@dielea.bsky.social
Big fan of democracy, political and data science. Part of MEDem (medem.eu) and GESIS. @Lea23459981@sciences.social
Long ago, in a study of the democratic attitudes in Germany, Dalton raised the possibility of “Fragebogendemokraten” (questionnaire democrats): people who hesitate to express their sincere dislike for “democracy” in surveys, providing instead the “socially desirable” response (1)
12.09.2025 13:20 — 👍 19 🔁 12 💬 2 📌 1🗃️ New data is in it, too!
As part of the DANGER project, we collected new data on the position of 387 parliamentary parties and 30 electoral alliances competing in 130 elections of 25 interwar European democracies. This data is published along with the AIEEDA dataset: lnkd.in/eAwbbQqC
(4/4)
3️⃣ Measures of polarization that integrate multiple policy dimensions outperform unidimensional measures of polarization.
4️⃣ While separately measuring polarization and fragmentation, we can analyze their distinct effects, which was not possible with most common polarization indices.
(3/4)
Our key findings are:
1️⃣ Too high levels of polarization were counterproductive for the survival of democracies in interwar Europe, but so were too low levels of polarization.
2️⃣ Low levels of fragmentation aggravated the negative effects of too little and too much polarization.
(2/4)
📄 🚨 New Research on Polarization, Fragmentation, and Democracy in @democratization.bsky.social
Nils-Christian Bormann and I explore the impact of ideological polarization and fragmentation on the democratic systems of interwar Europe: lnkd.in/erjJr9qF
#polarization #democracy #data #history (1/4)
Some thoughts on the strategic rationale behind the "Brandmauer” – the cordon sanitaire vis-à-vis the AfD – and the challenges associated with maintaining it. Seems pertinent, given that senior CDU/CSU figures regularly float the idea of ditching it and exploring avenues for closer cooperation.
17.04.2025 09:18 — 👍 71 🔁 29 💬 8 📌 8My sabbatical leave allowed me to reflect on my professional life.
As I’ve stepped into more senior roles in academia (plus gotten a bit older), I often get asked:
“How do you keep writing academic articles, policy work, opinion pieces, while juggling everything else?”
My answer: skillpower
🧵
We finally published the Archive of Interwar Europe Election Data and Assemblies (AIEEDA)! 🗳️💽🤓 Find out more about party positions, cabinet formation, and parliamentary elections in 25 European democracies between 1919 and 1939! We also collected geo-referenced data for 6 countries! 🗺️📍
rdcu.be/ehRgD
🎉 Big step for #MEDem! We’ve officially applied for the #ESFRIroadmap2026— backed by 15 governments, 1,000+ researchers & 100+ institutions/associations.
One more milestone toward building Europe’s infrastructure for comparative #DemocracyResearch ✅
Read more on our #MEDemBlog 👉
Do you care about democracy in the EU? @ec.europa.eu wants to hear your views on disinformation, information manipulation, elections, free media, civil society, societal resilience, citizen participation and engagement.
Researchers - share your evidence!
Deadline 26 May
ec.europa.eu/info/law/bet...
Leben auf Okinawa in Japan so viele Hundertjährige wie nirgends sonst auf der Welt? Nö. Medien behaupten das trotzdem immer wieder. Jetzt ohne Paywall lesen: uebermedien.de/103765/japan...
31.03.2025 06:37 — 👍 60 🔁 9 💬 1 📌 0Quick reminder: Join us on August 1, 2025 for a short online conference discussing your research ideas! 😎
27.03.2025 15:23 — 👍 4 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0📣 Last Chance to join!
#GESISworkshops
HarDIS will extend Party Facts, re-think how we can together maintain linkage key databases as a community, and finally, harmonize data for voters' and parties' left-right positions. Check out Party Facts, here: partyfacts.herokuapp.com
19.03.2025 11:18 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Earlier this month, Paul Bederke had the opportunity to attend the 1st OSCARS Annual Meeting in Rome (March 3–4, 2025), where he represented our HarDIS project – Harmony in the Democratic Ideological Space.
oscars-project.eu/projects/har...
In about a month, we submit our application for the ESFRI Roadmap 🇪🇺
Help us reach 1,000 researchers by showing your support here: forms.gle/dm8K4xFgXD9b...
