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Ben Crum

@bencrum.nl

3.5K followers 160 following 230 posts

Political Scientist @vuamsterdam.bsky.social Democracy, European Union politics, Social justice, Digital governance, Political theory

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Political science 82%

Law 9%

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Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · 14h

@danrealitybites.bsky.social !

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Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · 14h

This is exciting: a new book coming out by Steven Lukes
I guess I'll be doing some close reading under the Christmas tree
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

The Diversity of Morals

How to make sense of the divergence between philosophers’ quest for a single morality and social scientists’ assumption that there are multiple moralities

press.princeton.edu

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Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · 3d

“If negotiations between EU member states and MEPs don’t begin in the coming months, there will be no chance of having European lists in 2029. That would mean missing, once again, a historic opportunity to finally give European elections a truly European dimension”
euobserver.com/eu-political...

Time running out for transnational lists for 2029 Euro-elections

There is a systemic absence of a genuine European electoral space. As long as citizens are only allowed to vote for national parties, from national lists, presented by national actors, using national ...

euobserver.com

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Reposted by Simon Hix, Ben Crum

Jan Rovny @jrovny.bsky.social · 4d

Many are concerned about the return of Babiš to the top of Czech politics. While the results of this weekend's Czech legislative election poses its concerns, I am an optimist. I think Babiš's victory is rather Pyrrhic. Here are some thoughts: blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...

The 2025 Czech election – Andrej Babiš’s Pyrrhic victory

Andrej Babiš’s ANO won the 2025 Czech election on 3–4 October. Yet as Jan Rovny explains, Babiš will find it challenging to form a stable government.

blogs.lse.ac.uk

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Reposted by Ben Crum, Alan Renwick

Past Present Future Podcast @ppfideas.bsky.social · 5d

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

In today’s episode David talks to @alanrenwick.bsky.social from UCL’s Constitution Unit about the pros & cons of referendums. How can they be used to open up political debate? When does a democratic question need to be put direct to the people?

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

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Reposted by Cas Mudde, Martín Lodge, Ilko−Sascha Kowalczuk , and 5 more Cas Mudde, Martín Lodge, Ilko−Sascha Kowalczuk, Nicholas Birns, Ben Crum, Steffen Ganghof, Karsten Mäuse, Oliver Nachtwey

Steffen Mau @steffenmau.bsky.social · 8d

Herausragender Wissenschaftler, bewunderter Autor, befreundeter Kollege, kluger Ratgeber: Claus Offe ist gestorben!

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Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · 13d

Fascinating account of AI policy in Vietnam by @digitaldang.bsky.social
"Most countries will not build an AI stack from scratch; they will adopt, adapt and hybridize — assembling intelligence from components that are not entirely their own"

www.noemamag.com/a-third-path...

A Third Path For AI Beyond The US-China Binary | NOEMA

What if the future of AI isn’t defined by Washington or Beijing, but by improvisation elsewhere?

www.noemamag.com

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Reposted by Laurent Pech, Ben Crum

Tineke Strik @tinekestrik.bsky.social · 16d

Yesterday I presented my draft report on the Hungarian rule of law.

My message: the Hungarian RoL has worsened significantly. Therefore, the EU must freeze more funds and take away Orbán's veto.

I look forward to working with my pro-democratic colleagues on this resolution.

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Laurent Pech 🇺🇦 @profpech.bsky.social · 16d

"The problem is no longer confined to specific policy areas or individual member states such as Hungary or Slovakia. From German local authorities attempting to oppress pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Italy’s prime minister discrediting the judiciary .. a dangerous pattern is emerging across the EU"

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 16d

If Europe keeps placating its own far right, how can it possibly stand up to Trump? | Thu Nguyen and Jannik Jansen

European leaders’ weakness is undermining the democratic principles on which the EU was built, say Thu Nguyen and Jannik Jansen from the Jacques Delors Centre

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Ben Crum, Toni Haastrup

Nathalie Brack @nathaliebrack.bsky.social · 18d

Call for Proposals for Special Issues of the Journal of European Integration to be published in 2027
Deadline for Submissions: 31/10/25
www.tandfonline.com/journals/geu...

Feel free to contact us at [email protected] with any questions about the procedure or informal enquiries you may have.

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Coen Graamans @sn0r.bsky.social · 21d

Dutch comedian Arjen Lubach has a nice bit about Disney cancelling Kimmel.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRX...

Jimmy Kimmel’s show has been cancelled | The New Disney | LUBACH

YouTube video by LUBACH

www.youtube.com

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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 21d

Where the separate divisions of ANTIFA landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944:

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Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · 23d

Gefeliciteerd Sarah!
Een bijzondere en mooie overstap!

Reposted by Ben Crum

Julia Rone = Юлия Роне @juliarone.bsky.social · 25d

Join us for the VICES workshop on the Externalities of EU's digital transition for (semi)peripheral countries!
From lithium mining in Serbia to Hungary's contested battery bet and data extractivism and neo-colonialism in the Global South. The bad examples are many. But maybe also the alternatives?

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Nathalie Brack @nathaliebrack.bsky.social · 25d

You have a great idea for a special issue in EU studies?
Check out our call 👇

Journal of European Integration @jei-publication.bsky.social · 25d

𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟕
𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒: 31 Oct. 25

The JEI invites proposals for SIs to be published in 2027. Proposals on any topic within the scope of the journal are welcome and need to be received by the editorial office ([email protected]) by the deadline.

