Linus Westheuser
LightNews LightNews
banner
lwestheuser.bsky.social
Linus Westheuser
@lwestheuser.bsky.social
7.2K followers 4K following 380 posts
Political sociologist at Humboldt University Berlin・Class, morality, cleavage politics・🔗 linuswestheuser.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
lwestheuser.bsky.social
Linus Westheuser @lwestheuser.bsky.social · Sep 9
OK, a🧵: Our new paper studies workers' political consciousness in times of class demobilization.

We show there's more to workers' politics than right-wing resentment. Listening to workers, we reconstruct their moral critiques of money, power & recognition.

Link journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
benansell.bsky.social
This from @stephenkb.bsky.social cuts to the heart of the matter. Does the government not understand how toxic this argument is? Do they think they can somehow weaponise it? The last governments at least had the merit not of making this kind of foul claim.
November 18, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
tabouchadi.bsky.social
Next week, with the Progressive Politics Research Network, we are going to publish 8 new research briefs on the politics of housing. While housing has become a huge grievance across Europe, it is often absent from progressive parties‘ agendas. Our group of experts discusses different aspects of this
November 18, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
sophieehill.bsky.social
Antitrust policy is highly technocratic and has a specialized cadre of regulators/lawyers/economists to enforce it.

But ideological capture may be a useful concept for scholars focused on other domains, too.
Conclusion Scholars often invoke the term "ideological capture" but seldom define it or its relationship to the broader concept of regulatory capture (see, e.g., Chuang 2010). In this article, we provide a definition and specify a set of tools that scholars can use to identify whether, and to what extent, a regulatory framework evidences ideological cap-ture, and whether that capture is normatively troubling. We validate our claims with a novel empirical study of American public opinion about antitrust enforcement policy. The results suggest that the main framework for evaluating anticompetitive conduct, the CWS, marginalizes important public concerns. Together with prior work showing that the standard did not arise from conventional processes for legal reform but from judicial and bureaucratic activism and a new analysis of public opinion about antitrust policy from the 1980s and 1990s, the evidence suggests that contemporary antitrust policy evidences a strong form of ideological capture. Experts play an essential role in designing the regulatory frameworks that guide bureaucratic decision making. But with this privilege comes the potential for abuse. This potential emerges from two characteristics of American political institutions. First, it emerges from the unique role that the judiciary plays in setting regulatory standards in the US. Judges (who are also lawyers) are ideologically motivated actors who are insulated from public demands and, as the ultimate arbiter of congressional intent, they have the power to unilaterally specify legislative objectives and regulatory frameworks. Second, experts play an essential role in designing the frameworks that guide regulatory decision making, and these ideological perspectives often make strong assumptions about what is, or is not, in the "public interest." Experts can and do use this privilege to develop frameworks that emphasize some concerns while minimizing others. Ideological capture emanates, in our view, from these two sources of structural power. Though we have focused on a somewhat technocratic issue to illustrate our main arguments, we suspect ideological capture is pervasive in American government. The law and economics movements (and neoliberal thought, more broadly) influenced policy in many domains from criminal sentencing to regulatory cost-benefit analysis, where regulators routinely estimate the dollar value of human life (Viscusi 2018). And there is reason to believe ideological capture exists in settings far beyond the law and economics movement. Prior work suggests, for example, that the law and economics movement arose as a counter-mobilization to a similar movement among liberal elites that leveraged the power of liberal judges, academics, and lawyers to stymie conservatives even when they won elections (Teles 2008). Teles (2008, 3) claims, for exam-ple, "that changes in the form of political competition over the past half-century, especially the increasing importance of ideas and professional power, have led to a decline in the power of elections to cause comprehensive change, especially in highly entrenched political domains." If that is true, then significant amounts of policy stasis may arise not from typical sources, like the complex distribution of power in American government, but from ideological retrenchment among those professionals who play an outsized role in designing and enforcing laws and regulations. Whether we observe ideological capture in other domains and whether it has increased over time are therefore important empirical questions that scholars can explore in future work. The answers may change the way we think about power and influence in the American political economy and the ability of elections to advance the public interest.
November 18, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
jwmason.bsky.social
Good use of this medium. More book summary threads please!
timchristiaens.bsky.social Tim Christiaens @timchristiaens.bsky.social · 8d
Starting with a chapter-by-chapter summary of Kevin Anderson's The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads pbulished by @versobooks.bsky.social earlier this year. First up: the introduction, where Anderson lays out the reception history of Marx's late notebooks.
Cover of Anderson's The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads Introduction: Contours of the Late Marx
November 17, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
wid.world
🟢 Climate change hits the poorest the hardest shows *Chapter 2.1 of the 2025 #ClimateInequality Report*

⚠️The bottom 50% wil bear ¾ of all income losses from climate change by 2050.

