Markus Patberg

The Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power is out today! Peter Niesen (based @politikuhh.bsky.social), Lucia Rubinelli (@luxirubsi.bsky.social) and I consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to be able to publish the contributions of so many wonderful colleagues. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

No doubt, but I'm also still waiting for my print copies.

Among them is a great chapter on Negri, written by Emilios Christodoulidis, who passed away very recently. We think of him today. www.gla.ac.uk/schools/law/...

The Oxford Handbook of Constituent Power is out today! Peter Niesen (based @politikuhh.bsky.social), Lucia Rubinelli (@luxirubsi.bsky.social) and I consider ourselves incredibly fortunate to be able to publish the contributions of so many wonderful colleagues. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

The Board of Governors decided, unilaterally, that no published textbook in the field of sociology could be used in compliance with the law for an Intro to Sociology class. None. Victor: There's not a single existing textbook on the market that could be used that would qualify under state law? Zachary: Correct. Victor: I'm sorry, that's kind of funny. Like, the absurdity of not a single sociology textbook getting past the censors. I mean, it makes me kind of proud of our colleagues, but...

I do want to shout-out my fellow sociologists, who have collectively created a discipline so woke that not a single one of our introductory textbooks can make it past Florida's censors.

Great work everyone.

Screenshot from Government of Canada website that reads: "Over 11,300 participants provided their thoughts and ideas during the 30-day online public consultation, which ran from October 1 to 31, 2025. We captured over 64,600 responses to 26 questions on the eight AI pillars identified for the purpose of the consultation. The responses were analyzed using SimpleSurvey, which uses natural language processing algorithms to provide insights from open-ended questions by analyzing sentiments, keywords and topics. ISED also created an internal classification pipeline for analysis, incorporating Cohere Command A, OpenAI GPT-5 nano, Anthropic Claude Haiku and Google Gemini Flash to read through the submissions and identify common themes. Responses were also classified by question, pillar and sentiment. Human reviewers validated and refined the AI-generated analyses, ensuring accuracy and comprehensive representation of all perspectives. The same approach was used to analyze the Task Force reports. This innovative approach enabled thorough, unbiased reporting in record time—months faster than traditional methods—demonstrating a balance between efficient delivery and responsible, Canadian-centred AI adoption."

Canada did a consultation on a new national AI strategy, formed an expert task force to write 32 reports, then used AI to analyze the responses & reports. The result is a summary that strings together 100s of vague action items & flattens nuance and policy trade-offs into false consensus

Emilios Christodoulides 1963–2026 It is with the greatest sadness that wish to inform you that our comrade, colleague, friend and amazing intellectual, Emilios Christodoulides, passed away

Very sad news.

criticallegalthinking.com/2026/02/05/e...

🚨 Postdoc in Comparative Politics/Public Opinion (2 years)

We’re hiring a 100% Postdoc at the University of Greifswald.

✨ What makes this job special: Two full years to focus on research (no teaching, no admin overload) embedded into an International Research Training Group

The US has declared rhetorical war on the EU The calls from America this weekend to destroy the EU are revealing. They hate the union because it's the only thing that can keep European countries from being Russian or American vassals.

The calls from America this weekend to "abolish the EU" are for one simple reason: the EU is the only thing that can keep European nation-states from becoming Russian or American vassals.

This reaction should be seen as proof of a confident European Commission that is doing its job well by enforcing rules that protect its citizens.

Thus, authors may need to track down the original source of an example or objection generated by an AI tool and cite it."

"The original source may instead be an author whose work was used to train that AI tool. Thus, attributing some example or objection to ChatGPT could be just as problematic as attributing an objection to your colleague when all they did was tell you about some objection that Rawls raised. ...

And food for thought for the "AI can be a great assistant" crowd: "Using generative AI to come up with a list of objections to a thesis or argument and presenting them as your own is also plagiarism." The ideas must be attributed. However, the word mixer might not be the source.

