@matthiasdilling
Assistant Prof in Pol Scie @tcdpoliticalsci.bsky.social & co-convenor PSA German Politics | prev. Oxford, Swansea, PhD Oxford (Nuffield College) | Studying how and why political parties change & what this means for democracy | Book: https://t.co/1vvjasFYfD
Come and join our workshop on Meloni's impact on the management of migration in the EU, co-organised by @lse-ei.bsky.social and @psa-italian.bsky.social, with financial support by @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social!
PhD students & ECRs can apply for travel grants up to £110 to cover travel/accommodation.
🎉 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...
Danish election campaign first poll:
- center left bloc almost has a majority; center right far from
- centrist government (like the current) is an option again
- social democrats do well (compared to recent polls, not comp w/ 2022 elections)
- liberals do poorly, general fragmentation on the right
Many congratulations! 🤩🥳 What a fantastic paper & contribution!
🚨🎉 New Publication! 🎉🚨
Measuring Factional Conflict: A Comparative Approach Using Party Leadership Contests
w/ @malpas.bsky.social & @blumrm.bsky.social
Out now in Party Politics. 🔗 doi.org/10.1177/1354...
(🧵 below)
I develop a theoretical framework explaining why the media cordon sanitaire - an approach that denies far-right actors direct platforms and avoids amplifying their ideas - is increasingly weakening.
I conducted interviews with editors-in-chief, political editors, and journalists across different media outlets and regions in Germany. These interviews provide rare insights into journalists’ perceptions, motivations, and the “behind-the-scenes” constraints shaping their work.
Although media reporting on the far right is widely debated, journalists’ underlying motivations are rarely analysed systematically:
How do journalists respond to the far right? And what factors influence these responses?
Amazing to see the paper out! 🤩 What an important and timely contribution and excellent study. A must read!
NEW PUBLICATION
“How the Media Cordon Sanitaire Crumbles: Lessons from Germany” now out in @prxjournal.bsky.social
🔓 doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2026.2621808
I’m very happy that this paper is out – this project is particularly important to me.
I am deeply grateful to all interviewees for sharing their time& insights. A special thanks to @leoniedejonge.bsky.social and @matthiasdilling.bsky.social for their support & organising the Special Issue.I also thank @caterinafr.bsky.social , @tiondelisa.bsky.social, @juliareuschenbach.bsky.social
Monday 30 March, 09:30 (Venue 21)
German Politics, Italian Politics & Greek Politics Roundtable - The Global Far right in Comparative and Transnational Perspective
with @matthiasdilling.bsky.social @dafnoukos.bsky.social @mlorimer.bsky.social @vtsagkr.bsky.social Josefin Graef
Do open lists increase turnout? Probably not, but they increase rates of voter error: New evidence from Spain Leonardo Carella Abstract This article challenges the claim that open-list systems are beneficial for electoral participation, by reassessing and extending the analysis in a notable empirical paper that advances this argument. The paper (Carlos Sanz, “The effect of electoral systems on voter turnout: Evidence from a natural experiment”, PSRM, 2017) leverages a population-based discontinuity in Spanish municipal elections (1979–2011), where towns with fewer than 250 residents employ open lists whereas larger towns employ closed lists. Through a series of statistical tests and the inspection of alternative data sources, I show that the positive effect of open lists on turnout estimated in the paper is dubious, for two reasons: (1) non-random missing data, due to inconsistencies in how non-valid votes were recorded above and below the threshold, and (2) compound treatment issues, due to changes in list-length requirements at the threshold. I then proceed to show that, rather than improving turnout, the more complex open-list ballot actually hinders voters’ ability to express their preferences, by increasing the incidence of voter errors relative to closed lists (reflected in higher rates of ‘null’ voting). To support a causal interpretation of this relationship, I present evidence from the analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects, and show that a similar pattern obtains in Spanish general elections, where open and closed lists are used concurrently for the election of the country’s bicameral parliament. I conclude by discussing the implications of the analysis for implementing population-based regression discontinuities and evaluating electoral system effects.
New paper out at @electoralstudies.bsky.social.
I show that - contrary to claims that personalised electoral systems are good for participation - Open Lists have no effect on turnout relative to Closed Lists; in fact, they increase rates of voter error. 🗳️
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
If you are an advanced PhD student or PostDoc working on AI and global politics/tech/authoritarianism come spend 1-6 months in Berlin this year with @scripts-berlin.eu! We have some funding for you and will help w/ visa and other moving issues.