⚙️ Regardless, we’re sure you’ll find MEDem’s tools & services useful once they’re live. We’re already working on first prototypes this year! 🏗️📊
The actual datasets are now also available online via the Harvard Dataverse: 🕵♀️ doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...
26.02.2025 15:05 — 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0Also, this is the first election that I have heard several non-political scientists talk about strategically voting for Die Linke, with the goal of supporting the “left-wing” in the Bundestag - also from people who have never considered voting for Die Linke, before. Exit polls will be interesting!
21.02.2025 15:07 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Basierend auf einer Vielzahl von Datenquellen zeigen wir in unserem Research Brief eine Sache: Verluste an die radikale Rechte sind nur marginal relevant für die elektorale Krise der Sozialdemokratie. Anders gesagt: heutige Wähler von radikal rechts sind keine früheren Sozialdemokraten.
21.02.2025 14:59 — 👍 52 🔁 22 💬 2 📌 1This overview deserves another share, important to be informed of the extent of the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration
21.02.2025 11:57 — 👍 23 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
#GESISblog #blog
Data Spotlight #7 on the GESIS blog: Dr. Alex Jedinger and Dr. Christina Eder introduce a thematic data collection on elections and political attitudes:
blog.gesis.org/data-...
Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.” • The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives. • The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000. Each point represents a federal agency: • Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs. • Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs. Key Observations: • Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates. • Notable targeted agencies include: • HHS (Health & Human Services) • EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) • NIH (National Institutes of Health) • CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) • Dept. of Education • USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) • The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies. • A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size. Takeaway: The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology. Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).
The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️
20.02.2025 02:18 — 👍 10726 🔁 4816 💬 256 📌 398*JOB* befristete Stelle bei @gesis.org im Kontext des Aufbaus eines Datenportals für die Rassismus- und Rechtsextremismusforschung (DP-REX) speziell zu online Inhalten über AVERA datenportal-rechtsextremismus.de/rex-forschun....
Ausschreibung unter: www.hidden-professionals.de/HPv3.Jobs/ge...
New data & publication at BJPols
Studying Multi-Level Systems with Cross-Level Data - by Leonce Röth @dasalgon.bsky.social @dielea.bsky.social & André Kaiser
💥 2,226 regional elections | 21 countries | 1941-2019
Data portal: multi-level-cross-level-politics.eu
Data: github.com/leonce-colla...
New data out for studying party politics and elections across levels in 21 democracies worldwide! 🗳️🧐🥳🤓😎
Check out our online data visualization tool, too: multi-level-cross-level-politics.eu
And our data: doi.org/10.7910/DVN/...
Are you a PhD student or early career PostDoc researching how citizens and parties behave in democracies, what factors weaken democracies, and what factors strengthen them? Are you currently working on one of your first academic manuscripts? We are organizing a workshop just for you! Please share!
17.02.2025 17:31 — 👍 12 🔁 11 💬 1 📌 2
GESIS Workshop Introduction to Computational Text Analysis with R Lea Kaftan and Jan Schwalbach (both GESIS) & Jens Wäckerle (Cologne Center for Comparative Politics) Online from 01 to 03 April 2025
📢 Ready to dive into computational text analysis with #rstats?
Join @dielea.bsky.social, @janschwalbach.bsky.social & @jwaeckerle.bsky.social for the #GESISworkshop and gain hands-on skills to enhance your research!
More info & registration ➡️ t1p.de/comp-text-an...
GESIS Spring Seminar | Laboratory Experiments | Florian Heine (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) | 24 - 28 March 2025 | Cologne
📣 Calling all curious minds!
Interested in human behavior, decision-making, or social interactions? 🧠 Learn to design, run, and analyze lab experiments on trust, cooperation, and competition with hands-on guidance from Florian Heine @vuamsterdam.bsky.social.
➡️ tinyurl.com/LaboratoryEx...
*Introduction to Computational Text Analysis with R* by @dielea.bsky.social, @jwaeckerle.bsky.social & @janschwalbach.bsky.social.
🗓️ 01 – 03 April 2025
🏢 Online
🌐 t1p.de/comp-text-an...
🎓 We are looking for a dedicated Post-doctoral Researcher in Empirical Approaches to Rule of Law to join our interdisciplinary Horizon Europe NET-ROL project. This full-time, 36-month position is based in the heart of The Hague!
To learn more about this call, see👇
