Dan Pemstein
@danpemstein.com
4.1K followers 1.1K following 58 posts
Political economist working mostly on democratic institutions, tech, political careers and party org, and measurement. I delete my older posts, except for some photos and research (re)shares. http://www.danpemstein.com https://digitalsocietyproject.org
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danpemstein.com
Happy to share this paper with Jeevan Baniya, @smeserve.bsky.social‬, and Brigitte Seim. We used multiple survey experiments to see how Nepali voters think about the trade-off between vote-buying and candidate provision of local public goods (schools, plumbing) in office. doi.org/10.1111/ajps... 1/
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
felixwiebrecht.bsky.social
New Working Paper 🚨

I am introducing the new dataset on Parliamentary Elites in Authoritarian Regimes (PEAR). It includes information on the composition of parliaments in 819 legislative terms in 130 autocracies from 1945 - based on over 200k individual-level observations.

tinyurl.com/48h68hmh
danpemstein.com
I think they call this the open exchange of ideas?
flglchicago.bsky.social
Here’s video of the incident
danpemstein.com
lp0 on fire
neongrey.bsky.social
all discourse aside, there is one machine with consciousness. it's printers. they are alive and conscious and they hate you and they'd take your arm clean off if you let them. never trust a printer.
danpemstein.com
Yeah, the actual work experience has been great. But I'm not sure I need a Bank email account (there's cake in the break room 1300 miles from me!), or the full suite of corporate ethics trainings to engage in such collaboration.
danpemstein.com
I repost this every time she posts it. Also, I have consulted for the World Bank. Not to say I wouldn't again, just I'll be thinking about this post while setting up my 2 factor auth and doing the onboarding training modules.
mariafarrell.bsky.social
Honest to God I know I'm a stuck record on this but I am never ever again doing anything for anyone without first finding out what their administrative and payment process is

Because if it's not
1) I send you an invoice, and
2) You pay me

(no BS hoop-jumping, no 3rd party processors)

I am OUT
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
mcbridetd.bsky.social
What Americans Die from?

And what the media reports on...

