Allison Hartnett

From our November Issue: Precolonial Elites and Colonial Redistribution of Political Power by @ashartnett.bsky.social and Mohamed Saleh. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🚨 3-Year Postdoc in Political Science at Aarhus University 🚨

I’m seeking to recruit a postdoc for my @erc.europa.eu research project 𝑬𝑸𝑼𝑰𝑳𝑰𝑩𝑹𝑰𝑼𝑴 on state-citizen interactions.

Link and more information in second post.

Position Start: Fall 2026
Application Deadline: ‼️ February 5, 2026, 23:59 CET ‼️

Professors Launch PAC to Fight Back Against Trump’s Attacks The American Association of University Professors, a union whose members are fighting policies from the Trump administration and GOP Congress, launched a PAC this week to spend in federal elections.

We launched a PAC!

“This PAC is an extension of our fight to ensure a future for American higher ed through bipartisan legislation that recognizes that college can be tuition-free, debt-free, welcoming to all, conducive to academic freedom & offer jobs with dignity.”

- Todd Wolfson, AAUP President

🚨 New WP 🚨:

All states monitor the political activity of their citizens. But who do they choose to surveil, and why?

We study this question with the universe of Italian political surveillance files: 152,000 individuals born 1816–1932, across democracy and autocracy.

🧵 1/11

Call for Submissions: Democratic Resilience and the Politics of Belonging

Columbia, June 4-5, 2026

Co-Organizers: @aalrababah.bsky.social (Bocconi), @gemmadipoppa.bsky.social (Columbia), Shigeo Hirano (Columbia), @ginvernizzi.bsky.social (Bocconi)

Submit: lnkd.in/eiPgt_w5

Details ⬇️

Against the charge of charity: refugee-led organisations, localisation and decolonising humanitarianism Two of the main recent trends in humanitarianism have been the increasing focus on decolonialisation and localisation of humanitarian assistance. Donors have committed to raising funding for local ...

Next up we have two in migration studies.

Check out Merve Edilmen's "Against the Charge of Charity: Refugee-Led Organisations, Localisation, and Decolonising Humanitarianism."

Thanks to discussant Lama Mourad!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

And...

Leveraging Selective State Capacity: Understanding Changing Responses to Migration and Refugees Abstract. State capacity is seen as one of the central elements determining whether countries have “strong” or “weak” systems of immigration and asylum. An

...also check out @kpnorman.bsky.social's "Leveraging Selective State Capacity: Understanding Changing responses to Migration and Refugees."

Thanks to discussant Anne Marie Baylouny!

academic.oup.com/jogss/articl...

The next @pomeps.bsky.social Virtual Research Workshop series is coming soon. In the meantime, here's some great work coming out of previous VRWs.

Check out @ashartnett.bsky.social and @msaleh-econhistory.bsky.social's recent article.

Thanks to discussant Neil Ketchley!

doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Recognizing the Merit of our Peers: 2026 APSA Awards Nominations Open | Deadline: February 11, 2026 One of the many important roles of the American Political Science Association (APSA) is recognizing excellence in the political science profession.  APSA makes awards for the best dissertations, papers and articles, and books in the various subfields, and for career achievement in research, teaching and service to the discipline.  These awards will be presented at the 2026 APSA Annual Meeting…

Recognizing the Merit of our Peers: 2026 APSA Awards Nominations Open | Deadline: February 11, 2026

Currently in FirstView: In “Measuring Media Criticism with ALC Word Embeddings,” @cbarrie.bsky.social, Neil Ketchley, @aasiegel.bsky.social, and Mossaab Bagdouri introduce a method for estimating media criticism using à la carte word embeddings which requires only minimal computational resources.

Citizen and Subject (and Mayor.)

Excited to share my new publication @poppublicsphere.bsky.social! We often think that women’s formal political participation began in the 1900s. Using archival records from over 150 assembly meetings between 1493-1789 in France, I show that, in fact, some women had political rights much earlier!

