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Ben Crum

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Political science 82%
Law 9%
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by Ben Crum

bencrum.nl
“If negotiations between EU member states and MEPs don’t begin in the coming months, there will be no chance of having European lists in 2029. That would mean missing, once again, a historic opportunity to finally give European elections a truly European dimension”
euobserver.com/eu-political...
Time running out for transnational lists for 2029 Euro-elections
There is a systemic absence of a genuine European electoral space. As long as citizens are only allowed to vote for national parties, from national lists, presented by national actors, using national ...
euobserver.com
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by Jan Rovný — Reposted by: Ben Crum, Simon Hix

jrovny.bsky.social
Many are concerned about the return of Babiš to the top of Czech politics. While the results of this weekend's Czech legislative election poses its concerns, I am an optimist. I think Babiš's victory is rather Pyrrhic. Here are some thoughts: blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2...
The 2025 Czech election – Andrej Babiš’s Pyrrhic victory
Andrej Babiš’s ANO won the 2025 Czech election on 3–4 October. Yet as Jan Rovny explains, Babiš will find it challenging to form a stable government.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
10 25

by David Runciman — Reposted by: Ben Crum, Alan Renwick, David Runciman

ppfideas.bsky.social
NEW EPISODE OUT NOW!

In today’s episode David talks to @alanrenwick.bsky.social from UCL’s Constitution Unit about the pros & cons of referendums. How can they be used to open up political debate? When does a democratic question need to be put direct to the people?

Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com
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by Steffen Mau — Reposted by: Ben Crum, Cas Mudde, Martín Lodge , and 5 more

steffenmau.bsky.social
Herausragender Wissenschaftler, bewunderter Autor, befreundeter Kollege, kluger Ratgeber: Claus Offe ist gestorben!
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by Ben Crum

bencrum.nl
Fascinating account of AI policy in Vietnam by @digitaldang.bsky.social
"Most countries will not build an AI stack from scratch; they will adopt, adapt and hybridize — assembling intelligence from components that are not entirely their own"

www.noemamag.com/a-third-path...
A Third Path For AI Beyond The US-China Binary | NOEMA
What if the future of AI isn’t defined by Washington or Beijing, but by improvisation elsewhere?
www.noemamag.com
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Laurent Pech

tinekestrik.bsky.social
Yesterday I presented my draft report on the Hungarian rule of law.

My message: the Hungarian RoL has worsened significantly. Therefore, the EU must freeze more funds and take away Orbán's veto.

I look forward to working with my pro-democratic colleagues on this resolution.
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by Laurent Pech — Reposted by: Ben Crum

profpech.bsky.social
"The problem is no longer confined to specific policy areas or individual member states such as Hungary or Slovakia. From German local authorities attempting to oppress pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Italy’s prime minister discrediting the judiciary .. a dangerous pattern is emerging across the EU"
theguardian.com
The Guardian @theguardian.com · 14d
If Europe keeps placating its own far right, how can it possibly stand up to Trump? | Thu Nguyen and Jannik Jansen
If Europe keeps placating its own far right, how can it possibly stand up to Trump? | Thu Nguyen and Jannik Jansen
European leaders’ weakness is undermining the democratic principles on which the EU was built, say Thu Nguyen and Jannik Jansen from the Jacques Delors Centre
www.theguardian.com
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by Nathalie Brack — Reposted by: Ben Crum, Toni Haastrup

nathaliebrack.bsky.social
Call for Proposals for Special Issues of the Journal of European Integration to be published in 2027
Deadline for Submissions: 31/10/25
www.tandfonline.com/journals/geu...

Feel free to contact us at [email protected] with any questions about the procedure or informal enquiries you may have.
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Reposted by: Ben Crum

sn0r.bsky.social
Dutch comedian Arjen Lubach has a nice bit about Disney cancelling Kimmel.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRX...
Jimmy Kimmel’s show has been cancelled | The New Disney | LUBACH
YouTube video by LUBACH
www.youtube.com
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Simon Hix, Joe R. Feagin , and 22 more

mrsbettybowers.bsky.social
Where the separate divisions of ANTIFA landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944:
860 13K 36K

by Ben Crum

bencrum.nl
Gefeliciteerd Sarah!
Een bijzondere en mooie overstap!
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Reposted by: Ben Crum

juliarone.bsky.social
Join us for the VICES workshop on the Externalities of EU's digital transition for (semi)peripheral countries!
From lithium mining in Serbia to Hungary's contested battery bet and data extractivism and neo-colonialism in the Global South. The bad examples are many. But maybe also the alternatives?
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by Nathalie Brack — Reposted by: Ben Crum

nathaliebrack.bsky.social
You have a great idea for a special issue in EU studies?
Check out our call 👇
jei-publication.bsky.social
Journal of European Integration @jei-publication.bsky.social · 23d
𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟕
𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒: 31 Oct. 25

