Jessica Weeks
@jlpweeks.bsky.social
Professor of Political Science at University of Wisconsin-Madison
Great 🧵 with many links to what political science research & history can tell us about FIRCs:
Data Bear 🏳️🌈@dataandpolitics.net · 5mo agoA long time ago, I used to know a lot about foreign-imposed regime change (FIRC) and study them. I guess that makes me qualified to write a thread about them, especially in wake of Trump bombing Iran. So here goes nothing. 🧵
Applications for the 2026 Journeys in World Politics workshop (10/1-10/3) in San Diego are being accepted (due 6/1). The workshop features Kathleen Cunningham & Leah Windsor as senior mentors. Christina Schneider is our local host! Visit the site below to apply. www.saramitchell.org/journeys.html
One of the most blatantly authoritarian threats in a Trump term full of them
A must-read. Argues that once we take into account how much life as a family of 4 actually costs (health + child care, housing), the source of public economic rage is clear. "As income rises from $40,000 to $100,000, benefits disappear faster than wages increase"- working literally does not pay off.
Part 1: My Life Is a Lie
How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America
yesigiveafig.com
Our online special issue, The Future of Global Governance and World Order, is out! It features 15 short essays plus the editors' introduction, all #OpenAccess. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #IOFoGG
Step 1: Use the attached imagery to recruit a certain kind of ICE officer. Step 2: Unleash them on US cities w/few restrictions. Step 3: Call in the national guard to "protect" them from the resulting "insurrections". Having read some things about dictatorships, pretty sure I know what Steps 4+ are.
Sign here!: forms.gle/pwB8bG7AjgJ8...
Journeys in World Politics NSF Grant Revocation Appeal
The purpose of this form is to collect signatures for the Journeys in World Politics NSF grant revocation appeal letter. By sharing your contact information below, you indicate that you wish to be inc...
forms.gle
Alumae: please help us appeal the Journeys termination! Thank you @christinaboyes.bsky.social @sbmitche.bsky.social
Sara Mitchell@sbmitche.bsky.social · last yr.The NSF grant funding the Journeys in World Politics program was terminated last week. We are working on an appeal. If you are an alumnae of the program, and are willing to join a support letter, please contact @christinaboyes.bsky.social within the next week (our appeal window is short). Thanks!
BREAKING: NSF has frozen all grant funding, as of yesterday. It's unclear when they will resume funding awards, or why the pause has been put in place. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones
US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.
nature.com
Finally, they’re getting rid of the woke scholars that populate the field of … diplomatic history?
Elizabeth N. Saunders@profsaunders.bsky.social · last yr.Unhappy to confirm that the entire Historical Advisory Committee at the State Department received termination notices this afternoon (myself included). The HAC, set up by Congress, oversees the office that produces the FRUS series. history.state.gov/about/hac/in... 1/
Excellent article, w/ cause for both fear and hope. Fear: Things "may feel basically normal...but...this is the way it often feels, even after things have already spun out of control." Hope: Under competitive authoritarianism, "an autocrat, even one who has already stacked the deck, can still lose."
The New Yorker@newyorker.com · last yr.Nothing in politics is permanent, nor inevitable. “We spent centuries, as a society, building up democratic muscle, and we still have a lot of that muscle left,” the political scientist Steven Levitsky said. “I just keep waiting for someone to use it.”
Research universities have propelled innovation and bolstered American power since World War II, writes Sarah Kreps. The Trump administration’s assault on academia is not a principled move—it is a self-defeating one.
An Attack on America’s Universities Is an Attack on American Power
How academia bolsters national security.
foreignaffairs.com
I tend not to be too alarmist - but it is *extremely* alarming that decisions about U.S. national security are being made in a decisionmaking structure that is starting to look more like a personalist dictatorship than a democracy.
Philip Bump@pbump.com · last yr.Decades of building an informational universe in which loyalty and loudness are the central virtues has resulted in a president and a senior team unprepared for reality. Gift link: wapo.st/44ce0i3
It's hard to find the words. NSF just terminated the grant for Journeys, a mentoring workshop that tried to tackle underrepresentation of women in international relations. Future scholarship will be the worse for it. But this photo from our last gathering will motivate me to keep fighting.
