Piotr Zagórski
@pzag.bsky.social
Political scientist @SWPSUniversity @UAM_Madrid @UCBerkeley Polish National Election Study / Electoral behavior / Central & Eastern Europe / populism / historical legacies / Spain / Poland
Karol Nawrocki has now issued more vetoes than any other president in Polish history, despite being in office less than a year Three more vetoes on Thursday took his total to 37 in just 10 months since taking power, surpassing the 35 issued by Aleksander Kwaśniewski during his 10 years as president
Nawrocki issues record 37th veto - more than any other president in Polish history
notesfrompoland.com
So after all the speculation, Hungary gets a political agreement on almost all of the suspended EU money. It's important that the money is *not* yet flowing. Let's look at the details & concrete promises in exchange 🧵 www.euractiv.com/news/eu-unlo...
EU unlocks cash for Hungary | Euractiv
Magyar admitted he had not hoped for so much
euractiv.com
🇵🇱⚖️Today ECtHR issued a judgment which proves that the mills of justice grind slowly and well, sometimes very slowly, and there's no wisdom coming out of that. A Polish rule of law story on judicial appointments ... but it's from ... 2008, back when I was still a wee little student of law. 1/
🗺️ Electoral Atlas of the Spanish Second Republic (1931-1936) Today we are publishing, in beta version and as a first phase (1936 only), the database so everyone can explore it 👇 tonirodon.cat/second-repub... (1/n)
📚 Nueva iniciativa del Departamento @UAM_Madrid Arranca el Seminario de Investigación (Primavera 2026) (coord. S. Pérez-Nievas) 📅 Jueves 30 abril: M. Martínez-Bascuñán 📖 Presenta el libro: F. Vallespín ➡️ 14 mayo (R. Navarrete) ➡️ 28 mayo (L. Bouza) 📍 Facultad de Derecho UAM
Very happy to have this paper out. Thanks to all the people who gave us feedback at different stages.
Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR@cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · 4mo ago#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - Generational legacies of authoritarianism: Evidence from Spain - https://cup.org/41ttP1i - @laiabalcells.bsky.social & Francisco Villamil #FirstView
Jueves 16 12:00 #SeminarioGarcíaPelayo Trabajos de investigación "Natural Disasters, Populist attitudes and Political Accountability in Low-Trust Democracies" Ponente @sandraleon.bsky.social Comenta @pablofernandezv.bsky.social Modera @pzag.bsky.social Inscripción👇 cepc.gob.es/agenda/semin...
Viktor Orban is waging cognitive warfare on a scale no one else has tried before. "Emotions are high because the stakes are high. If he succeeds, he will once again blaze a path that others will follow. And if he loses, an era comes to an end." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
The First Post-Reality Political Campaign
Hungary’s Viktor Orbán is waging cognitive warfare on a new scale.
theatlantic.com
V-Dem v.16 is now released, w. updated scores for 2025. Most countries remain stable from 2024, but some clear improvements (on diff’t democracy indices), incl. S. Korea, Sri Lanka & Mauritius. Largest declines came, by far, in the US. This figure shows 10-yr changes on the Liberal Dem. index.
Voting patterns in the European Parliament suggest mainstream parties remain firmly supportive of Ukraine. But divisions over Russia are increasingly pronounced among the populist radical right. ✍ Holesch Adam @ibei.org @pzag.bsky.social & @buzogany.bsky.social blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...
Europe’s Ukraine consensus still holds – but the far right is splitting over Russia
Europe's mainstream parties remain firmly supportive of Ukraine, but divisions over Russia are becoming increasingly prominent among the populist radical right.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
This is Nathan Cavanaugh, another DOGE staffer explaining how he flagged grants at NEH for "DEI" which would be reviewed for termination. 404 Media has reviewed hours of this footage and we'll have more soon. Part of a lawsuit by @acls1919.bsky.social, @modernlanguage.bsky.social + @historians.org
🧵 Excited to share my new book w/ @hildecoffe.bsky.social : "Different and Unequal? Gendered Political Participation in European Democracies" — with @universitypress.cambridge.org Elements in Gender and Politics (open access!) TLDR? Women don't just participate less. They participate *differently*
A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right. Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement. This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.
