Mike Cowburn

Congrats everyone! 🎉

We're looking for a colleague (postdoc) 📢 @politikuhh.bsky.social
3+3 years
Doing your own research while teaching 2.5 courses per semester
Research agenda with links to our team (democracy, digital politics, political competition/behaviour)
DL 🗓️ 05/01
stellen.uni-hamburg.de/jobposting/6...

Exceedingly happy to see this in print, looking forward to reading (again). Have a great weekend!

Who shares which sources on social media, and why does this matter politically? Our open-access @polcommjournal.bsky.social article shows how far-right French Twitter/X users strategically post and cite sources to achieve their goals. doi.org/10.1080/1058... #polisky #commsky #migcitsky A 🧵:

Massive congratulations mate! Hope you are celebrating 🎉

Laws as blades: A conceptual framework of legislative design - Policy Sciences Legislation shapes every aspect of public life and stands at the core of governance. Despite sustained attention on a variety of aspects of legislation, we still lack a comprehensive and integrated fr...

🚨🎉Announcing our project's first publication🎉🚨

"Laws as Blades: A Conceptual Framework of Legislative Design" is now available open access in @policysciences.bsky.social

Funded by @erc.europa.eu

doi.org/10.1007/s110....

📊 𝗘𝗨𝗣𝗟𝗘𝗫 dataset update!

💻 We updated complexity data to 𝟭,𝟬𝟯𝟮 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀, including entirely new data on 𝟴𝟭𝟱 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀. The dataset now includes legislative procedures from 𝗡𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟯 𝘁𝗼 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱.

📎 The data are now available for download at www.euplex.org/data

Narrowly passed then…

Our long-awaited Fall 2025 issue, "Football Politics," is finally out! And just in time for the final round of the qualifying matches for #FIFAWorldCup #WorldCup #WeAre26.

It is available to read on @projectmuse.bsky.social
🔗 muse.jhu.edu/issue/5...

1/2

Racial Resentment Among White Americans by Birth Year and Demographics This figure presents the same four-panel layout (education, gender, geography, religion) but for White Americans from birth years 1940 to 2000. Education panel: A pronounced divide shows non-college Whites with substantially higher resentment across all cohorts, increasing sharply for older birth years. College-educated Whites rise more modestly but remain distinctly lower, especially among younger cohorts. Gender panel: Male and female trendlines rise together, with women slightly higher in mid-century cohorts. Younger cohorts of both genders start lower and climb with age. Geography panel: Regional lines separate clearly: the South is highest in resentment, followed by the Midwest. The West and Northeast show lower levels, with the Northeast consistently at the bottom. All regions slope upward toward older cohorts. Religion panel: Protestants show the highest resentment, peaking among mid-century cohorts. Catholics sit in the middle. Non-affiliated Whites show the lowest resentment, especially among younger respondents, with a small rise among mid-century generations. The figure notes CES 2024 data with GAM-smoothed trendlines.

Those claiming Dems should retreat on racial justice aren't hard-headed realists, they're pushing against the electoral tide rather than leaning into it. The story of Gen Z isn't about racist backlash or red-pilled young men. It's the most racially progressive generation in American history. 🧵

Black Mirror: in this episode I invented the Dead Person AI as a cautionary tale

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Dead Person AI from the classic Black Mirror episode, Don't Create The Dead Person AI

Call for Papers: Crisis and Continuity: The Declaration of Independence 250 Years On As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this milestone invites critical reflection on the endurance, evolution, and contestation of its core democratic ide...

CfP is online! We particularly encourage submissions from early-career researchers (MA students, PhD candidates, postdocs) and scholars interested in interdisciplinary exchange. June 11-13! www.atlantische-akademie.de/aktuelles/ak...

Call for Papers: Crisis and Continuity: The Declaration of Independence 250 Years On As the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, this milestone invites critical reflection on the endurance, evolution, and contestation of its core democratic ide...

Political scientists in Europe (& beyond) working on topics related to the U.S., consider submitting to the DGfA PolSci Conference 2025 in beautiful Freiburg next June!
Now welcoming paper and panel submissions: www.atlantische-akademie.de/aktuelles/ak...
Supported by @atlantakademie.bsky.social

📣 The first publication from the DEMOLAW team is out today! 📣

Check out the below thread and follow us for further news and publications from the project. #polisky

In Critical Condition – How To Stabilize Researcher Data Access? | TechPolicy.Press Mark Scott and LK Seiling discuss the struggle for researcher access to social media data and an alternative future where transparency is seen as a civic good.