Poli sci peeps - I'm finalizing an undergrad class session @ the current state of U.S. democracy. What readings would you assign? I'm thinking, a few scholarly writings on backsliding/defending democ, plus some commentary on current events. I have ideas but... the stakes are high and I'd love input.
The trope that universities are "dependent" on the federal government fundamentally misunderstands how vital this partnership has been for the US. The private sector can't replace it. If we kill it, we're all worse off. From @donmoyn.bsky.social and me: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/are-univer...
This is not a drill. Existential threats to both higher education & 🇺🇸 democracy. And already devastating for my colleagues, their students, & research on our campus.
‘This is not a drill’: UW-Madison scholars warn of long-term, unprecedented threats to higher education
A panel of University of Wisconsin-Madison professors and academic experts discussed significant challenges facing higher education Wednesday in the wake of the Trump administration’s sweeping budget ...
dailycardinal.com
Just a reminder how classic what we're seeing is: 1. redefine a group as a threat to civilization 2. reduce legal protections that they enjoy 3. abuse, threaten, harm, and/or relocate them 4. dismiss/ignore concerns about abuses and harms from the process 5. repeat steps 2-4, escalating each time
Brendan Nyhan@brendannyhan.bsky.social · last yr.Confession that due process is or should be optional according to the vice president
Please spread to your poli sci / IR networks!
Sara Mitchell@sbmitche.bsky.social · last yr.Information for the 2025 Journeys in World Politics workshop: www.saramitchell.org/journeysflye... Applications due on 5/30 for the workshop held at the U of Iowa on 8/24-8/26. Our senior mentors are Kathleen Cunningham & Leah Windsor, along with Kelly Kadera, Jessica Weeks, Christina Schneider.
Information for the 2025 Journeys in World Politics workshop: www.saramitchell.org/journeysflye... Applications due on 5/30 for the workshop held at the U of Iowa on 8/24-8/26. Our senior mentors are Kathleen Cunningham & Leah Windsor, along with Kelly Kadera, Jessica Weeks, Christina Schneider.
saramitchell.org
I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe." But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment. 1/
Absolutely not an exaggeration. High crimes and misdemeanors committed and endorsed in the Oval Office on live television.
David Rothkopf@djrothkopf.bsky.social · last yr.The president is conducting a press event with the primary purpose of flouting the decisions of the courts and the letter and spirit of U.S. law. It is a press event to celebrate the Constitutional crisis and serial violation of human rights he has set in motion.
No one has worked harder to protect & restore democracy in Wisconsin these last years than my dear friend @jeffmandell.bsky.social. We are very lucky to have him on the front lines.
Law Forward@lawfwd.bsky.social · last yr."When things feel most shocking and unstable at the federal level, we can show our institutions still work and provide some reassurance. Building a stronger, more resilient democracy in Wisconsin is its own form of resistance." - @jeffmandell.bsky.social wisconsinexaminer.com/2025/04/10/l...
One sign that we are living under an authoritarian regime is that a lot of people are acting like they are living under an authoritarian regime.
Eric Lipton NYT@ericlipton.nytimes.com · last yr.The fear among academics and lawyers now talking on the record on just about any topic that involves the federal government or the White House is really extraordinary and worrisome, and getting worse, it seems to me, every week. Dissent by an establishment figures becoming verboten in the US
"...I was looking for guidance about inflation and instead found the telltale signs of an incipient financial crisis. Others, looking at other indicators, from the basis trade to junk bonds to struggles to refinance private loans, are seeing the same thing." I'm no economist but this sounds bad.
The Cost of Chaos: This is Getting Scary
And it’s all on Donald Trump
paulkrugman.substack.com
Today’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show. The political scientist Erica Frantz describes the regime change the second Trump Administration represents. open.spotify.com/episode/3TPI... youtu.be/fP77tAIkRvA?...
Trump 2.0 and the Return of ‘Court Politics’
YouTube video by New York Times Podcasts
youtu.be