🇵🇱⚖️President Nawrocki vetoes the law reforming the National Council of Judiciary, dispelling any hopes the Polish government had of reforming the rule of law through new legislation. Major, but expected, defeat for the new MoJ Waldemark Żurek and his plans. 1/
'Turning deportation into bingeable content'. What a time to be alive
Transatlantic TikTok propaganda and the end of localised populism
TikTok deportation propaganda is fast becoming the new border wall. States, platforms and algorithms are fusing into a single machine. This, says Mimi Mihăilescu is turning deportation into bingeable content, burying resistance in the feed, and replacing physical walls with algorithmic control. Local populism dies and global spectacle rules
theloop.ecpr.eu
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YouTube video by Juan Linz Institute
youtu.be
🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social): We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys. Short version: It mostly doesn’t. w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social URL: osf.io/preprints/os...
The stakes of the election could not be higher: if Orbán wins, #Hungary will continue its slide into autocracy domestically and will keep blocking joint action at the EU level. 🇭🇺 🇪🇺 @centreeuropeanref.bsky.social insight by @zecsaky.bsky.social Read here: buff.ly/MtJXrKQ
🇵🇱⚖️I promised a banger on the rule-of-law crisis in Poland, so... here it is. A group of PiS MPs have lodged a case with the Constitutional Tribunal, asking it to find the rules of electing the judges of the same Tribunal, introduced in 2016 by a PiS majority, to be unconstitutional. 1/
Young women are the future of progressive politics... and they want to/will leave the U.S. in record numbers. I see this among my students too.
Philip N Cohen@philipncohen.com · 6mo agoI missed this: Gallup: "40% of [US] women aged 15 to 44 say they would move abroad permanently if they had the opportunity." (Was 10% in 2014.) The pronatalism will continue until moral improves. ht @katemanne.bsky.social
☀️☀️ Exciting news in Madrid! We are VERY happy to officially announce the creation of the Instituto Juan Linz (aka “IJL”). ijlinz.es The IJL ("Juan Linz Institute" in English) is dedicated to cutting-edge research and teaching in political science, sociology, economic history and more. thread 1/12
"It is at the very least inconsistent to warn against rule of law regression and violations while failing to police one’s own membership. We are where we are because too many in senior positions who had and have the power to act have failed to do so." Important piece by Bodnar and Pech:
Immunising the Venice Commission Against Autocratic Contamination
verfassungsblog.de
What Poland has achieved over the last couple of decades is just incredible. Look at that line! Seriously impressive
A narrow majority of Republicans (56%) now say they support all or most of Donald Trump's plans and policies, down from two-thirds (67%) in February 2025. It's one of several measures of a loosening GOP support for Trump in a new @pewresearch.org survey: www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...
Can Trump be stopped? Thoughts on one year of America as a family business www.persuasion.community/p/the-patrim...
America Is Now a Family Business
Trump is transforming the constitutional republic into a patrimonial regime before our eyes.
persuasion.community
Political scientists see non-violent resistance as much more effective--and it's not just from aggregate statistics. Rather, it's the way that peaceful resistance undermines the state's repressive capacities. This op-ed by Berkeley prof @owasow.bsky.social explains this logic 🎯. Give it a read!
Omar Wasow@owasow.bsky.social · 6mo ago“What we are seeing is the weakness of strong states. Regimes that rely on repression face a challenge: The more force they deploy, the more they risk exposing their own brutality to politically persuadable observers. Overreach doesn’t just project strength; it also undermines legitimacy.” Gift link
This Theory Explains Trump’s Baffling Foreign Policy www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/o...
Opinion | This Theory Explains Trump’s Baffling Foreign Policy
nytimes.com
Today in @theguardian.com, I argue that Donald Trump’s foreign-policy playbook is increasingly about attention capture, or what I call geopolitical clickbait. Plus I outline why this matters for Europe & what to do about it. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump wants our attention. Let’s stop falling for his geopolitical clickbait | Catherine De Vries
Whether he’s targeting Greenland, tariffs or Iran, Trump’s agenda is to distract – because a Europe that is always reacting is never planning, says political scientist Catherine De Vries
theguardian.com