Alexander Hudson

Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? No. No it can't. Come on, now.

New post: Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? (No. No it can't. Come on, now.)

davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/can-ai-rep...

He's saying we're not going to participate in offensive actions against Iran, but might need to defend our allies.

Chill, people.

Democracy Goes Digital: Social Media and Bulgaria’s Gen Z Protests Standing in her closet, folding clothes and speaking into a spatula suspended from the ceiling as a prop microphone, Bulgarian influencer and self-declared “Gen Z Machiavellian” Flora Stratieva (@flor...

When protests go viral, democracy goes digital. Democracy Assessment Intern Bjorn Carlson sits down with Bulgarian activists Malena Malcheva and Valeria Berkova to unpack how Gen Z is turning social media into a tool for democratic participation. Read more: bit.ly/49XpxTB

How can democratic systems be designed to remain resilient in an era of rapid political, technological, and social change?

At #IICDEM2026, International IDEA's experts presented Strategic Foresight as a key tool for anticipating Democracy in 2050. @gibajaalberto.bsky.social @aehudson.bsky.social

Democracy that Delivers - Our #DemocracyAssessment experts @aehudson.bsky.social and Atsuko Hirakawa, and Director for Asia & The Pacific @leenarikkila.bsky.social examine the practical performance of democratic institutions in delivering tangible outcomes for citizens. #IICDEM2026

New symposium issue of Comparative Constitutional Studies: “After the Referendum”. Includes analysis of referendum failures in Ireland (by me), Australia, Chile, and Taiwan, alongside other great papers and book discussion. Open access for a limited time!
www.elgaronline.com/view/journal...

#IDEACouncil convened for a session chaired by Swiss Ambassador to Sweden Adrian Junker.

The Council reviewed highlights of the #IDEA30Years anniversary and approved a Strategy update along with the Programme and Budget for 2026.

We look forward to continued cooperation to advance #democracy.

Thank you to representatives from @internationalidea.bsky.social @idos-research.bsky.social @norad.no & the Advisory Council of International Affairs of the Netherlands for joining us and sharing your perspectives!

"...in Times of Crisis" is the go to panel title around here, regardless of topic. One of the panelists must claim that something is "a wake-up call" and that something else is "not a panacea". An audience member will ask something about the "global south" and everyone will politely ignore them.

Comparative Constitutions Project Producing data about constitutions. Impacting the constitution-making process. Promoting peace, justice, and human development.

The new Comparative Constitutions Project website is now live! Developed by yours truly. We're also releasing version 5.0 of our Constitutional Chronology and Constitutional Characteristics datasets, updated through 2023. Explore and download: comparativeconstitutionsproject.org

If you'd like to read a better account of the separation of powers—understood as a political architecture rather than a legalistic doctrine—check out @trivesbell.bsky.social's wonderful new book.

The Constitution of Conflict: How the Supreme Court Undermines the Separation of Powers (Constitutional Thinking) The Constitution of Conflict: How the Supreme Court Undermines the Separation of Powers (Constitutional Thinking) [Bell, Thomas] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Constitution of Conflict: How the Supreme Court Undermines the Separation of Powers (Constitutional Thinking)

Today is the release date for my new book The Constitution of Conflict, published by @univpressofkansas.bsky.social! The book argues that the separation of powers is better understood as a political architecture than a judicially-enforced legal doctrine.

www.amazon.com/Constitution...

🌍 Between 15-17 Oct, @internationalidea.bsky.social & BIRN Albania hosted “The Future of Democracy in the Western Balkans” foresight workshop in Albania, marking our renewed focus on the region. We explored possible scenarios for #democracy through 2040 and the key factors that may shape its future.

Migrant Electoral Rights Dataset (1960-2020)

📊 Link to dataset: hdl.handle.net/1814/93661

📕 Link to codebook: cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/c...

💼 Link to 400 page documentation: cadmus.eui.eu/server/api/c...

It was great to be back at Forum2000 this year. There were interesting speeches from María Corina Machado, Salome Zourabichvili, and Petr Pavel. Notably absent from most of the discussions, however, were the small matters of the dramatic degradation of US democracy and climate change.

Statement on the award of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado

We celebrate the decision of the @nobelpeacecenter.bsky.social Committee to award the 2025 #NobelPeacePrize to Venezuelan democracy champion Maria Corina Machado.

