Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

@alichtenheld.bsky.social

250 followers 280 following 14 posts

Political Scientist | Professor @unileiden.bsky.social | Author, "Guilt by Location." Expert on forced displacement, conflict, peacebuilding. Consultant for USAID, World Bank, State Dept., others. @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social PhD. Crossfit enthusiast.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Jan 8

Excited to announce my book is out with @cambridgeuppolisci.bsky.social! It provides a primer on wartime displacement (an issue that is, sadly, urgent and timely) and examines how, when, and why armed groups strategically displace civilians, drawing on fieldwork in Uganda, Syria, and elsewhere. 1/

2 3 17

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 15d

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review

Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.

www.bostonreview.net

200 1.9K 6.7K

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 12d

the research is clear: get yourself exposed to female peers

nber semigated version: www.nber.org/papers/w34269

6 30 130

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · 19d

It was an honor to discuss my book at the @thecrs.bsky.social's annual conference, and I am grateful for "Guilt by Location" receiving this year's CRS book award. If you missed the keynote, don't worry, you can still order the book today!
cup.org/4gOE8Cy
www.amzn.com/1009523473

Conflict Research Society @thecrs.bsky.social · 20d

Live at #CRS2025 🎤 Adam Lichtenheld, winner of the CRS Book of the Year, is presenting his groundbreaking research on strategic displacement as part of military & political tactics.

Grateful to our judges — and especially Corinne Bara for guiding the award process.

1 1 2

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · Jul 10

I would especially recommend the political science article referenced in the piece. Accommodation by mainstream parties of far right immigration policies does not win votes by taking the issue off the table, it loses votes for the mainstream parties
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

2 25 54

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Jul 9

Can't wait to read!

1 1

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Rana B. Khoury @rbkhoury.bsky.social · Jul 9

The proofs are in. It has a website. It has blurbs from amazing scholars. So I guess my book is real, and @cornellupress.bsky.social must agree!

Civilizing Contention: International Aid in Syria's War is coming out later this year 🤓

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Civilizing Contention by Rana B. Khoury | Paperback | Cornell University Press

In Civilizing Contention, Rana B. Khoury asserts that to understand civilian and refugee activism in war, we must regard the international actors and organizations that enter the scene to help. When.....

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu

11 6 30

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Jane Coaston @janecoaston.bsky.social · Jul 4

one of the stranger phenomena in American life is that hate is supposed to flow in one direction (rural people get to hate urban people, Republicans get to hate Democrats) and if the hate goes the other way people pretend as if this is very upsetting.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · Jul 4

The media made a HUGE deal out of "basket of deplorables" and "cling to their guns or religion."

But, of course, it will totally ignore Trump saying he hates Democrats: "I hate them. I believe they hate their country."

yedois @yedois.bsky.social · Jul 4

in addition to his "shylocks" comment, i can't imagine the media backlash if Biden said anything like from this screenshot - that he "hates Republicans" - and i'm also tired of having this "IMAGINE IF BIDEN!" thought experiment but it's just a constant reminder of the double standards

160 1.9K 7.4K

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · Jul 1

39 1.3K 5.9K

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · Jun 30

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens.

Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important".

Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary.

substack.com/redirect/169...

4 5.1K 9.4K

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Daniel Radosh @radosh.bsky.social · Jun 26

I feel like I'm losing my mind. Here is the transcript of what Zohran Mamdani actually said about the phrase "globalize the intifada." This is his "refusal to disavow it." This is what has people terrified. Just fucking read it.

Source: podscripts.co/podcasts/the...

Q: So I wonder what you think about that, about the phrase “globalize the intifada” and what we've seen as some anti-semitism coming from the left-wing protesters.

A: The first thing as you were saying is anti-semitism is a real issue in our city and it's one that can be captured in statistics, the ones that you're citing. It's also one that you will feel in conversations you have with Jewish New Yorkers across the city. And I remember one conversation I had with a friend of mine after the horrific war crime of October 7th. He was telling me that he went for Shabbat services at his temple and he was facing forward when he heard the door open. And he turned back with a chill going up his spine because he didn't know who was coming in. And that's more than a year ago.

