Joe Phillips

My first publication is out in @wepsocial.bsky.social , with @lennartschuermann.bsky.social ✨ We analyze how protest increases before different types of elections. We show crucial differences in how civil society and parties prioritize elections in a multilevel system. doi.org/10.1080/0140...

God bless America, this America

The war that is not a war that is just getting started and might last until September is pretty much done and we’re also going to seize a strait we don’t control and maybe kill more leaders if we don’t like them

Dr Alice Hodkinson, founder of Biology in Medicine, a campaign group, said: "We have known for years that cross-sex hormones are harmful for all children through to age 18 so we welcome this announcement. "However, cross-sex hormones do not become any less harmful on a patient's 18th birthday. There is mounting evidence of the long-term adverse effects which include heart disease, stroke and early mortality. "For all age groups there are huge concerns about access to illegal drugs privately and via EU loopholes, where patients are accessing prescription hormones from Spain and Ireland in particular, and also the use of illegal anabolic steroids direct from websites. "We hope the Government will act on all these sources of hormones to protect vulnerable groups of children and young adults from bad actors."

While Labour continues its anti-trans agenda by denying medical assistance to trans young people, it will never be enough for certain "gender critical" ideologues. They won't be satisfied until no trans individuals can transition at all.

archive.today/2026.03.09-0...

Donald Trump’s Presidency Is in Free Fall Republicans typically lead on the economy, national security, and immigration. Trump is squandering the GOP’s traditional strength on all three.

Trump is in serious trouble. His war is deeply unpopular. He's now in the toilet on the economy, immigration, and national security. His public standing is getting close to being broken in an irreparable way, akin to Bush after Iraq and Katrina:
newrepublic.com/article/2074...

Have Vance and Trump said thank you?

Scenes from a personalist regime

The reviews used to justify this excluded nearly 97% of all studies from inclusion in their analysis. This is an absolutely obscene hatchet job by the NHS specifically created to eliminate access to hormones for trans youth.

This is correct, and a much better plan than to sit back and wait for Polis to do something awful

I see your TACO and raise you STAR:

Some
Things
Aren’t
Reversible

As an IR professor, it's depressing that this is outperforming all others as the best theory of US foreign policy

This is an escalation by DHS.

Six US Citizens and permanent residents are now home after being held over 30 hours at O’Hare, transferred to Broadview, and moved across state lines.

Community pressure got them home. So many more do not have that support.

The actual finding here is about research methodology and doesn't debunk previous studies that find no association between Tylenol and autism.

You should not report studies like this in a way that implies RFK Jr has a point!
www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/...

The democrats‘ lack of opposition leader during the most low hanging fruit blame game episode in recent history does not bode well. Better or worse the system depends on someone — anyone — channeling and mediating the message and that role remains unfilled. Which is bad.

Democrats still get grief for a decade-old “deplorable” comment whereas Republicans acting like the Klan barely hits the news. Bigotry is a career strategy for them.

The historical collapse of bipartidismo in the United Kingdom, in one chart (from @luketryl.bsky.social)

Congrats to the winner of the Harrison Prize for best article published in a 2025 issue: "Why Are Graduates More Socially Liberal? Estimating the Effect of Higher Education on Political Values Through Variation in University Experience " by @ralphscott.bsky.social

buff.ly/3qmRpKO

#polisky

🏳️‍🌈At the very end of last year we looked again at voting intention by sexual orientation
➡️Reform led 🌹Labour by 11 with straight men
➡️Reform led 🌳Tories by 6 with straight women
➡️Reform led 💚Greens by 6 with gay & bisexual men
💚Greens led 🌹Labour by 16 (!) among gay & bisexual women

Mass Observing British politics - British Politics British Politics - The current political moment in Britain is characterised by disaffection, affective polarisation, and populist mobilisation of these (dis)affections. How best to research these...

New paper:

Mass Observing British Politics

On what Mass Observation might contribute to political studies (and what political studies might contribute to Mass Observation). With @jmoss88.bsky.social and Alex Hill. Also paging @massobsarchive.bsky.social

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

Guess What Moderate Democratic Voters Aren’t Anymore? Moderate. Two new polls suggest that moderate Democrats, too, want higher taxes on the rich and some measure of economic populism. Moderate isn’t what it was in 1992.

Moderate Democrats with columns in newspapers are constantly saying the Democratic Party is way too liberal on "social" issues. Moderate Democratic voters in real life do not feel this way. With some polling data from @gelliottmorris.com and @dataforprogress.org. newrepublic.com/article/2074...

Also as @mcopelov.bsky.social points out, with no accountability for any of this rogue foreign policy, it will further erode trust in government for years to come.

Very excited to see this paper out in the world! Across 3 rounds of interviews with white Minnesotans, I show that white id varies and responds dynamically to shifts in context. Many whites have low id but vary in how they interpret whiteness—as providing them dis/advantages. 1/7

NOW OUT ON FIRSTVIEW!!

#Recontextualizing #Whiteness: Understanding White Identity in the Era of #Black #Lives #Matter

By @genevavalerie.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

Conditionally accepted at the APSR (w/ @scottclifford.bsky.social & @patrickpliu.bsky.social):

Why does political information so often change beliefs but NOT attitudes? We highlight the role of belief relevance, or the extent to which beliefs bear on attitudes.

An illegal war by USA & Israel, propped up by missions from UK air bases.

Supported by Nigel Farage.

Over 1000 civilians dead & now the threat of global economic fallout. Trump's disaster makes us all less safe, less secure - and we will remember those who backed it.

Trump is the deranged figurehead and thus analysis will focus primarily upon him but none of this happens without a cadre of elites pushing for it and that is the more terrifying thought — the Republican Party proper could stop this at any time and they won’t. The party wants it.

An interesting data point showing Labour has successfully distinguished itself ideologically from the rest of the left bloc in the eyes of voters. But it should give Labour pause that this change in perception has not done them favours in the ballot box

🧵/ 70% of Britons see Reform UK as pro-Trump, while also tending to see the Tories as being in favour of the US president

Reform UK: 70% see as pro-Trump / 2% anti-Trump
Conservatives: 35% / 13%
Labour: 21% / 36%
Lib Dems: 3% / 48%
Greens: 1% / 56%

yougov.com/en-gb/articl...

The consequences of this war for Americans will be bleak and take decades to unfold, but it will impoverish and provincialize them in ways that would have been unimaginable ten years ago

the united states may be the leading world exporter of radicalization.