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Reposted by Roman-Gabriel Olar

Anja Neundorf @anjaneundorf.bsky.social · Aug 28

🚨 New in Journal of Politics! 🚨
Do radical right parties need to cut ties with old dictatorships to succeed?
👉 @sergipardos.bsky.social and my study of Spain’s VOX says: ❌ Not necessarily.

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Reposted by Roman-Gabriel Olar

EPSS @epssnet.bsky.social · Aug 7

EPSA have announced that they will hold a conference in July 2026.

😵‍💫 We understand that there might be some confusion about EPSS and EPSA.

👉🏽 So we thought we would clarify some things.

A short 🧵

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Reposted by Roman-Gabriel Olar

Toni Rodon @tonirodon.bsky.social · Jul 24

Populism is contagious: when parties are exposed to populist rhetoric from their rivals, they adopt populist rhetoric in future elections journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

The populist spiral: How populist rhetoric spreads within party systems - Vlad Surdea-Hernea, 2025

This paper investigates whether populism, independent of its substantive policy correlates, diffuses within party systems as a rhetorical strategy. Building on ...

journals.sagepub.com

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Reposted by Roman-Gabriel Olar

EPSS @epssnet.bsky.social · Jun 26

🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community.

🔗 epssnet.org

Here’s a thread with everything you need to know.

🧵

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Reposted by Roman-Gabriel Olar

𝙅𝙖𝙘🍩𝙗 𝙉𝙮𝙧𝙪𝙥 @jacobnyrup.bsky.social · Apr 11

Democratization = new people in the political elite? Nope, in many cases not. This great new article shows that members of the autocratic government very often make it back to government after democratization.

Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

Your weekend reading (and my new article) is out today @poppublicsphere.bsky.social.

In this article I develop a novel theory of autocratic revolving doors - the phenomenon of autocratic elites returning to a cabinet position under democracy.

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

Autocratic Revolving Doors: The Return of Authoritarian Elites to Democratic Cabinets | Perspectives on Politics | Cambridge Core

Autocratic Revolving Doors: The Return of Authoritarian Elites to Democratic Cabinets

doi.org

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

Thank you, Jacob! You played a big part in helping me get this to the finish line. I really appreciate it!

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

The paper is open access courtesy of @dculibrary.bsky.social @dublincityuni.bsky.social

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

Selecting on the dependent variable here, but I want to give a shoutout to the four reviewers that provided really good comments that made the paper so much better. Whoever you are, I appreciate your insights and comments! Also, the editorial staff @poppublicsphere.bsky.social was fantastic.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

This paper benefitted of generous feedback from some great scholars such @mikealbertus.bsky.social @jacobnyrup.bsky.social @chknutsen.bsky.social @monikanalepa.bsky.social @ehernandez.bsky.social @austinsmatthews.bsky.social. Thank you!

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

of autocratic revolving doors. The paper also has additional analyses showing some of these relationships are conditional, but that's for the reader to discover. And yes, I run numerous robustness tests to rule out observed and unobserved confounders.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

core autocratic elites and those that held more prestigious portfolios are more likely to return to democratic cabinet. A longer time spent in an autocratic cabinet is not particularly useful for elites attempting a comeback under democracy. I also use two short case studies to illustrate the logic

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

The theoretical expectations are tested using a novel measure of autocratic revolving doors at the elite-level comprising 12,949 former autocratic cabinet members from 68 new democracies across 91 different democratic spells between 1966 and 2020. The results indicate that...

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

Thus, I propose that the variation in political experience that elites gained under autocracy and the characteristics of the cabinet positions they held under autocracy allows us to explain the demand and supply logic that drives autocratic revolving doors in new democracies.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

On the supply side, cabinet leaders can/need to select from a pool of former autocratic elites that have the policy and political experience to run state institutions, and that can signal to autocratic elites networks that their interests will be protected under democracy.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

Autocratic revolving doors is explained by a demand and supply logic of (political) cabinet formation. On the demand side, they need to provide public goods, reward political allies and appease surviving networks of autocratic elites since these (autocratic) networks can derail democracy.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

Autocratic revolving doors is the norm in new democracies as former autocratic elites return to cabinet in 68 (out of 72) new democracies between 1966 and 2020. They occupy these positions for an average of (almost) 4 years.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Apr 11

Your weekend reading (and my new article) is out today @poppublicsphere.bsky.social.

In this article I develop a novel theory of autocratic revolving doors - the phenomenon of autocratic elites returning to a cabinet position under democracy.

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

Autocratic Revolving Doors: The Return of Authoritarian Elites to Democratic Cabinets | Perspectives on Politics | Cambridge Core

Autocratic Revolving Doors: The Return of Authoritarian Elites to Democratic Cabinets

doi.org

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Reposted by Roman-Gabriel Olar

david i. backer @schooldaves.bsky.social · Mar 24

“when we reason, we don’t have to generate text that expresses our solution and then generate another one and then generated another one, and then among the ones we produce, pick the one that is good...”

“And this is what we yet cannot reproduce with machines.”

Peter Greene @palan57.bsky.social · Mar 24

EXCLUSIVE: AI Insider reveals secrets about artificial general intelligence
open.substack.com/pub/buildcog...

EXCLUSIVE: AI Insider reveals secrets about artificial general intelligence

A watershed moment for Cognitive Resonance

open.substack.com

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Feb 6

Thanks! Just sent you a DM about this

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Feb 5

The paper is open access courtesy of @dculibrary.bsky.social @dublincityuni.bsky.social.
Check it out for more details and share it with your network.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Feb 5

The results show that returning autocratic elite reduce human rights treaty commitment by new democracies, particularly when the Ministry of Justice portfolio is held by a former autocrat.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Feb 5

Moreover, I illustrate the logic of the theoretical argument with two short, stylised case studies (of Brazil and Argentina) and an instrumental variable approach to reduce potential endogeneity due to reverse causality.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Feb 5

Building on this, I develop novel theoretical expectations of the effect of returning autocratic elites on human rights commitment. These are tested in timeseries cross-sectional research design using novel measures of autocratic influence in democratic cabinets between 1966 and 2010.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Feb 5

More often than not, politics in new democracies is a continuation of autocratic politics by new (democratic) rules of power-sharing in which former autocratic elites aim to maintain political influence and protect their interests.

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Roman-Gabriel Olar @rgolar23.bsky.social · Feb 5

Specifically, the literature assumes that new democracies are a blank slate in which all societal actors are committed to democracy and want to lock-in democracy. This contradicts the findings of the comparative democratization literature which shows that this is not the case.

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