Daniel Tavana
@danieltavana.bsky.social
1.3K followers 630 following 60 posts
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Penn State. I work on elections, identity, and political behavior in the Middle East and North Africa. danieltavana.com
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danieltavana.bsky.social
Our article on legislative cooptation and opposition in the Kuwait National Assembly is finally out at @bjpols.bsky.social!

Key findings: bsky.app/profile/dani...

Article link: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
rmkubinec.bsky.social
OK Sunday 8 am is not the best panel time. I get it.

BUT tomorrow I'm presenting idealstan alongside 3 other banger papers on ideal points & measurement modeling.

You want to know the latest & greatest in quantitative measurement, this is it.

West 120 @ 8 am 🫡

#apsa2025
papers for panel
danieltavana.bsky.social
It was my great pleasure to celebrate @natalie-letsa.bsky.social's "The Autocratic Voter: Partisanship and Political Socialization under Dictatorship" today at @apsa.bsky.social. Buy, read, and cite this incredibly important book!

www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...
danieltavana.bsky.social
For those in Vancouver, the Democracy and Autocracy Section will be holding our business meeting tomorrow (9/11) from 6:30-7:30pm at the Convention Center (West) Room 115. Our reception will be right after from 7:30-9:30pm at Steamworks Brewpub (375 Water Street). Come join us!
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
dziblatt.bsky.social
Vicente Valentim, Elias Dinas, & I came together to do this paper because we have all long shared an intution: mainstream center-right rhetoric shapes democratic norms. The hard part? Showing it empirically. We make some headway in this new paper. Grateful to @bjpols.bsky.social for publishing.
bjpols.bsky.social
NEW -

How Mainstream Politicians Erode Norms - cup.org/4lfeHvD

"we find that statements by mainstream politicians lead to more norm erosion than similar statements by radical-right politicians"

- @valentimvicente.bsky.social, Elias Dinas & @dziblatt.bsky.social

#OpenAccess
BJPolS abstract discussing the dynamics of mainstream and radical political rhetoric regarding anti-immigrant policies, highlighting differences in societal responses and enforcement norms based on the source of the rhetoric.
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
ernugent.bsky.social
I really want to believe that American public opinion still matters. It makes me feel better that most Americans don’t support these policies. But other non-democracies demonstrate that once institutions have been politically weaponized, public opinion matters significantly less.
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
reveconstudies.bsky.social
"Political brokers use social networks to identify & target reciprocal non-copartisans for vote buying. Parties recruit brokers central in networks to sway persuadable voters."

From @rduartegonzalez.bsky.social, Finan, @hlarreguy.bsky.social and Schechter:

www.restud.com/brokering-vo...

#Econsky
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
brucedesmarais.bsky.social
I had the fortune to help organize, speak at, and participate in, the second Open Scholarship Bootcamp at Penn State. The sessions emphasize resources that are helpful to maintaining open scientific workflows. Materials are openly available here! penn-state-open-science.github.io/bootcamp-202...
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
aalrababah.bsky.social
Apply to EuroWEPS 12/13! We're organizing the next EuroWEPS workshops at Bocconi (Nov 14) and EUI (Dec 15) to discuss designs/papers focusing on causal inference. No presentations, just constructive discussions. Early career scholars are especially welcome to apply! Submission deadline is Sep 30
danieltavana.bsky.social
Call for applications now open! @apsamena.bsky.social Methods Workshop on Engaged Research in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) web.apsanet.org/mena/
MENA
APSA MENA Workshops
web.apsanet.org
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
danieltavana.bsky.social
New preprint with @cmparreira.bsky.social and Lindsay Walsh posted to @socarxiv.bsky.social: "From Protest to Parliament: Lebanon’s October Revolution and the Rise of Movement Parties." Link: osf.io/preprints/so...
danieltavana.bsky.social
Second, the dynamics we analyze provide an important alternative to existing supply-side explanations of movement party success. Existing work focuses on movement parties themselves. But our framework sheds light on the extent to which voters respond to movement parties.
danieltavana.bsky.social
Our findings contribute to key debates in the social sciences. First, we show that protest movements can impact electoral outcomes. Failed uprisings can have a substantial and impactful afterlife - even in a context where governing parties are entrenched and rule collusively.
danieltavana.bsky.social
What drives this finding? Where governing parties were weaker and less present - which we proxy with turnout in the 2009 legislative election - the effect of exposure to protest on support for opposition-aligned lists was substantially higher.
danieltavana.bsky.social
We find that the uprising resulted in a 1.9 percentage point increase in support for the opposition - a 17% increase. We rule out the possibility that the effects were driven by district-specific dynamics, pre-uprising differences, and other confounders.
danieltavana.bsky.social
We combine these data with locality-level election results from the 2018 and 2022 legislative elections in Lebanon. We use a difference-in-differences design to analyze the effects of the Revolution on support for movement parties.
danieltavana.bsky.social
Our data comes from a unique event dataset - collected by CeSSRA - that documents the precise location of all protest events that took place during the uprising. Since 2017, CeSSRA has monitored and documented protest events in each locality throughout the country.
danieltavana.bsky.social
The October Revolution began on October 17, 2019, soon after the government announced a decision to implement a series of taxes on gasoline, tobacco, and VoIP calls on messaging applications like WhatsApp. The same day, protests erupted throughout the country.
danieltavana.bsky.social
We focus on the “party-movement nexus” in Lebanon, where an oversized governing coalition consisting of several parties has governed collusively since 2005. We examine the consequences of protest outcomes in the aftermath of the 2019 “October Revolution.”
danieltavana.bsky.social
Recently, movement parties have upended support for traditional parties and contributed to forms of electoral instability in many cases. Movement parties combine growing dissatisfaction with traditional parties and anti-systemic protest - in both democracies and autocracies.
danieltavana.bsky.social
New preprint with @cmparreira.bsky.social and Lindsay Walsh posted to @socarxiv.bsky.social: "From Protest to Parliament: Lebanon’s October Revolution and the Rise of Movement Parties." Link: osf.io/preprints/so...
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
bjpols.bsky.social
From May 2025 -

Legislative Cooptation in Authoritarian Regimes: Policy Cooperation in the Kuwait National Assembly - cup.org/4iVKa4R

- @danieltavana.bsky.social & Erin York

#OpenAccess
BJPolS abstract discussing how authoritarian regimes use legislative institutions to cope with economic and policy challenges, using the example of Kuwait's National Assembly and collaborative policy mechanisms.
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
babakr.bsky.social
If you’re curious the assassination of the IRGC commanders creates a rally around the flag. I suggest reading my recent coauthored article. #IRGC is not a liked in #Iran due to its participation in repression of oppositions. Some of Iranians actually celebrating it.

academic.oup.com/fpa/article/...
Who Rallies Round the Flag? The Impact of the US Sanctions on Iranians’ Attitude toward the Government
Abstract. While politicians often argue that economic sanctions can induce policy changes in targeted states by undermining elite and public support for th
academic.oup.com
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
jacobnyrup.bsky.social
A scary development in world politics is that dictators tend to stick around for longer
Reposted by Daniel Tavana
cmparreira.bsky.social
Last month, Lebanon held its first local elections since 2016. Over the past nine years, the country has experienced a series of upheavals and crises - yet the most remarkable feature of these elections was (mostly) how much they resembled previous ones. Some key takeaways /1