Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Pedro Magalhães @pcmagalhaes.bsky.social · 26d

Long ago, in a study of the democratic attitudes in Germany, Dalton raised the possibility of “Fragebogendemokraten” (questionnaire democrats): people who hesitate to express their sincere dislike for “democracy” in surveys, providing instead the “socially desirable” response (1)

2 12 18

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Aug 22

🗃️ New data is in it, too!
As part of the DANGER project, we collected new data on the position of 387 parliamentary parties and 30 electoral alliances competing in 130 elections of 25 interwar European democracies. This data is published along with the AIEEDA dataset: lnkd.in/eAwbbQqC
(4/4)

Danger

www.erc-danger.de

1

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Aug 22

3️⃣ Measures of polarization that integrate multiple policy dimensions outperform unidimensional measures of polarization.
4️⃣ While separately measuring polarization and fragmentation, we can analyze their distinct effects, which was not possible with most common polarization indices.
(3/4)

1 3

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Aug 22

Our key findings are:
1️⃣ Too high levels of polarization were counterproductive for the survival of democracies in interwar Europe, but so were too low levels of polarization.
2️⃣ Low levels of fragmentation aggravated the negative effects of too little and too much polarization.
(2/4)

1

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Aug 22

📄 🚨 New Research on Polarization, Fragmentation, and Democracy in @democratization.bsky.social

Nils-Christian Bormann and I explore the impact of ideological polarization and fragmentation on the democratic systems of interwar Europe: lnkd.in/erjJr9qF
#polarization #democracy #data #history (1/4)

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

lnkd.in

1 8 14

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Jacob Edenhofer @jacobedenhofer.bsky.social · Apr 17

Some thoughts on the strategic rationale behind the "Brandmauer” – the cordon sanitaire vis-à-vis the AfD – and the challenges associated with maintaining it. Seems pertinent, given that senior CDU/CSU figures regularly float the idea of ditching it and exploring avenues for closer cooperation.

8 29 72

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Catherine E. de Vries @catherinedevries.bsky.social · Apr 16

My sabbatical leave allowed me to reflect on my professional life.

As I’ve stepped into more senior roles in academia (plus gotten a bit older), I often get asked:
 “How do you keep writing academic articles, policy work, opinion pieces, while juggling everything else?”

My answer: skillpower

🧵

10 40 230

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Apr 15

We finally published the Archive of Interwar Europe Election Data and Assemblies (AIEEDA)! 🗳️💽🤓 Find out more about party positions, cabinet formation, and parliamentary elections in 25 European democracies between 1919 and 1939! We also collected geo-referenced data for 6 countries! 🗺️📍
rdcu.be/ehRgD

Introducing the Archive of Interwar Europe Election Data & Assemblies (AIEEDA)

Scientific Data - Introducing the Archive of Interwar Europe Election Data & Assemblies (AIEEDA)

rdcu.be

1 9 18

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

MEDem @medem.bsky.social · Apr 10

🎉 Big step for #MEDem! We’ve officially applied for the #ESFRIroadmap2026— backed by 15 governments, 1,000+ researchers & 100+ institutions/associations.
One more milestone toward building Europe’s infrastructure for comparative #DemocracyResearch ✅
Read more on our #MEDemBlog 👉

MEDem has applied for ESFRI Roadmap 2026: Shaping the Future of European Democracy Research - Monitoring Electoral Democracy

MEDem has applied for inclusion on the ESFRI Roadmap 2026: Shaping the Future of European Democracy Research On April 8, 2025, MEDem (Monitoring Electoral Democracy) took a major next step toward shap...

www.medem.eu

3 16 38

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

David Mair @davidmair4.bsky.social · Apr 7

Do you care about democracy in the EU? @ec.europa.eu wants to hear your views on disinformation, information manipulation, elections, free media, civil society, societal resilience, citizen participation and engagement.
Researchers - share your evidence!
Deadline 26 May
ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...

European Commission - Have your say

ec.europa.eu

2 4

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Übermedien @uebermedien.de · Mar 31

Leben auf Okinawa in Japan so viele Hundertjährige wie nirgends sonst auf der Welt? Nö. Medien behaupten das trotzdem immer wieder. Jetzt ohne Paywall lesen: uebermedien.de/103765/japan...

Japan: Das Märchen von den vielen Hundertjährigen

Viele Medien berichten immer wieder, dass auf Okinawa in Japan so viele Hundertjährige leben sollen wie nirgends. Doch das stimmt nicht.

uebermedien.de

1 9 60

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Mar 27

Quick reminder: Join us on August 1, 2025 for a short online conference discussing your research ideas! 😎

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Feb 17

Are you a PhD student or early career PostDoc researching how citizens and parties behave in democracies, what factors weaken democracies, and what factors strengthen them? Are you currently working on one of your first academic manuscripts? We are organizing a workshop just for you! Please share!

5 4

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

GESIS Training @gesistraining.bsky.social · Mar 27

📣 Last Chance to join!
#GESISworkshops

GESIS Training @gesistraining.bsky.social · Jan 21

🚀 Boost Your Spatial Data Skills!

Looking to take your geospatial data processing to the next level? Our advanced #GESISworkshop has you covered!

🛰️ Access geospatial data via APIs
🗺️ Handle & visualize complex raster datacubes
📊 Integrate with datasets like survey data

tinyurl.com/04-25-adv-ge...

