Russia, Venezuela, Iran, China, the Sahel region, the United States ...
Want to know why state agents carry out brutal repression — or participate in illegal coups?
Our new book "Making a Career in Dictatorship" provides answers — it just got published by @academic.oup.com:
tinyurl.com/ystwm3tf
🚨‼️🏆📣
I’m chairing the Thomas E. Patterson Best Dissertation Award in Political Communication committee. The award recognizes the best dissertation successfully defended in 2025.
Please nominate your students and forward this call to colleagues working in political communication.
I know extreme cases got publicized a lot. But as someone with an unprivileged passport (though important enough that they still want us), visiting Europe as a tourist is significantly more painful than visiting the US in every possible way.
19.12.2025 08:30 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A critique of our (w/ @bertous.bsky.social) paper “Instrumentally inclusive” has just been published.
Our response is under review (see below on process) but we feel obliged to share our draft for balance since the comment has been released without the response.
osf.io/rn6h3/files/...
"Normalization of Censorship: Evidence from China" by
Tony Zirui Yang.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
Equally concerning as the headlines about censorship is the multiple conversations I had recently about self-censoring our research due to political climate. It’s a tricky question with no easy answer. But perhaps we are not real autocracies yet, and we play a part in preventing that from happening.
18.09.2025 22:21 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0![Emory [University] will be tuition-free for students whose families earn $200,000 or less](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ipfoo74j4nttl2wsagq3645w/bafkreih5ozh456qeszhsrfyzxplifxttrih4kzbst36kauf4l4ol7iygh4@jpeg)
Emory [University] will be tuition-free for students whose families earn $200,000 or less
Power move! Influenced by multiple factors and in response to multiple forces, including the political. #highered news.emory.edu/features/202...
17.09.2025 21:01 — 👍 17 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0Thanks Jan! So nice to see you again!
15.09.2025 04:26 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0We welcome all research on authoritarian politics broadly defined. Currently, it’s all in-person.
13.09.2025 20:26 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Thanks, Konstantin!
13.09.2025 20:23 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Honored to receive this year’s Thomas E. Patterson Best Dissertation Award in Political Communication @polcomm.bsky.social. Grateful to everyone who supported me along this incredible journey.
13.09.2025 03:56 — 👍 47 🔁 4 💬 2 📌 0
🚨 Call for Papers: 2026 WPSA Mini-Conference on Authoritarian Politics 🚨
Jun Sudduth, @paulschuler.bsky.social, and I are excited to see y’all in San Diego! We welcome formal and empirical papers on a broad range of topics.
📌 Apply here. Share with colleagues & students:
forms.gle/Dv2SBEduFxSh...
💘Can authoritarian propaganda cultivate support and deter protest during “normal” times?
➡️ @tzyang.bsky.social & @zhuhs.bsky.social find that hard propaganda reinforces support for protest, while soft propaganda loses credibility www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView
Thanks, MiLO!
26.06.2025 15:02 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Oh wow! Super interesting! We did get some data from state media accounts on Weibo but ended up going for the short paper route. Would love to read it when it’s ready!
19.06.2025 16:12 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0🚨📣 Our paper titled 🪢👅 analyzing the limits of China’s propaganda during the COVID chaos in late 2022 is finally out @psrm.bsky.social !!!
19.06.2025 15:49 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 0
New preprint w/ @grahn.bsky.social & @joenoonan.se
What happens when the world's most powerful democracy rolls back core liberal values? 🇺🇸
In this paper, we show how US liberal retrenchment, especially on women’s rights & LGBTQ+ equality, damages US global standing.
📄 doi.org/10.31219/osf...
UK voters are making my decision to move back to the US a lot less painful.
03.05.2025 10:55 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0But hopefully it doesn’t take a Katrina this time around 🤞
26.04.2025 13:47 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Since day 1 @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social, I’ve been plotting a workshop on the frontiers of authoritarian politics. The world, helpfully, has only gotten more authoritarian, making it more relevant by the day.
Big thanks to @benansell.bsky.social and all participants who made it a huge success!
Cool to see my next book Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics co-authored w/ Alex Cooley as one of "The Most Anticipated Books of 2025" in @foreignpolicy.com
03.01.2025 12:52 — 👍 43 🔁 9 💬 2 📌 2
🚨 Super excited to have @tzyang.bsky.social presenting his research this Thursday!
He and M. Tavits introduce Binary Gender ID strength (BGIS) as an explanation for anti-LGBTQ+ prejudice with cool experiments. 🏳️🌈
Don't miss it!
🏳️🌈 Be sure to join us this Thursday for our March webinar with @tzyang.bsky.social!
👉 Tony will present his amazing work showing how binary gender identity strength increases prejudice towards LGBTQ+ individuals.
📆 Don't miss it!
“Trump Saves the Liberals” I can’t wait to see this title 🥶.
18.02.2025 11:42 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
LGBTQ+ flag flying above Nuffield College.
A bright spot on the horizon amid all the bleak news this week. Thanks to all the great people at Nuffield College!
05.02.2025 17:59 — 👍 14 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Recently accepted by #QJE, “The Impact of Being Denied a Wanted Abortion on Women and their Children,” by Londoño-Vélez (@jlondonovelez.bsky.social) and Saravia: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...
30.01.2025 22:32 — 👍 146 🔁 69 💬 3 📌 10
Tried Deepseek for the first time. Idk… feels like censorship to me… 🤷🤷♀️🤷🏽♂️
25.01.2025 12:19 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
lol… my dad starts complaining about all the TikTok refugees on RedNote flooding the Chinese content he follows.
Novel form of anti-immigration sentiment in the social media era 😂😂😂
Xiaohongshu is also one of the best apps in China for Chinese-language convos about feminism.
13.01.2025 20:34 — 👍 13 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 0XHS/RedNote is the gay heaven of Chinese social media 🥰🏳️🌈
13.01.2025 20:50 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0