My new book #WhatHappenedToLiberalDemocracy is out on August 11. Here is a brief message about my motivation for writing this book and its central thesis. Pre-order links are available here: shapingwork.mit.edu/what-happene.... I hope you will join me in the discussion.

A patronage network doesn't need to make anyone better off. It needs to make leaving irrational. New from Regime Mechanics — The Patronage Machine: regimemechanics.substack.com/p/the-patron...

The Patronage Machine

The Survival Manual of Hybrid Regimes—Part II

regimemechanics.substack.com

The hardest question in hybrid-regime politics: why do the poor keep backing the leaders making them poorer? "They're bribed" is too easy. 🧵

🌍️ Long celebrated as a global humanitarian donor, #Norway is now being pulled towards prioritising Europe’s front line, writes Gusta Harris. ↩️ Russia’s war on #Ukraine has not simply redirected Oslo’s aid + defence priorities – it has started to change Norway’s international role. 👉 buff.ly/42nVwEw

Good Samaritan or Good European? Norway’s Ukraine dilemma

Long celebrated as a global humanitarian donor, Norway is now being pulled towards prioritising Europe’s front line, writes Gusta Harris. Russia’s war on Ukraine has not simply redirected Oslo’s aid, ...

buff.ly

A patronage machine isn't flat. It runs in three layers, each held by a different-sized stake. 🧵

Belief is optional. The balance sheet is not. How hybrid regimes turn loyalty into arithmetic — and why "corruption" is the wrong word for it: regimemechanics.substack.com/p/the-patron...

Why do the people best placed to topple an authoritarian regime so rarely try? Not fear. Arithmetic. 🧵

Saturday vibe - New piece is coming: how hybrid regimes turn loyalty into a balance sheet—and why the people best placed to topple them have the most to lose. The Part II of the The Survival Manual of Hybrid Regime: The Patronage Machine

Corruption is about who becomes rich. Patronage is about who cannot afford to leave. New piece: how hybrid regimes turn loyalty into a balance sheet—and why the people best placed to topple them have the most to lose. regimemechanics.substack.com/p/the-patron...

The Patronage Machine

The Survival Manual of Hybrid Regimes—Part II

regimemechanics.substack.com

Sanctions are supposed to squeeze a regime until it changes. They work about a third of the time. Against entrenched autocracies, far less. Here's the uncomfortable reason why. 🧵

Venezuela lost ~75% of its economy. The regime held for years. Romania's decline in 1989 was far milder. Ceaușescu was dead within a week. If crisis depth drove collapse, these should be reversed. They aren't. 🧵

New series — The Survival Manual of Hybrid Regimes: how autocrats outlast the crises meant to end them. Part I: Venezuela survived a 75% GDP crash. Romania fell on far less. Crisis depth doesn't predict collapse. regimemechanics.substack.com/p/why-econom...

Why Economic Crises Do Not Always Topple Autocrats

The Survival Manual of Hybrid Regimes—Part I

regimemechanics.substack.com

Why does democratic erosion succeed even when everyone can see it happening?Because each institution is waiting for another one to act first.

Chile 1973: one day. Hungary: twelve years. Venezuela: thirteen. Not a ranking. A method. The coup is detectable — that's why it's been replaced by a process designed to look like normal politics until it isn't. regimemechanics.substack.com/p/why-democracy-rarely-dies-overnight

Why Democracy Rarely Dies Overnight

The most misleading image in contemporary political science is still the tank in front of the parliament.

regimemechanics.substack.com

Where does autocratization begin? Not at the ballot box.V-Dem's data say the single most common entry point is media censorship—followed by attacks on elections,then restrictions on civil society. By the time the election is at stake, the ground has already shifted. open.substack.com/pub/regimeme...

When people imagine a democracy dying, they picture tanks. The data shows something completely different. A staircase

V-Dem describes the current US trajectory as the fastest evolving autocratization episode in modern American history that does not involve a coup d'état. It is also the case that doesn't fit cleanly into the framework. 🧵

Hungary just ended 16 years of Fidesz rule. A lot of people are reading this as proof that autocratization theory was wrong. It isn't. It's proof of the opposite. 🧵

Great work. Political polarization isn't a byproduct of competition—it's a governing strategy. This study shows the mechanism: partisan identity absorbs poor performance before it reaches the ballot box. Accountability needs voters willing to revise their views; partisanship removes that.

South European Society & Politics @sespjournal.bsky.social · last mo.

💡NEW STUDY FINDS…💡 #OpenAccess #Turkey "partisan loyalty is a more powerful force than policy performance in shaping voter behavior" Read the article by Ali Carkoglu, Yasushi Hazama, Cansu Paksoy & Simge Andi here 👇 doi.org/10.1080/1360...

25 democracies began backsliding in the current wave. 9 still are democracies. The conversation about whether your country is "still" a democracy assumes the line is somewhere ahead. The data says for most of these cases, it's behind. open.substack.com/pub/regimeme...

"Is this country still a democracy?" is the wrong question. It collapses two completely different situations into one verdict. Here's what the right question looks like. 🧵

6 of the 10 new autocratizing countries this year are in Europe and North America. Italy United Kingdom The United States Alongside Hungary and Turkey The argument that backsliding only happens to"fragile"democracies elsewhere is no longer empirically defensible open.substack.com/pub/regimeme...

The Backsliding Map: Where Are We Now?

The Architecture of Democratic Backsliding · Part VII

open.substack.com

For the first time in over 20 years, autocracies outnumber democracies. 91 vs 88. This isn't a warning anymore. It's the description of the world. 🧵

In hybrid regimes, two things can happen to opposition parties: If they stay fragmented, the regime tolerates them. If they consolidate, the regime starts arresting them. This is not a coincidence. It is a system. 🧵

Why can't opposition parties in hybrid regimes just team up? Because the regime has quietly closed every door to cooperation, one law at a time. A short thread on how this works — the "menu of cooperation" that gets shorter every electoral cycle. 🧵

Autocrats rarely ban opposition parties.They multiply them. In Russia 2002, a businessman named Aleksandr Ryavkin registered a party.Two years later he renamed it"Free Russia"—stealing the name a liberal politician had just applied for. The Ministry of Justice approved his version. Hers was denied.🧵

Everyone tells the opposition in hybrid regimes to "form a coalition." Hungary 2022. Turkey 2023. Both built broad pre-electoral coalitions across the political spectrum. Both lost. There is a reason — and it explains how Tisza finally won in 2026. 🧵

A simple test for any political system: Take the opposition's seat share. Subtract its actual policy influence — what it can block, amend, or veto. In real democracies the gap is roughly 0–6. In hybrid regimes, it explodes. 🧵

For a decade, Tunisia was the lone success story of the 2011 Arab Spring. The country most cited as evidence that democratic transition in the region was possible. In 2022, that ended — through formal constitutional procedures. The whole transition reversed.

The image of a coup is from the 20th century. Tanks. A general on television. A parliament dissolved at gunpoint. The most successful authoritarian consolidations of the past 15 years didn't arrive that way. They arrived as constitutional amendments. 🧵