Alessandro Nai
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alessandronai.bsky.social
Alessandro Nai
@alessandronai.bsky.social

Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, ASCoR @ascor.bsky.social

Dark politics, Political communication & psychology, Negative campaigns, Leader personality

Editor-in-Chief at EJPR @ejprjournal.bsky.social

http://www.alessandro-nai.com .. more

Political science 51%
Sociology 18%
Pinned
🚨Dark Politics is now out at OUP in paperback, hardcover, ebook

Feeling that politics is getting dark? We have a book for ya

We investigate dark personality traits in politicians worldwide, and why they matter - for voters, elections, and democracy

mini🧵(& voucher!)

I would definitely like to know more
🌟 JOB ALERT! 🌟

I’m hiring 1 postdoc for my ERC project ECONENGAGE (@ Gothenburg 🇸🇪)! Starting ca. Aug '26! Congenial colleagues + int'l & supportive environment. 💸 for conferences + workshops! Lots of professional networking opportunities with scholars! Deadline Jan 7th. Apply! (see more below 🧵)
Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science PAR 2025/838
The Department of Political Science is an international academic environment that welcomes students, researchers and
web103.reachmee.com

Introduce yourself with four spaceships
As @seanjwestwood.bsky.social's terrifying new PNAS article demonstrates, LLMs can now pass almost every attention check, mirror personas, stay consistent across pages, and systematically bias responses in the aggregate.

So here’s a different angle: verify physical presence, not text.

I got mine at a bookstore in Tokyo, but I think it is also available on @bookshop.org or other independent booksellers

Reposted by Alessandro Nai

This chimes with our new open-access @polcommjournal.bsky.social study of French-language immigration posts, which shows how far-right users flood feeds with hyper-partisan sources for political purposes: doi.org/10.1080/1058...

#51
Tokyo Decadence (Ryū Murakami, 2016)

Fifteen short stories about the “seedy underbelly” of Tokyo, filled with heart and loneliness and a diverse cast of improbable characters. Come for the thrill, stay for the often sweet window into Japan of the 90s. A good intro to Ryū Murakami

#booksky 📚🖋️

I'm curious about this year's, then...!

slop and/or enshittification, hopefully

Why is the were-moose carrying a briefcase?

Nothing. We are not worthy. She names us.

Reposted by Alessandro Nai

For lots of reasons, I don’t like LLMs and I don’t use them, but I know there are serious people working on ways to meaningfully incorporate them into education and I don’t doubt there are ways to do that productively. It’s probably obvious that “Have the LLM tell you the answer” isn’t one of them.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.

Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
It’s fun to think about the surgeon who will botch your surgery 20 years from now and what he’s doing at this moment. He just ran all his homework through ChatGPT. He just read that article about vaccines and autism at the CDC website. He just watched an Instagram video about the moon landing hoax.
when I was young, i used to wonder how people like this would fare in life, as they didn't seem suited for gainful employment. it turns out, the internet allowed them to accumulate a massive audience of similar idiots, enriching them and turning them into a presidential advisor

#50
The Anthropologists (Aysegül Savas, 2024)

A gem of a book, delightful and enchanting. Unfolds as a series of vignettes in the life of young couple living in a foreign city, as they look for a new home. Simple, sharp prose, beautifully written. Touching and fresh. Wonderful

#booksky 📚🖋️
Do policy preferences of voters and non-voters differ in European democracies?

My new article in @ejprjournal.bsky.social finds: Yes, sometimes, but this is not the norm.

Let's break it down. 🧵 1/10

An important, very concerning piece for everybody out there using (survey) data from online panels
AI presents a fundamental threat to our ability to use polls to assess public opinion. Bad actors who are able to infiltrate panels can flip close election polls for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee. Models will also infer and confirm hypotheses in experiments. Current quality checks fail
AI presents a fundamental threat to our ability to use polls to assess public opinion. Bad actors who are able to infiltrate panels can flip close election polls for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee. Models will also infer and confirm hypotheses in experiments. Current quality checks fail

Reposted by Alessandro Nai

📢New issue of #PAG21 is out!📢

In "A Voice at the Table", @kaanstoos.bsky.social tests types of women's participation in peace processes as a new variable affecting women's legislative representation in postconflict states.

🌟Available #OpenAccess🌟

buff.ly/ELACFbc

The city really comes alive in the fall - stunning indeed

Waseda is not messing around

Isn't this the best character description you've ever read?

(From Ayşegül Savaş' The Anthropologists)

#booksky #litfic

Stupeflip vite Stupeflip vite Stupé-stupeflip vite Stupeflip vite Stupeflip

What perfect album came out the year you turned 16?

Hard to select one - below quite the stellar triptych

Any sane human being: two-factor authentication crushes my soul

Authenticator app: love us? Give us a good rating!

#49
Intimacies (Katie Kitamura, 2021).

After moving to The Hague for a new job at the Criminal Court the protagonist, an interpreter, faces challenges that are both very intimate and universal. Solitude, finding your place, revealing yourself to people around you if you can. Masterful

#booksky 📚🖋️

Sweet potato crème brûlée - religions have been founded on less

Strong yes to this

Not too shabby the view from the office tonight