Info here: www.scripts-berlin.eu/about-us/job...
I am accepting applications for a postdoc to work with me at the University of Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.
Area of Research: Democratic Institutions, Public Engagement, American History
Due by February 23rd
munkschool.utoronto.ca/current-oppo...
A helpful reminder: so-called 'remigration' is literally Nazi stuff
How can stable personality traits explain less stable PRR voting? Daniel Komaromy, @delaneypeterson.bsky.social, @mrooduijn.bsky.social and I test whether negative contact with immigrants 'activates' these traits. Mostly, it doesn't. But: initial exposure and out-group definition may matter.
Why did antisemitism rise in Germany during the Covid pandemic? And why was this increase concentrated among political centrists, rather than on the fringes?
doi.org/10.1017/S153...
@kanol.bsky.social @wzb.bsky.social @uni-hamburg.de @politikuhh.bsky.social @socfub.bsky.social
From context to congruence: Immigration salience and voter socialization Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 January 2026 Leonardo Carella and Francesco Raffaelli This paper considers how issue salience environments affect long-term patterns of political choice via processes of political socialization. Drawing on the well-known ‘impressionable years’ hypothesis, we theorize that voters who grew up in high-immigration salience contexts subsequently exhibit higher levels of voter-party agreement on immigration (issue congruence). We find support for this hypothesis from two studies, which leverage cross-sectional variation within cohorts in exposure to immigration salience in voters’ formative years. The first employs congruence data from a survey of 10 European countries, linked to historical salience data from the Comparative Manifesto Project. The second is a within-country study, measuring salience and congruence from two long-running German public opinion survey series. The analysis suggests that growing up at times when immigration is high on the political agenda can have long-term consequences for the relationship between voters’ preferences on that issue and their political choices, shedding light on the mechanism behind ‘generational realignment’.
Really happy this work with @fraraffaelli.bsky.social found a home at EJPR. We show that growing up at times of high salience of immigration produces cohorts of voters who are more likely to vote for parties that they agree with specifically on immigration.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Highly recommended to those interested in the dynamics at the last German General Elections 2025!
🚨New article by Maximilian Tkocz and Rachel Herring: Ontological Nuisance in Elite Discourse: Foreign Policy and the Populist Radical Right in Germany.
Open Access in Global Studies Quarterly 👉https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/doi/10.1093/isagsq/ksaf124/8427349
🚨Publication Alert🚨
Supply & Demand of Regional Populism in Bavaria: Explaining the Regional Success of the CSU & Free Voters in German Politics
📑TL;DR: Regional populism is distinct from AfD's general populism and predicts CSU/FW voting well.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
A short 🧵 1/n
I hear #ica26 @icahdq.bsky.social notifications are going out, so here’s my annual reminder to put outcomes into perspective for early-career folks (full disclosure: I didn’t apply this year).
Very happy to see this out in CPS! We study class identities and their social and political relevance over several decades in Britain, Denmark, Norway, and the US. A small thread:
journals.sagepub.com/eprint/SIRW4...
Great paper! Many congratulations, Peter!
Konrad #Adenauer ging mit dem Wahl-
slogan „Keine Experimente“ in die Ge-
schichte ein - er holte 1957 die absoltue Mehrheit. Doch war die Politik des ersten Kanzlers der BRD tatsächlich so reformarm? Nein, meint ZZF-Direktor Frank Bösch im @tagesspiegel.de anlässlich Adenauers 150. Geburtstags.
Happy New Year! Excited to start 2026 with some archival research in Germany's federal archives on a new project on democratic resilience. 😀
@ecprtheloop.bsky.social invites pitches for the Future of Populism blog series, co-edited by @petraguasti.bsky.social and myself.
Nearly 100 blogs have been published so far.
🔍 Any country, method, approach.
🎓 PhD students & ECRs especially encouraged.
✍️ Submit via The Loop 👉 lnkd.in/ghAy6s96
Clear evidence that at universities conservatives don't face higher obstacles than liberals to establish student groups + invite outside speakers.
"These results fail to offer support for the view that conservative students encounter more difficulty in efforts to access campus resources."