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Reposted by Jonas W. Schmid

Vicente Valentim @valentimvicente.bsky.social · 1d

Despite the grim topic, this is a very good paper: monuments that signal white supremacy can substitute performative violence and thus reduce it.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Political Symbols and Social Order: Confederate Monuments and Performative Violence in the Post-Reconstruction U.S. South | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core

Political Symbols and Social Order: Confederate Monuments and Performative Violence in the Post-Reconstruction U.S. South

www.cambridge.org

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Reposted by Jonas W. Schmid

Joe Noonan @joenoonan.se · 5d

Excellent work from my SU colleague Einar Bäckström on the temporal dynamics of the winner loser gap in democracy satisfaction using a regression discontinuity in time design across 21 European countries.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Sore losers on election night? Examining the temporal emergence of the winner–loser gap | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core

Sore losers on election night? Examining the temporal emergence of the winner–loser gap

www.cambridge.org

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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 5d

Very possibly no political official in history has made so much corrupt money at a pace like this. Mobutu and Marcos looted a greater share of their countries’ wealth over decades but in absolute terms and in speed, Trump shamelessly puts them to shame.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 6d

“.. no modern American president has positioned his family to make so much money while in the White House. Already, since the early days of his reelection campaign, he’s more than doubled his net worth to about $5.4 billion.”

@bloomberg.com
www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

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Jonas W. Schmid @jonaswschmid.bsky.social · 7d

Most impactful murder since Cain killed Abel.

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Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 8d

Man, I can't believe the guy who inspired this event 4.5 years ago is declaring war on large swathes of his fellow Americans. I mean, who could have ever guessed it would come to this?

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Risa Brooks @risabrooks12.bsky.social · 8d

It's easy to see this speech as just weirdly performative, but there's a lot more—and a lot worse—going on here.

The meeting & speeches are part of a larger project aimed at promoting the military leadership’s partisan alignment with the administration.

How? 1/

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Hegseth: "If the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, they you should do the honorable thing and resign."

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tim frye @timfrye.bsky.social · 11d

So many echoes from this article for US politics....

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Solveig Bjørkholt @sunny369.bsky.social · 14d

🚀 StanDat Database Update & Move!

The database has moved and been upgraded:

solveig.shinyapps.io/standat/

StanDat - International Standards Database

solveig.shinyapps.io

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Reposted by Jonas W. Schmid

lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 15d

I don't agree with this because I think the wannabe god king being seen to try and fail matters.

Liz Ryerson @ellaguro.bsky.social · 16d

the Jimmy Kimmel thing is the most uh (sorry for using this term because i kind of hate it) nothingburger of a big news event. attempts to shift the vibe were unsuccessful so back to normal tv, carry on everyone. maybe good that it was resolved but also it's kind of a hollow/meaningless victory.

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Matt DiGiuseppe @mdigiuseppe.bsky.social · 15d

Yesterday I posted about how I used comet browser to take a Qualtrics survey almost undetected. Last night, I ran a pilot (N=400) on @joinprolific.bsky.social . I found that almost 10% of "respondents" identified as AI when directly asked.

Matt DiGiuseppe @mdigiuseppe.bsky.social · 16d

I added a question in the survey to identify itself as an AI if instructed to be a human. That seemed to work. Though, I imagine I could jailbreak it eventually.

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Reposted by Jonas W. Schmid

Johannes Hillje @jhillje.bsky.social · 19d

Dass die AfD nicht wegen ihrer politischen Forderungen gewählt wird, ist ein gefährlich bequemer Selbstbetrug der demokratischen Mitte.

(Quelle: aktuelles ZDF-Politbarometer)

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 19d

at one point Albania was on the brink of civil war after the collapse of pyramid schemes that had sucked up roughly half of GDP, and now that is only the *second* stupidest thing the country has done.

MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦 @maks23.bsky.social · 19d

🇦🇱 Albania's AI minister "Diella" addressed the parliament for the first time.

👀 Diella said she has been "hurt" by opposition lawmakers who called her unconstitutional.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 20d

The key problem with what Ezra Klein says here is that he fails – or is unwilling – to grapple with the fundamental reality of the political conflict: The movement that dominates today’s Right fully rejects the very idea of “living here with each other” as equals. That’s their defining position.

Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · 21d

"All I can say for me in the work I do is that I want to create a space that takes our disagreements seriously, that takes the stakes of them seriously, the consequences for people seriously, but does so without deepening our divisions irreparably. We are going to have to live here with each other"

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Djinn & Tonic 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇬🇱 @djinnandtonic.bsky.social · 23d

Paying respects to Charlie Kirk by going on podcasts and saying that Charlie Kirk wouldn't have died if he hadn't had fentanyl in his system

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Edward Goldring @edwardgoldring.bsky.social · 25d

@pward89.bsky.social and I were delighted to win the Best Article Award from APSA’s Democracy and Autocracy section for our @worldpolitics.bsky.social article “Elite Management Before Autocratic Leader Succession: Evidence from North Korea.” muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...