And then just a few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a Jewish man in Williamsburg who told me that the same door he would keep unlocked for decades is one that he now locks out of a fear of what could happen in his own neighborhood. And I think that this is something that has to be the focus of the next mayoral administration, is not just talking about it, but tackling it. And these are the conversations that have informed our commitment around increasing funding for anti-hate crime programming by 800% in our Department of Community Safety.

To the question of language that's being used. I am someone who I would say am less comfortable with the idea of banning the use of certain words and that I think it is more evocative of a Trump style approach to how to lead a country. And-

Q: Does that just make you uncomfortable? Like the phrase globalizing intifada. And like the phrase from the river to the sea, does that make you uncomfortable? Or do you think-

A: Okay, those are different. Those are super different.

Q: They're not really.

A: Those are like different genres.

Q: I'm sorry, I'm asking so wrong. Then they're not really different to me. And to some people they are not different.

A: I know people for whom those things mean very different things. And to me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights. And I think what's difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw ghetto uprising into Arabic because it's a word that means struggle. And as a Muslim man who grew up post-911, I'm all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning. And I think that's where it leaves me with a sense that what we need to do is focus on keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe. And the question of the permissibility of language is something that I haven't ventured.

200 2.9K 8.8K

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Jason "Red5" Lyall @jaylyall.bsky.social · Jun 22

What remains of USAID? Practically nothing ("a shell") and millions will die because of Trump and Musk

What Remains of U.S.A.I.D. After DOGE’s Budget Cuts? (Gift Article)

The few hundred programs that survived DOGE’s purge reveal the future of foreign aid.

www.nytimes.com

4 26 43

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Scott Shapiro @scottjshapiro.bsky.social · Jun 21

Great job everyone

15 50 200

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · Jun 21

Job Garcia’s kidnapping by the Trump administration is the top story on the LA Times website right now.

www.latimes.com/california/s...

A 37-year-old U.S. citizen who was tackled to the ground and arrested after filming federal agents at Home Depot on Thursday said he was held for more than an hour near Dodger Stadium, where agents boasted about how many immigrants they arrested.
"How many bodies did you guys grab today?" he said one agent asked.
"Oh, we grabbed 31," the other replied.
"That was a good day today," the first agent responded.
The two high-fived, as Job Garcia sat on the asphalt under the sun, he said.
Garcia was released on Friday from a downtown federal detention center. No apparent criminal charges have yet to be filed. He is one of several U.S citizens arrested during enforcement operations in recent days. Department of Homeland Security officias sav some trave ilegaly

11:04 C
•ll 5G+ 824)
latimes.com
"You wanted it, you got it," the man yelled.
An agent handcuffed him so hard "that there was no circulation running to my fingers," Garcia said.
Pinned down, Garcia had difficulty breathing.
"That moment, I thought I could probably die here," he said.
The agent put Garcia's phone back in his pocket. The recording kept running.
As Garcia was put into a vehicle, his video captured an agent twice saying: "I've got one back here."
"You got one what?" Garcia shot back. "You got one what?"
He said an agent told him in broken Spanish to "wait here,' though it could not be heard on the video. -

11:04 €
• 5G+ 824)
latimes.com
"I f- speak English, you f- dumbass," he clearly shouts back.
No agent asked if he was an American citizen, he said. Nobody asked for identification.
"They assumed that I was undocumented," he said later in an interview.
The video ends after about four minutes, while he is waiting in the van.
CALIFORNIA
Raid at a Home Depot in Hollywood shatters an immigrant refuge
June 20, 2025
Garcia asked an agent to get his wallet from his car, so he could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Another agent retrieved his ID, but he remained handcuffed.
They were so tight, his hands hegan to swell.

Garcia asked an agent to get his wallet from his car, so he could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Another agent retrieved his ID, but he remained handcuffed.
They were so tight, his hands began to swell.
The agents switched him to handcuffs that looked like shoelaces. They took off around a corner, stopped to shuffle him into another van and sped off down the 101 Freeway.
"I smeared my blood in their seat," he said.
And he thought, "They're going to remember me."

66 2.6K 6.2K

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · Jun 21

Every time that Elon Musk makes a claim about a near future technological capability, remember he promised people would be on Mars by now but instead his rockets keep exploding

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · Jun 21

It’s time for a major shift toward thinking about preserving knowledge in hard copy for the Canticle For Leibowitz -scale long term, before this guy turns all our accounts digital information into self-reinforcing White Genocide propaganda.

