Philipp Lutscher's Avatar

Philipp Lutscher

@plutscher.bsky.social

Postdoctoral researcher @UniOslo & non-resident fellow @DigDemLab: technology, autocracies, contentious politics and quantitative methods (he/him; FirstGen); https://philipplutscher.net/

1,109 Followers  |  316 Following  |  86 Posts  |  Joined: 20.09.2023  |  1.9603

Latest posts by plutscher.bsky.social on Bluesky

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Ekko - Ekko i P2 - NRK Radio Hør hele NRK Radio sitt store utvalg av podkast, serier, dokumentarer, underholdning, film, sport og nyheter.

Jeg har vært på Ekko og snakket litt om diktatorer før og nå, og NRKs serie Tyrann: radio.nrk.no/serie/ekko/M...

12.06.2025 10:17 — 👍 23    🔁 9    💬 1    📌 2
The title page of a paper listing the title: "Blame Shifting in Autocracies Following Large-scale Disasters: Evidence from Turkey"; the authors: Edward Goldring, Jonas Willibald Schmid, and Fulya Apaydin; and the abstract: "Large-scale disasters, particularly when handled poorly, often spark popular outrage and threaten
an autocrat’s hold on power. Autocrats frequently employ blame shifting strategies to redirect
public anger and weather these storms. We examine whether blame shifting after a large-scale
disaster helps or hurts an autocrat’s popularity through a mixed-methods research design in the
electoral autocracy of Turkey in April-July 2023, following the February 2023 earthquakes.
An online survey experiment (n=3,839) identifies the effects of blaming the aftermath of the
earthquake on the opposition, a force majeure, private construction companies, or a govern-
ment minister, while focus groups explore the mechanisms behind these effects. We find that
blaming the opposition or a force majeure leads to a backlash, especially among those more
able to critically evaluate information. Focus groups reveal that these backlash effects are
driven by voters’ dismay at electoral opportunism and the incumbent’s polarizing language
following a large-scale disaster."; and the note that the paper is forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics.

The title page of a paper listing the title: "Blame Shifting in Autocracies Following Large-scale Disasters: Evidence from Turkey"; the authors: Edward Goldring, Jonas Willibald Schmid, and Fulya Apaydin; and the abstract: "Large-scale disasters, particularly when handled poorly, often spark popular outrage and threaten an autocrat’s hold on power. Autocrats frequently employ blame shifting strategies to redirect public anger and weather these storms. We examine whether blame shifting after a large-scale disaster helps or hurts an autocrat’s popularity through a mixed-methods research design in the electoral autocracy of Turkey in April-July 2023, following the February 2023 earthquakes. An online survey experiment (n=3,839) identifies the effects of blaming the aftermath of the earthquake on the opposition, a force majeure, private construction companies, or a govern- ment minister, while focus groups explore the mechanisms behind these effects. We find that blaming the opposition or a force majeure leads to a backlash, especially among those more able to critically evaluate information. Focus groups reveal that these backlash effects are driven by voters’ dismay at electoral opportunism and the incumbent’s polarizing language following a large-scale disaster."; and the note that the paper is forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics.

After large-scale disasters autocrats often shift the blame on others to save their popularity. Our 🚨new paper🚨, just accepted at Perspectives on Politics, shows that this tactic is prone to backfire. With @edwardgoldring.bsky.social & @fapaydin.bsky.social . shorturl.at/v6wIV%E2%AC%...

11.06.2025 15:33 — 👍 47    🔁 13    💬 4    📌 4

TWO DAYS LEFT TO APPLY!

Come work with us
✅ hot topic
✅ cool project
✅ cool and empathetic team
✅ cool department
✅ cool city

👇👇👇👇

02.06.2025 14:39 — 👍 9    🔁 8    💬 0    📌 1
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The age of leaders increases more rapidly than the age of the population: here seen as the share over 65 for both leaders and the population.

We would see the same trend if we look at the mean, median, within country, and so on.

30.05.2025 07:45 — 👍 15    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0
OSF

We updated our manuscript w/ @chknutsen.bsky.social and @draege.bsky.social on propaganda in Turkey osf.io/preprints/os... --- all comments welcomed.

