Dean Schafer

Illiberal Politics in Europe Thematic Issue, Vol 13 (2025)

📚Our discussion introduces a journal special issue on illiberal politics in Europe edited by AUTHLIB's @zsolt.bsky.social, @petraguasti.bsky.social, @schaferd.bsky.social & Bálint Mikola.

✅ Browse all articles open access!
www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandg...

Trump is building a personalist regime where every university must bend the knee or lose funding and every business must bend the knee or face tariffs, H-1B fees, and regulatory blackmail. You can't cover each domain in isolation; they are all the same story.

This internet poll is breaking men's brains! And this is what we get when male fitness standards clash with female preferences.

Only just catching up to this fascinating little mini-controversy. I will say that one of the advantages of keeping up with fandom is it puts you more in contact with women's iddy sexual or romantic preferences, and so makes this phenomenon obvious...

nataliaantonova.substack.com/p/this-inter...

BYU student's visa reinstated after unexpected revocation A Japanese doctorate student at BYU will now be able to stay in the U.S. after his visa was revoked earlier this month.

Another story of

1. Admin sends fascist order

2. Media reports on it

3. People are outraged, say no

4. Admin says “actually that order was a mistake”

Lesson is defy fascist orders

kslnewsradio.com/shows-podcas...

reagan/bush judges: "this administration's shocking arguments would reduce the rule of law to lawlenssness"

neocons: abolish ICE

david brooks: communist manifesto

Dem leadership, top liberal consultants/pundits: the latest NYT/Ipsos has Trump up +4 on immigration, +9 with noncollege men

UMass faculty calls on land grant universities to join in fight against Trump administration; McGovern, AG also weigh in AMHERST — Faculty at the University of Massachusetts are calling on Chancellor Javier Reyes and President Martin Meehan to form a compact with the 250 land grant and public universities across the cou...

This is how you do it.

The "Mutual Academic Defense Compact".

The moral imperative may be to fight...

but the strategic imperative is to not fight alone:

www.gazettenet.com/UMass-Amhers...

🆕📝🚨 Glad to see this one out in International Journal of Cultural Policy. With data from @authlibeu.bsky.social, we review cultural policies of 🇭🇺Orbán, 🇵🇱Kaczyński, 🇨🇿Babiš, and 🇸🇰Fico. A short thread👇 1/4

Open access: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

@schaferd.bsky.social @jsuchanek.bsky.social

Opposition to Government and Back: How Illiberal Parties Shape Immigration Discourse and Party Competition | Article | Politics and Governance Franziska Wagner, Dean Schafer, Mehmet Yavuz

We urge that conservatives parties choice to move right by adopting far right positions and including them in their governing coalitions is a bad one. They don't own the issue. Our findings speak to conservatives' loss of vote share to the far right.

www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandg...

Excited to see our article out: "Opposition to Government and Back" coauthored with @franziskawagner.bsky.social and @yavuzmehmet.bsky.social.

We show that illiberal far right parties pull conservative parties to the right on immigration, and that inclusion is not an effective containment strategy.

APSA panel accepted!! I'm excited to be co-organizing a panel on democratic backsliding and opposition resistance, featuring @cristyramirezp.bsky.social, @dnsltr.bsky.social, @beattyriedl.bsky.social, and @schaferd.bsky.social, with @lgamboa.bsky.social and @orcunselcuk.bsky.social as discussants!

Some federal workers are ‘getting wealthy at taxpayer expense,’ says Elon Musk, whose companies have received at least $20 billion from the government

See here's how to do a headline.

fortune.com/2025/02/13/e...

I mean, yes, maybe. But the way things are moving, it's really hard to predict. We still haven't seen what the supreme court is going to do. I'm more confident in your 2026 prediction. But so much could happen by 2028, and some of the CA ingredients are already there.

I feel like wikipedia is the only institution that was actually ready for this.

The Path to American Authoritarianism What comes after democratic breakdown.

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

If America's long-weakened civil society can rally, that may be one of the best sources of accountability and democratic resilience. We'll see.

These three weeks have already had a devastating impact on the effectiveness of America's governance. Despite their interest in defending the rule of law, American CEOs have capitulated, media paid extortionate settlement fees, and the Rep party and Dem opposition do little.

He's using the authoritarian playbook of Orban in Hungary, Erdoğan in Turkey, Modi in India, and many more. Break the laws constraining your power, and then challenge the opposition and even your own party to stop you. Defy judicial constraints and buy off who you can.

It's painful to see democratic breakdown in the US described so clearly.

We knew the threat was real. Trump ran an openly authoritarian campaign after trying to overthrow the last election. In the last 3 weeks, he's followed the Project 2025 plan for consolidating executive power.

Sneak preview of something useful that I'm working on in the hope that enough of you are enthusiastic that I actually manage to finish it. Features nice plots too!

TL;DR: Every time you dichotomised some continuous data, it was probably fine.

Is there an up-to-date dataset of US Congress floor speeches (both house and senate)? I know govinfo.gov publishes the congressional record, but they are pdf, and I don't want to scrape. Stanford has a dataset that ends in 2017.

I'm hoping there's a university that maintains a ready-to-use dataset

This is outstanding work, outstanding news, and an encouraging sign of how sunlight is the best disinfectant against the Musk virus

Sickos meme with 'sicko' replaced by 'political scientists'

How do autocrats stay in power?

Our new research dives into the strategies of political control—repression, co-optation, and indoctrination—used across 229 autocracies from 1946 to 2010. What we found will change the way you think about authoritarian resilience. 🧵👇

Eminent political scientists sound the alarm at the prospect of overturning the NC Supreme Court election in a new amicus brief www.aclu.org/cases/griffi...

NC's "path is thus broadly comparable to the path of a country like Hungary"

Now seeking to throw out an election on pretextual grounds

Having published a book recently, I found it sometimes hard to understand how the process worked (and luckily, had very kind mentors who helped).

I have uploaded a short document detailing how my experience went, in case others find it helpful: www.vicentevalentim.com/_files/ugd/a...

It remains astounding to me, as someone who had a few small interactions with Marc, how much a little criticism directed at him turned him into such a baby.

Like literally none of what he says here is accurate.

Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections (DIME): Public version 4.0 Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections (DIME): Public version 4.0

I’m excited to share DIME v4.0 is live! This release covers through the 2024 cycle and contains records for 850M+ itemized political contributions and ideological scores for millions of candidates, PACs, and donors.

stanford.io/3DJDCYm

"Why America’s economy is soaring ahead of its rivals:
The country’s outperformance is rooted in long-term productivity growth that is the envy of the developed world." 🇺🇸

https://buff.ly/3Zhe7EH

"Other advanced economies show little sign of this dynamism."

American Journal of Political Science | MPSA Journal | Wiley Online Library Opposition coalitions under electoral authoritarianism have been associated with greater likelihood of opposition victory and democratization. I argue, however, that coalitions also entail significan....

Best academic-pop culture crossover reference ever. The article addresses the repercussions of opposition failure.

Opposition coalitions can end electoral authoritarianism, but risk greater repression: "if you come for the king, you best not miss."

doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

Mike Johnson won't commit to bringing House back before the election for more hurricane relief In a letter to congressional leaders, Biden urged Congress to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program as it faces potential funding shortfalls.

Unbelievable. Republican leaders are blocking additional relief from Hurricane Helene because they think it’ll be politically expedient! www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...