Pepper Culpepper
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pculpepper.bsky.social
Pepper Culpepper
@pculpepper.bsky.social

Professor of Government & Public Policy, Oxford; Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy (on FT's What to Read in 2026; https://linktr.ee/billionairebacklash); www.pepperculpepper.net .. more

Pepper Dagenhart Culpepper is an American political scientist.

Source: Wikipedia
Political science 43%
Economics 30%

Thanks Jerome! Excited it’s finally out.
New from @pculpepper.bsky.social, just arrived in time for book/class/grant application. So many uses.

Billionaire Backlash is published today! (If you are in the US, this is a teaser -- out March 17 there). I had a fantastic conversation about the book with @hugorifkind.bsky.social from Times Radio yesterday. Link below (interview starts at about 50:30). Or join us for the launch in Oxford tonight.

Reposted by Anne Applebaum, Mariana Mazzucato, Stephen M. Walt , and 181 more

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
youtu.be
Minneapolis is a place that means a lot to me, so I wrote a short Substack about the city, its people, and what we all owe them.

benansell.substack.com/p/my-minneap...
My Minneapolis
An ode to a city that knows who it is
benansell.substack.com

Generous review of Billionaire Backlash in today’s FT. 🙏 Book is in stores this week!
"Well-timed, tightly written" and "admirably international in its approach."

⭐ The @financialtimes.com reviews @pculpepper.bsky.social's new book 'Billionaire Backlash'. 👇
www.ft.com/content/690e...
Home - Financial Times
News, analysis and opinion from the Financial Times on the latest in markets, economics and politics
FT.com
Free to read for a limited period from @pspolisci.bsky.social -

From Bookworm to Browser: The Decline of Books in Political Science Scholarship - cup.org/3WfnBiX

- Alixandra B. Yanus & Phillip J. Ardoin

#FirstView
OpenAI exec James Dyett calling out the cowardice

Reposted by Will Jennings

Many people think crypto is a scam. Why is it not more heavily regulated? We look at attitudes after the FTX scandal, showing that scandal coverage differed between left and right media. Conservatives who got their news from the left (eg NYT), and vice versa, wound up more moderate. Media matters. 👇
📰How do scandals shape support for crypto rules?

➡️P D Culpepper, T Lee & R Shandler find that after the FTX scandal, news exposure boosted Democrats’ support for regulation, while Republicans shifted only when exposed to regulatory framing cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView
💡 Research from Vice Dean @pculpepper.bsky.social features in the @economist.com latest article suggesting that persistent pessimism has become one of the global economy’s biggest constraints. 👇
www.economist.com/finance-and-...
Pessimism is the world’s main economic problem
Gloomy expectations are starting to matter more than the data
www.economist.com

Brilliant article by @robertshrimsley.bsky.social on how Grok’s undressing of minors might be the Waterloo for the assault of Big Tech on democracy. The full analysis of what this looks like is coming out 29 January in our book #billionairebacklash
A warning shot to our tech overlords ft.trib.al/XehaMct | opinion
A warning shot to our tech overlords
Democratic history is a timeline of states acting to curb over-mighty figures, from kings to business tycoons
ft.trib.al
📰How do scandals shape support for crypto rules?

➡️P D Culpepper, T Lee & R Shandler find that after the FTX scandal, news exposure boosted Democrats’ support for regulation, while Republicans shifted only when exposed to regulatory framing cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView
“The American people deserve to know that the central bank is led by a total slut,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said of the photo, promising that more sexually explicit images of Powell were on the way.
DOJ Releases Jerome Powell Deepfake Nudes
WASHINGTON—Asserting that the images were “100% authentic,” the Justice Department released Monday what appeared to be deepfake nudes of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. “The American people deser...
theonion.com

🤣

Today’s page 1 story is rightly about the US administration’s attempt to bully the Fed. But it’s not just the US government that is trying to intimidate notionally independent agencies to prevent them from doing their job. Giant firms love it when governments stop enforcing competition rules.
UK competition watchdog cleared every merger in 2025 after government pressure
CMA chair Marcus Bokkerink was ousted a year ago over concerns the regulator was hampering Labour’s pro-growth agenda
www.ft.com

Congratulations @adambonica.bsky.social on a brilliant, moving and optimistic temporary valediction as he prepares to celebrate one of life’s great wonders. Read this, it’s right, and it will make you feel hope in these grim times.
The Wall Looks Permanent Until It Falls
On the optimism of preparation in a time of democratic decay.
data4democracy.substack.com

The systemic subterfuges were simpler in communism, where it was just they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. If socialism died because of too many meetings, AI overlordism may die because there is no there there.
The FT has listed Prof Pepper Culpepper's upcoming book 'Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy' on their 2026 reading list. 📚
https://ow.ly/4czw50XSrsX

👉 Why not join us for the launch? Register below
https://ow.ly/uaja50XSrsQ
Blavatnik Book Launch: Billionaire Backlash
Join us for the launch of Billionaire Backlash: The Age of Corporate Scandal and How It Could Save Democracy, the new book by Pepper Culpepper and Taeku Lee on the surprising story of how corporate scandals - from Enron to the Facebook privacy scandal - change the way the world works for the better.
ow.ly

If you want to know how our forthcoming book Billionaire Backlash intersects with Kim Kardashian, check out this video my daughter made me to speak the 'young people'.
EVENT: Blavatnik Book Launch: Billionaire Backlash

Join Vice Dean Prof Pepper Culpepper for a conversation on the surprising story of how corporate scandals can change the way the world works for the better.

📆 29 Jan, 5:30pm

Register ⬇️
https://ow.ly/jaQo50XRQzv

It’s important to keep calling out conflict of interest issues around the current administration’s crypto regime. When things go wrong, the record of rottenness will be clear. Good for @talkingpointsmemo.com and @propublica.org for doing their job.
Top DOJ Official Shut Down Enforcement Against Crypto Companies While Holding More Than $150,000 in Crypto Investments talkingpointsmemo.com/news/top-doj...
Top DOJ Official Shut Down Enforcement Against Crypto Companies While Holding More Than $150,000 in Crypto Investments
This article first appeared at ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses...
talkingpointsmemo.com

We have now entered the alternative universe where big oil companies are the adults in the room 🤔
a lot of interesting revelations between the lines of this story www.politico.com/news/2026/01...
a lot of interesting revelations between the lines of this story www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

💯
A deluge of work on regime change after the 2003 invasion of Iraq yielded strong (and rare) agreement in IR: it doesn't work & has terrible consequences. @profdownes.bsky.social's book Catastrophic Success lays it out, but it's right there in the title. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
A deluge of work on regime change after the 2003 invasion of Iraq yielded strong (and rare) agreement in IR: it doesn't work & has terrible consequences. @profdownes.bsky.social's book Catastrophic Success lays it out, but it's right there in the title. www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Reposted by David Lazer

“A recurring feature of bubbles is how often they find new ways of democratising gambling.”

Hard to time, but not hard to spot. Incisive from @financialtimes.com’s John Plender.
How the bubble bursts
AI-fuelled market euphoria is a new telling of an old story that will not play out differently this time, writes John Plender — but it may have some way still to go
www.ft.com