GESIS Workshop |
Advanced Geospatial Data for Social Scientists |
28 to 29 April 2025 |
Online |
Dennis Abel & Stefan Jünger (both GESIS)

3 3

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Mar 19

HarDIS will extend Party Facts, re-think how we can together maintain linkage key databases as a community, and finally, harmonize data for voters' and parties' left-right positions. Check out Party Facts, here: partyfacts.herokuapp.com

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Mar 19

Earlier this month, Paul Bederke had the opportunity to attend the 1st OSCARS Annual Meeting in Rome (March 3–4, 2025), where he represented our HarDIS project – Harmony in the Democratic Ideological Space.
oscars-project.eu/projects/har...

HarDIS - Harmony in the Democratic Ideological Space | OSCARS

In today’s democracies, the relationship between political parties and voters plays a critical role in shaping political outcomes. However, research on this interaction, including party responsiveness...

oscars-project.eu

1 3 14

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

MEDem @medem.bsky.social · Mar 3

In about a month, we submit our application for the ESFRI Roadmap 🇪🇺
Help us reach 1,000 researchers by showing your support here: forms.gle/dm8K4xFgXD9b...
⚙️ Regardless, we’re sure you’ll find MEDem’s tools & services useful once they’re live. We’re already working on first prototypes this year! 🏗️📊

22 25

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Feb 26

The actual datasets are now also available online via the Harvard Dataverse: 🕵‍♀️ doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...

3 4

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Feb 21

Also, this is the first election that I have heard several non-political scientists talk about strategically voting for Die Linke, with the goal of supporting the “left-wing” in the Bundestag - also from people who have never considered voting for Die Linke, before. Exit polls will be interesting!

3

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · Feb 21

Basierend auf einer Vielzahl von Datenquellen zeigen wir in unserem Research Brief eine Sache: Verluste an die radikale Rechte sind nur marginal relevant für die elektorale Krise der Sozialdemokratie. Anders gesagt: heutige Wähler von radikal rechts sind keine früheren Sozialdemokraten.

pw-portal @pw-portal.bsky.social · Feb 21

Haben Stimmenverluste an die radikale Rechte die Krise der Sozialdemokratie (mit-)verursacht? Anhand verschiedener Datenquellen zeigen @tabouchadi.bsky.social, @thmskrr.bsky.social, @markuswagner.bsky.social & Daniel Bischof in Teil 5 der #PPRNet, dass diese These ein Mythos ist. #BTW2025 #polisky

Portal für Politikwissenschaft – Der Mythos der Stimmenverluste an die radikale Rechte

www.pw-portal.de

2 22 52

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Sarah de Lange @sldelange.bsky.social · Feb 21

This overview deserves another share, important to be informed of the extent of the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration

Political Quarterly @politicalquarterly.bsky.social · Feb 20

"So this is how liberty dies".

@chrischirp.bsky.social is categorising 69 Trump administration actions from the last 3 weeks and showing how they align with the authoritarian playbook.

Read now:

#USpolitics #Trump

https://buff.ly/3EIco4L

4 23

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften @gesis.org · Feb 21

#GESISblog #blog
Data Spotlight #7 on the GESIS blog: Dr. Alex Jedinger and Dr. Christina Eder introduce a thematic data collection on elections and political attitudes:

blog.gesis.org/data-...

Data Spotlight #7

As dedicated data curators, we're excited to showcase curated data collections that will hopefully ignite your research interests. Today we present you: Thematic Data Collection on Elections and Political Attitudes With the Bundestag elections on

blog.gesis.org

4 6

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · Feb 20

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.”
• The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives.
• The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000.

Each point represents a federal agency:
• Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs.
• Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs.

Key Observations:
• Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates.
• Notable targeted agencies include:
• HHS (Health & Human Services)
• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
• NIH (National Institutes of Health)
• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
• Dept. of Education
• USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development)
• The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies.
• A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size.

Takeaway:

The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology.

Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

260 4.8K 11K

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Katrin Weller @kwelle.bsky.social · Feb 20

*JOB* befristete Stelle bei @gesis.org im Kontext des Aufbaus eines Datenportals für die Rassismus- und Rechtsextremismusforschung (DP-REX) speziell zu online Inhalten über AVERA datenportal-rechtsextremismus.de/rex-forschun....
Ausschreibung unter: www.hidden-professionals.de/HPv3.Jobs/ge...

Wissenschaftliche*n Mitarbeiter*in Community Datentreuhand

GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften ist eine von Bund und Ländern finanzierte, international tätige sozialwissenschaftliche Einrichtung der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.Vorbehaltlich der finalen...

www.hidden-professionals.de

4 2

Reposted by Lea Kaftan

Daniel Saldivia Gonzatti @dasalgon.bsky.social · Feb 19

New data & publication at BJPols

Studying Multi-Level Systems with Cross-Level Data - by Leonce Röth @dasalgon.bsky.social @dielea.bsky.social & André Kaiser

💥 2,226 regional elections | 21 countries | 1941-2019

Data portal: multi-level-cross-level-politics.eu
Data: github.com/leonce-colla...

3 12

Lea Kaftan @dielea.bsky.social · Feb 19

New data out for studying party politics and elections across levels in 21 democracies worldwide! 🗳️🧐🥳🤓😎
Check out our online data visualization tool, too: multi-level-cross-level-politics.eu
And our data: doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...

3 12