@lkseiling.bsky.social & @markscott.bsky.social plea in @techpolicypress.bsky.social for a new data access regime emerging from a "generation of decentralized platforms that treat data transparency not as a regulatory burden but as a civic and scientific good"

www.techpolicy.press/in-critical-...

📣 The first publication from the DEMOLAW team is out today! 📣

Check out the below thread and follow us for further news and publications from the project. #polisky

Campaigning in the Age of Platforms: A Longitudinal Analysis of German Parties & Politicians Social media platforms now play a central role in election campaigns for parties and politicians. Yet comparatively little research has compared how these actors use these platforms during and outs...

🚨🎉New Publication Friday 🎉🚨

Campaigning in the Age of Platforms: A Longitudinal Analysis of German Parties & Politicians

w/ @ulrikeklinger.bsky.social & @andersoloflarsson.bsky.social

Out now in Political Communication.

#polisky #commsky

doi.org/10.1080/1058...

Unfortunately this is not open access but if you are struggling to read it... mikecowburn.com/wp-content/u...

and 3) distinct engagement at election time

A note on the data: though we aren't allowed to share our dataset publicly if you would like these data please email me and I will be happy to share!

Using a dataset of all Facebook and Twitter posts by German parties and politicians we show: 1) surge & decline of party posting, whereas politicians continually post more over time
2) distinct patterns of posting immediately before and election (no 'permanent campaign')

Campaigning in the Age of Platforms: A Longitudinal Analysis of German Parties & Politicians Social media platforms now play a central role in election campaigns for parties and politicians. Yet comparatively little research has compared how these actors use these platforms during and outs...

🚨🎉New Publication Friday 🎉🚨

Campaigning in the Age of Platforms: A Longitudinal Analysis of German Parties & Politicians

w/ @ulrikeklinger.bsky.social & @andersoloflarsson.bsky.social

Out now in Political Communication.

#polisky #commsky

doi.org/10.1080/1058...

🇳🇱🗳️ Sondage sorti des urnes @IpsosNL pour les élections législatives aux Pays-Bas :

🟡D66 (progressistes) 27, +18
⚫️PVV (extrême-droite) 25, -12
🔵VVD (libéraux) 23, -1
🟣GL-PvdA (gauche écologiste) 20, -5
🟡CDA (chrétiens-démocrates) 19, +14
⚫️JA21 (droite radicale) 9, +8

For the second time this postseason I (in Europe) have woken up and they are still playing baseball. ⚾️

Commission preliminarily finds TikTok and Meta in breach of their transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act Today, the European Commission preliminarily found both TikTok and Meta in breach of their obligation to grant researchers adequate access to public data under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The @ec.europa.eu preliminarily finds TikTok and Meta in breach of transparency obligations under the Digital Services Act.

The EC also finds that Meta and TikTok have put in place "burdensome procedures and tools for researchers to request access to public data."

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

Now out in Party Politics 🎉

Our study (@jbpilet.bsky.social)suggests that when a mainstream right-wing party signals willingness to rule with the radical right, support for the radical right rises — while the mainstream gains nothing.
👉 A legitimisation effect.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Brighton Pavilion?

Senator Merkley is on hour 20 of reading How Democracies Die, mixed w commentary, on u.s. senate floor

If you've been reading that fantastic new paper by @dasalgon.bsky.social & @tevoelker.bsky.social on how mainstream parties lose if they adopt far-right issues:
We looked at a case study & found similar dynamics for media.
This was partly based on data from Daniel & Teresa!❤️
bsky.app/profile/curd...

Very cool to see friends’ work being reported in the national media, congrats @tevoelker.bsky.social!

Job Alert! We are hiring two post-docs (full time, 4+ years) in our project SCEPTIC - Social, Computational and Ethical Premises of Trust and Informational Cohesion with @annanosthoff.bsky.social @guzoch.bsky.social and Prof. Andreas Peters (uol.de/informatik/s...)