The JEI invites proposals for SIs to be published in 2027. Proposals on any topic within the scope of the journal are welcome and need to be received by the editorial office ([email protected]) by the deadline.
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by Ben Crum

bencrum.nl
Great quote 👇 from @dmugge.bsky.social
Martin Sandbu @martinsandbu.ft.com · 23d
The most succinct statement I have seen of what is at stake. "In the digital arena, the EU is still playing a rules-based version of nobody-gets-hurt judo, whereas the other major players have shifted to something more like mixed martial arts." big-europe.eu/publications...
Time for the gloves to come off in digital policy
big-europe.eu
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Reposted by: Ben Crum

The most succinct statement I have seen of what is at stake. "In the digital arena, the EU is still playing a rules-based version of nobody-gets-hurt judo, whereas the other major players have shifted to something more like mixed martial arts." big-europe.eu/publications...
Time for the gloves to come off in digital policy
big-europe.eu
1 4 17

by Gjalt de Graaf — Reposted by: Ben Crum

graafgjalt.bsky.social
werkenbij.vu.nl/vacatures/ph...
Vacature — PhD position in Public Administration & Digital Governance
Are you a public administration or management student interested in AI and/or value-based governance? Are you interested in doing research about the risks of AI use in public administration and how to...
werkenbij.vu.nl
1

by Gjalt de Graaf — Reposted by: Ben Crum

graafgjalt.bsky.social
werkenbij.vu.nl/vacatures/2-...
Vacature — 2 Postdocs in Public Administration & Digital Governance
Are you a scholar in public administration or management with qualitative research skills and expertise in AI or value-based governance? Interested in fair and responsible AI use in public administrat...
werkenbij.vu.nl
1

Reposted by: Ben Crum

artsofdenial.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
‘We took the gloves off’: ex-IDF chief confirms Gaza casualties over 200,000
Retired general Herzi Halevi says ‘not once’ had legal advice constrained Israel’s military decisions in the strip
www.theguardian.com
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by Ben Crum

bencrum.nl
Wow!
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by Ben Crum

bencrum.nl
Check out the Book of Abstracts👇 of June's conference @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social
It offers a perfect overview of the breadth of research that's being done on the digital society
Happy to be included with a short take on how EU legislation on DSA/DMA has been (de-)politicised in newspapers
weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social
Weizenbaum-Institut @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social · 28d
👉 Just published: "Empowering People in Online Spaces: Democracy and Well-being in Digital Societies" - Book of Abstracts of the Weizenbaum Conference 2025. #WIConf25

➡️ doi.org/10.34669/WI.... 🔗
Cover of the publication
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Axel Bruns

weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social
👉 Just published: "Empowering People in Online Spaces: Democracy and Well-being in Digital Societies" - Book of Abstracts of the Weizenbaum Conference 2025. #WIConf25

➡️ doi.org/10.34669/WI.... 🔗
Cover of the publication
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Katharine Hayhoe, Jan W. Mueller , and 4 more

kevinmkruse.bsky.social
If you're an author and haven't yet signed up for the Anthropic settlement, do yourself a favor (and strike a blow against AI) by checking to see if any of your books were involved.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
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Reposted by: Ben Crum

alexandrageese.bsky.social
Commission President Von der Leyen will have to explain this: barring an EVP from holding a press conference is unacceptable!
@teresaribera.ec.europa.eu has shown the courage to defend the free press instead of pandering to authoritarian leaders and monopolistic tech companies.
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Timnit Gebru, Margaret Mitchell , and 37 more

olivia.science
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues. Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA). Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe. Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles
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Reposted by: Ben Crum

wavesblog.bsky.social
"At this stage, it appears that the only way for Google to end its conflict of interest effectively is with a structural remedy, such as selling some part of its Adtech business.

This seems both necessary and proportionate to effectively stop the infringement" 🆕
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Gjalt de Graaf

julianachueri.bsky.social
Super excited to share that I got the ERC Starting Grant! 🎉

Over the next five years, I’ll be studying how AI is reshaping the politics of the welfare state.

A huge thank you to all the friends and colleagues who supported me along the way.

vu.nl/en/news/2025...

#ERCStG
ERC Starting Grant for political science research on the consequences of AI - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Political scientist Juliana Chueri has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).
vu.nl
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Albert Weale

delibnet.bsky.social
PhD opportunities, including one on climate and democratic innovations. www.leuphana.de/en/graduate-...
Democratic Resilience
www.leuphana.de
2 1

Reposted by: Ben Crum

policyr.bsky.social
[New paper] Brussels effect or experimentalism? The EU AI Act and global standard-setting, By @vuamsterdam.bsky.social's @bencrum.nl policyreview.info/articles/ana... #AIAct #EU #BrusselsEffect
Photo by Inés Álvarez Fdez on Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/fr/photos/personne-faisant-de-la-planche-a-roulettes-S82kPZPS8eM
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Reposted by: Ben Crum, Tom van der Meer

eelcovdwaals8.bsky.social
Maria Barnas, in de Volkskrant van 30 augustus 2025 #poëzieperdag
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by Ben Crum

bencrum.nl
Please do! Great to continue this conversation

References

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