Dr. Salah Ben Hammou

Guess it’s safe to share now: I’ve recently relocated to Abu Dhabi, UAE, in light of the rollbacks on DACA and increased targeting of its recipients in the U.S. Grateful to Rice University & the Baker Institute for making it possible to continue my postdoc. Open to any resources from folks here

Thank you, Reda! We should connect some time soon, I'd love to hear how things at Princeton are going

It was a difficult choice to leave the country I grew up in, but no alternatives were left. But I'm happy to start anew here while I finish my book project and navigate the job market beyond the U.S.

Guess it’s safe to share now: I’ve recently relocated to Abu Dhabi, UAE, in light of the rollbacks on DACA and increased targeting of its recipients in the U.S. Grateful to Rice University & the Baker Institute for making it possible to continue my postdoc. Open to any resources from folks here

Coup Leaders Are Rewriting Their Playbook Even when transitions end in elections, the goal is not to exit power but rather to entrench it.

Sharing my latest with @foreignpolicy.com - it isn't just the seizure of power that spreads during coup contagion. Strategies to consolidate power do, too. foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/09/c...

Coup Leaders Are Rewriting Their Playbook Even when transitions end in elections, the goal is not to exit power but rather to entrench it.

Sharing my latest with @foreignpolicy.com - it isn't just the seizure of power that spreads during coup contagion. Strategies to consolidate power do, too. foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/09/c...

ICYMI

Coups in west Africa have five things in common: knowing what they are is key to defending democracy Five years since the Mali coup of 2020, the key lesson is that the international community must move beyond the view of coups as isolated events.

Sharing my latest w/ the Conversation @africa.theconversation.com theconversation.com/coups-in-wes...

Coups in west Africa have five things in common: knowing what they are is key to defending democracy Five years since the Mali coup of 2020, the key lesson is that the international community must move beyond the view of coups as isolated events.

Sharing my latest w/ the Conversation @africa.theconversation.com theconversation.com/coups-in-wes...

Don’t have much in me to give a thorough analysis of the recent developments, so I’ll leave you with this: this shit is bad and will likely worsen. That is all.

I remember when I started grad school I had no idea what a postdoc was or how to get one. We have an all-star line up including @salahbhpolisci.bsky.social, @erincikanek.bsky.social,
Leann Mclaren, and Sherry Zaks with myself and India Lenear moderating!

A screenshot from a news article featuring the phrase "university building-turned-prison."

Universities transformed into torture chambers in Khartoum.

www.france24.com/en/live-news...

Conditional acceptances used to mean something to journals (usually a quick response time but here we are)

Sudan’s ‘war of opportunity’, with Yassmin Abdel-Magied Is Sudan really the “forgotten war”? Former broadcaster Yassmin Abdel-Magied breaks down the situation and explains which countries are positioning th...

Feel like you know nothing about Sudan? I sat down with the team at Prospect Magazine to talk about the conflict, and why it’s NOT a forgotten war, but an invisibilised one: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/pro...

highly highly recommend this piece by @edebruin.bsky.social & @hsulli.bsky.social. really great breakdown and a thoughtful discussion on the dangers of civilian coup conspirators

If you're just learning about the Bolsonaro news, I strongly recommend reading @hsulli.bsky.social & @edebruin.bsky.social's piece in @goodauth.bsky.social that details the steps Bolsonaro and his allies took to prepare for losing the 2022 presidential election. goodauthority.org/news/brazil-...

When one of the greatest minds to think on democracy acknowledges that neither historical precedent or statistical evidence is helpful in understanding what we're seeing unfold, you know we're in a dire state. This is a must-read.

If you’re going to follow one political scientist’s Substack, it should be Adam Przeworski’s.

ICYMI, wrote on mutual aid networks amid Sudan's civil war w/ Kelsey Norman for Foreign Policy last week.

Sudan’s New Model for Aid Distribution Rather than rely on other countries or international organizations, local communities have banded together.

Sharing my latest with Kelsey Norman over at Foreign Policy @foreignpolicy.com. Here, we discuss how mutual aid networks in Sudan offer an alternative model of aid distribution in armed conflict.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/07/s...

Sudan’s New Model for Aid Distribution Rather than rely on other countries or international organizations, local communities have banded together.

Sharing my latest with Kelsey Norman over at Foreign Policy @foreignpolicy.com. Here, we discuss how mutual aid networks in Sudan offer an alternative model of aid distribution in armed conflict.

foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/07/s...

no, same thing

MAGA loves coups, not cops (new slogan, Democrats, call me)

I'd say that rendering it powerless would then amount to a self-coup, with or without the physical shutdown

I'd agree with that and think that the military's involvement, while important, isn't the deciding factor for the coup label. and I'm glad there's a shift in scholarship reflecting that lately

autogolpe would require Congress to be shut down and the executive to greatly expand his powers - we aren't there just yet. but hey give it time, who knows

the process rather than the outcome is what makes a coup, a coup - the process/pathway of the seizure of power, of which there are several. what we're witnessing is an attempt at state capture, which would be the outcome

If I had a term for what we're saying, I'd probably label it as "state capture". & this stuff should be more worrying than a coup itself. at least with coups, there's a chance they don't consolidate. state capture implies consolidation.

Quick insights on the coup/not a coup discourse from a coup scholar (me?):
1) from an academic perspective, the actions in question are not a coup for reasons I can discuss below
2) not calling it a coup doesn't make it less bad
3) you can colloquially call it a coup - people do all the time