Our World in Data ourworldindata.org/does-the-new...
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
abuaardvark.bsky.social
Absurd discourse hack takes over irrelevant failing television news channel nobody watches, will get irritatingly great severance package in about a year when nobody watches after many many many think pieces everyone hate reads. Many terrible people get too much money each step of the way.
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
sjjphd.bsky.social
I don’t know if I’m late but this @tressiemcphd.bsky.social analysis is so good. Here’s a gift link
Opinion | Mourn, or Else
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
tressiemcphd.bsky.social
People think they’re taking down a rich intellectual sinecure but they’re mostly terrorizing committed public servants who make $58,000 a year after 15 years of experience at a school that has to budget creatively so students can access textbooks.
emayfarris.bsky.social
This new column by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social makes me think about when I recently had to talk to the police for yet another safety plan, I tried to “lighten” the mood by saying that we all knew this wasn’t my first rodeo. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...
For at least the past 15 years, my colleagues in academia have grappled with angry letters to university officials for doing their jobs. They have weathered campaigns for their firing. They have contended with an internet army obsessed with doxxing them, their parents, their kids. I’ve been contacted by the F.B.I. more than once in my career. Not because I hold any important state secrets or know a biker gang but because one of my colleagues has lived with so much sustained harassment from right-wing “activists” that it has become a matter of federal concern. Watch lists (one of which was constructed by Kirk’s organization) do not distinguish between public intellectuals at wealthy enclaves and hoi polloi who teach popular classes at cash-strapped schools. In either case, an army of trained provocateurs stands ready to destroy their lives to prove their bona fides as conservative activists.
danpemstein.com
Flashbacks to a V-dem dinner during the last shutdown where I ended up sitting next to the Swedish (deputy?) foreign minister, who wanted the only American in scolding distance to explain how this could be a thing. I may have panicked and shown him a picture of my fiscal cliff Halloween costume.
gelliottmorris.com
Government shutdowns are dumb. The way funding works is a policy choice, not inherent to the Constitution. Congress could pass a law today that automatically authorizes spending in perpetuity at the levels of the most recent appropriations bill. This is how other countries do it!
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
jamellebouie.net
this is, no exaggeration, some of the most loser shit i have ever seen in my life
atrupar.com
Hegseth: "As history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace and those who are willing to wage war to defend it. That's why pacifism is so naive and dangerous."
danpemstein.com
random and chaotic so much of this has been.
danpemstein.com
I was much more certain my NSF on internet politics was under threat, because it was partially about eliciting expert assessments of global digital misinformation flows. But it took them until April to really get their claws into NSF, so it seemed like it might weirdly survive. Which highlights how
danpemstein.com
CEPPS=consortium for elections and political process strengthening, one of the many orgs in the USAID orbit that suffered severe knock-on disruption.
danpemstein.com
I had skin in this game (AID-funded research in progress) and read p2025 before the election. I figured work in the democracy aid space was threatened downstream but was surprised when CEPPS (much less AID proper) quickly ceased to exist. For one thing, it still does exist, by law...
donmoyn.bsky.social
For example, Project 2025 and other people in Trump's circle called for reducing the size of USAID, but the idea of eliminating it (unlike, say, the Dept of Education) was not there. It as a DOGE-driven event, and DOGE did a lot of random shit.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-death-...
The destruction of USAID was remarkable in that it did not reflect any sort of broad-based consensus. While other actors in Trump's political environment—such as the Project 2025, or the budget blueprint from the Center for Renewing America, led by Trump's budget chief Russ Vought—called for reductions in USAID spending, they did not seek to eliminate it. The assault on USAID seemed disproportionately driven by the beliefs of one person, Musk. And those beliefs were largely disconnected from the reality of what USAID did.
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
danaelkurd.bsky.social
I'm glad to see so many people speaking up about the case at Cornell of egregious harassment of a faculty member and violation of academic freedom.

But let me tell you- your palestinian colleague has been saying this! Your palestinian colleague has likely already been a victim of the same behavior!
danpemstein.com
Gotta be a special kind of boring to be watchlisted for assigning AER articles.
danpemstein.com
I feel bad for the intern tasked with finding proof of my wokeness: "And finally, Daniel Pemstein of NDSU assigns mainstream American Economic Review articles on income inequality and racial discrimination. He also conducts research on political candidates’ use of “toxic” language on social media."
Speaking out: Did Charlie Kirk defend free speech for North Dakotans?
The horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk -- the right-wing media personality and co-founder of Turning Point USA -- and the political turmoil that has followed have rattled the nation. North
bismarcktribune.com
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
beebrookshire.bsky.social
In reporting this piece on the new trial for a Huntington's treatment, I was struck by one thing in particular:

The joy.

One of my sources wept for joy. He has spent his entire career studying this disease, he said it was the happiest day. www.sciencenews.org/article/hunt...
Huntington's progression slowed by experimental gene therapy
An experimental gene therapy slowed Huntington’s by up to 75 percent in a small clinical trial. While not a cure, it may give patients longer lives.
www.sciencenews.org
danpemstein.com
TBF, only one of these events involved pyrotechnics
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
dannagal.bsky.social
Something a brilliant colleague said that I think has gotten lost in the Kirk conversation is that part of how he was able to build a following and inspire young conservatives was precisely *because* of the free speech tradition that IS honored on most college campuses. I recall back in …
Reposted by Dan Pemstein
trevondlogan.bsky.social
Two years ago, @nber.org asked me to talk about my research on political violence during Reconstruction. Political violence is not just about intimidation, it is also related to thwarting and violently penalizing political success. Seems appropriate to revisit that today.

youtu.be/Wrdj4oLq4wk
2023, Trevon Logan, "Whitelashing: Black Politicians, Taxes, and Violence"
YouTube video by NBER
youtu.be