In the book „Turning Points“, our chapter (with Sandra Plümer) deals with "obstacles on the path to lobbying transparency in Europe" by assessing policy stability, turning point and policy change in the case of the German #lobbyingregister.
The unexpected policy change after 16 years of opposition can be explained by a combination of three mechanisms that culminate in a critical juncture during the scandal about COVID-19 facemasks.
Zum Ende des Jahres erschien die Printausgabe von „Die Bundestagswahl 2021", gemeinsam herausgegeben an der #NRWSchool von Korte, Arno von Schuckmann, Sandra Plümer und mir.
In den vier Themenfeldern (Wahl, Parteien, Kommunikation, Regierung/Policy) finden sich 27 Beiträge von 51 großartigen Autorinnen und Autoren, mit denen wir uns bei einer Autorenkonferenz Ende 2021 sowie kontinuierlich im editor-review Prozess ausgetauscht haben.
Unser Einleitungsbeitrag fasst die Richtung der politikwissenschaftlichen Analysen zur Bundestagswahl zusammen: „Über #Coronakratie und #Transformation im Vorfeld der #Zeitenwende“.
Die Beiträge erschienen kontinuierlich "online first" beginnend im August 2022 und August 2023. Zum Jahresende ist das 650-Seiten starke Buch nun auch haptisch für unter den Weihnachtsbaum erhältlich.
Interesting investigation by Novaya Gazeta Europe demonstrating that, of the 1.3 million pro-war Russian social media posts (VK) they analysed, almost half were copy-pasted, and the majority were posted by state employees.
The findings are not surprising given what we know about Russian online information manipulation. Nonetheless, it's yet another cautionary message to not interpret Russian social media posts as authentic speech.
Very grateful to receive the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) Early Career Award for my research on the visible and invisible mechanisms of information control in authoritarian states
Receiving this prize truly is an honour, and I'm particularly grateful to the institutions (and mentors!) that have supported me in pursuing research across established disciplinary boundaries, including:
Maastricht University (FASoS), University of Helsinki (HCAS & Aleksanteri Institute), Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), NWO, Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, Leibniz IOS Regensburg, Leibniz Institute for Media Research (Hans Bredow Institute).
Such awards tend to reinforce the idea of 'individual excellence' in academic research and push collaboration to the background. I'm immensely grateful to my co-authors, collaborators and network.
The best research emerges when we think together #TeamScience
How do elected representatives understand democracy and their own role in it?
In a new paper with @haefner and [email protected] in German Politics, we present results of a survey conducted among German legislators in state parliaments and the Bundestag in 2022.
@landwehr_c@haefner@politicalscience@stallbaum If „Democracy's resilience arguably depends on political elites' loyalty to the political system“ something is very wrong with the political system…
Doom thinking is unproductive, I know, but it is hard not to feel a type of existential dread when faced with the latest climate science research. The ongoing research on the AMOC (Atlantic Meridian Ocean Current), for example, provides more and more terrifying results.
Political scientists: I really feel that we need to be fully aware of this research and we need to integrate it more seriously in our own research programmes!
Today's image of the day shows Joe Sullivan (seated) and Tom Burke (standing) using PLATO terminals to record Hennepin County election returns at the Minneapolis Business & Technical Center, as local CBS TV affiliate WCCO films the action, 1982.
🚨New pub alert! 🚨 Out now in New Media & Society, @Dan_S_Lane (@CommUcsb) and I explore the utility of re-framing the goal of confronting racist speech online from attitude change to norm setting. A 🧵 (1/7) @politicalscience@communicationscholars@socialpsych
We conclude by noting that attitude change as a goal does little to change the social power dynamics in which racism thrives. It's based on the hope that racist speakers will refrain from such behavior out of the goodness of their heart. Norm-setting addresses power dynamics. 6/7 @politicalscience@communicationscholars@socialpsych
🚨New pub alert! 🚨 Out now in New Media & Society, @Dan_S_Lane (@CommUcsb) and I explore the utility of re-framing the goal of confronting racist speech online from attitude change to norm setting. A 🧵 (1/7) @politicalscience@communicationscholars@socialpsych
Given the descriptive norms of social media and how entrenched racist attitudes might be, confronting racist speech to change such attitudes might seem impossible. But setting social norms against racist speech may seem like a more achievable task. 2/7 @politicalscience@communicationscholars@socialpsych
We explore this in an online survey experiment conducted during the 2020 U.S. presidential election and find that white social media users reported greater willingness to confront online racist speech for the purpose of norm setting than for the purpose of attitude change. 3/7 @politicalscience@communicationscholars@socialpsych
Over the past year, I've reviewed a worrying number of articles on Russian media that seek to whitewash Russian media censorship as 'normal' or demonstrate it does not exist. This is done through strategic research design choices, selective lit review, and misrepresentation. Some thoughts in the thread below.
The papers are submitted to reputable journals and look good enough to be sent out for review. Without knowledge of the Russian context, a reviewer may not notice. Here are some red flags that a paper may be problematic (and, in any case, should not be published as is):
Following the #Polish#election this evening. A weird (to me) detail I have noticed is that votes from Poles living abroad are all assigned to the Warsaw constituency.
I'm not sure I have ever seen an arrangement like that before, though may simply be my ignorance. Aren't overseas voters generally assigned to either their 'home' constituency, or an overseas constituency? Anyone have a similar example from elsewhere?
@Barros_heritage@mfi@sociology@politicalscience
🤔 Is there really a need to define such an open term (beyond giving broad indications of its general function in the sociological discourse) ? It will always have blurred limits (when it comes to determining whether someone is acting or being "acted"), and when we try to give a strict definition, it will always enforce strong ontologies with very cumbersome consequences.
@Barros_heritage@mfi@sociology@politicalscience
For instance, one might consider the #ANT definition a fancy but sterile metaphysical move that will hinder sociological work ;-) (haha sorry for the provocation)
An alternative strategy would be to merely distanciate yourself from conceptual connotations, depending on the object you want to build ("actor" vs "agent", or "subject", or "stakeholder", or "individual", etc...) without closing the meaning with an determinate definition.
Parking machines that stop working in Russia because their foreign software is no longer being updated or terminated at the end of its license as a result of sanctions may sound inconsequential, but expect there to be similar issues causing more serious disruptions elsewhere.
This particular disruptive impact of the sanctions takes effect with a delay but should not be underestimated, if only for the security issues resulting from the suspension of software updates. See also the article by @fa_burkhardt and me for SAIS Review of International Affairs.
@Marielle_W@politicalscience@tanyalokot#Freedomhouse totally belongs in the #hypocrisy dog house. They claim to “Protect a Free and #OpenInternet” and yet their own website is on a repressive exclusive #Cloudflare site. WTF. They actually claim¹ CF can talk about “Internet blocking and the consequences for human rights.” I had a medical emergency & could not access health info because of Cloudflare.
Great follow up from The Insider on recent SovFed statements about more aggressive measures to restrict VPNs that enable circumventing censorship in Russia (again illustrating SovFed is not the place where to expect tech expertise...).
Worth translating if you're interested in the topic of VPNs in Russia.
@Marielle_W@politicalscience I‘d say the government is already successful. No ordinary person without a foreign credit card can be expected to juggle services and protocols, hoping his traffic is obsfucated enough to pass through DPI unnoticed
@lokshin@politicalscience Absolutely, especially if we consider data security along with whether users are able to access blocked resources (emphasis in much of Western assessments is on the latter)