And fiscally impossible www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/nich...

„Nicht finanzierbar“: Wirtschaftsforscher sehen Milliarden-Lücke im AfD-Programm für Sachsen-Anhalt

Mindestens 2,2 Milliarden Euro pro Jahr fehlen im Haushalt Sachsen-Anhalts für die Pläne der AfD. Das zeigt eine neue Studie des Leibniz-Instituts IWH.

tagesspiegel.de

AfD polling as the strongest party at the federal level, and potentially reaching an absolute majority in Sachsen-Anhalt. I think part of the reason is a lack of engagement with many of the unhinged policies AfD proposes. Demolishing all windmills, Dexit, Remigration… (1)

Marcel Dirsus@marceldirsus.com · yesterday

The latest poll for Saxony-Anhalt has the far-right at 41%. If some of the smaller parties (SPD, Greens, BSW) don't clear the threshold to enter parliament, the far-right may gain an absolute majority in September.

This is not a picture of a democratic election. It's a "free but unfair" election, on a playing field systematically tilted towards a wealthy ultraminority. This one campaign saw about as much spending as the entire '24 UK general election. Money in politics is an existential threat to democracy.

#StupidSuez@diplomatofnight.com · 12h ago

Unfathomable

Europeans want fairer responsibility-sharing in refugee protection among member states, but disagree on which principles should guide such a fair distribution — partly due to national self-interest. New article out in @ejprjournal.bsky.social with @bencrum.nl doi.org/10.1017/S147...

𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒛𝒆𝒏𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒚? Our new (well…) study in @ejprjournal.bsky.social suggests that commitment to democratic rights and procedures does not look particularly robust once citizens face concrete crisis-related trade-offs. (1/6)

🤓 For anyone trying to get up to speed on the UK's relationship with the EU, check out our latest report 🇬🇧🇪🇺 It has analysis of the relationship since Brexit, as well as a handy staircase that outlines the viable options for the future (as well as the key tradeoffs) 🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/reports/ten-...

Its now ten years since the UK voted narrowly to Leave the European Union. I have studied how the UK got there through my research for many years now. Evidence is growing that the UK is indeed leveling up, but, by leveling down. Let me introduce the Brexit Cost project:

We didn't see that coming 👀 😪 @miroslavnemcok.bsky.social, @jfdaoust.bsky.social & Piret Ehin look at the 2016 surprise Estonian government shift to better understand how changes in government, seperate to elections, alter #DemocraticSafisfaction when winner/loser status changes

Satisfaction with democracy after winning and losing without elections | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core

Satisfaction with democracy after winning and losing without elections

buff.ly

Die Linke pulled off a surprise win in Germany’s most recent federal election and has suddenly become one of the most closely watched parties in Europe’s progressive politics. Behind the success lies a continuing structural transformation of its geographic support base. A short thread🧵

I have a new paper on the Gallagher index: the most common measure of electoral disproportionality. We often assume it runs from 0 (perfect 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺) to 1 (perfect 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺). But I show that in most party systems, 1 is not a possible value. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Are preferences for authoritarian rule individual predispositions—or can they spread socially? Using field + survey experiments in the Norwegian Armed Forces, we show that openness to strongman rule can spread socially. American Journal of Political Science: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

American Journal of Political Science | MPSA Journal | Wiley Online Library

The increasing popularity of strongman rule in democratic societies underscores the need to explore how authoritarian regime preferences might spread socially. We assess the role of social influence ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

81 % of eastern German municipalities have fewer residents today than in 1985. Losses cluster especially in Pommerania and rural Sachsen-Anhalt, where towns often shrank by a third or more. Growth is almost entirely confined to larger cities like Berlin & Leipzig and their commuter belts.

I am always struck by how much of the spatial inequality within East Germany is obscured when Germany is considered as a whole. The disparities between Mecklenburg and the Pomeranian parts of the same federal state are particularly revealing.