Many thanks to @ashartnett.bsky.social Jeff Jenkins and USC for the wonderful opportunity to keynote at the annual Historical Political Economy conference. It was great to catch up with and learn from such an amazing set of people. I had a blast!

PANELIST PROGRAM - HPE Conference II Second Annual Historical Political Economy ConferenceOrganized by Jeff Jenkins and Allison Hartnett (University of Southern California) October 24-25, 2025 Sponsored by the Center for International ...

Our excellent lineup can be found here docs.google.com/document/u/0...

Capping a great day of research and discussion at our second annual HPE Conference with @saumjha.bsky.social 's keynote @usc.edu @usccis.bsky.social

This is how you normalize authoritarianism.

The Washington Post Democracy Dies in Darkness "This kind of thing doesn't happen in democracies, and it's becoming a routine part of our politics," said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University, who has long warned that Trump poses a threat to American democracy. (Federal campaign finance records show that a person named Steven Levitsky who works at Harvard has made small campaign donations to Democratic candidates.)

there is something quite close to unanimity among serious scholars on this point, but the Washington Post omits that in favor of highlighting one such scholar's donations to Democratic candidates

I love everything about this.

Return of Tyranny Cambridge Core - Middle East Studies - Return of Tyranny

"Comparative politics has needed a book like this – one that directly and dedicatedly tackles the topic of counterrevolutions – for a very long time."

Return of Tyranny by Killian Clark, Coming Soon

#PoliSky #BookSky #PoliSci

cup.org/4dX8DWU

The chickens aren't working.

This is the vibe in our household at the moment. We're tired. Also, big ask for young parents in Poland to have to vote for their kids' future AND make Dzień Dziecka happen all in one day.

For those interested in fieldwork and research ethics, this is a must-read by @separkinson.bsky.social: "Indiana Jones & the Institutional Review Board: Disciplinary Incentives, Researcher Archetypes & the Pathologies of Knowledge Production." Link: doi.org/10.1162/daed...

Today, the ERC formally adopted a decision to increase its support for researchers moving to Europe.

On top of its normal grants, the ERC offers 'start-up' funding to help PIs establish laboratories / research teams in Europe.

This extra funding is now x2 (up to €2 million!)

europa.eu/!6Vdgmp

I had such a wonderful time. Can't wait for my next trip to Konstanz!

Supportive environments are productive environments, and I love building this community with @lotemhalevy.bsky.social and @tinepaulsen.bsky.social

🚨🚨 Accepted yesterday! 🚨🚨

@lenkabustikova.bsky.social and I introduce the concept of "Confessional Illiberalism" and distinguish it from two other forms of illiberalism, reactionary and prejudicial illiberalism.

We also compare the concept to other '-isms' to tidy the backsliding literature.

It's International Workers Day and I hope you're resting. If wanted to attend the Annual HPE Conference in October @usc.edu, however, this is your last chance to send in an abstract! Tagging @broadstreetblog.bsky.social and @hpe-project.bsky.social for maximum HPE visibility.

Applications due tomorrow, May 1!

Apply to Present Your Work! Complete the form to be considered for the Authoritarian Political Systems Group Fall 2025 Season. Read the Seminar Rules before applying.

The Call for Papers for our Fall 2025 Workshop series is now OPEN! Polisky Dictatorsky
To apply complete this form by May 31st: forms.gle/SvZv98ke4QUT...
You can find more information here on the CfP: apsg.work/cfp/

Should We Vote in Authoritarian Elections? In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Ewa Nizalowska, covers the new article by Turkuler Isiksel and Thomas B. Pepinsky, "Voting in Authoritarian Elections." Elections are often taken as a defining feature of democratic regimes. Although voting is not the only form of democratic political engagement, we tend to presume that voting makes the regimes we live under fairer, more stable and peaceful, or simply better governed.

Should citizens vote in authoritarian elections? In a recent @apsrjournal article, Turkuler Isiksel and Thomas Pepinsky (@tompepinsky) make the case for the democratic value of voting under authoritarianism.