IE Political Science Department

This Thursday (March 12, 12h) we are very excited to welcome Kristen Kao (Gothenburg), who will give a talk on "The Effects of Injustice on Legitimacy in Post-Conflict Settings".

Happening now: Marius R. Busemeyer (Konstanz) presenting his work on tradeoffs between short and long term social and environmental policy at our seminar series.

Abstract of the paper: Women are generally less likely to express an interest in politics, join political organizations, and participate in political activities. Scholars posit that gender-(in)egalitarian attitudes are an important determinant of women’s political engagement. Yet, existing work finds mixed support for this claim. Using the German General Social Survey (1991–2016), we compare citizens’ attitudes toward gender across birth cohorts from East and West Germany. We find that cohorts socialized in the East hold more progressive gender attitudes than West Germans. We then show that traditional gender attitudes are negatively correlated with political interest and participation and that this effect is somewhat greater for women. Importantly, women who hold gender-egalitarian attitudes are nearly as politically engaged as men. We then assess the robustness of these results, show the findings hold in cross-national analyses, and explore an individual-level mechanism underlying our results. Together, our findings reveal an important barrier to political engagement.

Congratulations to our Head of Dept @catherinedevries.bsky.social on her latest publication in @thejop.bsky.social.

The paper studies the effects of being socialized under East Germany on gender norms and the political engagement of women.

Read more here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Abstract of the paper: Parties in primary elections often choose between candidates who appeal to their base and those who appeal to the broader electorate. I present a model of primaries where incumbents can exploit this trade-off the opposition faces between ideological congruence and electability. In the model, incumbents reduce their appeal to the median voter by moving away from the center. In doing so, they provoke the opposition into nominating extremists, improving their reelection prospects. This mechanism generates elite polarization as politicians leapfrog voters — not despite electoral concerns, but because of them. The analysis fits the observation that incumbents sometimes move away from the center near the end of their term. Provoking the opposition relies on two conditions: divergence of primary and general electorates and a limited set of potential nominees. I argue that partisan sorting and changes in nomination procedures over the last decades made this strategy viable.

It's been a week full of great publications our faculty members!

Congratulations to Korhan Kocak, whose paper on provoking the opposition just came out in Games and Economic Behavior! 🎉 🎉🎉

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

You Don’t Need a Writing Routine. You Need a Reason for Writing The Long Carve #1: Choosing an Idea Worth Living With

Whilst embarking on a big writing project, many of us think about routines to achieve our goal.

Wake up earlier. Block our phone. Write 1 hour everyday, etc.

But what if long projects stall not because of a lack of routine, but a lack of clarity about why we write?

New post: shorturl.at/hbh1g

🧵

De symfonie van onvrede - Singel Uitgeverijen Catherine de Vries groeide op op een boerderij in Overijssel die al generaties in de familie was. Eind jaren tachtig veranderde dat leven ingrijpend: dalende prijzen, Europese regels en terughoudende ...

Precies over een maand, op 12 maart verschijnt mijn boek De symfonie van onvrede: De opmars van radicaal-rechts in Europa bij Querido:

www.singeluitgeverijen.nl/querido/boek...

Dit boek gaat me aan het hart en ik kom graag een lezing geven.

🧵

I also feel extremely thankful to be part of the special issue that this paper introduces. Because of that I got to discuss these topics with some of the scholars I most admire.

I can’t overstate how much I learned from those discussions.

Logo of Political Science Research and Methods featuring the initials "PSRM" in a stylized grey font on a black background.

#OpenAccess from @psrm.bsky.social -

Analyzing the impact of events through surveys: formalizing biases and introducing the dual randomized survey design - https://cup.org/4cm7aKH

- Andrew Bertoli, Laura Jakli & Henry Pascoe

#FirstView

Congratulations to our faculty member Andrew Bertoli, whose paper on analyzing the impact of events through surveys has just come out in @psrm.bsky.social! 🎉 🎉🎉

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Abstract of the paper attached:

Congratulations to our faculty member Zoe Xincheng Ge, whose paper on the reporting of disease outbreaks at the WHO has just been published at @thejop.bsky.social.

You can read the paper here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

And you can learn more about Zoe's work here: wp.nyu.edu/zoege/

Happening now: Isabela Mares presents some of her new work on political demarcation at our seminar series.

Beyond the Stadium | Stanford University Press There are two popular and competing viewpoints on sports. Many consider them a mere distraction from important social and political problems. Others champion sports as a powerful force for good: teach...

New article in Politico Europe on the politicization of sports, including quotes from an interview with our faculty member Andrew Bertoli.

www.politico.eu/article/5-ti...

His book "Beyond the Stadium: How Sports Change the World" will come out in March 2026: www.sup.org/books/politi...

Introducing The Long Carve: What Deserves Your Four Thousand Weeks? A series about choosing and staying with one idea long enough for it to change you

After a short hiatus, Respect the Marble is back:

catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/introducin...

Introducing a new series The Long Carve:

about how to decide which ideas deserves our long-term writing attention,

& how we learn to keep writing when the outcome is unknown and uncertain.

🧵

Many thanks to our faculty members Zoe Xincheng Ge, Nikitas Konstantinidis, and Irene Menéndez González for organizing!

IE SPEGA had the pleasure to host the 18th edition of @the-peio.bsky.social, a truly transatlantic conference that brings together senior and junior scholars from both sides of the Atlantic doing state-of-the-art work in the fields of international political economy and international organizations.

Today I’m presenting part of the Russia in Africa project at the 18th @the-peio.bsky.social conference @iepolisci.bsky.social in Segovia. Great conference, great people!

Trump wants our attention. Let’s stop falling for his geopolitical clickbait | Catherine De Vries Whether he’s targeting Greenland, tariffs or Iran, Trump’s agenda is to distract – because a Europe that is always reacting is never planning, says political scientist Catherine De Vries

Today in @theguardian.com, I argue that Donald Trump’s foreign-policy playbook is increasingly about attention capture, or what I call geopolitical clickbait.

Plus I outline why this matters for Europe & what to do about it.

🧵

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Checkout the latest article in @theguardian.com by our Head of Department @catherinedevries.bsky.social:

I’m thrilled to be there and look forward to great things to come for the department & school.

Really looking forward to having @connerjoyce.bsky.social as a new colleague in September!

We are particularly thankful to our faculty members Zoe Xincheng Ge, Niktas Konstantinidis, and Irene Menéndez González for their work organising the conference.

We are very excited that the 18th @the-peio.bsky.social conference will be held at IE's Segovia campus next weekend.

More information at www.peio.me

We are very excited that you will join us, @connerjoyce.bsky.social ! @iepolisci.bsky.social

Photo of Catherine De Vries

This month, we are thrilled to welcome @catherinedevries.bsky.social, who joins our department as Professor of Political Science, Head of Department, and Vice Dean of the School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs.

More info about DeVries can be found at her website:
www.catherinedevries.eu

We are very excited with the prospect of welcoming @connerjoyce.bsky.social in September as one of our new hires!

More job ops (2) 👇

This is my first week at IE University as assistant professor but I can already tell you that @iepolisci.bsky.social provides a very warm welcome! We're hiring in 3 lines (in CP, IR/Security Studies, and IPE). Come join us in Madrid!

Come join us @iepolisci.bsky.social!

This dept has one of the healthiest environments I've found in academia.

Plus, everyone does brilliant work and you get to live in a great city with a salary that allows you to enjoy it.

We only work in English, so language is not an issue.

Apply!

📢 We're hiring! 3 lines in CP, IR, and IPE. Come join us in Madrid!

I'm not in the committee but more than happy to answer questions (via DM, email) and/or chat.