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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 14h

Wouldn't want the bubble to burst without being in it.

www.reuters.com/world/china/...

Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 14h

This is a tragedy.
They could have just asked for volunteers to help.

Also, that would have given a good reason for quotation marks around the word destroyed in the headline.

www.thenational.scot/news/2552768...

7000 litres of beer 'destroyed' after Storm Amy cancels Scottish city's Oktoberfest

ORGANISERS behind Edinburgh's Oktoberfest said they were forced to destroy 7000 litres of “good” beer after Storm Amy cancelled the event ...

www.thenational.scot

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 18h

Schopenhauer: "Eine grobe Bratwurst besiegt jedes Argument."

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Reposted by Heinz Brandenburg

David Attewell @davidattewell6.bsky.social · 1d

@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social!

Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan:

🧵⬇️

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 3d

I have so many books for which there might just never come the right time.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 3d

Not sure. I think most of those still loyal Tory voters have been voting all their lives (and we know they tend to be old). Takes quite a lot for such voters to abstain because they also tend to still feel a duty to vote.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 3d

But second: they see themselves and LD as moderate, just on opposite sides of the aisle. While they see Reform as extreme.
So aside from absolute distance, they would also face the questions of whether they prefer moderates to their left or extremes to their right. Which could beat abs. distance.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 3d

A see a couple of caveats. First of all, it is not "that voter" but the average position of remaining Tory loyals. That average loyalist is about twice as far from LD as from Ref. In other words, maybe 2/3 could be closer to Reform, 1/3 closer to LD.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 3d

Not small-c, just small. Very small. In support as in ambition.

Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 3d

Long overdue that we get a new meaning for PPE. Price per exhibit.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 4d

Similar to why people like chicken. Things should not taste of anything.

And farmed salmon is a terrible thing on all levels.

Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

Building bridges. To English neonazis.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

It now does because no party dominated urban politics, but AfD and CDU/CSU dominate politics outside major cities, pretty much everywhere if we just look at winners and not top 2. Divvying up the countryside and small towns between them. A mirror image instead of a clear East-West divide.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

This is a new pattern, also that in general population density is now strongly correlated with party system fragmentation, as shown below (in that case colour coding indicates the constituency winner).

That is a pattern that never existed in Germany to such an extent before, if at all.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

And that makes rural voters look perhaps even more socially conservative than in the "good old days" when for example the CSU could win up to 60% across the rural parts of Bavaria. Now they have to share that with a more reactionary counterpart.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

My hunch is that these patterns, especially those in the South and East, do reflect how party competition in Germany has increasingly focused on auth/lib issues rather than economic left-right. Also but not exclusively immigration.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

CDU and AfD are almost exclusively relevant in more rural areas, but not nearly as dominant as in the South and the East.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

And in the most urban areas, in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, the Ruhr valley, we do find all kinds of combinations of top two parties.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

This is in sharp contrast to the rest of Germany, the North and West, from the North sea to below Frankfurt, and including Berlin. All of these parts are a lot more colourful. With sometimes the AfD, often the SPD, on a couple of occasions the Greens challenging the dominant CDU in rural areas.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

So the richest and most religious parts of Germany share quite a bit with the often claiming to be left behind and most secular part of Germany, only with reversed roles for the centre-right and socially conservative and the radical right and at least equally socially conservative party.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

In the East, it is the Left party that wins one Leipzig constituency and challenges in Jena, Erfurt, and other other Leipzig constituency. No other party makes it into the top 2 anywhere.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

Otherwise, it is the Greens, in both Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg who are the main challenger in cities, like all of Munich, or Stuttgart, or Nuernberg, and winning places like Freiburg.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

It is basically two socially conservative parties completely dominating politics in both parts, with only some splashes of Green (in the South) or Pink (the Left) in the East in very urban places.

The SPD only makes it into the top 2 in one single district in the South, in Mannheim.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

In both the South and the East, in all rural and semi-urban constituencies, CDU/CSU and AfD are the two largest parties. Everywhere. With a combined vote share of always over 50%.

Their ordered is reversed. The AfD comes first everywhere in the East, CDU or CSU in the South.

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Heinz Brandenburg @heinzbrandenburg.bsky.social · 5d

A wee 🧵about the new electoral geography of Germany (2025 Bundestag election).

Basically, the rich South is now a mirror image of what was formerly Eastern Germany.

The below charts show the two largest parties (by list vote), with constituencies ordered by population density.

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