Michael Bang Petersen

Acquiescence Bias and Criterion Validity: Problems and Potential Solutions for Agree-Disagree Scales - Political Behavior Political Behavior - Scholars frequently measure dispositions like populism, conspiracism, racism, and sexism by asking survey respondents whether they agree or disagree with statements...

New w/@scottclifford.bsky.social.

Lots of work uses agree-disagree scales, and a lit review shows these are 1) frequently just measured in one direction (agree = higher trait) and 2) correlated with each other.

This has potentially big issues for conclusions.

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Beyond Populism | 5 | The Psychology of Status-Seeking and Extreme Pol Democracies are experiencing destabilizing events, including the emergence of demagogues, street riots, circulation of misinformation, and extremely hostile

Thank you for doing this - these findings are important and should influence subsequent work! My only additional thought (which is not relevant to your core message) is that I am not surprised that populism & NFC do not correlate, given our own prior work: www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

IN NEW ISSUE: What drives populists to accept expert advice? Cross-country study by A Peresman, @thoruplars.bsky.social, @honoratam.bsky.social & @m-b-petersen.bsky.social compares how populists & non-populists evaluate expertise: buff.ly/MY1U8CH

@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

Cc @leneholmp.bsky.social

America, If You’re Listening: Denmark’s Example for Fixing Liberal Democracy Talking to Michael Bang Peterson on Denmark's recurring process of self-examination.

Then @paulrosenberg.bsky.social talked about Denmark’s multiyear self-examination of their democracy, which he spoke with @m-b-petersen.bsky.social about www.liberalcurrents.com/america-if-y...

Det første billede ligner det ikoniske billede fra Independence Day over Det Hvide Hus 🛸 Hvad er det?

Important read 👇

Yes, agree that the v-dem data set will be crucial. My guess (which I guess is consistent with yours) would be that it will be categorized as an electoral democracy.

Tak, Jesper!

Danish Exceptionalism: Explaining the Unique Increase in Social Trust Over the Past 30 Years Given the positive societal consequences of social trust and the exceptional high levels of trust found in the Nordic countries, there is a growing interes

I don’t have access to the article right now so I cannot check the exact numbers. But it wasn’t super high. Denmark increased in trust since and the US decreased. This is the relevant paper: academic.oup.com/esr/article-...

Homogeneity, economic equality snd low corruption are all key factors. So, it is not easy to generate. But Denmark and US had actuslly similar trust levels in the early 80s.

In this interview with @paulrosenberg.bsky.social, I discuss a Scandinavian tool for protecting democracy: Parliament-initiated audits of democracy carried out by independent researchers

Currently, I direct such an audit in Denmark & discuss the challenges to liberal democracy in the 21st century 👇

America, If You’re Listening: Denmark’s Example for Fixing Liberal Democracy Talking to Michael Bang Peterson on Denmark's recurring process of self-examination.

Today @paulrosenberg.bsky.social argues that Americans should learn from the Danish government's "multi-year “Power and Democracy study” to analyze how Denmark’s democracy is functioning, what challenges it faces, and what can be done to improve it." www.liberalcurrents.com/america-if-y...

America, If You’re Listening: Denmark’s Example for Fixing Liberal Democracy Talking to Michael Bang Peterson on Denmark's recurring process of self-examination.

American democracy is facing its most serious crisis since the Civil War, but we have no coherent effort to even to try to figure out what's wrong, in order to start fixing things. But Denmark is doing just that with a model it's used before. 1/9
www.liberalcurrents.com/america-if-y...

America, If You’re Listening: Denmark’s Example for Fixing Liberal Democracy Talking to Michael Bang Peterson on Denmark's recurring process of self-examination.

www.liberalcurrents.com/america-if-y.... If you want to see how democratic renewal is done, look to Denmark! Of course, the US is deep into autocratic capture and they are not, so already it’s too late to pull this off. Still, it’s worth looking at how functional democracies stay functional.

America, If You’re Listening: Denmark’s Example for Fixing Liberal Democracy Talking to Michael Bang Peterson on Denmark's recurring process of self-examination.

@m-b-petersen.bsky.social Whereas people with a higher education, people who are older, they're still reading newspapers, they're still watching the evening news shows, and so on,” all of which “makes it much more difficult to actually have a collective will formation.”

Denmark is taking a deep look at itself & its democracy. @m-b-petersen.bsky.social who's leading the multi-year study spoke to me about the history behind it, initial findings, challenges & more. It's a blueprint for the kind of profound rethinking that's long overdue in America.

Mere end nogensinde før er det vigtigt med både demokratisk intuition og eksplicit demokratisk forståelse hos unge mennesker. Et fantastisk godt tilbud til ungdomsuddannelser fra Magtudredningen 2.0. @m-b-petersen.bsky.social @annebind.bsky.social @anderswivel.bsky.social

ps.au.dk/forskning/fo...

New paper this week by V-Dem's director, @silindberg.bsky.social, on the the current wave of autocratization: www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Including this important statement: "...it is by my own analysis no question that the USA no longer qualifies as a democracy."

Eliten er sovset ind i Epsteins edderkoppespind. Er de alle skyldige? Epstein-filerne har kastet lys på magtens mørke side. Hvad kan vi lære af dem?

Eliten er sovset ind i Epsteins edderkoppespind. Er de alle skyldige? Gæst i #dagenshelikopter er @m-b-petersen.bsky.social og @jakovohoho.bsky.social

Indeed! And, as you might know, he is returning to academia.

New paper in @pnas.org: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Coupling surveys of ~8% of the adult Danish population & results of 123 million covid-tests, we show that psychological feelings of coping lowered infection risk. Feelings of fear did not.

Authorities should empower people, not scare them.

Spoke with a PI whose postdoc is trapped abroad because of social media vetting. It appears the postdoc missed disclosing one account and it's unclear if they can come back… ever.

This is the country we live in now.

Note also that Republicans are increasingly seeing Canada and the EU as outright enemies. Incessant propaganda will have that effect.

Epstein-filerne har lært os, at eliten findes. Den er pervers, tarvelig og sensationelt middelmådig Vi får i Epstein-filerne et sensationelt signalement af vor tids globale overklasse

»Eliten findes, og den er pervers,« skriver Rune Lykkeberg om Epstein-afsløringerne.

This article, new in Comparative Political Studies, seems relevant

The Way Back After Backsliding: Public Opinion and the Restoration of Democracy

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

The Way Back After Backsliding: Public Opinion and the Restoration of Democracy - Kristian Frederiksen, Robb Willer, Michael Bang Petersen, 2026 Abundant prior research has analyzed the mass public’s role in democratic backsliding. Comparatively little research has studied democratic restoration, the reh...

Great to see "The Way Back After Backsliding: Public Opinion and the Restoration of Democracy" with @robbwiller.bsky.social and @m-b-petersen.bsky.social out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Few Americans support Trump’s proposed takeover of Greenland By a more than two-to-one margin, Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over Greenland from Danish control.

By a more than two-to-one margin, Americans overall oppose President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over Greenland from Danish control.

Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the U.S. taking over Greenland whereas Republicans are more divided.

Poster for the talk “Breasts, blod and bias”

Come to the Danish music festival, Copenhell, for the metal music and stay for all the insights from my brilliant partner, @ella-p.bsky.social!

She’ll talk about bias against the bodies of biological women in medical research and how to communicate on a polarized topic to young people.

Nej, det har vi ikke. Men det er en god tanke!