Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Despina Alexiadou @dalexiadou.bsky.social · May 23

Reminder that at @strathpolir.bsky.social we offer a one year MSc in Political Economy; core courses: CPE, IPE, Quant1 & Quant2. Want to build your skills to research how politics shapes the economy and how economic events shape politics & live in Glasgow? Join Us!
www.strath.ac.uk/courses/post...

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Anja Neundorf @anjaneundorf.bsky.social · Apr 24

🧵 THREAD: Can a short online intervention help defend democracy against partisan polarization?

In our new study - just published in the @bjpols.bsky.social - my colleagues and I tested this question across 33 countries 🌍 with over 41,000 participants 🧑‍🤝‍🧑.

Here’s what we found 👇

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Anja Neundorf @anjaneundorf.bsky.social · Mar 31

Fantastic opportunity to do a fully funded PhD @uofgsocsci.bsky.social on an important topic working with the excellent @sergipardos.bsky.social. Apply by Apr 21! ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Sergi Pardos-Prado @sergipardos.bsky.social · Mar 31

📢 Fully funded PhD opportunity at the University of Glasgow! Interested in the following questions?

❓How do national identities shape attitudes toward migration?

🌍 How does this relationship change over time and across countries?

Apply before 21 April. Details here: tinyurl.com/3cxay963

University of Glasgow - Colleges - College of Social Sciences - Student funding opportunities - Postgraduate Research - Latest PhD opportunitiesSearch iconClose menu iconMenu icon bar 1Menu icon bar 2...

tinyurl.com

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Raymond Hicks @arpie71.bsky.social · Mar 10

Trade wars are accelerating the decline of international economic governance. But instead of collapsing, global trade institutions are lurching forward in a zombie-like state. What happens next? Julia Gray describes our coming era of half-dead internationalism

Zombie institutions could have "afterlives," but little power.

Zombie internationalism sees a slow, stumbling transformation, and decreased trust in international agreements and global institutions.

goodauthority.org

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Anja Neundorf @anjaneundorf.bsky.social · Feb 24

The most striking result from yesterday’s German election #btw2025 🇩🇪:

🔹 35 years after reunification: The GDR is redrawn on this map.
🔹 The AfD won 45 out of 48 electoral districts in the East.
🔹 In some parts of Saxony, they came close to 50%!

Why is this happening? Here’s my take 👇

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Rahel Freiburghaus @rfrbrghs.bsky.social · Feb 24

Eastern Germany (former GDR) has 48 electoral districts.

Far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won 45 out of these 48 electoral districts in the 2025 German Election ( #btw25).

As eminent sociologist @steffenmau.bsky.social aptly puts it: „ungleich vereint“ (an unequally united country)

DIE ZEIT @zeit.de · Feb 24

Die AfD gewann in den fünf Flächenbundesländern im Osten 45 von 48 Wahlkreisen. Wie die einzelnen Wahlkreise abgestimmt haben, erfahrt ihr im Liveblog: t1p.de/2t6ae

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · Feb 21

How many federal workers would DOGE need to fire to make up for Musk not paying his fair share of taxes?

Answer: 677,000. That's 44% of the entire non-DoD federal workforce.

Again, this power grab is not about the budget. It’s about politics.

Title: What Costs More: Billionaire Tax Avoidance or Federal Workers?
Subtitle: Musk’s tax avoidance could fund 677K federal jobs
• Current Tax Rate: 3.27%
• Top Federal Tax Rate: 37%

Cost Comparison (Bar Chart):
• Cost of Musk’s Tax Avoidance (smallest bar, purple)
• Cost of Top 100 Billionaires’ Tax Avoidance (largest bar, red)
• Total Federal Workforce Salaries (mid-sized bar, green)
X-axis ranges from $0B to $380B, showing that billionaire tax avoidance covers a significant portion of federal workforce salaries.

Impact on Federal Workforce:
• Average Federal Salary: $106,000
• Jobs Musk’s Avoidance Could Fund: 677,782 (29.5% of all federal employees)

Federal Workforce Breakdown (Pie Chart):
• A segment representing 29.5% of the workforce highlights the share Musk’s avoided taxes could fund, labeled “Share Equal to Musk’s Avoided Taxes: 29.5%”.

Sources:
• Musk’s Tax Rate: ProPublica
• Billionaire Gains: Bloomberg Billionaires Index (Dec. 31, 2024)
• Federal Employee Data: USAFacts

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Jonathan Polk @jonathanpolk.bsky.social · Feb 21

I am looking to hire a post-doctoral researcher to work with me in a project on social cleavages and political party competition in Europe:
lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
Happy to answer any questions, and thanks in advance for circulating the call!

Postdoctoral fellow in political science: party competition in Europe

Are you our next postdoc with a focus on using expert surveys to examine political party competition around cleavage politics? The Department of Political Science invites applications for a 2-year pos

lu.varbi.com

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Despina Alexiadou @dalexiadou.bsky.social · Feb 12

New afrobarometer report by Bob Mattes @strathpolir.bsky.social and it is not good news for the continent

www.afrobarometer.org?p=29448

AD943: Decade of destitution? Severe lived poverty is surging in many African countries

The share of humanity who live in conditions of poverty has been falling since at least 1980. Measured as the proportion of people who live on less than $2.15 a day, the figure has declined...

www.afrobarometer.org

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Federica Genovese @fgenovese.bsky.social · Feb 12

Good article but the title is wrong. We are not observing a “disconnect”. This is a targeted, aware and aggressive assault on the climate as we know it.