It is a timely recognition of the essential relationship between #democracy and #peace.

www.idea.int/news/stateme...

Democracy Notes Explainer: What is democratic resilience? The term ‘democratic resilience’ is increasingly common in the public lexicon, making prominent appearances in official policy documents, in academic and

we at the IDEA democracy assessment team have written an explainer on 'democratic resilience': what it means, where it came from, and what it needs to mean if we're to have a democratic future. hope you give it a read!

www.idea.int/blog/democra...

Line goes down: Or, how not to read a democracy report If you’re reading this blog post, you’re most likely a person who is used to looking at trend lines. Trend lines are everywhere, tracking things like stock prices, sea-surface temperatures, crime rate...

If a party narrowly wins an election and then implements a very good (or bad) agenda, how should we evaluate democracy in that country? Measures of democratic performance will certainly be affected, but is that enough of the story? I have some thoughts on the matter. www.idea.int/blog/line-go...

Who Goes Nazi?, by Dorothy Thompson

Every few months now I re-read this "Who Goes Nazi?" piece from 1941 and am blown away by how it captures the people we are dealing with 80 years later.

harpers.org/archive/1941...

🤔 Curious about our new open access dataset on migrant electoral rights?

Join us for the webinar to get an overview. 📊

At a time like this, we really need more from journalism than this mealy-mouthed non-statement.
Also amazing that this came out the same day as Secretary Hegseth stated his opposition to 'stupid rules of engagement'.

How exciting! Congratulations! I can't wait to read it.

Book Cover with title (constitutional change under autocracy), author (Anna Fruhstorfer), and publisher (Oxford University Press).

First page of proof with book title, author, and publisher

Something I have been working on is starting to feel real, the proofs of Constitutional Change under Autocracy have arrived. I could not be more excited! Publication is expected in early 2026.

Yesterday, @internationalidea.bsky.social launched its Global State of Democracy 2025 Report: #DemocracyOnTheMove.

The #GSoD2025 report focuses on the intersection between #migration and #democracy.

(Re)Watch the live recording of the event ➡️ youtube.com/live/fom0bzA...
#DemocracyForAll

The Global State of Democracy 2025 The Global State of Democracy 2025 report from International IDEA

You can find the report here: interactive.idea.int/gsod-2025
I'd be glad to hear what you think about it.

Rather than scrolling past the data visualizations, I would invite you to take a couple of minutes and see what mousing over a segment, or clicking on a field can reveal. You might uncover something new!

We've tried to do something better than the 'grey literature' standard with the GSoD report this year. We worked with some amazing designers to produce an interactive online report that enables the reader to see what's behind the summary data in the graphs.

As you've likely heard, today is the International Day of Democracy. A good day to read a report about the Global State of Democracy? I know that can seem like a herculean labour one would rather walk past.

Great to see @globalcit.bsky.social’s Rainer Bauböck at the launch of the @internationalidea.bsky.social Global State of Democracy Report 2025. Emphasising the important implications of out-of-country voting in times of democratic recession both in migrant origin countries and destination countries.

The expansion of voting rights beyond territory and citizenship marks a major democratic development of the last fifty years. Migrant suffrage has been mostly studied from a state-centric perspective. But the rights that migrants hold emerge from specific combinations of the country of residence and the country of citizenship. From this migrant-centric perspective, what is the diagnosis of the spread and status of global migrant suffrage? We present franchise constellations as a migrant-centric framework for studying voting rights. Drawing on the most comprehensive dataset on migrant electoral rights, combined with novel data on nationality-specific restrictions, we compute almost 1.3 million dyad-year observations based on 172 countries between 1960 and 2020. Using migrant stock data, we find that at least 74 million migrants remained completely disenfranchised in 2020. Bilateral and multilateral efforts emerge as a fruitful path for addressing global migrant disenfranchisement.

➡️📍📑 New Working Paper
with @sumpierrez.bsky.social and Rainer Bauböck

Work on migrant voting rights often has a state-centric perspective. We propose *migrant franchise constellations* as a migrant-centric approach.

A 🧵 with our argument and new data! 🗳️

preprints.apsanet.org/engage/apsa/...