David Karpa
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dkarpa.bsky.social
David Karpa
@dkarpa.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.5K following 290 posts
Postdoc at SOT, TUM. Political economy, digital authoritarianism, algorithmic governance. I work with data. Views are mine.
www.davidkarpa.com
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Reposted by David Karpa
daveparisi.bsky.social
Finally got to the "I want to burn it all down" portion of the gen AI-era semester, where I realize they're all using some sort of LLM to "help" organize their thoughts and it's just spitting out raw sewage onto the screen.
November 17, 2025 at 10:04 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
Important paper!
simonecremaschi.bsky.social Simone Cremaschi @simonecremaschi.bsky.social · 8d
Now out @apsrjournal.bsky.social with page numbers! 🫒

We advance a new argument on how economic crises fuel support for far-right parties in left-behind places by tapping into long-standing community narratives

shorturl.at/bA55v

@catherinedevries.bsky.social
November 17, 2025 at 6:00 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
"many people would forfeit democratic elections to avoid living in a dangerous society but not to obtain wealth and other goods. Electoral democracy is attractive globally but can be undermined by concerns about crime and safety."

Interesting, considering crime is mostly a consequence of low wealth
November 17, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Reposted by David Karpa
claesdevreese.bsky.social
The @ec.europa.eu 'Democracy Shield' plans have dropped.

The focus on free, independent media, fact-checking, literacy, election integrity etc make sense.

But: it needs to be acknowledged that many of these challenges are not from outside the EU only. Also from within.
ec.europa.eu/commission/p...
European Democracy Shield and EU Strategy for Civil Society pave the way for stronger and more resilient democracies
The Commission has presented today the European Democracy Shield, setting out a series of concrete measures to empower, protect, and promote strong and resilient democracies across the EU. An open civ...
ec.europa.eu
November 13, 2025 at 7:10 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
A motivated reasoner making the case for motivated reasoning
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13d
JD Vance: "Science as practiced in its best form is that if you disagree with it, then you ought to criticize it and you ought to argue against it."
November 13, 2025 at 6:19 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
In capitalism, we cannot expect companies to do anything else than maximise profits. Doing so is not only naive but harmful
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 15d
For-profit journals are supposed to improve research quality, yet they're perversely incentivized to churn out whatever they can monetize. This was happening before AI (see Strain: bit.ly/43gJPUM), and AI will make it worse.

It's insane that we volunteer our time to help them do so.

4/n
November 12, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Reposted by David Karpa
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
"As Germany’s population is becoming older, we found that Germany’s top earners are older on average and increasingly so. The age of business owners has been shown to affect economic decisions. For example, older business owners are more likely to retain profits within the firm"
heimbergecon.bsky.social Philipp Heimberger @heimbergecon.bsky.social · 15d
Economic growth in Germany since reunification has mostly benefited the middle and upper middle class up to the 99th percentile. Income inequality (pre-tax) in 🇩🇪 is similar to the 🇺🇸 and higher than in 🇫🇷. Inequality has increased, but less than previous studies suggest.
November 11, 2025 at 8:15 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
Ah shit, here we go again
November 11, 2025 at 10:47 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
Communism 101
November 8, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Reposted by David Karpa
mgiani.bsky.social
Are university still a left-wing thing in Europe?

Unsure: HE is a hierarchical institution with egalitarian employees

I find that universities increasingly inculcate selfish career concerns for status while leaving universalist concerns for global justice unchanged
bjpols.bsky.social British Journal of Political Science @bjpols.bsky.social · 23d
NEW -

Globalization, Higher Education, and Neoliberal Values: Evidence from the Bologna Process - https://cup.org/3LG3lVj

- @mgiani.bsky.social

#OpenAccess
BJPolS abstract discussing the shift in globalization's emphasis towards developing market skills and its implications on higher education.
November 3, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Reposted by David Karpa
carnage4life.bsky.social
Perfect timing for this story to drop on the same day Amazon lays off 30,000 workers due to claims of AI efficiencies.

If companies have less work for people to do, they don’t give you Fridays off, they lay off people until everyone has a full workweek.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan says AI will shorten our workweek | TechCrunch
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan says that, in a few years, we should be working a 3-4 day workweek because of AI.
techcrunch.com
October 28, 2025 at 12:20 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
If you show a chatbot party programs and tell them your socioeconomic status, I am pretty confident the advice will be magnitudes better than anything that goes on in (social) media
claesdevreese.bsky.social Claes de Vreese @claesdevreese.bsky.social · Oct 27
Millions of Dutch voters use vote advice tests right before elections.

This year many will consult AI chatbots too. Recent data show that up to a quarter sometimes use AI for current affairs.

