Wouter Lammers

I look forward to continue working with @stevenvdwalle.bsky.social in Leuven!

Happy news: I’ve been granted a 3-year FWO postdoctoral fellowship!

Starting in October, I will study how experts can get policymakers’ attention to their repeated warnings without sounding alarmist.

New Pope Declares All Style Manuals Other Than Chicago As Schismatic

Tough times for someone finishing a PhD on (deep) uncertainty. Too many topical examples to pick.

Fascism Scholars, Trump Critics Leave Yale for Canada Jason Stanley, decrying Columbia University’s capitulation to the federal government, is leaving for the University of Toronto. So is Marci Shore, who said she fears “civil war.” Timothy Snyder says h...

Outspoken Fascism Scholars Leave Yale for Canada

Jason Stanley, decrying @columbiauniversity.bsky.social’s capitulation to the federal government, is leaving for the @uoft.bsky.social. So is Marci Shore, who said she fears “civil war.” ... #HigherEd #EDUSky #AcademicSky bit.ly/3RlpmZg

A small wildfire on the Leuven campus - good opportunity to see some street-level bureaucrats in action

Why we have #OfficeHours #AcademicChatter

Doctoraatsbursaal ‘Ambtenaren in het oog van de populistische storm? Lessen uit de gemeentelijke overdracht van de macht’ Ambtenaren in het oog van de populistische storm?

Doctoreren als politiek wetenschapper/bestuurskundige? Bekijk deze interessante vacature! Doctoraatsbursaal ‘Ambtenaren in het oog van de populistische storm? Lessen uit de gemeentelijke overdracht van de macht’ www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

1.5% chance we're all going to die - but at least it was nicely visualized

I´m a public management scholar, dedicated to improving government performance. If the Trumpie sensitivity readers would go through my projects, they would have to stop funding to every single project I ever did.

a penguin is wearing sunglasses and a purple hat ALT: a penguin is wearing sunglasses and a purple hat

I enjoyed the honor of serving as paranymph. Nice chance to dress up as a penguin

The one conclusion that stood out for me: in the 80s, "oil companies increasingly preferred the short-term higher profitability of oil investments over the long-term return on investments in highly uncertain nuclear projects" (p.142).

--> uncertainty as one of the factors fostering short-termism.

He studied how oil companies were deeply involved in atomic energy for decades, and why they largely divested away from it in the 1980s. A highly topical dissertation for today's energy transition.

This week, @michielbron.bsky.social defended his dissertation titled "The Petro-Atom: A century of ubiquitous oil involvevement in nuclear energy, 1895-1993".

Congrats dr. Bron!

Promotors: @ccmmody.bsky.social @vincentlagendijk.bsky.social

“Why I am quitting the Washington Post”: Pulitzer winning cartoonist who has been at the Washington Post since 2008 resigns after a cartoon depicting Bezos and other billionaires paying tribute to Trump was spiked anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

It would be fun to have sideline reporters at academic conferences.

Reporter: "Prof. Rothman, how do you come back from such a devastating Q&A? They really hammered you out there."

Me: "All we can do is go back to the archives, find more evidence, and then just trust the process, Helen."

With writing from Andrea Kendall-Taylor, @michaelkofman.bsky.social, Philip Zelikow and @sam-workman.bsky.social

Working hypothesis for IR scholars/economists: with more, and more powerful, autocrats in the world, democracies will be forced to spend more on defense, energy & food security etc. If policymakers recognize the uncertainty, that is.

Please do share any research you know in this direction!

To DOGE Or Not To DOGE Where and how can government be more efficient?

So what about the consequences?

Facing an unpredictable future, governments need to build resilience and redundancies, just to be sure. So administrations will need to work less efficiently

medium.com/3streams/to-...

Bu I wonder whether even Zelikow's cautious assessment underestimates the deep geopolitical uncertainty of this time

Confronting Another Axis? History, Humility, and Wishful Thinking - Texas National Security Review Drawing on his extensive experience as a historian and diplomat, Philip Zelikow warns that the United States faces an exceptionally volatile time in global politics and that the period of maximum dang...

Philip Zelikow wrote: "We are in an exceptionally volatile, dynamic, and unstable period of world history. During the next two or three years, the situation will probably settle more durably in one direction or another: wider war or uneasy peace"

tnsr.org/2024/05/conf...

This means that dictators like Putin make the world much more unpredictable than Western policymakers and electorates would like (and sometimes realize). The geopolitical future is deeply uncertain.

Key quote: Dictators "tend to produce the most risky and aggressive foreign policies. Countries with personalist authoritarians at the helm are the most likely to initiate interstate conflicts, the most likely to fight wars against democracies, and the most likely to invest in nuclear weapons."

Putin’s Point of No Return An unchecked Russia will challenge the West.

Geopolitics and uncertainty - a short reflection

👉Read this interesting long-read on why the clash between Putin and Ukraine & western countries will likely sustain, and why

www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/putin...

Three wise men Christmas Gifts @tomgauld.bsky.social

Three wise men
Christmas Gifts
@tomgauld.bsky.social

To DOGE Or Not To DOGE Where and how can government be more efficient?

Let's just DOGE it, and start over. See my latest @3streamsblog.bsky.social on DOGE, the nature of efficiency in systems, and the lessons of public policy. 🏛️🗺️🌐
medium.com/3streams/to-...

But see @thomasvlinge.bsky.social for reporting on Aleppo, Mozambique, Myanmar etc

I am writing a book chapter on qualitative methods in political science/public policy/public administration.

If you have authored recent papers using QM in these three disciplines, please send them to me! I’d like to read and potentially cite.

raul(.)pacheco(.)vega(@)flacso(.)mx

What Europe is Missing. The Discussion about European Defense Often Misses the Greatest Weakness

US leadership’s strategic infantilization of Europe is starkly evident now. Europe has the makings of a global power but lacks the self-conception and will to act as one.
"Europe actually has a very strong body, and a deficient mind." - @phillipspobrien.bsky.social