Michele Fenzl's Avatar

Michele Fenzl

@mfenzl.bsky.social

Asst Professor (tenured) of political science @Maastricht. Previously postdoc in Zurich; PhD in Govt from Essex. Interested in political behaviour, political economy, comparative politics, EP elections, and everything experiments.

2,940 Followers  |  1,036 Following  |  140 Posts  |  Joined: 05.11.2024
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Posts by Michele Fenzl (@mfenzl.bsky.social)

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We are opening an investigation into Grok because we believe that X may have breached the DSA.

We have seen antisemitic content, non-consensual deepfakes of women, and child sexual abuse material.

In Europe, no company will make money by violating our fundamental rights.

link.europa.eu/Fh8h84

26.01.2026 13:24 β€” πŸ‘ 2420    πŸ” 845    πŸ’¬ 109    πŸ“Œ 124
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Italian journalists of RAI (the Italian major TV and public station) stopped and threatened by ICE. This should not be the narrative the US government wants to send abroad.

25.01.2026 19:58 β€” πŸ‘ 695    πŸ” 266    πŸ’¬ 30    πŸ“Œ 66
Hungary, Parliamentary elections, 12 April 2026 Following an official invitation from the authorities of Hungary to observe the parliamentary elections to be held on 12 April 2026, and in accordance...

Good news! The OSCE Democracy Office suggests sending a full election observation mission to Hungary, with 200 observers on election day. Highly necessary, considering the charged situation and persistent fairness issues. @europarl.europa.eu should send a mission too!

odihr.osce.org/node/661804

22.01.2026 16:14 β€” πŸ‘ 55    πŸ” 19    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 2
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"Minneapolis has become a petri dish for his hardline immigration policies, zeal for militarized law enforcement tactics and attempts to use immigration as a cudgel to crush progressive values in cities that reject his strongman leadership," writes Stephen Collinson | Analysis https://cnn.it/4aWuNJg

16.01.2026 11:00 β€” πŸ‘ 84    πŸ” 34    πŸ’¬ 42    πŸ“Œ 4
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Tensions flared in Minneapolis again Thursday in the wake of a second shooting by a federal immigration officer in just one week, as President Donald Trump threatened to invoke a centuries-old law that would allow the deployment of US troops to Minnesota. https://cnn.it/3Nm3sGG

16.01.2026 10:31 β€” πŸ‘ 49    πŸ” 16    πŸ’¬ 24    πŸ“Œ 4
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β€˜Madness’: two US citizens violently detained by ICE in Minnesota, officials say Two Target employees forced to the ground, then into SUV, then dumped in different parking lot

ICE Agents enter Target with no warrant and violently tackle two American citizen employees, evidently because they didn't "look American" enough. (DHS refused to explain their rationale, so we have to guess.)

The injured Americans were later dumped in parking lots miles away in sub-zero weather.

16.01.2026 02:51 β€” πŸ‘ 1533    πŸ” 812    πŸ’¬ 127    πŸ“Œ 62

Scenes from a personalist regime: the president’s personal lawyer threatens to arrest the elected leaders of an occupied city

15.01.2026 04:18 β€” πŸ‘ 1122    πŸ” 394    πŸ’¬ 38    πŸ“Œ 15
Governor Walz Addresses Ongoing Federal Presence in Minnesota
YouTube video by Office of the Governor of Minnesota Governor Walz Addresses Ongoing Federal Presence in Minnesota

Watch my address on the ongoing federal presence in Minnesota:

youtu.be/fGTsYXBWQgU

15.01.2026 01:35 β€” πŸ‘ 6346    πŸ” 2166    πŸ’¬ 576    πŸ“Œ 286

What could go wrong?

13.01.2026 23:24 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
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Greenland PM Jens-Frederik Nielsen:

"If we have to choose between the US & Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark. We choose NATO. We choose the Kingdom of Denmark. We choose the EU."

"Greenland does not want to be owned by the US. Greenland does not want to be governed by the US" he later added.

13.01.2026 19:50 β€” πŸ‘ 29524    πŸ” 7715    πŸ’¬ 963    πŸ“Œ 544
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Europe needs to think the unthinkable on Nato Conflict over Greenland could destroy the transatlantic alliance, requiring a new European security treaty to replace it

@gideonrachman: "what the end of Nato would mean for the US. The continued existence of American military bases in Europe would immediately come into question."
"The arms sales to Europe...would also collapse."
www.ft.com/content/5690...

12.01.2026 18:15 β€” πŸ‘ 117    πŸ” 34    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 1

Literal propaganda for the sitting president

11.01.2026 15:34 β€” πŸ‘ 118    πŸ” 30    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations A dark money group paid $80,000 to Noem’s personal company when she was governor of South Dakota. She did not include this income on her federal disclosure forms, a likely violation of ethics requirem...

Kristi Noem, while governor of South Dakota, supplemented her roughly $130,000 salary by secretly accepting $80,000 donated to a political nonprofit she was affiliated with, records show.

She never disclosed this income on federal ethics forms.

(Published June 2025)

11.01.2026 04:00 β€” πŸ‘ 7043    πŸ” 3371    πŸ’¬ 644    πŸ“Œ 311
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Rep. Angie Craig: "We were told because this facility is being funding by the 'Big Beautiful Bill,' not the congressional appropriations act, that we would not be allowed to enter the facility. That's complete nonsense ... I informed them they were violating the law. They said they didn't care."