Read more in the report 🔗 wid.world/news-article...
November 17, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
sergiotahini.bsky.social
quantitative forscher machen sich sorgen um ihre modelle während ihr gehirn nicht mehr dazu fähig ist mehr als einen abstract zu lesen. bro du kümmerst dich um die falsche regression
October 27, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
tabouchadi.bsky.social
Fascinating how often political commentary in the UK still refers to the median voter. In a multi-dimensional space with salience endogenous to positions, it‘s unclear to me who that should be. In a multi-party system, winning the median voter is of course not necessarily a vote-maximizing strategy.
November 17, 2025 at 9:32 AM
lwestheuser.bsky.social
Finde unironisch lieb, wie sich das Technikmuseum gerade auf seinen Kern-Appeal besinnt
November 16, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
dancassino.bsky.social
This is out today in open access, and while it's very much a methodology piece, I think it's really important to building the foundation for how we move forward with understanding the role of gender in politics.
November 14, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
dancassino.bsky.social
Second, while we've long known that gender traditionalism was related to Trump supoort, this is the first indication that the relationship is reciprocal. Greater gender traditionalism makes people like Trump more, but liking Trump, over time, makes people's gender identities more traditional.
November 14, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
armineyalnizyan.bsky.social
Do you also sometimes wonder what kind of beauty and possibility our species could achieve if a handful of people didn't sponge up all the surplus we, together, create and spend it on generating "artificial intelligence" and running away, into space?
m.youtube.com/watch?v=ANhA...
Strandbeest evolution 2025
YouTube video by theo jansen
m.youtube.com
November 14, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
robertfietzke.bsky.social
Jugendliche mit Migrationsgeschichte (der Eltern) - Für führende Politiker*innen zwar unerwünscht im #Stadtbild, aber für den Schützengraben reicht es.

#Wehrpflicht
November 14, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
hannelore14089.bsky.social
„Remember only that I was innocent and, just like you, mortal on that day, I too had a face, marked by rage, by pity and joy, Quite simply a human face."
Benjamin Fondane 14. November 1898 schrieb Lyrik, Dramen, Drehbücher. Am 2.od.3. Oktober 1944 in Auschwitz ermordet

Ein Foto von ihm, gemacht von Man Ray; er hält seinen Kopf in den Händen
November 14, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
cominsitu.bsky.social
The claim of the article is that a recognition theory of class can compliment a structuralist account of class, not by reducing class to subjective identity but by exploring how the structural vulnerability to economic domination is experienced first-hand as a form of injury to one's self-worth.
November 14, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
cominsitu.bsky.social
🚨new publication🚨

𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗷𝘂𝗿𝘆

in: Understanding Social Struggles: Relating Recognition Theories and Epistemic Injustice (eds. H. Hänel and F. Schuppert), Transcript. pp. 49-64. 2025.

