Allison Grossman

From pigs’ heads to arson plots: how Russia’s hybrid war is sowing chaos across Europe The trail from a Normandy pig farm has helped expose Russia’s campaign of sabotage across Europe aimed at inflaming division, spreading fear and weakeing support for Ukraine

Court documents used to convict five men in London for burning a warehouse of supplies for Ukraine included Telegram chats with an account called Lucky Strike.
Lucky Strike turned up again in Poland, named as offering $4,000 to a man to burn down a paint factory.
www.irishtimes.com/world/europe...

2. Our new analysis suggests that protest events in 2025 have occurred across a wider range of US counties than we observed during Trump's first term. And the current protest movement has already reached deeper into Trump country than at almost any point during the first Trump administration.

an insane expansion and abuse of powers that is so clearly rooted in Global War on Terror architecture

Final reminder! Political scientists in the southeast, submit your paper to SoWEPS to get great feedback and hang out in New Orleans on 11/7! We match you with a discussant and everyone reads ahead. Submissions due TOMORROW 9/19: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#polisky

Two things to add to this:

1) I am much more concerned with party elites and leaders encouraging and stoking violence than shifts in the public from vaguely worded questions.

2) These public shifts in support for violence are almost always downstream of elite rhetoric and narratives.

Political scientists in the southeast (broadly defined), submit your paper to SoWEPS to get great feedback! We match you with a discussant and everyone reads ahead. We're hosting at Tulane on November 9, submissions due September 19: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Come hang out in New Orleans! January, not surprisingly, is a great time to be here!
SPSA deadline today.
spsa.net/annual-meeti...

Une divergence croissante de narratifs autour de la sécurité au Burkina Faso – Centre d’Études Stratégiques de l’Afrique Les conditions sécuritaires du Burkina Faso continuent de se détériorer sous la junte militaire, malgré une campagne d’information de grande envergure.

Les acteurs russes ont joué un rôle de premier plan en alimentant et en amplifiant de faux récits autour de la junte burkinabè. La junte, à son tour, a été l’un des plus ardents défenseurs de la présence sécuritaire croissante de Moscou en Afrique.

OUT OF EVERY DITCH, A PATH

Come work with me! Tulane Poli Sci is hiring an Assistant Professor in comparative political economy: apply.interfolio.com/172989

I'm not on the committee but happy to answer Qs about dept, NOLA, etc

APCG Online Colloquium Call for Papers - Fall 2025 & Spring 2026 The APCG Online Colloquium is designed to increase opportunities for scholars of African politics to present and receive timely, constructive feedback on unpublished work. Colloquium sessions will be ...

Great forum to present some work and get some feedback if you have a paper on anything on African politics. Given its virtual format, it's a great place for junior scholars and scholars based on the continent to do an hour long workshop-style discussion of a paper!
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Jamelle Bouie Receives the 2025 Carey McWilliams Award

The Carey McWilliams Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor major journalistic contributions to society’s understanding of politics. Citation from the Award Committee: The American Political…

We're hosting the next edition of the Southern Workshop in Empirical Political Science (SoWEPS) at Tulane on November 7! Please submit a paper or sign up to be a discussant here by September 19: forms.gle/iB5b4E8mrofq...

We're at the dawn of some bad shit in the Azawad. Again

this is all horrible. alongside devastating blows to PBS and NPR, this bill totally ends US funding to key UN bodies that do frontline work, including UNICEF & OCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Completely eliminates US contributions—previously the US was the key funder.

indefensible

Burkina Faso: Army Directs Ethnic Massacres | Human Rights Watch The Burkina Faso army led and participated in the massacre of more than 130, possibly many more, ethnic Fulani civilians by pro-government militias in the western Boucle du Mouhoun region in March 2025.

This is the reality of Burkina, just when a massive campaign on anglophone social media invents non-existent, crazy achievements by IB Traoré and makes him the liberator of Africa, thanks to AI generated posts. Also, yesterday was another day of debacle for the army, with 11 attacks by JNIM

After noteworthy gains in the previous decade under democratically elected governments, Niger’s military coup in July 2023 has resulted in a deterioration in security, economic wellbeing, and agency for Nigerien citizens.
africacenter.org/spo...
1/2

My colleagues @andrewleber.bsky.social & @stano.bsky.social: "If American university presidents do not forcefully denounce these unconstitutional and un-American actions, our universities will soon be shells of their former selves, like (...) other nations that have lapsed into authoritarian rule."

This is horribly unethical. Violating the subreddit’s rules, no meaningful consent, and has the downstream consequence of reducing people’s trust in other posters in a space that seems like it was actually a decent place for dialogue & people being open to changing their minds about important issues

African Migration Trends to Watch in 2025 – Africa Center A preview of migration trends for 2025 including the need for more regional innovation to accommodate intracontinental population movements.

About 70% of the migration flows across West & Central Africa involve temporary, seasonal, and permanent migration of workers, with economic hubs such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria the key destinations.

See our Spotlight for more:
africacenter.org/spo...

Cuts are less severe than anticipated, but still drastically undermine America's ability to understand the increasingly complex global environment in which it operates. A true loss of expertise [2/2]

Rubio unveils sweeping reorganization of State Department The Trump administration’s proposed shake-up of the State Department targets human rights programs and others focused on war crimes and democracy.

"The same person [...] coordinating all foreign assistance across the department is also [...] the chief humanitarian for the U.S. government, responsible for getting billions of dollars of assistance to the most difficult operating environments with likely 95 percent less staff than before" 1/2

NEWYORK ICan Hear Thoughts A podcast claims a group of nonspeaking autistic children can read minds. But what's the real story behind The Telepathy Tapes? BY ELIZABETH WEIL

Well this was a fucking ride

archive.is/0SrwO

US “relocates” Iraqi refugee to Rwanda via new diplomatic arrangement A State Department cable indicates at least 10 more people will be subjected to the same.

I first learned Rwanda was open to accepting people not wanted in the US via a copy of a diplomatic cable sent in March.

A new cable sent today confirmed that the first person had been "relocated" after the US paid the Rwandan government $100,000.

The Trump Family Is Going All-In on Crypto Projects, From Bitcoin Mining to Stablecoins President Donald Trump and his family have taken a interest in just about every corner of the crypto industry.

Mobutu couldn’t hold a candle to these guys.

“Taken together, the various projects are approaching $1 billion in paper gains even after accounting for the latest round of trade war-induced market gyrations, according to Bloomberg.”

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Niger Adopts Hausa As National Language Replacing French Niger's junta has adopted Hausa as the national language in the place of French in a further break from Paris, its former colonial master.

In other news regarding the West African/Sahelian move away from France...

This is very noticeable among students as well. Especially international students are increasingly reluctant to speak, even inside the classroom, because they are - understandably! rightfully! - frightened they might get punished by the regime.

It is heartbreaking and it makes me so fucking angry.

We hang together or we hang separately. Could not be clearer what is happening and how universities must respond.