This paper is obviously relevant today, as we mark the 10th anniversary of Brexit, but I don't want to add to the plethora of takes on current events. Instead, let me zoom out and disucss the (fairly nuanced) implications of our analysis both for understanding British politics over the last decade

Eleonora Alabrese@eleala.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🧵 New working paper out today: "Measuring the Regional Economic Cost of Brexit: Evidence as of 2026" with @jacobedenhofer.bsky.social @trfetzer.com & Shizhuo Wang Here's what the data say about who paid the price in these 10 years from the referendum 1/…

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - Growing together or apart? Regional inequality and preferences for inter-territorial redistribution - https://cup.org/4fQY5LU - @dschraff.bsky.social #FirstView

Growing together or growing apart? 🌱 @dschraff.bsky.social use surve experiments from France and Germany to find whether absolute regional income creates stronger disagreements about sharing resources between regions when income inequality is increasing 💰️

Growing together or apart? Regional inequality and preferences for inter-territorial redistribution | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core

Growing together or apart? Regional inequality and preferences for inter-territorial redistribution

buff.ly

Our project "Struggling Women and Men: Political-Democratic Gender Gaps in a High-trust Welfare State" is looking for a PhD fellow. www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

PhD Research Fellowship in Political Science (3-4 years) (303073) | University of Oslo

Job title: PhD Research Fellowship in Political Science (3-4 years) (303073), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Tuesday, September 1, 2026

jobbnorge.no

Thank you to #Belfast and the great @epssnet.bsky.social team for a fantastic #EPSS2026 conference. We’re very excited to host #EPSS2027 and look forward to welcome the #EPSS community in Copenhagen 24-26 June 2027! @ucph.bsky.social

New paper in @EJPR: Why doesn’t regional inequality always spark backlash? It also depends on relative regional gains, not just absolute regional income. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

My very personal reflection on the use of AI in social science, perhaps the first of many. yiqingxu.substack.com/p/ai-disarray

AI Disarray

I have felt a little disarrayed recently, and I attribute it to AI.

yiqingxu.substack.com

New paper, with Patrick Fournier & @zeynsom.bsky.social, out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social! 🔗 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... a brief 🧵

Do Citizens Perceive an empty Left-Authoritarian Quadrant? Citizen Perceptions of Parties’ Positions in a Multi-Dimensional Space - Ruth Dassonneville, Patrick Fournier, Zeynep Somer-Topcu, 2026

Given that there are few parties in the left-authoritarian quadrant of a two-dimensional ideological space, citizens that combine economically left and sociocul...

journals.sagepub.com

niche take: there is no such thing as a "causal" estimate, there are only estimates that converge in probability to your stated estimand and those that don't

social science today: rain and physical activity are just correlated because observational data but iphones cause fertility decline because DiD...

Per Engzell@pengzell.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Short story about statistical modeling without causal inference gone badly wrong. Just head on the news that preschoolers play 15 minutes less on rainy days. The reporting stressed that the research was "associational" and therefore couldn't tell us why. Huh? 1/

Taking a stand ✋️🧍 These authors 🧵 use survey data across 9 countries to assess the downstreams consequences of #AffectivePolarization & intervene to successfully reduce participants #AffectivePolarization in 6 of the 9, improving interpersonal relations and social norms buff.ly/tHRWa65

The (alleged) consequences of affective polarization: A survey experiment in nine democracies | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core

The (alleged) consequences of affective polarization: A survey experiment in nine democracies

cambridge.org

I'm pleased to see our paper introducing the Democratic Erosion Event Dataset (DEED), an events-based dataset on democratic erosion, finally out in Nature Scientific Data. In our data, we distinguish between resistance, precursors, symptoms, and destabilizing events www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New publication with Camilla Bjarnøe Jensen, @dschraff.bsky.social and Mads Thau. Flattery seems common in politics. Flattery is the use of compliments and praise (whether accurate or not) aimed at evoking liking for personal gain.

Happy to share that my paper with @tobiasbach.bsky.social, Nick Jacobs and Craig Parsons is now out with @epsrjournal.bsky.social: shorturl.at/c9Mu6 (1/THREAD)

New pub with Camilla Bjarnøe, Kristina Jessen Hansen & Mads Thau What makes political group appeals work? Politicians routinely flatter voter groups but we know little whether it works. We tested class-based flattery appeals using survey experiments in 🇩🇰 Denmark and 🇺🇸 the US.

📑❗️Our article with @grigopop.bsky.social and Graeme Robertson on the effects of Ukraine’s decentralization reform on satisfaction with public services (and democracy) in Ukraine 🇺🇦 was just published in Comparative Political Studies! doi.org/10.1177/0010...

Missed this yesterday - the Parliament of Iceland has now officially voted to date the Referendum on restarting EU accession talks (not on accession itself) for 29 August this year. Polls remain tight, though, so this is far from certain to get a majority.

Iceland's parliament votes to hold referendum on EU accession talks in August

Iceland's parliament on Thursday voted in favour of holding an August 29 referendum to begin European Union accession talks, supporting the government's two-step plan that could lead ​to membership in...

reuters.com