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Josef Woldense @woldense.bsky.social · Sep 8

Paper alert 📣

Rapid advances in AI has some believe that LLM agents can replace real participants in human-subject research. If true, this would be huge!

Following a growing body of research, we delve deeper into this topic and examine the merits of this claim.

🧵...

arxiv.org/abs/2509.03736

Are LLM Agents Behaviorally Coherent? Latent Profiles for Social Simulation

The impressive capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) have fueled the notion that synthetic agents can serve as substitutes for real participants in human-subject research. In an effort to evalu...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Jonas W. Schmid

Perspectives on Politics @poppublicsphere.bsky.social · Sep 8

NOW OUT ON FIRSTVIEW!!

#Blame #Shifting in #Autocracies following Large-Scale Disasters: Evidence from #Turkey

By @edwardgoldring.bsky.social, @jonaswschmid.bsky.social & Fulya Apaydin

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

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Jonas W. Schmid @jonaswschmid.bsky.social · Sep 8

Great to finally see this published! Check out "Blame Shifting in Autocracies following Large-Scale Disasters: Evidence from Turkey", now open-access in Perspectives on Politics: cup.org/4ggTyAv

Or read this brief thread for a summary: bsky.app/profile/jona...

Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · Sep 8

#OpenAccess from @poppublicsphere.bsky.social -

Blame Shifting in Autocracies following Large-Scale Disasters: Evidence from Turkey - cup.org/4ggTyAv

- @edwardgoldring.bsky.social, Jonas Willibald Schmid & Fulya Apaydin

#FirstView

Image of a smoky industrial landscape with the text "Perspectives on Politics" and the hashtag "OpenAccess" overlaid on a blue banner.

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Jonas W. Schmid @jonaswschmid.bsky.social · Sep 8

Very happy to see this one finally out. Check our thread for a brief summary of the article: bsky.app/profile/jona...

Jonas W. Schmid @jonaswschmid.bsky.social · Jun 11

After large-scale disasters autocrats often shift the blame on others to save their popularity. Our 🚨new paper🚨, just accepted at Perspectives on Politics, shows that this tactic is prone to backfire. With @edwardgoldring.bsky.social & @fapaydin.bsky.social . shorturl.at/v6wIV%E2%AC%...

The title page of a paper listing the title: "Blame Shifting in Autocracies Following Large-scale Disasters: Evidence from Turkey"; the authors: Edward Goldring, Jonas Willibald Schmid, and Fulya Apaydin; and the abstract: "Large-scale disasters, particularly when handled poorly, often spark popular outrage and threaten
an autocrat’s hold on power. Autocrats frequently employ blame shifting strategies to redirect
public anger and weather these storms. We examine whether blame shifting after a large-scale
disaster helps or hurts an autocrat’s popularity through a mixed-methods research design in the
electoral autocracy of Turkey in April-July 2023, following the February 2023 earthquakes.
An online survey experiment (n=3,839) identifies the effects of blaming the aftermath of the
earthquake on the opposition, a force majeure, private construction companies, or a govern-
ment minister, while focus groups explore the mechanisms behind these effects. We find that
blaming the opposition or a force majeure leads to a backlash, especially among those more
able to critically evaluate information. Focus groups reveal that these backlash effects are
driven by voters’ dismay at electoral opportunism and the incumbent’s polarizing language
following a large-scale disaster."; and the note that the paper is forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics.

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Reposted by Jonas W. Schmid

Cambridge University Press Political Science & IR @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org · Sep 8

#OpenAccess from @poppublicsphere.bsky.social -

Blame Shifting in Autocracies following Large-Scale Disasters: Evidence from Turkey - cup.org/4ggTyAv

- @edwardgoldring.bsky.social, Jonas Willibald Schmid & Fulya Apaydin

#FirstView

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Tom Pepinsky @tompepinsky.com · Sep 7

In the 1990s, people in the Indonesian Cabinet used to call the president SGS, for “Super Genius Soeharto”

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · Sep 6

Incredible clip of tech CEOs fawning over Donald Trump. Someone store this clip in the underground archive vault

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Reposted by Jonas W. Schmid

Sophie E. Hill @sophieehill.bsky.social · Sep 5

"Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds"

Or does it? Let's take a look at this "study"...

www.theguardian.com/food/2025/se...

Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds

Researchers say low- and no-calorie sweeteners appear to affect thinking and memory in middle age

www.theguardian.com

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𝙅𝙖𝙘🍩𝙗 𝙉𝙮𝙧𝙪𝙥 @jacobnyrup.bsky.social · Sep 3

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

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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · Sep 3

Melvyn Bragg has been one of the last standard-bearers for a really important, and unfashionable, idea: that good conversation, between people who really know their stuff, on complex or difficult subjects, can be fantastic radio - and that the national broadcaster should do this.

I hope it endures.

Scott Bryan @scottygb.bsky.social · Sep 3

Melvyn Bragg has decided to stand down as host of In Our Time, the BBC says.

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