Open Access: philpapers.org/archive/BLUC...
November 14, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
carelmohn.bsky.social
Fliegen wird billiger, Deutschlandticket wird teuer.
Das ist die Politik der Bundesregierung.
julianebienert.de Juliane Bienert, M.A. @julianebienert.de · 11d
Macht die SPD eigentlich noch irgendwas oder haben die aufgegeben? Fliegen günstiger und Gaskraftwerke bauen ?! #Koalitionsausschuss
November 13, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
ryanlcooper.com
really key point. polls, particularly issue polls, are a WILDLY unrealistic way to measure how people actually interact with political messaging these days
RCTs, like surveys, occur “in channel.” People are recruited to respond (usually through online solicitations), made to pay attention (with financial incentives or simply due to how testing platforms are configured), and register their preferences knowing they’re being observed. Once upon a time, when Americans were captive viewers of limited network television channels, forced to sit through commercials without even a remote control for ready escape, these experiments more closely mirrored real-world conditions. Today, however, political messages reach Americans as they are scrolling or cooking or breaking up skirmishes between their kids. Indeed, they’re mostly doing their best to avoid ads altogether. In-channel testing gauges the response to a single exposure of a message and pronounces these to be the message’s effect. But messages aren’t single-use plastics. Many don’t work until they are repeated frequently. Some are more rebuttable than others. Some could work if spoken by messengers other than those in the materials tested. Vote choice tends to be the gold standard in electoral RCTs. Treatments that produce higher numbers of respondents saying they’d vote for the Democratic candidate are considered to have bested the game. While this may seem like the obvious metric — the task come election day is to net more votes — this simplifies how one reaches that goal. You cannot mistake winning a trial heat for winning an election. Often, what you need to measure is what would make the story that favors your side seem credible, what punctures the key strength of your opponent, or what — only upon unrelenting repetition — reframes the electoral stakes to your advantage. Tellingly, when consumer juggernauts use RCTs, their most critical metric is often belief in key attributes such as trust in the brand rather than would you buy this product.
November 13, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
casmudde.bsky.social
The Democrats take young women for granted, but this graph should give them pause. Young women no longer trust national institutions (why should they, as these institutions do not protect their rights). This distrust can easily extend to the Democratic Party in the future (for the same reasons).
November 13, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
ituc.bsky.social
🔥 @oxfaminternational.bsky.social latest report exposes how billionaires are fuelling the climate crisis — hoarding profits, polluting at extreme levels, and blocking progress. As #COP30 begins, we need bold action to stop this climate plunder & put people before profit.

🔗 Report: buff.ly/BrKIiCS
November 13, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
lauraserra.bsky.social
🚨 New paper with Maria Grasso on generational shifts in political values. Despite talk of rising age polarisation, we show that gaps in attitudes are stable or even narrowing. Economic attitudes move in cycles, while social values have become more liberal – mainly due to generational replacement.
Political Socialisation in the UK: Describing Generational Changes of Values - International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society
A growing bulk of research examines intergenerational shifts in attitudes and the extent to which they are attributable to new cohorts of voters being socialised under different socioeconomic and cult...
link.springer.com
November 13, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
bjsociology.bsky.social
Drawing on 41 semi-structured interviews with wealthy members of the business class living in and around Manchester, this paper explores how therapy culture has travelled upwards, to the executive and owning class, through CEO peer groups.

#EarlyView in #BJS ➡️ buff.ly/3nhvM3M
November 13, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
oliviergodechot.bsky.social
The AxPo Observatory on Market Society Polarization at Sciences Po is offering a 2-year postdoctoral position focusing on socioeconomic polarization and fragmentation.
Ph.Ds in sociology, economics, political science, and related fields are encouraged to apply.
www.sciencespo.fr/axpo/applica...
Call for Applications for Postdoctoral Research Position
Call for Applications for Postdoctoral Research Position at the AxPo Observatory of Market Society Polarization at Sciences Po, Paris, FranceGeneral informationPosition Definition: Post-doctoral resea...
www.sciencespo.fr
November 13, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
schrillmann.bsky.social
Wir möchten Krisen mit der wachsharten Zuversicht eines Hildegard-Knef-Kopfes begegnen, der im Keller des Hamburger Panoptikums der Zukunft harrt.
Stark geschminkter Wachskopf Hildegard Knefs auf einem Regalbrett, Augen sind nach oben gerichtet, der Blick drückt eine Art Freude aus.
January 2, 2025 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Linus Westheuser
ninascholz.bsky.social
Ist die AfD die neue Arbeiterpartei? - Das fragen Roland Zschächner und ich uns in unserem neuen Radiofeature.

Wir fragen: warum wenden sich so viele Beschäftigte den Rechten zu – sogar Gewerkschafter und Betriebsräte? Wie reagieren die Gewerkschaften auf den Rechtsruck in den eigenen Reihen?
Gewerkschaften - Ist die AfD die neue Arbeiterpartei?
DGB und AfD - zwei Pole im politischen Spektrum. Doch viele Gewerkschaftsmitglieder wählen rechts. Doch es gibt auch Gegenbewegungen gegen den Rechtsruck.
share.deutschlandradio.de
November 12, 2025 at 7:12 AM