Tobias Tober

Cool paper, @nilsblossey.bsky.social!

The current state of AI for sustained work: exponential progress continues with no unexpected leaps but also no walls.

(The METR measure is just one of many benchmarks, and like all benchmarks has flaws, but also has the advantage of have neither a ceiling or floor effect)

metr.org/blog/2025-03...

Irritating Discourse Cliche - "The Public Are Frustrated With Mainstream Politics" - up there with vague references to "the dangers of populism".

Look at the last century of democratic politics -

* Pre WW2
* Post-War
* Post-Post-War

Big Tech Asked for Looser Clean Water Act Permitting. Trump Wants to Give It to Them New AI regulations suggested by the White House mirror changes to environmental permitting suggested by Meta and a lobbying group representing firms like Google and Amazon Web Services.

New AI regulations suggested by the White House mirror changes to environmental permitting suggested by Meta and a lobbying group representing firms like Google and Amazon Web Services. www.wired.com/story/big-te...

New WP w/ @riazsascha.bsky.social: via >42 million placebo tests, we show type I error inflation in Unexpected Event during Survey Designs (UESD), propose an adjustment, implement via new R package uesdRobust, and demonstrate utility by replicating two top UESD studies.

osf.io/preprints/os...

1/9

It was great having you!

Cool paper showing that unemployment risks causally increase demand for welfare state insurance (in Denmark): doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

Digitalization and the green transition: Different challenges, same policy responses? How do citizens perceive labor market risks related to digitalization and the green transition, and how do these risk perceptions translate into preferences for social policies? We address these ques...

@mbusemeyer.bsky.social, @slstutzmann.bsky.social, and I have a new article in the special issue "Greening the Economy: Toward a New Political Economy" in @reggovjournal.bsky.social, now out in print.

The article is open access — read it here: dx.doi.org/10.1111/rego...

I've been a huge fan of Mr. Hussman's monthly market comments for years. Always informative and thought-provoking, he goes well beyond market analysis, weaving in broader social and economic themes. Just brilliant. Highly recommend!

Comparative Politics and Political Economy speaker series at the University of Konstanz

Terrific lineup for our Comparative Politics & Political Economy series this summer,incl @clandwehr.bsky.social @finseraas.bsky.social @eunjikim.bsky.social @ccavaille.bsky.social @anewq.bsky.social & @valentimvicente.bsky.social . Thanks for organizing @tobiastober.bsky.social @na-wehl.bsky.social

We just launched a call for a workshop and special issue proposal on "The Politics of AI"! Excited to see many great submissions—join us in Oxford!

@dweisstanner.bsky.social, @dschiff.bsky.social

FYI: @cfbalcazar.bsky.social, @gonzalezrostani.bsky.social, @sborwein.bsky.social, @beamagistro.bsky.social, @rmichaelalvarez.bsky.social, @carloknotz.bsky.social, @julianachueri.bsky.social, @retobuergisser.bsky.social, @ndurazzi.bsky.social, @leonkuestermann.bsky.social, @kaylynjschiff.bsky.social

This initiative comes from my ZENiT project at @zukunftskolleg.bsky.social, together with @ainagallego.bsky.social, @nicolewu.bsky.social, @shirraviv.bsky.social, @mhaslberger.bsky.social, @thmskrr.bsky.social, and Sigi Manschein.

We just launched a call for a workshop and special issue proposal on "The Politics of AI"! Excited to see many great submissions—join us in Oxford!

Average support for further European integration of citizens (blue line, based on GAM with cubic regression splines) and positive orientation towards European integration of political parties (black dots and red line, based on a local polynomial regression) as functions of left-right self-placement of the citizens and general left-right party positions as estimated by experts. Originally, party positions on European integration are scored on a 1-to-7 scale, which has been rescaled from 0 to 10 to match the public opinion data. Data: ESS Wave 11 (2023), CHES (2024).

How do attitudes to 🇪🇺 European integration relate to political ideology and policy preferences?

A major update of my study:
- I added the latest 2023 ESS data for citizens and 2024 CHES data for parties
- I built an app to explore these relationships across datasets, indicators, years & countries

I'm not a China expert, just an interested observer. But if you compare how China regularly celebrates the return of successful scientists with the way science is being treated in the US under Trump, the contrast could hardly be greater.

“The Rise of Affective Polarization: Is It What We Think, or Who We Are?”

by John Konicki

Preprint: osf.io/preprints/osf...

DeepSeek, Huawei, Export Controls, and the Future of the U.S.-China AI Race In Gregory C. Allen’s latest report, he examines DeepSeek’s origins, achievements, and geopolitical impact, highlighting its implications for AI and semiconductor export controls. The report explores ...

"It would be a great mistake for U.S. policymakers to ignore DeepSeek or to suggest that its accomplishments are merely a combination of [IP] theft and misleading Chinese propaganda...DeepSeek has also demonstrated genuine technological breakthroughs" www.csis.org/analysis/dee...

Press statement by President von der Leyen on the defence package We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times. I do not need to describe the grave nature of the threats that we face. Or the devastating consequences that we will have to endure if those

Important: Commission plan ‘Rearm Europe’ will not require unanimity. Hungary and Slovakia cannot block it on their own

ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Yeah, we’ve played that game for way too long. It’s time to let others bark and do our job.

IMHO, what really matters is that our own strategy in Europe doesn't hinge on any specific outcome. We need to focus on what we can actually do to secure our peace and prosperity, not waste energy trying to 'time the market,' whether economically or politically.

Global Value Chains and Union Decline in Rich Democracies - Matthew C. Mahutga, Manjing Gao, Roshan K. Pandian, 2025 This article reassesses the classic thesis linking the globalization of production to union decline. Our argument is three-fold. First, prior literature does no...

Trade with less developed countries reduces unionization in rich democracies. Global value chains lead to union decline even in countries with the most union-friendly institutions journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Well, the next Boris Johnson column is going to be a doozy

Claes de Vreese on LinkedIn: Big tech has a tremendous impact on our democracies and societies. We… Big tech has a tremendous impact on our democracies and societies. We presented our new report at a public hearing in The Danish Parliament - Folketinget. The…

Big tech has a tremendous impact on democracy

🚨New report out w focus on misinformation, content moderation & generative AI

Team @anjabechmann.bsky.social @adler-nissen.bsky.social @madshovethy.bsky.social @golovchenko.bsky.social @fghjorth.bsky.social👏

Details⬇️

www.linkedin.com/posts/claes-...

job ad for PhD positions in Comparative Politics at the University of Konstanz

Come work with us! In my research group, we have two four-year PhD positions available in comparative politics. Happy to answer questions per email. Please share the ad.

You can find the ad here: stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/d...

YouTube video by Leo Dietrich Günter Gaus im Gespräch mit Franz Josef Strauß (1968)

Erstaunlich, wie aktuell dieses Strauß-Interview von Günter Gaus—aufgenommen kurz nach der Niederschlagung des Prager Frühlings—heute wirkt: youtu.be/DI7Kw9TWS98?...

DeepSunk

We streamlined six new DID-like estimators and created this tutorial for implementation in R.
yiqingxu.org/packages/fec...

Hope you no longer need to spend months figuring out what these estimators are and how to use them.

Diary Week 1

I am keeping a diary of daily events, as they unfold open.substack.com/pub/adamprze... It is available to everyone. I am new to Substack, so please let me know if something is wrong with the link or the file.