Buy books, is what I’m saying.

Elon Musk @ X @elonm...

We will use Grok 3.5 (maybe we should call it 4), which has advanced reasoning, to rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors.
Then retrain on that.

Far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data.

1 3 14

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · Jun 19

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

560 8.6K 29K

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Jun 3

My book, "Guilt by Location," has been selected as the 2025 Book of the Year by the Conflict Research Society.

I struggle to muster much delight, given how we're turning our backs on the millions of people affected by displacement. But I am grateful to CRS & everyone who made the project possible.

2 4

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Apr 22

📰 Read the op-ed: www.thenewhumanitarian.org/opinion/2025...

📄 Read the working paper: osf.io/preprints/so...

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

lnkd.in

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Apr 22

At a time when many countries are limiting asylum, Kenya has moved toward greater refugee inclusion. Our results show broad public support for these measures—including granting refugees work rights, access to services, and free movement—driven by humanitarian concerns and perceived economic gains.

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Apr 22

What do citizens think about refugee integration? In a new op-ed w/ Mae MacDonald & Tolossa Asrat for @newhumanitarian.bsky.social, we share findings from a nationally representative survey of 3,300 Kenyans on attitudes toward the country's new refugee policy (refugee.go.ke/kenya-shirik...)

The Kenya Shirika Plan: Overview and Action Plan | Department of Refugee Services

The Kenya Shirika Plan: Overview and Action Plan

refugee.go.ke

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Apr 2

Congrats @kaimthaler.bsky.social, can't wait to read it!

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Mar 31

Come work with us!

abbey steele @abbeyst.bsky.social · Mar 31

📣 excited to announce a 2-year post-doc at the University of Amsterdam @rpa-cs-uva.bsky.social on government responses to displacement project w/ me, @stephrschwartz.bsky.social & Adam Lichtenheld.
- Closing date 30 April, starts fall 2025.
- More info & to apply:
werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

Vacancy — Postdoctoral Position with the Conflict & Society Team

Are you a recent social sciences PhD who has conducted cutting-edge research on forced displacement and migration? Do you have experience conducting mixed-methods research? The “Conflict & Society” Re...

werkenbij.uva.nl

1 2

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Gaia Vince @wanderinggaia.bsky.social · Mar 27

Brain drain

Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · Mar 27

We polled Nature readers to ask if they were thinking of leaving the US for jobs abroad. Three-quarters of them (who said they were US-based scientists) said yes. 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving

More than 1,600 readers answered our poll; many said they were looking for jobs in Europe and Canada.

www.nature.com

7 20

Adam Lichtenheld, PhD @alichtenheld.bsky.social · Mar 18

I'm thrilled that my book is a finalist for the #CRSBookPrize2025. Some uplifting news during a dark time. If you haven't gotten your copy yet, order today! 📚📚
cup.org/4gOE8Cy
www.amzn.com/1009523473

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Lee David Dalton @leedaviddalton.bsky.social · Mar 15

Anyone who thinks any university faculty anywhere in the US is full of Maoists, or has more than one or two Maoist cranks, should try organizing a faculty union—or chairing a faculty senate, or a department, or even just a single faculty committee

joycecaroloates.bsky.social @joycecaroloates.bsky.social · Mar 15

(I am shocked, actually; I had not thought of Bret Stephens as being so, well--stupid, uninformed. he sounds here like a rightwing talk-radio lunatic spewing lies about "commies" in places he has never visited & knows nothing about first-hand or even reliably second-hand. N Y Times columnist?)

Eric Klinenberg @ericklinenberg.bsky.social · Mar 15

One columnist, a professional pundit, is living in a paranoid delusion. The other, a sociologist, is living in America.

28 110

Reposted by Adam Lichtenheld, PhD

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · Mar 6

I get it, but he got 49% of the vote, & the only way to defeat this is for all of these people - the longtime GOP hawks, the university presidents, the CEOs, the societal organization leaders, the religious leaders, etc. - to collectively stand up & speak out. The head-down quiet stuff always fails.

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · Mar 6

This is what competitive authoritarianism looks like www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/u...

5 34 130