For the offline component of the 4th edition of our teaching partnership, the Digital Constitutionalism Network is in Padova this week with brilliant students from University of Padova, Dublin City University and University of Bremen
The intensive week of lectures and group work in Padova builds upon the virtual component before the summer. To learn more about the Blended Intensive Programme coordinated by the Digital Constitutionalism Network, check out the blog post on the virtual part.
The BIP is organised by Claudia Padovani, Andrea Pettrachin, Edoardo Celeste and Dennis Redeker with contributions by various members of the Digital Constitutionalism Network, including Mauro Santaniello and Marianne Franklin
Freedom House has kicked off promotion for the launch of the 2023 #FreedomOnTheNet ranking on 4 Oct.
As a primer, have a look at our recent article with @tanyalokot on how competing rankings have shaped global understandings of what internet freedom is (and isn't)
We adopt a relational approach to explain how & why such a complex landscape of internet freedom rankings has emerged and identify how the ranking organisations’ varying approaches to capturing internet freedom have played a role in defining and legitimating it as a global issue.
Since both the uses of the internet and discussions about what freedom means in relation to it have developed so rapidly, ranking organisations have had to continually respond to these developments, negotiating their authority in relation to other actors in their field.
As we approach the annual media event that surrounds the launch of FoTN, our article can serve as a useful primer for what internet freedom rankings can - and cannot - tell us.
My interest is eminently academic @jimkennedy. Rescaling is a fact, whatever the outcome might be now after Sanchez, Puigdemont, and Aragones, seems to be looking for a common ground, what was highly unlikely in 2017. Time matters also in #politics. @politicalscience@politicaltheory
@jimkennedy@politicalscience@politicaltheory My take is that the current momentum is extremely relevant having people with different view around a table, far from the simplistic 155 article and Rajoy's marsimonious inactivity by sending police to crash, both “illegal” and “constitutive referendum”. Words matter: illegal officially but it showed a will.
In his Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly this February, Putin referred to Stolypin as "a patriot and a proponent of a strong Russian state" and cited him to the effect that the State Duma should be patriotic, i.e. should subordinate itself.
Citing Stolypin: “In the cause of defending Russia, all of us must unite and coordinate our efforts, our commitements and our rights for supporting one historical supreme right – the right of Russia to be strong.” No political opposition permitted
Favoured by Putin himself, Stolypin got his statue in Moscow already in 2012 (though the statue was not placed on Lubyanka square to fill the empty spot where the toppled Dzerzhinsky used to stand, as Nikita Mikhalkov had proposed as early as 2001 - as I outline in the chapter linked below).
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 ...
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
@politicalscience In quantitative research, there also disagreements (potential outcomes vs DAGs, for example). Overall, however, there is a more coherent framework and standards for assessing the quality of RDs, DiD etc.
A second issue could be that the standards of good qualitative research have been rising over the past 10 years (regardless of what standard you pick). Empirical research needs some time to catch up with rising standards.
6/
@politicalscience Editors have a lot of discretion when deciding about submissions. A large part of how the discretion is used remains invisible from the outside. I really like the idea of doing an internal audit of editorial decisions, desk rejections in particular. It would be interesting to do an audit for 2022 (I think the last one was some time ago) and to take other journals on board that report similar numbers for qualitative submissions 7/
Although I already joined last year, tooting still feels very novel to me—so I honestly don‘t know whether this will be read at all, but it‘s PUBLICATION DAY🚨:
Thrilled to share my article in REGIONAL & FEDERAL STUDIES:
I make a provocative, but as I believe necessary point:
To advance the study of comparative federalism, we need to study federalism through the lenses of interest group & lobbying
@brueckmann@politicalscience ❤️ thanks a million, Gracia, for being so responsive and supportive and PLEASE let me echo this: I‘ll try to boost you as much as I can 🐘! Enjoy the retreat and heartfelt thanks again
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?
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 US, one of the groups that is most opposed to choice are Evangelical Christians
but in the 1970s, these same people were pro choice
partly cause it was their enemy the Catholics who were forced birthers, and partly cause abortion helped remove "undesirables"
unbelievable but true: the evangelicals became forced birthers for political reasons !!!!!!!!