Lotem Halevy

Unconditional Loyalty: The Survival of Minority Autocracies By Salam Alsaadi, University of Toronto Contrary to the conventional view that minority regimes are vulnerable to breakdown, many of these regimes exhibit remarkable durability. From 1900 to 2015, minority autocracies that exclude a single majority ethnic group (e.g., regimes in Bahrain, Syria, and Apartheid South Africa) remained in power twice as long as other autocracies. This article argues that this durability is rooted in their unique ethno-political configuration, which enables them to foster a largely unconditional loyalty due to the ruling minority’s fear of being subjected to majoritarian rule.

Unconditional Loyalty: The Survival of Minority Autocracies

By Salam Alsaadi, University of Toronto Contrary to the conventional view that minority regimes are vulnerable to breakdown, many of these regimes exhibit remarkable durability. From 1900 to 2015, minority autocracies that exclude a…

"I got my PhD by writing prompts instead of doing research, I'm winning"

got some bad news, there still no jobs and now you also know nothing

Claude could never

But to be clear: I went to grad school to study a very specific thing. Despite the odds, I am now almost finished writing a book on that very thing. And even standing where I am today, I wouldn’t change what I study, or how I study it.

People need time to do good work, not everyone gets that time.

For the first time, at least to my face, someone asked how I manage to do the work I do given my identity and “the times.”

My positionality makes me better and more careful at my job. It also makes me slower.

Unfortunately, that last part is what tends to matter.

🇷🇺🇭🇺 Meet Hungarian politician Péter Magyar – same name as the opposition leader, tons of photos with Viktor Orbán and his cabinet members, running as an "independent" in a West Hungarian constituency. A Russia-style spoiler candidate, designed to deceive voters. More on 444.hu: 444.hu/2026/03/12/v...

Right! It's a genius show about how multiparty systems (should) democratically function.

When I taught Introduction to American Politics, I approached it from a comparative perspective, and one assignment was to write a structured comparison of two episodes I paired: one from The West Wing and one from Borgen.

(Pretty sure this assignment passes the AI test, forcing students to think)

2026 CFP, Political theory in/ and/ as political science junior scholars panels

www.mcgill.ca/rgcs/ptps/20...

Usually a Delta gal but...

That's what I don't understand. Why still do this job then?!? It's not like we are incredibly well compensated.

And I will add that doing intellectually meaningful work that advances knowledge takes a long time and TIME IS A PRIVILEGED RESOURCE.

I might be out of a job soon, but if AI produced papers is what academia wants, then I don’t know if I actually want the job I worked so hard for anymore.

Prohibiting Workplace Sexual Harassment ‘Prohibiting Workplace Sexual Harassment: A Cross-Cultural Analysis is one of the most comprehensive and insightful contributions to the global discourse on workplace sexual harassment. Drawing on…

📕 In their book, Prohibiting Workplace Sexual Harassment: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, Cher Weixia Chen provides a cross-cultural analysis of how legislatures, judiciaries, NGOs, and corporations worldwide address workplace sexual harassment @elgarpublishing.bsky.social. buff.ly/4ukeRFC

📙 In their recent book, "Imperial Sexism: Why Culture and Women's Rights Don't Clash," Denise M. Walsh offers a new way to think about and address controversial gender practices that seem to clash with women's rights. buff.ly/bConl9H

@oxunipress.bsky.social #WomensHistoryMonth

Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? No. No it can't. Come on, now.

New post: Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? (No. No it can't. Come on, now.)

davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/can-ai-rep...

Putting my book together has been such an intellectually rewarding experience.

I know what went into it. I also know that AI couldn't have theorized any of it, collected any of the data (which I dug from church basements + archives), nor written any of it.

Thanks @davekarpf.bsky.social for this!

great stuff by @davekarpf.bsky.social

"Journal articles aren’t social science. They’re just a unit of measurement. They’re how we keep score. Producing journal articles isn’t what we are actually meant to be doing — we’re supposed to be learning meaningful things about people, power, and society."

Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? No. No it can't. Come on, now.

Fantastic work from @davekarpf.bsky.social putting some perspective on the notion that AI can do social science research. It can generate passable journal articles, which is not necessarily the same thing. It's a chance to consider what we should be valuing. davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/can-ai-rep...

Very happy to share that our paper "Political socialization and immigrants' support for progressive politics: the case of green parties" with @antvalentim.bsky.social is now published in @psrm.bsky.social!

Link to paper: doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

Short summary in 🧵below:

(1/5)

I am not a Turkey expert, so if you think I am wrong, please let me know! (Or if you have issues with the coding scheme, I tried to briefly outline also please let me know :))

As for the 1980 case, I coded it as religious legitimation due to changing the education system (so a positive case of the aggregate outcome of organized religion collusion with an authoritarian regime), but I agree that this was done mostly to pacify ideological threats and social control.

I look at: (1) the presence of religious militias (not present in the 1980 case), (2) funding for military by domestic or internat religious orgs/movement (not found again), collusion with religious organizations and associations for means of social control (present in 1980 following takeover).

Yes! Thank you! For inclusion criteria (and do not code on consequences, just causes), the sufficient condition is necessitates middle-top collusion to the takeover OR legitimize the regime (including changing the ed system immediately after). I use a pretty liberal definition of organized religion.

Opsie. Germany and Spain, but some people would argue against the inclusion of these cases as authoritarian ascent and repression without the involvement of organized religion, so let's call em edge cases.

The cases are: Egypt (1952), S. Korea (1961), Syria (1963), DRC (1965), Iraq (1968), Libya (1969), Uganda (1971), Chile (1973), Tunisia (1987).

Did I miss any?

This includes cases that are coded across datasets as secular military juntas, personalist dictatorships, and one-party nationalist regimes, but the role of religion is hidden if you look at the outcome, not the process of how the regime was legitimized in society AND the state.

How many non-communist authoritarian regimes rose to power w/o the aid of organized religion in the 19th and 20th centuries?

Years of my life documenting this across a global sample. There are 9 cases (N > 200) in which organized religion played no role in supporting the regime during its ascent.

"To recognise career stage as a relevant consideration would not be to abandon excellence but rather to acknowledge that excellence itself depends on the continued existence of viable career pathways."

This isn't just an Oxbridge phenomenon, and it has massive implications for knowledge production.

And in many other illiberal (electoral) democracies! YouTube, blogs, WhatsApp channels... and in the US look at the increase of journalists on substack!

Annual Review of Political Science Participatory Democracy and Its Limits Kevin J. Elliott Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics and Department of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; email: k.elliott@yale.edu

Annu. Rev. Political Sci. 2026. 29:17.1–17.19 The Annual Review of Political Science is online at polisci.annualreviews.org https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-032724- 125408 Copyright © 2026 by the author(s). All rights reserved Keywords participation, participatory democracy, deliberative democracy, lottocracy, political attention, representation Abstract This review surveys the limits of participatory democracy and reconsiders its merits, with particular emphasis on the limited attention of citizens. I trace the development of participatory democracy within political science and democratic theory and suggest that participation has fallen out of its previously central role as a criterion of democratic quality. What remains is a set of functions and pitfalls, which I explore in a series of inquiries into participation: (a) in lottocracy and electoral democracy, (b) in its relationship to representation, and (c) in local land use planning. I conclude with thoughts for future research informed by the discussion.

Forthcoming from me in the Annual Review of Political Science: "Participatory Democracy and Its Limits."

Download a complete preprint here: kevinjelliott.wordpress.com/wp-content/u...