Alexandre Afonso

The communism of capital strikes again!

Also interesting because he has exactly the same complexion as my dad and his side of my family, as well as many Portuguese people who aren't identified as black?

As

The description of Nuno Espirito Santo as the only "black coach" in the Premier League shows how much race is a social construct. I wonder if anyone identified him as black when he was young and had hair? www.bbc.com/sport/footba...

Is er ook Engelse master? Dan telt verplichte Nederlandstalige variant vaak geen enkele student In het hoger onderwijs zitten meer studenten in de Engelstalige STEM-masteropleidingen dan in de Nederlandstalige. De Vlaamse regering wil die verengelsing tegengaan, maar dat leidt tot kafkaiaanse t...

As the Netherlands grapples with the "anglicisation" of its universities, it's worth looking to Flanders for a potential cautionary tale. This piece in De Tijd shows how a well-intentioned policy to protect Dutch in higher education can become absurd www.tijd.be/politiek-eco...

• Children of PhD-educated parents are 28 times more likely to become professors than those whose parents only completed compulsory school.
• Children of professors are 11 times more likely to join the faculty than everyone else.

This is fascinating.

🚨 New paper: Who climbs the Ivory Tower? 🏛️ Together with Nicolai Borgen and Astrid Sandsør (@astridsandsor.bsky.social), we find that the chances of becoming a professor differ enormously by family background. Here’s what we find 👇

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

A Majority of supporters in all German parties considers that Israel is committing a genocide in #Gaza.

Of course, universities find it inefficient, and employers argues that the rules don't match the "economic reality" where English often dominates. But politicians claim that they know better what students and the field really want and need.

Worse, students report being actively discouraged from enrolling in these Dutch versions. They are often underdeveloped, borrowing courses from other programs and lacking the coherence of the English-taught track. There is simply no competent Dutch-speaking staff to teach them.

​The result is the existence of "ghost programs." For example, the Dutch-language Master in Computer Science at Ghent University has had *zero* students for the last four years. Its English counterpart has 183. These Dutch tracks exist only on paper to meet the requirement.

​The policy in Flanders: every university master's program offered in English must also have a full Dutch-language equivalent. The goal is to preserve Dutch as a language of science.

Is er ook Engelse master? Dan telt verplichte Nederlandstalige variant vaak geen enkele student In het hoger onderwijs zitten meer studenten in de Engelstalige STEM-masteropleidingen dan in de Nederlandstalige. De Vlaamse regering wil die verengelsing tegengaan, maar dat leidt tot kafkaiaanse t...

As the Netherlands grapples with the "anglicisation" of its universities, it's worth looking to Flanders for a potential cautionary tale. This piece in De Tijd shows how a well-intentioned policy to protect Dutch in higher education can become absurd www.tijd.be/politiek-eco...

Bologna cake - Wikipedia Bologna cake, also known as baloney cake, is a dish popular in the Southern United States.[1][2]

just discovered this abomination. i mean what? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna...

Application Deadline: December 15, 2025

📣 New call for postdoctoral researchers!

We are seeking candidates with a doctorate in the social sciences for our research areas Political Economy (Prof. Dr. Lucio Baccaro) and Economic Sociology (Prof. Dr. Jens Beckert).

Please share widely!

s.gwdg.de/ySJx5p

Also important to say that the actual number of asylum seekers that the UK managed to report to Rwanda at a cost of 700 million is exactly *zero*.

Is there a reason I ask that the Times are using a picture of asylum seekers in a boat to describe rules for migrants who came on legal routes such as skilled worker visas for doctors?

🚨 New paper in @thejop.bsky.social

Why do politicians often misperceive what citizens' policy positions are?

@simonotjes.bsky.social and I study ~10,000 estimates of public opinion by politicians in Denmark & the Netherlands to uncover the sources of these (mis)perceptions

Thread 🧵1/10

New VI from @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social comes with many historic lows for Labour this #LabourConference2025
1) 22% Labour vote share is the lowest we've recorded for them since June 2009, at the time when Britain was still grappling with the fallout from the financial crash.

So many echoes from this article for US politics....

FWIW I'm a convert to ID cards, largely because it removes discrimination against migrants and has the potential to make existing "papers, please" checks about *identity* and not *right to live here*. Subtle but important, to my mind. But...

And the answer of the minister in charge is just "we'll just make sure we don't send lhgbti+ people there"

One of the remarks often made, over decades, by the Islamophobe Geert Wilders (whose 'government' it is) is that Dutch society can't tolerate immigrants because of anti-gay bigotry

These deals are possible because most people are not able to place Uganda (or Rwanda) on a map, let alone know anything about their political regime.

Uganda passed one of the harshest anti-gay laws, lgbt people describe it as living hell

Netherlands strikes deal to send rejected asylum seekers to uganda

Uganda has passed one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world and is described as a living hell for lgbtq+ people. Meanwhile, the Netherlands strikes a deal with the Ugandan government to send rejected asylum seekers there.

Good to see this important research getting a wider audience. Hope Labour advisors listen and learn

Sold as 'suicide adapter' on Temu.

Hegemonic suicide

Amongst OECD Countries, Germany has the highest share of STEM graduates

Far-right thugs rampage in the Hague, attacking police and the HQ of centrist party D66.
While parliament condemns the threat of “fascist” antifa.
Shame on every politician -including VVD ones - who spent the last year ramping up tensions to win votes.
You don’t get to do that and then condemn this.