Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · Nov 20

What or who killed Frank Ramsey? A brilliant philosopher dies aged just 26 while preparing a treatise on the nature of truth. Why he died is a medical mystery almost a century old, which kept five professors (medicine & philosophy) amused for months. Enjoy!
wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/7-1...

wellcomeopenresearch.org

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John Meadowcroft @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social · Apr 30

Congratulations Nigel!

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King's Political Theory Research Group @kingspoltheory.bsky.social · Apr 2

On 25 April we are hosting Simone Chambers who will be giving a lecture entitled ‘Is there a Future for Deliberative Democracy? Democratic Theory in the Age of Oligarchs, Autocrats, and Patriarchs’. Sign-up to attend here: tinyurl.com/yc2vewf6

Democratic Theory in the Age of Oligarchs, Autocrats, and Patriarchs

A key note lecture delivered by Professor Simone Chambers (Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine)

tinyurl.com

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John Meadowcroft @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social · Mar 25

Judging by the attire it very possibly is us

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Alan Ohnsman @aohnsman.bsky.social · Feb 21

NEW: Elon Musk, leading Trump’s haphazard effort to cut government overspending, is among the largest beneficiaries of federal government support. His empire was built on it.

In the past 15 years, Tesla and SpaceX have sucked in $30 billion in public dollars #doge www.forbes.com/sites/alanoh...

Elon Musk Is A Billionaire Federal Welfare Vampire

As Elon Musk’s DOGE chainsaws through federal agencies with budget and staff cuts, Tesla and SpaceX, cornerstones of his wealth, continue to benefit from public money. They probably wouldn’t have succ...

www.forbes.com

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John Meadowcroft @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social · Feb 16

Is there any hope for liberalism and democracy in Russia? Great reporting by @sarahrainsfordbbc.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

After Navalny: Russian opposition is weaker than ever - but it's not why you think

For years, Navalny was Vladimir Putin's biggest political rival, but now the Russian opposition is weaker than ever.

www.bbc.co.uk

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The Guardian @theguardian.com · Feb 6

It is Elon Musk who is now running the United States. Not Donald Trump | Moira Donegan

A foreign billionaire is running the state through a shadow government without formal checks – the constitutional order, now, is largely window dressing It’s one of the humiliations of our historical moment that the constitutional order has been…

www.theguardian.com

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University of Illinois Press @illinoispress.bsky.social · Jan 29

In Public Affairs Quarterly 38.3, @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social argues that Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" has been misread as a defense capitalism's inequalities. https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/paq/article/38/3/173/392018/Emergence-as-a-Moral-Theory-Reappraising-Robert

Title page of essay in open copy of Public Affairs Quarterly 38.3

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University of Illinois Press @illinoispress.bsky.social · Jan 16

Vol. 38, Iss. 3 of Public Affairs Quarterly is out online! Featuring contributors @dweltman.bsky.social , Nicholas Kreuder, Nicole Hassoun, @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social , and Bouke de Vries (whose article is free to access!) https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/paq/issue/38/3

Cover of Public Affairs Quarterly, Volume 38, Issue 3, July 2024
Yellow letters spell "PAQ" at the top of the page on an orange rectangle, with a thin blue rectangle below separating it from the rest of the beige background.

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Matt Kane at ViteConf 🇳🇱 @mk.gg · Dec 10

The UK parliament has joined Bluesky, with proper verified domains and everything:

• @houseofcommons.parliament.uk
• @houseoflords.parliament.uk
• @ukparliament.parliament.uk
• @commonsspeaker.parliament.uk

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Paul Lewis @paullewis.bsky.social · Dec 7

Recently published paper on the constitutional political economy of James Buchanan and Vincent Ostrom, co-authored with @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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Paul Lewis @paullewis.bsky.social · Nov 30

Recent book by recent former KCL PhD student and fine scholar Matias Petersen: www.routledge.com/Political-Ec...

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Dustin Rowles (Pajiba Guy) @dustinrowles.bsky.social · Nov 29

I've been listening to a lot of Joe Rogan since the election. Like a lot of billionaires surrounded by yes-men, he's lost touch with the very reality he claims to represent.

Joe Rogan Is Now the Donald Trump of the Comedy World

He's an out-of-touch billionaire who has lost touch with reality.

www.pajiba.com

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Paul Kelleher 🎃 @paulkelleher.net · Nov 25

November 12, 1973 --- The day Philosophy & Public Affairs started treating Rawls like Jesus.

A letter on Philosophy & Public Affairs letterhead that reads:

November 12, 1973

Professor Robert Nozick
Department of Philosophy
Emerson Hall
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Dear Professor Nozick,

I have been meaning to send you a note ever since you did not telephone the second time last week just to say that I decided after all to drop the offending post-apostrophes from the possessive of Rawls. This is, as I told you, according to the Chicago Manual of Style an honor due only to Moses and Jesus, but with us aesthetic considerations won out. The decision puts us somewhat in a class by ourselves -- I note that in Brian Barry's new book he and Oxford Press write Rawls's -- but I don't mind being different. I trust that you will not.

sincerely，
Margot Cutter

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John Meadowcroft @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social · Nov 24

Interesting paper suggesting private schools don’t add value in exam results, but select pupils who would perform well in any school. That said, I suspect many parents pay for private schooling to purchase cultural capital and access to exclusive social networks for their children

Jake Anders @jakeanders.uk · Nov 21

State schools have closed the gap with private schools in GCSE results, once we adjust for socioeconomic differences in their intakes.

