Simon Hix
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simonhix.bsky.social
Simon Hix
@simonhix.bsky.social

Stein Rokkan Chair in Comparative Politics, EUI. President-Elect, @epssnet.bsky.social. FBA, FRSA. Democracy, parties, elections, electoral systems etc. Live music. COYI

Simon Hix is a British political scientist, holder of the Stein Rokkan chair in comparative politics at the European University Institute in Florence. His main areas of research are voting in parliaments, democratic institutions, and EU politics. .. more

Political science 79%
Economics 10%
๐ŸŒ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ Published Today in PNAS Nexus ๐ŸŒ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ

How can we foster collective climate action?

- led by @dgoldwert.bsky.social, @smconstantino.bsky.social & @madalina.bsky.social
- 17 behavioral interventions, designed by 50 experts
- tested on >30000 US participants

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar... ๐Ÿงต 1/11

Yep! As a (now deeply embarrassed) co-author with this guy, I hold my hands up. Mea culpa.
Instead of reading even more about Matt Goodwin, I would like to read about a system that over years has enabled, defended, and empowered him. A system that discredited his critics and enjoyed him as an enfant terrible. A system that only listened when senior, white, male professors criticized him.
Instead of reading even more about Matt Goodwin, I would like to read about a system that over years has enabled, defended, and empowered him. A system that discredited his critics and enjoyed him as an enfant terrible. A system that only listened when senior, white, male professors criticized him.

And hereโ€™s the link to the paper! ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ doi.org/10.1177/0010...

We also find an interesting mechanism: the effect of policy loss is stronger for people who are more highly educated (who are more likely to have more information about what the EU does)
9/

This effect is robust across our 6 measures of EU policy outputs as well as with 2 different ways of conceptualising โ€œpolicy lossโ€: immediate (the distance to policies in the same year), or cumulative (distance to all policies prior to a given year).
8/

At the individual level, pooling <1.1 million respondents in the Eurobarometer surveys, the further EU policies are from an individualโ€™s preferences, the less they like it
7/

At the aggregate level, the EU was most popular when it delivered policies that were more centrist (so minimised the "policy loss" for most EU citizens) and became less popular when average policy loss was higher
6/

Across all of our measures of EU policies, what the EU has delivered has moved โ€œleftwardsโ€ over time, although some measures suggest a move back towards the centre in recent years
5/

To test this explanation we measure EU citizens (from almost 50 years of Eurobarometer surveys) and annual EU policy outputs (using 6 different methods) on the same scale
4/

Our explanation for this pattern is that, at the individual level, citizens support the EU more (less) if it delivers policies closer to (further from) their left-right preferences.
3/

What we do in the paper is try to explain why the relationship between political preferences and support for the EU has changed over time, e.g. why people on the right supported European integration most in the 1970s, and why the left support the EU most today.
2/
NEW PAPER ALERT! My paper, with @bjornhoyland.bsky.social , on how โ€œpolicy lossโ€ shapes support for the EU has just been published in @cpsjournal.bsky.social. Check it out!
1/

Eek! Tragic to see this in my old home town

Reposted by Simon Hix

Berlinโ€™s political fragmentation is, of course, nothing new. Rising fragmentation has been evident since the emergence of the Greens in the 1980s and the Left Party in the 1990s. Compared to the 2016 and 2021 state elections, Berlinโ€™s party system would actually be even a bit less fragmented.

