🎉 New publication 😍 The 4th wave of the #farright is marked by #mainstreaming & #normalisation - but how can we distinguish between them? In our new article, @gefjonoff.bsky.social and I map the existing literature, introduce a conceptual framework & outline research avenues. doi.org/10.1017/S147...
Wałęsa is many things, one of them being his refusal of using violence to change regime. Solidarność had a tiny minority of "let's kill communists" people, Leszke and his intelligentsia brothers in arms never got into that.
Outstanding piece. Contains well-evidenced key takeaways:
"Democratic survival ... is determined in large part by how obvious the threat to democracy is. The more people recognize that an elected leader is trying to destroy democracy from within, the less likely it is that said leader will succeed"
Just 3% of Republican students feel they don’t belong on campus because of their political views. THREE!
The far right are using a lie to destroy US higher education and X-indoctrinated reactionary centrists are actively helping them.
Just yesterday Krastev gave an interview in Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland, saying "We must involve far-right parties in the new European consensus. We cannot constantly tremble with fear of them and do nothing else." He gets a platform & suggests they are just another political actor to be house-trained.
I'm kind of sick and tired of seeing privileged (mostly male) senior scholars take advantage of their own privileged positions to mainstream and normalise the far right, seemingly without any shame (or consequences).
Your work is harming us all (collectively, societally, and within the discipline).
Celebrating the 100th post in the Future of Populism series 🔮 with a brilliantly written blog by @mattiazulianello.bsky.social 🌳🌲! His PopulisTree brings clarity to decades of research on populism. 🎉 Read the post 👇
theloop.ecpr.eu/making-sense... 🌀
Published recently in @polstudies.bsky.social... on how Scotland can offer broader lessons on polarization and the failure/success of populist radical right parties 👇
Fascinating that after so many unmitigated disasters that this guy's advice has been it took Epstein files and a relatively middle of the road error of judgement to take him down.
Great intervention by @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social on reactionary centrism, anti-wokeness, and the tendency to interpret the success of the right as backlash instead of as its own political project
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
🇺🇸🇭🇺🇵🇱 US rule of law crisis is a calque of the Hungary/Poland crisis, episode 546.
The radical right’s master frame remains ethnic nationalism. Remigration is simply one of its logical consequences. First came stopping (or minimizing) immigration; next is pushing people with migrant backgrounds to leave. Expect further radicalization.
Who protests against democratic backsliding? A new working paper with Margalit, Sheffer and Yakir examines this issue and finds that people’s conceptions of what democracy means play a crucial role in predicting whether they engage in active opposition to backsliding efforts. osf.io/preprints/so...
Cas Mudde spells out what has become largely the consensus among researchers: moving right on immigration will not weaken the far right nor strengthen social democracy. If your reaction is "but in Denmark" please at least familiarize yourself with Danish politics
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Also: the media, which made this election all about the AfD. Yes, they have tripled their support,which is impressive. But that still leaves them in 3rd place, and 10 points below their national polling, something that hardly features in the coverage
"A key legacy of illiberalism turns out to be a series of institutional traps... Inaction leaves the damage unrepaired and demobilizes supporters, while effective action may involve capitulation to the illiberal playbook."
Dear universities,
I am begging you to stop requiring letters of recommendation for master's programmes. You and I both know you don't read them, so stop asking for them.
Instead, have applicants list a name and get in touch if it's a borderline case.
Signed,
Everyone.
"To paraphrase Albert Camus, he is an empty prophet for mediocre times." 😁
(although I prefer to ignore M.G.)
New article! 📚
"German Politics in #Times of #Crises: The Success of the Post-Merkel Conservatives in the 2025 Federal Election" is out in the @jcms-eu.bsky.social. Not the Scholz government, but the CDU's return may deepen the break with Merkel's legacy.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
❗The segmentation of the right field is eroding, especially among young voters❗
New article out by @simonbornschier.bsky.social @dpzollinger.bsky.social
@mrsteenbergen.bsky.social and myself
@ipz.bsky.social @wepsocial.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/ycxfx2aj
A short 🧵
1/7
Important thread summarizing an important article.
People with influence within Social Delocratic parties, please read… and, then, don’t ignore it because you hear one anecdote that confirms “the Narrative”.
Germans spent romanticism feeling the metaphorical pain of the world, we spent it shooting ourselves in the head and surviving, we are not the same.
Stefan Zweig wrote in The World of Yesterday that he knew everything was over in 1930s Germany when squads of young uniformed thugs began to jump out of trucks to beat up protesters.
Someone organized, trained, provided uniforms, and provided trucks. Someone let them legally terrorize society.
Political blunders, distrust of elites, and Donald Tusk’s inability to deliver on his promises helped make an unknown, far-right former bodyguard the country’s next president. Worse, it will be far harder now to safeguard Polish democracy.
www.journalofdemocra...
Very good, short explainer piece on what to expect post-election for the foreign reader.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/o...
