Interesting think piece by Yakov Feygin on Prigozhin's Concord that illustrates the usefulness of a political economy perspective on Russia - even if only to expose and question prevalent assumptions
Looking at internet censorship in Russia, I've noticed how often it still gets ignored that there even is an economic side to it. This is both silly (these are large businesses after all) and analytically problematic as it disregards the importance of neoliberalism.
This is not to say that the typical drivers and logics of authoritarian states do not apply. But they co-exist and need to grapple with the realities of contemporary globalised business and finance and the fact that often, you actually do need a business case for it to work
I’m truly honored to have been chosen for the U30 young leader interview series by a prestigious Swiss newspaper. I had the privilege to discuss my thoughts on revamping Switzerland’s pol system to tackle the 21st c. challenges. Sharing the spotlight with Marco Odermatt, the Olympic medalist and world champion alpine ski racer, feels absolutely unreal! @politicalscience
Fernandes & Won: The Unintended Consequences of Amplifying the Radical Right on #Twitter
in @polcommjournal
"Our findings show that users amplify the radical right’s original message via weak ties and cascade effects in making negative quoted tweets. Ultimately, denouncing the radical right backfires and helps nascent illiberal parties to reach out to more users in the network and gain more users."
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.
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…
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.
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):
@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.
Kennt jemand empfehlenswerte Artikel oder Studien dazu, wie die thüringische Minderheitsregierung in der Praxis funktioniert - also abseits von Skandalen? Fänd' ich interessant. Mal @soziologie oder @politicalscience fragen ...
This weekend, the popular Dutch politician Pieter Omtzigt founded his new political party: 'New Social Contract'.
One of the parties' main concerns right now is that it would get too many votes/seats (as it may destabilize the party). So this party does not focus on winning as many votes as possible, but on not winning too many votes.
Unique it seems! Or do you know of examples of other political parties around the world which wanted to avoid winning too many votes?