New findings in our paper published today in Cambridge Review of Education: https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2024.2420611

Private school pupils’ performance in GCSEs (and IGCSEs)

Using rich longitudinal data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), the authors compare the performance of private and state school pupils in age 16 national examinations (GCSEs) in England, ...

doi.org

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Jake Anders @jakeanders.uk · Nov 21

State schools have closed the gap with private schools in GCSE results, once we adjust for socioeconomic differences in their intakes.

New findings in our paper published today in Cambridge Review of Education: https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2024.2420611

Private school pupils’ performance in GCSEs (and IGCSEs)

Using rich longitudinal data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study (MCS), the authors compare the performance of private and state school pupils in age 16 national examinations (GCSEs) in England, ...

doi.org

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Nathan Goodman @nathanpgoodman.bsky.social · Nov 20

Elinor & Vincent Ostrom did vital research on self-governance, polycentricity, democracy, social dilemmas, coproduction, public entrepreneurship, & the commons.

A starter pack featuring scholars who advance this research agenda. go.bsky.app/GwUPgW4

Suggested additions welcome.

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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · Nov 18

Take your dragon out for a fly.

This is an #earlymodern advice (from Athanasius Kircher), on how to and when to use your private #dragon to make an impression. The image is part of Kircher's 1678 "Mundus Subterraneus" (access: www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb1... ), and ...

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A man is holding a flying dragon on a line.

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Policy Sciences Journal @policysciences.bsky.social · Nov 16

Our first BlueSky post!
Open access paper by William Ascher.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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Alix Mortimer @alixmortimer.bsky.social · Nov 9

A starter pack of my brilliant colleagues and former colleagues in political science, economics, and around and about the place. Under construction, will share again when we have momentum go.bsky.app/KpPy48W

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John Meadowcroft @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social · Oct 1

Was the British abolition of slavery a triumph of altruism over pecuniary self-interest? Neatly coinciding with the start of Black History Month, my article in Public Choice: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Altruism and self-interest in constitutional reform: the case of the British abolition of slavery and the slave trade - Public Choice

Was the British abolition of slavery and the slave trade a triumph of altruism over pecuniary self-interest? Analysis of qualitative data reveals the importance of self-interested motives underlying t...

link.springer.com

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Yonatan Berman @yonatanberman.com · Sep 10

🚨 RA job alert! 🚨

@jeannebomare.bsky.social and I are hiring a part-time RA starting this fall for a British Academy-funded project on UK inheritance tax (London-based).

Apply here: bit.ly/RA_kings (deadline in 5 days!)

Email me if you have any questions

Research Assistant

bit.ly

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Valentina Ausserladscheider @vapunkt.bsky.social · Sep 9

My book is finally out 🤗 you might think “yet another book about neoliberalism” - and you are not wrong. But it’s also a brief history of exclusionary neoliberalism as a political project of the far right in Austria: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Far-Right Populism and the Making of the Exclusionary Neoliberal State

This book examines the rise of exclusionary neoliberalism by assessing how far-right populist actors impact economic policy change

link.springer.com

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John Meadowcroft @johnmeadowcroft.bsky.social · Sep 9

Brilliant, moving article about a young Pakistani man who fell from a plane over London and what happened to his family, twenty years on - great journalist

Esther Addley @estheraddley.bsky.social · Sep 7

23 years ago I wrote a story for the Guardian about a stowaway who had fallen from a plane and landed in a car park in Richmond, w London. Then, earlier this year, I received an email from his younger brother. This is their story

www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

‘He wanted a better life’: the man who fell from a plane in search of a new start – and the brother who retraced his journey 20 years later

In 2001, a badly broken body was found in a London car park. Police said the man had tried to enter the UK by hiding in a plane’s landing gear. Two decades after the Guardian first told his tragic sto...

www.theguardian.com

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Esther Addley @estheraddley.bsky.social · Sep 7

23 years ago I wrote a story for the Guardian about a stowaway who had fallen from a plane and landed in a car park in Richmond, w London. Then, earlier this year, I received an email from his younger brother. This is their story

www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

‘He wanted a better life’: the man who fell from a plane in search of a new start – and the brother who retraced his journey 20 years later

In 2001, a badly broken body was found in a London car park. Police said the man had tried to enter the UK by hiding in a plane’s landing gear. Two decades after the Guardian first told his tragic sto...

www.theguardian.com

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Rowan Hall @rowaninlondon.bsky.social · Aug 7

Join the Constitution Unit as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow! There is frequently chocolate.

Find out more 👉 www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution....

Constitution Unit welcomes Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship

The Constitution Unit is welcoming applicants to the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship scheme for September 2025 to May 2026 entry, with an internal deadline of 26 August 2024.

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Paula Villa Braslavsky @paulita.bsky.social · Jul 30

So, academics really attend? They actually happen? I honestly didn’t think so. Wow

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

What is it like to attend a predatory conference?

Nature sent a reporter to find out as part of an investigation into dud events. Nature sent a reporter to find out as part of an investigation into dud events.

www.nature.com

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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · Jun 3

So farewell then, Richard Tice, leader of Reform when it didn't matter. My SKETCH of one man's humiliation. thecritic.co.uk/bedazzling/

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Lawrence Freedman @ldfreedman.bsky.social · Apr 2

My latest post considers Putin as a strategic fanatic. I show how moves which started with his coercion of a pro-Russian president in 2013 not to sign an agreement with the EU has led to Russia facing what Putin now presents as an existential threat. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/p...

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