An excellent (although deeply depressing) piece by Thomas Edsall, with some great interviews with top US political scientists.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Step 1: Cut funding for food stamps
Step 2: Stop measuring hunger
Step 3: There's no evidence cuts to food stamps led to a rise in hunger
www.wsj.com/economy/trum...

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion.

Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

How am I meant to code this for WhoGov and Paths to Power?

Selling out democracy when they could easily win the fight

Velkommen til frokostdebatt fredag 19. september!

Meld deg på her👉 www.uio.no/om/aktuelt/u...

@unioslo-jus.bsky.social @statsvitenskap.bsky.social @unioslo-svfak.bsky.social @uio.no

Let’s go with the idea that these drones over Poland mistakenly ended up there. All the more reason for NATO to announce a no-fly-zone over Western Ukraine in order to prevent such unfortunate mistakes in the future. Simple. Close the skies.

🚨 New publication alert! 🚨
Why do some people keep voting throughout their lives while others drop out? And how do authoritarian elections - even uncompetitive ones- shape citizens’ habits?
Ksenia Northmore-Ball and I tackle these questions in my new paper, now out in @electoralstudies.bsky.social.

For the love of democracy, STOP using "colour revolution" as a slur!! The colour revolutions were real, enthusiastic, domestic social mobilizations against corruption and electoral fraud. The claim that they were malign outside interference is literal russian propaganda.

Big congratulations, Amalie!!

I’m very happy to share that the first paper of my PhD, «From the streets to the ballots: Protests, polls and Polarization in Hong Kong» has been published online in @democratization.bsky.social

It is open access, and you can read it here:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Ezra Klein is right and it matters he's saying this. The question is not "funding the government" or "shutting down the government."

It's funding *this* government versus shutting down *this* government. It's not the definite article existing independent of who's in power. It is who's in power.

One of the most remarkable things of the last 9 months is how many Americans seem to believe the President is all powerful and Congress has no say.
Actually Congress has been ineffective by choice. It has immense power if it had the courage to use it.

🥳🍾🥂

I am honored to have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant towards my project "Governing elites since the dawn of modern democracy" (GETGOV).

It allows me to continue to advance this research agenda; the goal is to build a database on governing elites from 1789 and up to today + much more.

#ERCStG

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this year's WhoGov workshop on Political Elites! It is amazing to see so much great research presented on political elites and meet so many great people.

And thank you to @inalkristiansen.bsky.social and @jonaswschmid.bsky.social for co-organizing the event

Looking much forward to seeing @matthiasdilling.bsky.social present his new book at @statsvitenskap.bsky.social tomorrow at the Comparative Institutions and Regime-seminar series.

Trump er ved at forandre USA til det vi i diktaturforskningen kalder for et personalistisk regime. Det er et regime, hvor lederen siger "hop", så er der kun ét svar: "Hvor højt?". Eller hvis lederen siger, at 2+2 = 5, ja, så er den officielle version, at 2+2 altså er lig fem.

1/4

Intervjuet i Aftenposten: Det ser dessverre bare verre og verre ut i USA. Mellomvalget blir nøkkelen for om det amerikanske demokratiet overlever Trump, tror jeg. (Og det kommer ikke til å bli et vanlig mellomvalg)

www.aftenposten.no/verden/i/93R...

Introducing the Opposition Movements and Groups Dataset 1789–2019 in @cpsjournal.bsky.social together with @mariannedahl.bsky.social @chknutsen.bsky.social @sirianned.bsky.social @hannefjelde.bsky.social @torewig.bsky.social

Read about the paper👇

Or dive right into the data👉 www.prio.org/data/39

I sincerely second this point! Thank you so much, everyone!!

Read the full article in Comparative Political Studies: doi.org/10.1177/0010...

🔑 Key findings:
• Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to foster democratization after 1900— but outcomes depend on who participates and what they want.
• Students, workers & intellectuals drive democratic change.
• Peasants, middle classes & militaries usually don’t.

We show:
• OMG covers pro-democracy, anti-liberal & pro-regime campaigns.
• Social bases are diverse—no group dominates > 1/8 of movements.
• Ideologies shifted: nationalism, conservatism, liberalism → socialism → democracy & human rights, with nationalism constant.