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Ben Ansell

@benansell.bsky.social

29K followers 980 following 5.2K posts

Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions, Nuffield & University of Oxford, FBA. http://benansell.substack.com. BBC Reith Lecturer 2023. Host BBC Radio 4 Rethink. Columnist for Prospect. Director, Centre for Advanced Social Science Methods (CASSM). .. more

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Ben W. Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, University of Oxford and, with David Samuels, editor of Comparative Political Studies.

Source: Wikipedia

Political science 47%

Economics 40%

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 34m

Cahokia did have a good amount of human sacrifice iirc

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 35m

Given Leo’s recent pronouncements clearly much too woke

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1h

Pyramids gushing with sacrificial blood? Sounds reasonable.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1h

Always a banger candidate

Reposted by Max Nathan

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1h

I love how the Isle of Man - and actual Crown dependency a few miles off the coast - is completely ignored, while these guys fixate on petrostates thousands of miles away.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 2h

Actually since Sparta is the model for British boarding schools and Machiavelli the model for the contemporary Conservative Party maybe we are more than halfway there.

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Reposted by Michael H. Whitworth

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 2h

What with all this the UK should emulate Dubai stuff, following hot on the heels of Singapore model, are there any other niche authoritarian city states we could go for? Brunei? Machiavelli’s Florence? Ancient Sparta?

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 14h

Fair play on that comment ;)

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Andrew Scott

Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 16h

This strikes me as a pretty major Brexit shift from Starmer.

Perhaps the beginning of 'Brexit is sh1t and has caused real economic damage'.

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 16h

Steven Swinford writes that the Opposition frontbench want the government to succeed on boats, so the argument is more about the economy. That is a political tactic, but they should in principle support the UK/France deal at scale as much more real world than Rwanda ever having the scale to deter

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 19h

“Pro-Brexit economist” Jonathan Portes there ;)

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 22h

Marie-us Aurelius

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 22h

Matthew Lynn has broken the containment zone of the Daily Telegraph! America, welcome to Brexit discourse.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 22h

Think I'm going to cancel my Post subscription and find some other local news source to support

Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 22h

Think I'm going to cancel my Post subscription and find some other local news source to support

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Steve Griffiths 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @cymry.bsky.social · 23h

Private Eye nails it

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 23h

Never say no to Ballmer

Reposted by Christina Pagel

Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 23h

Quite a coup for Zurich, a dark sign for America, and perhaps a missed opportunity for the UK.

Florian Scheuer @florianscheuer.bsky.social · 1d

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

🧵 1/7

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Anand Menon, Tim Leunig

Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 1d

Among the many possibilities for the next few years, the scenario of swapping one pair of dominant parties (Lab and Con) for another (Reform and LD) is intriguing, under-discussed and, in English elections, not entirely implausible either (several county councils made this leap in May)

Election Maps UK @electionmaps.uk · 1d

Aggregate Result of the 122 Council By-Elections (for 125 Seats) since the 2025 Local Elections:

RFM: 47 (+40)
LDM: 32 (+10)
CON: 13 (-15)
LAB: 12 (-30)
GRN: 11 (+3)
Ind: 5 (-4)
Local: 3 (-3)
SNP: 1 (-1)
PLC: 1 (=)

Explore: electionmaps.uk/byelections-...

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 1d

On the left is how the White House reacted to the Nobel Peace Prize announcement.

On the right is what President Trump posted about Maria Corina Machado back in January, just two weeks before nominations closed for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.

Steven Cheung * B @StevenCheung47
X.com
President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives.
He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.
The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
+
Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado and President-elect Gonzalez are peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the regime. The great Venezuelan American community in the United States overwhelmingly support a free Venezuela, and strongly supported me. These freedom fighters should not be harmed, and MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!
MODA
6.14k ReTruths 23.9k Likes
1/9/25, 2:14 PM

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Reposted by Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt, Cas Mudde , and 51 more Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt, Cas Mudde, Ben H. Ansell, Jan W. Mueller, Guntram B. Wolff, Christian Odendahl, Richard S.J. Tol, Colin F. Camerer, Robbert Sanderman, David Brady, Gabriel Felbermayr, Steven Van de Walle, Tomasz Mickiewicz, Alistair Munro, Michael A. Clemens, Cyrus Samii, Lucas Leemann, Francesco Saraceno, Laia Balcells, Andrew Curry, Paul Lehmann, Guy Grossman, John Mullahy, Joshua Goodman, David Dorn, Ingo Rohlfing, Daniel W. Drezner, Iikka Korhonen, Robert C. Richards, Aaron Sojourner, Daniel Huppmann, Julia Lynch, Rita Hamad, Stephen D. Murphy, Nazita Lajevardi, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Miguel Á. Malo, Henry Farrell, Dean Eckles, Maria Abreu, Dana R. Fisher, Jason Lyall, Brian Weatherson, Brooke Harrington, Bård Harstad, Christina Pagel, Jürgen Janger, Nicolai von Ondarza, Karsten Mäuse, Dietmar Fehr, Bartosz Bartkowski, Adam Tooze, Anita Gohdes