It's a huge question how many will rely on AI this time and what the quality of the advice will be #tk2025
October 27, 2025 at 6:58 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
Das ganze wird aber trotzdem genutzt um sinnlose Überwachungsforderungen auszubauen: www.zeit.de/politik/deut...
October 26, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Reposted by David Karpa
tabouchadi.bsky.social
Ewartbar enttäuschende Reaktion. Anstatt sich tatsächlich im Detail mit Fehlern und Verantwortung auseinanderzusetzen, macht an es sich bequem in der Erzählung von der „aufgeheizten Debatte“. Man hat hier nachhaltigen Schaden angerichtet. Für die Demokraite müssen wir uns alle etwas mehr anstrengen.
October 26, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Reposted by David Karpa
simonecremaschi.bsky.social
Public service decline → more far-right support: I summarize evidence from several coauthored studies in a new post for the @kpolanyisociety.bsky.social series on Fascism and Liberalism.
October 24, 2025 at 1:12 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
Took these pics in Astana in 2023. Presidential palace next to some golden towers. Let's see if DC can compete
October 23, 2025 at 8:18 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
Designing constitutions can be about what is morally desirable. Or about their real economic,social and political consequences.
joshuaweishart.bsky.social Joshua Weishart @joshuaweishart.bsky.social · Oct 22
Not to diminish law review articles & law school committee work, but right now law professors should be working collectively on an intellectual & service project of immense, existential importance: building consensus around a revolutionary constitutional framework-of a Reconstruction 2.0 magnitude.
October 23, 2025 at 5:30 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
motivated reasoning is limitless nowadays
dkarpa.bsky.social David Karpa @dkarpa.bsky.social · Oct 22
"There is still a substantive fraction of voters who are not swayed by even a strong media reaction against right-wing ideology after an attack – and there is evidence that those who do distance themselves from the far right might revert to their old views once social pressure recedes"🤯
felixhaass.bsky.social Felix Haass @felixhaass.bsky.social · Oct 22
🚨 New article out!

“Right-Wing Terror, Media Backlash, and Voting Preferences for the Far Right” in @bjpols.bsky.social

👉 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

We (Alex De Juan, @juvoss.bsky.social & I) examine how right-wing attacks shape support for the far-right in Germany.

Short summary thread below 👇
October 22, 2025 at 3:41 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
"There is still a substantive fraction of voters who are not swayed by even a strong media reaction against right-wing ideology after an attack – and there is evidence that those who do distance themselves from the far right might revert to their old views once social pressure recedes"🤯
felixhaass.bsky.social Felix Haass @felixhaass.bsky.social · Oct 22
🚨 New article out!

“Right-Wing Terror, Media Backlash, and Voting Preferences for the Far Right” in @bjpols.bsky.social

👉 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

We (Alex De Juan, @juvoss.bsky.social & I) examine how right-wing attacks shape support for the far-right in Germany.

Short summary thread below 👇
Abstract for the article: How does right-wing terrorism affect electoral support for populist radical right parties (PRRPs)? Recent research has produced contrary answers to this question. We argue that only high-intensity attacks, whose motives and targets mirror PRRPs’ nativist agenda, are likely to generate a media backlash that dampens electoral support for PRRPs. We test this argument by combining high-frequency survey and social media data with a natural and survey experimental design. We find that right-wing terror reduced support for the radical right party Alternative für Deutschland after one of the most intense nativist attacks in recent German history. An analysis of all ninety-eight fatal right-wing attacks in Germany between 1990 and 2020 supports our argument. Our findings contribute to an understanding of how political violence triggers partisan detachment and have important implications for media responsibility in the aftermath of terrorist attacks.
October 22, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by David Karpa
felixhaass.bsky.social
🚨 New article out!

“Right-Wing Terror, Media Backlash, and Voting Preferences for the Far Right” in @bjpols.bsky.social

👉 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

We (Alex De Juan, @juvoss.bsky.social & I) examine how right-wing attacks shape support for the far-right in Germany.

Short summary thread below 👇
Abstract for the article: How does right-wing terrorism affect electoral support for populist radical right parties (PRRPs)? Recent research has produced contrary answers to this question. We argue that only high-intensity attacks, whose motives and targets mirror PRRPs’ nativist agenda, are likely to generate a media backlash that dampens electoral support for PRRPs. We test this argument by combining high-frequency survey and social media data with a natural and survey experimental design. We find that right-wing terror reduced support for the radical right party Alternative für Deutschland after one of the most intense nativist attacks in recent German history. An analysis of all ninety-eight fatal right-wing attacks in Germany between 1990 and 2020 supports our argument. Our findings contribute to an understanding of how political violence triggers partisan detachment and have important implications for media responsibility in the aftermath of terrorist attacks.
October 22, 2025 at 3:14 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
What if you couldn't be elected into office after a certain age? Let's say 55?
October 22, 2025 at 3:35 PM
dkarpa.bsky.social
"we show that regions increase their vote share for Le Pen where the quality of government decreases. We also show that this relationship holds at the individual level. Thus, supplying quality, impartial and fair public services seem to stifle demand for [...] authoritarianism[...]"
October 21, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by David Karpa
florianfoos.bsky.social
🚨Deadline for submissions is today!🚨
aalrababah.bsky.social Ala Alrababah @aalrababah.bsky.social · Aug 14
Apply to EuroWEPS 12/13! We're organizing the next EuroWEPS workshops at Bocconi (Nov 14) and EUI (Dec 15) to discuss designs/papers focusing on causal inference. No presentations, just constructive discussions. Early career scholars are especially welcome to apply! Submission deadline is Sep 30
September 30, 2025 at 10:35 AM
dkarpa.bsky.social
"We find that reduced government spending predicts a greater endorsement of individualist and fatalist attributions, and labor deregulation predicts a higher endorsement of individualist attributions. Taken together, neoliberal policies potentially perpetuate ideologies that vindicate the system"
spspnews.bsky.social Society for Personality and Social Psychology @spspnews.bsky.social · Sep 18
📈New research in Social Psychological and Personality Science reveals how government policies shape our beliefs about poverty. Countries with less spending and deregulated labor markets see more blame placed on individuals rather than systems.

Learn more: ow.ly/8AZv50WYMbR
Crowded urban crosswalk filled with diverse pedestrians moving in multiple directions during daytime.
September 19, 2025 at 4:44 AM