Julia Partheymüller

U.S. may require visa applicants to post bond up to $15,000 to enter country The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to apply to enter the United States.

This will effectively kill scientific conferences in the United States

www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

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Perceptions of science and politics during the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria: technocratic overreach or blame deflection? - Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie Science and politics function as distinct yet structurally interconnected social systems, creating a delicate need to balance expertise and democratic representation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed ten...

📄 For more information, read the full paper here: doi.org/10.1007/s116...

Published in the @oezs.bsky.social article collection on #Wissenschaftsskepsis, edited by:
Arthur Buckenleib, Antje Daniel, Michaela Pfadenhauer & Anna Schwenck

10/10

Since increasing trust may be difficult, it may be more effective to focus the debate on transparent, accountable procedures – broadly accepted even by the distrustful.

A key lesson from the pandemic is the need for clear guidelines structuring the relationship between science and politics.

9/10

This suggests the science–politics boundary is not just blurry – it is contested!

People diverge in how they perceived the interactions between science and politics during the pandemic – and they disagree on how they should interact.

8/10

Structural equation model showing that both technocratic overreach and blame deflection are negatively associated with support for COVID-19 measures. Technocratic overreach is strongly predicted by low trust in science, while blame deflection is linked to low trust in government and higher support for technocracy. Significant paths are bolded.

SEM analysis showed both technocratic overreach and blame deflection were linked to lower support for COVID measures.

But underlying attitudes differ:
🔹 Technocratic overreach mainly tied to low trust in science
🔹 Blame deflection tied to low trust in government – while supporting technocracy

7/10

Path diagram showing the measurement model for four latent constructs: technocratic overreach, blame deflection, support for technocracy, and support for COVID-19 measures. Standardized loadings and covariances indicate strong internal consistency and expected relationships. Cross-loadings for two items (over3 and def3) are included to improve model fit.

We used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to test whether our indicators reliably captured the underlying concepts. The theoretical model fit the data well, with only minor modifications.

6/10

Stacked bar chart showing levels of agreement with eight statements about technocratic governance, science, and politics during COVID-19. High support is shown for expert-based decision-making; blame deflection perceptions are more widespread than concerns about technocratic overreach. Data from Wave 35 of the Austrian Corona Panel Project (June/July 2023).

Public support for technocratic governance was surprisingly strong. Few believed the government relied too heavily on scientists.

But concerns about blame shifting, using science as political cover, were fairly widespread.

5/10

Line chart showing average trust levels in Austria from 2020 to 2023. Trust in government declined from 7.1 to 3.3. Trust in science remained relatively stable, decreasing from 7.0 to 6.0.

Using data from the Austrian Corona Panel Project (#ACPP ➡️ doi.org/10.11587/28K...), we found:

🔹 Trust in science remained high.
🔹 Trust in government declined.

4/10

We tested two explanations:

1️⃣ Technocratic Overreach: Experts were seen as too influential.

2️⃣ Blame Deflection: Politicians were seen as using science to shield themselves from criticism.

3/10

Line chart showing support for COVID-19 measures in Austria from 2020 to 2023. In March 2020, about 87% of respondents found the measures appropriate or not strong enough, and 94% considered them rather or very effective. Both values declined over time, with fluctuations during infection waves. By June 2023, support had dropped to 62% (appropriateness) and 70% (effectiveness).

During COVID, experts played a major role in policy-making. But as the pandemic dragged on, public support for containment measures declined.

Was that because experts overstepped their role or because politicians avoided accountability?

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Abstract: Science and politics function as distinct yet structurally interconnected social systems, creating a delicate need to balance expertise and democratic representation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed tensions in this relationship, with initial public support for containment measures giving way to growing skepticism. This paper explores two distinct perspectives on this development: (1) the technocratic overreach perspective, which attributes low support to perceptions that experts overstepped their role in political decision-making; and (2) the blame-deflection perspective, which links it to the perception that politicians strategically used appeals to scientific authority to shield themselves from criticism. Using survey data from the Austrian Corona Panel Project, we test hypotheses derived from these contrasting perspectives to better understand public concerns surrounding the boundary between science and politics during the pandemic. Our findings show that both technocratic overreach and blame deflection perceptions are associated with lower support for mitigation measures, but the patterns of underlying attitudes differ. Perceptions of technocratic overreach were associated with low trust in science, but overall levels of trust in science remained high and stable, suggesting that overreach perceptions stemmed primarily from pre-existing skepticism toward science rather than concerns about technocratic policy-making during the pandemic. In contrast, perceptions of blame deflection were related to low trust in government, which strongly declined during the pandemic. Overall, the study identifies crisis management as a key area where a clearer demarcation between science and politics is needed.

🚨New Publication

Perceptions of Science and Politics During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Austria: Technocratic Overreach or Blame Deflection? 🧪

By @schnizzl.bsky.social, @jamoeberl.bsky.social & Alexander Bogner

➡️ doi.org/10.1007/s116...