Florian Scheuer @florianscheuer.bsky.social · 1d

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1d

Jack has one of the must read Substacks and if anyone can keep up a daily memo that’s always interesting and varied it’s him. Look forward to seeing how this progresses.

Jack Kessler @jackkessler.bsky.social · 1d

My newsletter, Lines To Take, is changing.

Here’s what’s next — and why I hope you’ll join me.

✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/this-newsl...

Music was blaring, lights strobing, bodies gyrating. There was glitter everywhere. Welcome to Daybreaker, an early morning dance movement based in 33 cities around the world, where people come to “sweat, dance and connect with ourselves and each other”. It is also how I ended up in a nightclub at seven in the morning, sober and alone, approaching strangers to ask if they were having a good time.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky. My editor at the time had initially (and a little too cheerily, I felt) suggested I go walking with wolves somewhere in the Lake District. Back in 2019, Daybreaker was a noisy example of what seemed like a striking shift in our consumption habits. The so-called “experience economy” was booming then and — following the Covid-19 interruption — has come back with a vengeance

“The history of economic progress,” Joseph Pine II, who helped coin the term “experience economy” told me (and many others, I suspect, given the rhyme), “is paying a fee for what used to be free.”

Can you see where I’m going with this?

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Anand Menon

Jack Kessler @jackkessler.bsky.social · 1d

My newsletter, Lines To Take, is changing.

Here’s what’s next — and why I hope you’ll join me.

✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/this-newsl...

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1d

Blair had education education education. The current Labour government needs charisma charisma charisma.

Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 1d

I do wonder if Labour might look at the sorts of people dominating the discourse and dominating the content wars and maybe, just maybe, rethink the sorts of grey figures they routinely put up for interviews, instructed at that to be as cautious as possible. Things have changed. Their comms hasn’t.

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Colin Murray, Stuart White

Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 1d

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 1d

Man sounds like I’m due for execution on this basis.

Mark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 3d

If the government really wants to scrap degrees which deliver no value to the UK and indeed have led to £ billions in damage to the economy and culture of the UK then it just needs to scrap the Oxford PPE degree and arrest everyone who has taken it.

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Will Jennings, Pauline Stafford , and 4 more Ben H. Ansell, Will Jennings, Pauline Stafford, Federica Genovese, Colm O’Cinneíde, Tim Leunig, José Pina-Sánchez

Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 2d

Hollow laughter

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Nicolai von Ondarza

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 2d

“It’s far too soon to predict how the next election will shape up. We are roughly the same distance from Labour having to call a General Election, as we are from the last pandemic lockdown. Try to conceive of that amount of stuff still to happen.”

Quiet Riot @quietriotpod.bsky.social · 2d

🆕 Anti-Woke Wake: It the Tory Party dead or just resting? ☠️

💥 Tory Conference debrief
💥 France latest political soap
💥 A deal on Gaza - but antisemitism on the rise

An amazing episode with special guest @samfr.bsky.social.

🍊 open.spotify.com/episode/5JQF...

🍏 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/q...

Anti-Woke Wake: Is the Tory Party dead or just resting?

Podcast Episode · Quiet Riot · 09/10/2025 · 1h 13m

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Will Jennings , and 22 more Ben H. Ansell, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Will Jennings, Mary Feeney, Peter Campbell, Gernot Wagner, Jussi T. Eronen, Melanie C. Green, Janet Murray, David R. Miller, Michael J. Taylor, Jacob T. Levy, Rebecca M. Bratspies, David J. Berri, Evgeny Kuzmin, Mark Rice, Woodrow Hartzog, Richard M. Carpiano, Simon Lester, Isabelle Poutrin, Brandon Whitcher, Sean Latham, Constance Bantman, Giulio Mattioli, David Lay Williams

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 2d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Reposted by Ben H. Ansell

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 2d

My ideology is that we should give a super-competent guy lifetime dictatorial power so we can build a high-public-sector-capacity developmental state. Now to take a big sip of my coffee and see the competence level of the guy we've elevated to lead the country I live in.

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