A key European ally of the United States is preparing, together with European allies, for the possibility of invasion by the United States

This is a sentence I thought I would never write!
BREAKING: A full-scale airlift is running around the clock, transporting troops and military equipment to Greenland.
The operation is extensive, โ€œbeyond anything weโ€™ve tried before,โ€ a source tells DR. Danish F-35 fighter planes and warships from European allies involved.

www.dr.dk/nyheder/indl...
Stor operation i gang: Fly strรธmmer til Grรธnlandย med europรฆiske soldater
I flere dรธgn har militรฆre transportfly flรธjet i pendulfart mellem Danmark og Grรธnland. Fredag aften landede et stort antal soldater i Nuuk.
www.dr.dk
BREAKING: A full-scale airlift is running around the clock, transporting troops and military equipment to Greenland.
The operation is extensive, โ€œbeyond anything weโ€™ve tried before,โ€ a source tells DR. Danish F-35 fighter planes and warships from European allies involved.

www.dr.dk/nyheder/indl...
Stor operation i gang: Fly strรธmmer til Grรธnlandย med europรฆiske soldater
I flere dรธgn har militรฆre transportfly flรธjet i pendulfart mellem Danmark og Grรธnland. Fredag aften landede et stort antal soldater i Nuuk.
www.dr.dk

She's at it again! Another outstanding Substack by @laurenleek.eu, this time looking under the hood of AirBnB listings in London. Amazing analysis, with important policy implications, e.g. this quote
open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Iโ€™ll believe it when I see it โ€ฆ

Starmer ready for closer alignment with the EU 'in the national interest' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Starmer ready for closer alignment with the EU 'in the national interest'
It is the clearest indication yet the PM wants to pursue a closer relationship with Europe in a broader number of areas.
www.bbc.co.uk

Interesting analysis by @edwardluce.bsky.social, eg. why itโ€™s not going to be easy to run Venezuela, and this is (in part) about cutting off oil to Cuba
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Trump now owns Venezuela
The US president has a growing appetite for military adventure
giftarticle.ft.com
The story of Europeโ€™s economic decline while US is 'soaring' is everywhere.

But it is wrong. It is a myth.

Europe delivers more leisure, longer life expectancy, less inequality than the US.

Gabriel Zucman dismantles the myths.
Decline, what decline? The myth of dying Europe
There is a widespread view that, by comparison with the USA, Europe is in economic and social decline. But, Zucman argues, it's not true
eastangliabylines.co.uk

Interesting insights on the institutional implications of the EU decision last night
Article 20 TEU for โ€enhanced cooperationโ€œ is mentioned in the Conclusions of the European Council on the reparations loan for Ukraine. A smart move! It allows to go ahead without Orbรกn, Fico and Babiลก. Is the #EU24 the new EU? #EUCO 1/3

Reposted by Simon Hix

"Real communism has never been tried"

The cleavage inside the EU deepens.
โ€œThey [The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia] donโ€™t have to pay โ€” but we will make them pay for it [politically],โ€ said a senior European official
EU agrees โ‚ฌ90bn loan to Ukraine after frozen Russian asset plan fails
Money to be borrowed against blocโ€™s budget after leaders fail to agree on proposal using Moscowโ€™s funds
www.ft.com

Reposted by Simon Hix

Article 20 TEU for โ€enhanced cooperationโ€œ is mentioned in the Conclusions of the European Council on the reparations loan for Ukraine. A smart move! It allows to go ahead without Orbรกn, Fico and Babiลก. Is the #EU24 the new EU? #EUCO 1/3
โ€œThey [The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia] donโ€™t have to pay โ€” but we will make them pay for it [politically],โ€ said a senior European official
EU agrees โ‚ฌ90bn loan to Ukraine after frozen Russian asset plan fails
Money to be borrowed against blocโ€™s budget after leaders fail to agree on proposal using Moscowโ€™s funds
www.ft.com
NEW -

Quality Not Quantity: How a VAA Affected Voting Behavior in Three Large-Scale Field Experiments - https://cup.org/491pwNQ

- @fresejoris.bsky.social, @simonhix.bsky.social & @rlachat.bsky.social

#OpenAccess
๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช Published Today in @bjpols.bsky.social ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท

How a voting advice application affected voting behavior in three large-scale field experiments:

shorturl.at/2ekBj

TLDR of our study (with @simonhix.bsky.social & @rlachat.bsky.social) below ๐Ÿ‘‡ 1/14