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Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · 25d

Great quote 👇 from @dmugge.bsky.social

Martin Sandbu @martinsandbu.ft.com · 25d

The most succinct statement I have seen of what is at stake. "In the digital arena, the EU is still playing a rules-based version of nobody-gets-hurt judo, whereas the other major players have shifted to something more like mixed martial arts." big-europe.eu/publications...

Time for the gloves to come off in digital policy

big-europe.eu

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Martin Sandbu @martinsandbu.ft.com · 25d

Time for the gloves to come off in digital policy

big-europe.eu

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Gjalt de Graaf @graafgjalt.bsky.social · 25d

werkenbij.vu.nl/vacatures/ph...

Vacature — PhD position in Public Administration & Digital Governance

Are you a public administration or management student interested in AI and/or value-based governance? Are you interested in doing research about the risks of AI use in public administration and how to...

werkenbij.vu.nl

Reposted by Ben Crum

Gjalt de Graaf @graafgjalt.bsky.social · 25d

werkenbij.vu.nl/vacatures/2-...

Vacature — 2 Postdocs in Public Administration & Digital Governance

Are you a scholar in public administration or management with qualitative research skills and expertise in AI or value-based governance? Interested in fair and responsible AI use in public administrat...

werkenbij.vu.nl

Reposted by Ben Crum

David Owen @artsofdenial.bsky.social · 27d

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

‘We took the gloves off’: ex-IDF chief confirms Gaza casualties over 200,000

Retired general Herzi Halevi says ‘not once’ had legal advice constrained Israel’s military decisions in the strip

www.theguardian.com

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Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · 28d

Wow!

Ben Crum @bencrum.nl · Sep 10

Check out the Book of Abstracts👇 of June's conference @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social
It offers a perfect overview of the breadth of research that's being done on the digital society
Happy to be included with a short take on how EU legislation on DSA/DMA has been (de-)politicised in newspapers

Weizenbaum-Institut @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social · Sep 10

👉 Just published: "Empowering People in Online Spaces: Democracy and Well-being in Digital Societies" - Book of Abstracts of the Weizenbaum Conference 2025. #WIConf25

➡️ doi.org/10.34669/WI.... 🔗

Reposted by Axel Bruns, Ben Crum

Weizenbaum-Institut @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social · Sep 10

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Reposted by Katharine Hayhoe, Jan W. Mueller, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 4 more Katharine Hayhoe, Jan W. Mueller, Rosemary A. Joyce, Lesley Bartlett, Ben Crum, Nathan P. Kalmoe, Colin Woodard

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · Sep 9

If you're an author and haven't yet signed up for the Anthropic settlement, do yourself a favor (and strike a blow against AI) by checking to see if any of your books were involved.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Alexandra Geese @alexandrageese.bsky.social · Sep 8

Commission President Von der Leyen will have to explain this: barring an EVP from holding a press conference is unacceptable!
@teresaribera.ec.europa.eu has shown the courage to defend the free press instead of pandering to authoritarian leaders and monopolistic tech companies.

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Reposted by Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, Euan G. Ritchie , and 38 more Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell, Euan G. Ritchie, Steve Peers, Elizabeth Stokoe, Ernesto Priego, Ana Delicado, Martin Tomko, Rebecca Sear, David S. Cohen, Jo Barraket, Silvia Secchi, Patrick S. Forscher, Stephen D. Murphy, Beatriz Gallardo Paúls, John Hogan, Christine Kooi, Ben Crum, Stefan M. Herzog, Aoife O’Donoghue, Jonathan Webber, Nikolay Marinov, Tama Leaver, Zen Faulkes, Madeleine Pownall, Erin O’Donnell, David Murakami Wood, Aurélien Mondon, Ann Bartow, Clayton Littlejohn, Henrik Skaug Sætra, Jack Stilgoe, James Connelly, Aleksandra Urman, Juan Ramón, Gary Marcus, Michael Larkin, Alysia Blackham, Hilary J. Allen, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Maksym Polyakov

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Simonetta Vezzoso @wavesblog.bsky.social · Sep 5

"At this stage, it appears that the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its Adtech business.

This seems both necessary and proportionate to effectively stop the infringement" 🆕

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Reposted by Ben Crum, Gjalt de Graaf

Juliana Chueri @julianachueri.bsky.social · Sep 4

Super excited to share that I got the ERC Starting Grant! 🎉

Over the next five years, I’ll be studying how AI is reshaping the politics of the welfare state.

A huge thank you to all the friends and colleagues who supported me along the way.

vu.nl/en/news/2025...

#ERCStG

ERC Starting Grant for political science research on the consequences of AI - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Political scientist Juliana Chueri has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).

vu.nl

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Reposted by Albert Weale, Ben Crum

Ian O'Flynn @delibnet.bsky.social · Sep 1

PhD opportunities, including one on climate and democratic innovations. www.leuphana.de/en/graduate-...

Democratic Resilience

www.leuphana.de

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Reposted by Ben Crum

Internet Policy Review @policyr.bsky.social · Aug 30

[New paper] Brussels effect or experimentalism? The EU AI Act and global standard-setting, By @vuamsterdam.bsky.social's @bencrum.nl policyreview.info/articles/ana... #AIAct #EU #BrusselsEffect

Photo by Inés Álvarez Fdez on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/fr/photos/personne-faisant-de-la-planche-a-roulettes-S82kPZPS8eM

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