filter that favors statistically significant results over null findings. While the problem of selection on significance (SoS) is well-known in theory, it has been difficult to measure its scope empirically, and it has been challenging to determine how selection varies across contexts. In this article, we use large language models to extract granular and validated data on about 100,000 articles published in over 150 political science journals from 2010 to 2024. We show that fewer than 2% of articles that rely on statistical methods report null-only findings in their abstracts, while over 90% of papers highlight significant results. To put these findings in perspective, we develop and calibrate a simple model of publication bias. Across a range of plausible assumptions, we find that statistically significant results are estimated to be one to two orders of magnitude more likely to enter the published record than null results. Leveraging metadata extracted from individual articles, we show that the pattern of strong SoS holds across subfields, journals, methods, and time periods. However, a few factors such as pre-registration and randomized experiments correlate with greater acceptance of null results. We conclude by discussing implications for the field and the potential of our new dataset for investigating other questions about political science.
Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I see this take around from time to time and totally disagree. ICE just murdered a woman standing up to them. No Kings is among the largest protests in history. The complacency is coming from elites in media, business, universities, and the Democratic leadership

Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof X.com I'm struck by the contrast between the passion for democracy shown by Iranians willing to die for it and the complacency with which many Americans have accepted an authoritarian slide. Americans should cheer for Iran's democrats--and also learn from their determination.
Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 10mo ago

There’s a Silicon Valley billionaire freak out happening about a potential wealth tax ballot initiative in California. I hope everybody understands—the only way to make billionaires pay a similar *income* tax rate as their secretaries is via taxing unrealized cap gains or wealth

Mark Copelovitch@mcopelov.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Bad things happen when you hire opinion hacks to run media outlets Bad things happen when you hire non-academics to run universities Bad things happen when you hire businessmen to run the government Etc. Etc. Experience & expertise matter. And actual relevant expertise.

jamelle@jamellebouie.net · 10mo ago

really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense

Faine Greenwood@faineg.com · 10mo ago

suspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research: they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.

Seth Cotlar@sethcotlar.bsky.social · 2y ago

No one who has ever witnessed a single faculty meeting could ever again claim that college professors are part of some sort of coordinated conspiracy to accomplish anything, let alone turn the entire US into a Marxist utopia/dystopia with an assist from their great pals in corporate boardrooms.

Michael Clemens@mclem.org · 10mo ago

This fetid landmark, this historical stain on humanity is primarily due to the stunningly reckless obliteration of America's foreign assistance agency earlier this year. Led by the richest man on earth. In secret, on a weekend. With zero analysis or discussion of its catastrophic impacts.

For First Time in Decades, Child Deaths Will Rise This Year

Almost a quarter of a million more children around the world are projected to die in 2025 than in 2024.

wsj.com

Elad Nehorai@eladn.bsky.social · 11mo ago

This is always the plan with authoritarians wielding militaristic power. They create their own enemies to justify their power grabs. Netanyahu loved October 7th for this exact reason. His failures led to it, and instead of being held accountable, he got more power than ever.

Steven Beschloss@stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Place National Guard in harm’s way for no good reason. Two members are tragically and unnecessarily shot. The reckless regime’s response: We’re sending 500 more National Guard troops! What a disgrace.