30.05.2025 12:45 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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I just found NotebookLMs AI podcast function. Pretty cool. Here a summary of our article on propaganda in the US (t.co/f3DtlZnR3I) -- Link to the AI podcast: notebooklm.google.com/notebook/1e9...

27.05.2025 12:01 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

So glad to finally see this in print!

05.03.2025 18:08 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Would be interesting to do a similar survey now again!

07.01.2025 07:53 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Spotlighting articles

@tboeggild.bsky.social, @plutscher.bsky.social, @jacobnyrup.bsky.social & Sascha Göbel find that European citizens support for #Ukraine does not falter due to economic concerns. They become more supportive when presented with arguments related to principles such as democracy.

05.01.2025 20:45 — 👍 10    🔁 2    💬 1    📌 1

Congrats!

13.12.2024 12:46 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

thanks!

09.12.2024 19:42 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Come an work with us! Happy to answer questions. 👇🏻

09.12.2024 17:52 — 👍 14    🔁 9    💬 0    📌 0

Back on this platform!

08.12.2024 18:59 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Information Politics and Propaganda in Authoritarian Societies | Annual Reviews What role does propaganda play in the information politics of authoritarian societies, and what is its relationship to censorship? What have we learned from rival accounts in recent literature about w...

Anyone access to this article?

www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Thanks for sharing :)

25.05.2024 22:05 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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In a new article in R&P we show that support for Ukraine increases significantly when coupled with human rights and democracy. Contrary, support 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 decrease when people are reminded of the costs associated with supporting Ukraine /w @plutscher.bsky.social @tboeggild.bsky.social & Sascha Göbel

09.05.2024 15:06 — 👍 10    🔁 4    💬 1    📌 0

Thanks. Yes, we use this approach in another "classical experiment" project.

22.02.2024 08:26 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yeah, I am in touch with some economists at our Uni to work on that further... but this sounds like a good strategy for my project (1) conjoint like design, (2) actually testing the arguments!

21.02.2024 15:31 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

This article inspired me: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

21.02.2024 12:30 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Thanks Alex. I have some ideas how to combine both, would be great to get in touch.

21.02.2024 12:23 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Thanks!

21.02.2024 12:22 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Thanks for all your answers! Yes, I also thought about designing a conjoint first (perhaps even one that updates on priors) and then in a second step "test" the persuasiveness.

21.02.2024 12:22 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Bluesky Polisky methodsky hive mind what is the best (experimental) method to measure the persuasiveness of arguments, and has anyone suggestions how to implement them :)

20.02.2024 21:26 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 2    📌 0
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Now officially online first
@JPR_journal
: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... our work on the perception of visual propaganda in Venezuela.

20.02.2024 18:40 — 👍 6    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0

Who else is going to EPSA 2024 in Cologne? Looking forward to a conference in Germany again!

27.01.2024 22:25 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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Analysis | Doing your own research is a good way to end up being wrong The mantra of the internet era is that the abundance of information allows people to be better informed. That’s not always true.

SURPRISE!

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

19.01.2024 07:38 — 👍 22    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 0

Cool study! Shows the importance of balanced reporting. Same probably holds for the discussion on AIs.

15.01.2024 12:37 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Negative Downstream Effects of Alarmist Disinformation Discourse: Evidence from the United States - ... The threat of disinformation features strongly in public discourse, but scientific findings remain conflicted about disinformation effects and reach. Accordingly, indiscriminate warnings about disinfo...

As fears of disinformation are making their way from #davos into headlines, this new publication might be timely: In a survey-experiment @adrauc.bsky.social and I show that alarmist warnings against disinformation carry significant unintended negative effects. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

15.01.2024 10:39 — 👍 46    🔁 24    💬 2    📌 5

Protests in Germany against the AfD

15.01.2024 11:47 — 👍 18    🔁 9    💬 1    📌 2

The new year just started and I return to some older research interests. Cyber conflict hivemind---what are the most influential/latest studies in social science and security studies here? polisky

04.01.2024 14:37 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

@plutscher is following 20 prominent accounts