10.01.2026 16:53 β€” πŸ‘ 16873    πŸ” 6931    πŸ’¬ 1012    πŸ“Œ 670
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"We are very well aware of the fact that X for Grok is now offering a spicy mode showing explicit sexual content.

This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting.

I can confirm we are very seriously looking into this matter."

β€” Spokesperson @thomasregnier.ec.europa.eu

09.01.2026 14:00 β€” πŸ‘ 1496    πŸ” 464    πŸ’¬ 105    πŸ“Œ 90

Time to stop writing articles about the "security" or "economic" reasons to capture Greenland, they are irrelevant

09.01.2026 07:18 β€” πŸ‘ 2215    πŸ” 711    πŸ’¬ 125    πŸ“Œ 30
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Assistant Professor in Political and Social Philosophy Welcome to Maastricht University! At Maastricht University, philosophy plays a vital role in understanding a world marked by political tensions, technological upheaval, and societal transformations. H...

🚨We've got two tenure track posts in political philosophy @maastrichtu.bsky.social.🚨 Deadlines are 31 January and 26 February.
#philosophy #academicjobs |
@apaphilosophy.bsky.social

www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3566...

www.academictransfer.com/nl/jobs/3574...

08.01.2026 21:37 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 6    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 4
An email from Martin Peterson to university administrators.

An email from Martin Peterson to university administrators.

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

08.01.2026 17:38 β€” πŸ‘ 5153    πŸ” 1546    πŸ’¬ 61    πŸ“Œ 142
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Hegseth’s Appalling Vengeance Campaign The Defense secretary’s attempts to demote Senator Mark Kelly are a pernicious form of political bullying.

Hegseth's attack on Mark Kelly reveals a dangerous core belief, @dgraham.bsky.social argues in The Atlantic Daily: Criticizing Trump and defending the rule of law is sedition.

06.01.2026 00:21 β€” πŸ‘ 204    πŸ” 72    πŸ’¬ 10    πŸ“Œ 1

A reminder that the US killed 80 people in Venezuela, and it would be nice if the US media cared enough to think that the life of a grandmother in Caracas whose building is destroyed by a US bomb matters as much as the life of a person in the US.

05.01.2026 17:54 β€” πŸ‘ 12250    πŸ” 3403    πŸ’¬ 265    πŸ“Œ 142

Congrats again to John Mearsheimer for once again winning the eponymous John J. Mearsheimer Award For Demonstrating To People Who You Really Are:

bsky.app/profile/mcop...

03.01.2026 22:43 β€” πŸ‘ 96    πŸ” 14    πŸ’¬ 5    πŸ“Œ 0

Ladies and gentlemen, the brilliant mind who’s been called the β€œphilosopher behind JD Vance”

01.01.2026 16:16 β€” πŸ‘ 2114    πŸ” 447    πŸ’¬ 123    πŸ“Œ 14
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Gaza City's landscape was once packed with concrete residential blocks. In the weeks before a ceasefire in October, Israel widely deployed a new weapon: M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers repurposed to carry between 1 and 3 tons of explosives, Reuters found reut.rs/49fw0cd

31.12.2025 08:31 β€” πŸ‘ 102    πŸ” 91    πŸ’¬ 15    πŸ“Œ 14
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DOGE was A LOT less likely to cancel contracts from companies that donated money to Republicans than companies that donated to Democrats.

25.12.2025 22:47 β€” πŸ‘ 3502    πŸ” 1275    πŸ’¬ 72    πŸ“Œ 84

πŸ“’ Happy that the Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication has just been published ! Have a look at my chapter on β€œDigital Intra-Party Democracy,” on how digital tools & AI are reshaping internal party processes and political participation. Link to my entry πŸ‘‰πŸ» www.elgaronline.com/display/book...

19.12.2025 04:29 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Vacancy β€” Postdoc: "Role of Social Norms and Norms Transgression in the Acceptance of Negative Campaigning" <p><span>Are you passionate about political communication, election campaigns, and quantitative empirical research? The Amsterdam School of Communication Research is seeking a highly motivated Postdoc for the research project<em> β€˜That’s (not) appropriate’– Role of Social Norms and Norm Transgression in Voters’ Acceptance of Negative Campaigning, </em></span><span>led by Dr. Corinna Oschatz.</span></p>

🫡WE WANT YOU πŸŽ“
Are you interested in political communication, negative campaigning, and social norms? Are you experienced in quantitative methods? Do you have good rain clothes?

Then our postdoc position might be just for you: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas

18.12.2025 16:25 β€” πŸ‘ 24    πŸ” 21    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 2

Not that it will but the willingness of Americans to obey is a very funny contrast with our self-image and should probably prompt some reflection bsky.app/profile/jonf...

19.12.2025 15:46 β€” πŸ‘ 2926    πŸ” 762    πŸ’¬ 145    πŸ“Œ 52

Thank you Federica!

18.12.2025 15:54 β€” πŸ‘ 1    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1

✨✨ Grant self-celebration ✨✨

Super happy I have been awarded a NWO XS grant to study how inequality affects political information! The grant will allow me to develop multi-country experiments and better understand how we read political information when our countries get more unequal! Stay tuned πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’»

18.12.2025 14:30 β€” πŸ‘ 19    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Some of the nearly 1,600 people who received clemency from Trump over the Jan. 6 attack have met with Justice Department officials and provided advice on how to retaliate against those who helped put them behind bars, a Reuters investigation finds reut.rs/4qeX9mu

17.12.2025 11:27 β€” πŸ‘ 79    πŸ” 74    πŸ’¬ 9    πŸ“Œ 6