Ethics: AI policy

"Taking sentences of text from a generative AI tool and presenting them as your own words is plagiarism—at least, insofar as we take plagiarism to be a form of intellectual dishonesty in which one takes credit for work that’s not one’s own. " www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/et/...

Once again: this is not something that "threatens" academic freedom, though it will doubtless be reported that way. This is only possible where academic freedom has already ended.

Am Mittwoch, 26.11.2025, wird uns Markus Patberg (Universität Hamburg) in der #Forschungswerkstatt besuchen (16 Uhr, P5). Er spricht zum Thema: „Oligarchische Vereinnahmung: Soziale Medien und politische Öffentlichkeit"

Nutzen Sie Soziale Medien💻? Kommen Sie vorbei!
Alle sind herzlich willkommen!

Loooking forward, too!

Between Wilderness and Polis: The Dairy Cow.

Photo of the workshop participants at the Weizenbaum Institute, 17 October 2025

📢 Recap: The Workshop on Critical Theory of the Computational (16–17 Oct 2025, Weizenbaum Institute) brought 40 experts to explore how AI and digital systems shape society.
Read the report 👉 buff.ly/PR56xLO

Sozialwissenschaftler Claus Offe gestorben Claus Offe prägte die Sozialwissenschaften mit scharfsinnigen Analysen und gesellschaftskritischen Perspektiven. Als Grenzgänger zwischen Soziologie und Politologie bleibt sein Werk wegweisend.

Ein von Michael Zürn und mir verfasster Nachruf auf Claus Offe. Ein bemerkenswerter Mensch und Wissenschaftler www.faz.net/aktuell/feui...

Herausragender Wissenschaftler, bewunderter Autor, befreundeter Kollege, kluger Ratgeber: Claus Offe ist gestorben!

"I never imagined I would see fear spread so far and fast in the US."

This from the writer who gave us definitive accounts of East Germany and other late state socialist societies in the 1980s.

This is an excellent article that brings an empathetic eye to an escalating crisis in higher education 👇👌

Opinion: We are lecturers in Trinity College Dublin. It is our responsibility to resist AI Even if all the known issues were magically resolved, we would still not want our students to use GenAI

Opinion: We are lecturers in Trinity College Dublin. It is our responsibility to resist AI

Lawyer caught using AI-generated false citations in court case penalised in Australian first Victorian solicitor stripped of his ability to practise as a principal lawyer after acknowledging he did not verify case list

A Victorian solicitor has been stripped of his ability to practise as a principal lawyer after being caught using AI-generated false citations in court case - he has acknowledged he did not verify the case list www.theguardian.com/law/2025/sep...

At the @ecpr.bsky.social General Conference this week. My own talk will be tomorrow in the "Normativity of International Institutions" panel. If you're here and interested in the foundations of and challenges to the legitimacy of international institutions, join us!

Journal of Political Philosophy Officially Ends - Daily Nous "The Journal of Political Philosophy will cease publication effective January 1, 2026." That's from an email sent by the journal's publisher, Wiley, earlier today, calling the move "a difficult decisi...

Wiley officially closes the Journal of Political Philosophy, which was abandoned by its editorial team and shunned by academics after Wiley attempted moves that would have compromised the journal's editorial independence.

@thothiel.bsky.social @jonathanfloyd.bsky.social @jonathanpjwhite.bsky.social @simonechambers.bsky.social @tobiasalbrecht.bsky.social

Perhaps of interest to @rbellamy.bsky.social @tomtheuns.bsky.social @bencrum.nl @ascherz.bsky.social @hongdp.bsky.social @brianmilstein.bsky.social @luise-mlr.bsky.social @uguraytac.bsky.social @koljamoeller.bsky.social @alasianuti.bsky.social @pjv.bsky.social @meineanna.bsky.social

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Last but not least, there is a response from @peterniesen.bsky.social, whose work on Demokratiewissenschaft inspired this project and to whom the SI is dedicated. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....