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YouTube video by Neutrality Studies Deutsch Kriegstreiberei an Unis: Die Zerstörung kritischer Akademiker in Europa | Prof. Gerhard Mangott

Obwohl ich viele Aussagen von ihm kritisch gesehen habe, bin ich zutiefst schockiert/verwundert, dass Prof. Mangott am Kanal von Pascal Lottaz aufgetreten ist; auch über was er dort sagt

Lottaz tritt nach 2022 noch bei RT auf - auf seinem Kanal ---. interessante Gäste 🧵

youtu.be/N8yLpx2lTzw?...

Trump news at a glance: ‘credibility’ of US economics data at risk, say experts, as president fires labor official Trump’s own former statistics chief denounces move as ‘groundless’ and ‘dangerous’. Key US politics stories from Friday 1 August at a glance

Firing the Messenger

Credibility of US economics data at risk, say experts, as president fires labor statistics official

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Ich finde es auch sehr angenehm. ☺️

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Scientist on green card detained for a week without explanation, lawyer says A Korean citizen studying in Texas on a green card was detained in San Francisco after a trip overseas. His lawyer says authorities won’t give a reason.

A Korean-born researcher and longtime U.S. legal permanent resident has spent the past week detained by immigration officials at the San Francisco International Airport without explanation and has been denied access to an attorney, according to his lawyer.

Reform auf halber Strecke
Der Wissenschaftsrat fordert eine Neugestaltung der Personalstrukturen in der Wissenschaft – liefert aber vor allem vage Kategorien, alte Konzepte und wenig Mut zur klaren Linie. Gastbeitrag von Mathias Kuhnt und Tilman Reitz im Wiarda-Blog: www.jmwiarda.de/blog/2025/07...

👇All very depressing. I tell my students they can AI-cheat the weekly quiz (or old-school cheat by asking last yrs class), but that it's not going to help in the long-run. They must pass the final closed book exam and working through the weekly quiz is their best way to understand the material. 🤷‍♀️🧪

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Becoming a paramedic changed me. But not in the ways I expected From trampolines to smartwatches, the job has changed how I see everyday life. It’s a kind of hyper-awareness that doesn’t switch off

“I will never again get on a motorbike, or on a trampoline. No judgment to the people who ride them. Or bounce on them. […] Motorbikes and trampolines both offer the illusion of freedom – right until the moment your femur is split into six parts.”

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Temperaturen von 51 Grad im Irak, Iran erwägt Zwangsschließung von Teheran Die Wasserspeicher im Irak sind nur noch zu acht Prozent gefüllt. Der Iran erwägt indes, alle Einrichtungen in seiner Hauptstadt für eine Woche zu schließen

Zwangsschließungen, viele sind aus Teheran in den Norden geflüchtet und Präsident Massud Peseschkian schließt eine Verlegung der Hauptstadt mit über 15 Mio. (!) Einwohner*innen nicht aus.

Hey und wir sind "erst" bei +1,4 Grad global.

Knowing without knowing: how false confidence shapes the world This Humanities and Social Sciences Communications collection explores the mechanisms and impact of false or misplaced confidence, and how it shapes the ...

Call for Papers: "Knowing Without Knowing: How False Confidence Shapes the World"

🗓️ Deadline: 23.4.2026
🔗 www.nature.com/collections/...

Co-Edited with: M. Adamus, S. Chen

#Misinformation #ConspiracyBeliefs #Polarization #ScienceDenial #Overconfidence 🧪

🔄 Help us spread the word!

FM4 Ente mit Kopfhörern

Ente gut, alles gut! #popfest

Lots of companies continue to use X as a platform to communicate with customers - where they frequently are exposed to extremism. It is not a sustainable situation. Shut it down.

I'm hiring another postdoc (research-focused, for almost 5 years) for my @erc.europa.eu project on the educational cleavage!
I'm looking for someone with strong quantitative text-analysis skills (e.g. #NLP, #LLM, etc.) to study the role of political actors in cleavage formation.

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Nass und grau ⛈️

Call for 20 Assistant Professor positions Karolinska Institutet is a world-leading medical university with a long and proud history of ground-breaking research. We are now recruiting outstanding early-career researchers with particularly exce...

Karolinska is looking for 20 (!!) assistant professors and offering 6 year appointments with ~1M USD startup packages.

ki.se/en/about-ki/...

Fake-KI-Umfragen: Rassismus zwischen Koch-Reels und Katzenvideos KI-generierte Straßenumfragen mit fremdenfeindlichen Untertönen erreichen Millionen Menschen. Warum das gefährlich ist und was dahintersteckt.

„Es macht einen großen Unterschied, ob ich gezielt eine rechtsextreme Webseite aufrufe - oder ob mir solche Inhalte zwischen Tanzvideos und Koch-Reels angezeigt werden. Das vermittelt das Gefühl: Das gehört zum normalen, sozialen, akzeptierten Raum.“ www.zdfheute.de/politik/deut...