Trump's higher ed ransom note is here - everyone would have to acquiesce to their unprecedented demands or not be "given priority for grants," plus they can demand "reimbursement" for "violations" www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...

A mechanism to enforce fealty. An attack on academic freedom and democracy

So happy to see this out! We caution against excessive optimism that the opposition will restore countries back to their democratic trajectories after electoral victory. Weakened institutions and the memory of repression makes it tempting to continue rather than buck the trend of autocratization.

Surreal to walk out of teaching Phil Roessler's book on the "coup-civil war trap" to see this headline about my own country. His book has some predictions, to say the least, about what would be about to go down if this were a stereotypical autocracy and this kind of "summit" were being called...

The H1-B visa thing is, like everything else in the Trump administration, set up to carve up exceptions for friends and punish enemies. It’s the authoritarian thru-line that stitches everything together.

This H1B thing is a DISASTER for the USA. Phone your representative and senator NOW and demand action to protect America.

This is an attack on the American economy and American technological and scientific advancement. Not to mention a truly awful thing to do to half a million people.

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

Yay! Congrats!!

There’s competition, I know. But threatening to pull the broadcast licenses of the affiliates of an entire “big-3” television network unless they stop their evening talk show host from criticizing the president has to be one of the biggest First Amendment violations in U.S. history.

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say.

This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.

All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

A free society is not one in which the government can use its power to silence critical speech. Decent people must oppose this.

when your wars are too crimey even for john yoo, boy howdy

🎉 Congrats to @nicolewilson.bsky.social , winner of the 2025 Lynne Rienner Best Dissertation Award

👏 Honorable Mention: @victoragboga.bsky.social

👉 www.afpol.org/blog/nicole-...

How to fix America's gerrymandering problem? @benschneer.bsky.social and I wrote in Time today about a solution we developed (with @cantstopkevin.bsky.social). time.com/7309565/amer...

Check out the third cohort of Pathways@GDL Summer interns!

polisci.mit.edu/news/2025/pa...

@nlnathan.bsky.social @arielrwhite.bsky.social @ausis.bsky.social @ncatsuaggies.bsky.social @unm.edu @howard.edu @mit.edu @mit-cis.bsky.social

If there were still any hope for academic conferences in the US (I don’t think there is) then this would kill it.

Communist regimes insisted on a "propaganda of success," with the media daily and breathlessly reporting ever-higher quotas being met by the heroic workers and massive economic growth. Stalin sent the (few) authors of unfavorable economic reports to the gulag.

This of course is very different.

Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump.

Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.

Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:

Columbia University’s agreement with the Trump administration is a disaster for academic freedom, freedom of speech, & the independence of American higher education. Never in the history of our nation has an educational institution so thoroughly bent to the will of an autocrat.

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We are delighted to host Noah Nathan (@nlnathan.bsky.social) at our next
@lsegovernment.bsky.social APEG Seminar this Thursday, June 19 (12:00-1:30 PM GMT). Please join us.

What will you do when authoritarianism comes to America? Because it's here. Right now.

Congratulations to Noah L. Nathan @nlnathan.bsky.social for winning the Political Ties Award for "Do Grids Demobilize? How Street Networks, Social Networks, and Political Networks Intersect," published in @ajpseditor.bsky.social

Someone should tell Trump that Elon would feel very owned if he fully funded USAID and the CDC.

More polling just dropped -- by a pretty huge margin Americans think that having international students at US universities is good for the country, not bad -- 56% to 14% (+42)

and for 18-29 YOs, nearly 1/2 say international students are "very good"