Francesca Vantaggiato

As we (rightly) focus on the threat of U.S. government funding far-right parties and "think tanks", this excellent @veghzsuzsanna.bsky.social report is an important reminder of the crucial role that the Orbán government already plays in developing and financing a far-right infrastructure in Europe.

Pope Leo Will Spend July 4 Visiting Migrant Crossing Island Pope Leo has spoken out against the treatment of migrants in the United States several times over the last year.

JD Vance personally invited Pope Leo to the U.S. 250th celebration on the 4th of July. Today the Vatican announced Leo will be spending the day with migrants instead.

Humans, what a waste amirite.

Given today's @appgfairelections.bsky.social letter, it's worth noting that - as things stand - PR would work out better for every party except Reform and the SNP.

FPTP (Electoral Calculus) vs Perfect PR:

➡️ Ref 355 v 189
🌹 Lab 101 v 130
🐥 LD 59 v 78
✖️ SNP 45 v 20
🌳 Con 35 v 124
🌍 Grn 18 v 91

A++++++++

Norway’s PM says Trump sent letter tying Nobel prize snub to Greenland ambitions American president says his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize has shifted his focus, as he ramps up bid to take over huge Arctic island.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has confirmed he received a message from Donald Trump at the weekend saying he was no longer interested “purely” in peace due to not getting the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Purged Donald Trump’s destruction of the civil service is a tragedy not just for the roughly 300,000 workers who have been discarded, but for an entire nation.

This is an excellent piece on the purge of public servants from the federal government.
So many dedicated and talented people pushed out. We are worse off without their skills.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

Jan and Feb tour dates for my film 'Fires and Fascism' announced!

I’ll be attending each screening in person for a discussion afterwards about community, what might be drawing people towards Reform, and sharing ideas about what to do next.

Trailer and tickets: fires-and-fascism.co.uk

PhD position @ Uni Leeds on justice & UK climate policies shorturl.at/WNqiV supervised by myself and Dr @anneowen.bsky.social - pl consider applying / forwarding to potential candidates 🙏

Please note: only UK fees applicants will be eligible.
Application deadline: 6 March 2026

Central bank shifts tone when reputation is threatened, study finds | King's College London New research has found a stark contrast in how policymakers at independent technocratic institutions such as central banks respond to different types of reputational risk.

How do central bankers talk when their reputation is at stake? Here's a brief post about a recent study by Christel Koop and myself on the Bank of England:
shorturl.at/uGnF7

@kcl-spe.bsky.social @govjournal.bsky.social

Fellowships for Early Career Researchers | King's College London Join a vibrant, dynamic community of postdoctoral and early career researchers

Want to come spend two years in the UK working on a research project? Come to KCL on British Academy International Fellowship. Guidance for our internal selection process available here: www.kcl.ac.uk/research/fun... happy to chat about it

2026 Political Networks Conference: 4-7 August 2026 at the University of Manchester. Save the date! More info will be released in early spring. #SNA #polinetworks #polnet #polisky #networkanalysis #politicalnetworks #politicalnets #policynetworks #complexsystems #netsci #polmeth #polisci

We had a good run

This is one of our favorites!

Merry Christmas and friendly reminder that Jesus was a brown, woke, anti-capitalist refugee from the Middle East who had two dads, became a rabbi, wore flowing dresses, ran around with sex workers, preached radical inclusion, railed against income inequality, and was brutally killed by the police.

How Regulation by Litigation Strangled American Abundance Environmentalists aren't blocking housing. Wealthy homeowners are.

For this piece, I compiled a systematic dataset of California environmental litigation going back to 1973. Wealthy homeowners and businesses account for the vast majority of lawsuits restricting growth.

Journal article: “the data are available on request”

The data:

You’re Thinking About AI and Water All Wrong Fears about AI data centers’ water use have exploded. Experts say the reality is far more complicated than people think.

new from me: are data centers going to wipe out water supplies? how much water does ChatGPT really use? and what's going on with that big correction in Empire of AI?

i went long on the conversation around AI and water, and how it's actually about what we want resources to be used for:

Bridging the climate research divide: A global imperative for equitable resilience Nations most vulnerable to climate contribute minimally to climate research, creating stark global disparities. Such imbalances undermine resilience, perpetuate injustice, and threaten effective adapt...

An analysis of 700,000+ climate change papers found that the five most climate-vulnerable countries produced 0.04% of them. US, China, Uk, Germany, Australia, meanwhile, account for 52%.

Thanks to @johnholbein1.bsky.social I learned about this paper on rent control in Berlin.

Because I was marking, I immediately downloaded the replication materials.

bsky.app/profile/john...

We're looking for a colleague (postdoc) 📢 @politikuhh.bsky.social
3+3 years
Doing your own research while teaching 2.5 courses per semester
Research agenda with links to our team (democracy, digital politics, political competition/behaviour)
DL 🗓️ 05/01
stellen.uni-hamburg.de/jobposting/6...

🚨 3-Year Postdoc in Political Science at Aarhus University 🚨

I’m seeking to recruit a postdoc for my @erc.europa.eu research project 𝑬𝑸𝑼𝑰𝑳𝑰𝑩𝑹𝑰𝑼𝑴 on state-citizen interactions.

Link and more information in second post.

Position Start: Fall 2026
Application Deadline: ‼️ February 5, 2026, 23:59 CET ‼️

“When participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47% drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, & critical reasoning.

Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engaged—a kind of metacognitive mirage.”🧪

Assistant Professor (f/m/d) Assistant Professor (f/m/d)

We are hiring!
The Department of Network and Data Science of Central European University (Vienna) has an open position for an Assistant Professor in network science and computational social science.

We humans have such a hard time letting go... and an equally hard time with abstract risk. There is no saving places like this, we will see bigger storms and higher seas, so it is either find a way to transition or suffer abrupt, too often cataclysmic shifts. Great article.

Geographers in December are like, “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it away, this year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone spatial”

‘The New Price of Eggs.’ The Political Shocks of Data Centers and Electric Bills

Republicans in rural Georgia are voting for Democrats for the first time in their lives in order to stop expansion of data centers and escalation of their utility bills, leading to landslide upsets

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/u...

“When researchers randomly displayed these flood risk estimates to 18M people browsing Redfin, those who saw the feature were more likely to search for homes w/ low flood risk, according to a working paper published in the Nat’l Bureau of Economic Research last Nov*.”🧪

* www.nber.org/papers/w33119

We Brexiteers must acknowledge the costs of leaving Europe Breaking free from the EU has undoubtedly deepened the UK’s malaise, and it’s no use denying it

Yes but no-one could have predicted this at the time

www.thetimes.com/business/eco...