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Feb 12

“Never before has the danger of climate change been so evident and the response so cavalier.”

The great climate disconnect

New attempts to prolong the fossil fuel era have come at precisely the wrong time

on.ft.com

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Luis Cornago Bonal @luiscornagob.bsky.social · Jan 23

The D.E.I. Retreat Has Some Notable Holdouts www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/b...

As D.E.I. Programs Come Under Attack, Companies Like Costco and Microsoft Forge Ahead

As racial and gender equity programs come under attack, many companies have scaled back. But Costco, Microsoft and others have forged ahead.

www.nytimes.com

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Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung (MPIfG) @mpifg.bsky.social · Jan 21

The MPIfG is seeking a research group leader (tenure track) with a focus on the socioeconomic and political impacts of technological change to set up a new research group at the intersection of #economy, #society, and #technology.

📢Please share widely!

s.gwdg.de/SULoAf

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Silja Häusermann @siljahausermann.bsky.social · Jan 21

‼️ Hiring ‼️

Two (!) positions in my group at @ipz.bsky.social in Zurich

📣 1 postdoc position (3+3 years)
📣 1 PhD position (3,5 years)

Application deadline in early March.

Job ads & details:
tinyurl.com/3p6yhptk

We are an international and friendly department with excellent working conditions

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Despina Alexiadou @dalexiadou.bsky.social · Jan 17

Calls for Rachel Reeves to quit as chancellor are overblown and unfair.

A shout out to @barmstrong.bsky.social @tiffanydbarnes.bsky.social @dainachiba.bsky.social @dzobrien.bsky.social for their article on the appointments of women finance ministers globally

theconversation.com/calls-for-ra...

Calls for Rachel Reeves to quit as chancellor are overblown – but they highlight what her real problems are

The chancellor is weathering choppy economic waters – but the roots of these date back much further than Reeves’ time in the job.

theconversation.com

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Despina Alexiadou @dalexiadou.bsky.social · Dec 10

Very interesting article using a unique survey on legislators' education, profession and political careers across 17 African countries by Bob Mattes @strathpolir.bsky.social and co-authors www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

African Legislators: Unrepresentative Power Elites?

African legislators both resemble and differ from the societies they claim to represent in important ways. Based on a unique survey of representative samples of parliamentarians in 17 countries, we...

www.tandfonline.com

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Despina Alexiadou @dalexiadou.bsky.social · Dec 6

A great project and paper to discuss! Looking forward to reading all the follow ups!

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Daniel Devine @danjdevine.bsky.social · Dec 4

There are several opportunities to take a (funded) PhD @sotonpolitics.bsky.social, for specific projects AND your own 🧵

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Evelyne Hübscher @evehubscher.bsky.social · Dec 4

My unit (Department of Public Policy at CEU, Vienna) is hiring!We’re looking for candidates with excellent skills in quantitative methods (specifically text mining, natural language processing, machine learning). Link to full call: careers.ceu.edu/job/Vienna-A...

Happy to answer questions!

Assistant Professor (f/m/d)

careers.ceu.edu

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Daniel Devine @danjdevine.bsky.social · Nov 29

This matters for many reasons, not least because there is a bunch of evidence that the social class (of which education is a proxy) of politicians and the cabinet matters for actual outcomes 🧵

George Eaton @georgeeaton.bsky.social · Nov 29

A remarkable stat: Heidi Alexander’s appointment as Transport Secretary means the cabinet is now 100% state-educated for the first time in history.

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Nick Carnes @carnes.bsky.social · Oct 10

We have a forthcoming BJPS paper and a new dataset on the gender, education, and occupational backgrounds of lawmakers in the world's democracies!
Paper: www.noamlupu.com/GLDpaper.pdf
Dataset: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...

Here's one application . . . (1/2)

www.noamlupu.com

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Matt Grossmann @mattgrossmann.bsky.social · Nov 25

working-class voters are more likely to prefer a candidate with a working-class occupation, not due to policy positions or class rhetoric but because they perceive them as more understanding of their problems.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Do working-class candidates activate class-based voting?

After steadily leaving the Democratic Party, working-class voters are increasingly seen as pivotal in US elections. What type of candidates should par…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Dawn Teele @teele.bsky.social · Nov 22

#polisky #gendersky #HPE

Any one-liners of advice from your PHD advisors that you always pass on to students?

My favorite from Frances Rosenbluth was to “tape your argument onto your computer and remember not to stray”

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Anne Rasmussen @annerasmussen.bsky.social · Feb 8

The Department of Political Economy at King's College London is hiring in political behavior

www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/083946-...

@ecpr.bsky.social @apsa.bsky.social behavoursky polisky commsky

Lecturer in Political Behaviour

Job id: 083946. Salary: Grade 6/7: £43,205 to £61,021 per annum, inclusive of London Allowance..

www.kcl.ac.uk

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Anita Gohdes @argohdes.bsky.social · Jan 24

I think influencers call this *unboxing* ✨✨✨

A box full of Anita’s book “Repression in the Digital Age”

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Nick Carnes @carnes.bsky.social · Jan 15

The purpose of peer review is not to demonstrate the reviewer’s proficiency in identifying flaws; negative critiques are not obligated. Reviewers should identify strengths and provide constructive comments to help authors resolve weaknesses in the work. (4/n)

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