Adam Scharpf

Thanks for the shout-out!

Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics

by me & @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social is now published by OUP in the USA (rest of world soon)

If you are interested in why you see so many dictatorships & illiberal leaders influencing world politics then this is the book for you.

📣 Final Call for visiting fellowships for postdocs at the @mzesunimannheim.bsky.social! Great opportunity to spend 2-4 weeks in a fantastic academic environment! See 👇 for details!

Postdoctoral Research Position Deadline: 15.12.2025

📣 We're hiring a postdoc in political science for our ReJust project @uni-konstanz.de!

Project with Dirk Leuffen @leuffen.bsky.social and Urs Fischbacher

3-year position | Deadline: Dec. 15, 2025 | Start: April 2026

Please share widely 🙏

What's happening in ICE also seems to go in the FBI.
The current US administration seeks to staff key security agencies with unprofessional careerists rather than skilled professionals. See 👇

🙏 for a great post and featuring our work/new book "Making a Career in Dictatorship", @donmoyn.bsky.social!

Wie lässt sich das brutale Vorgehen von Trump's ICE Agenten erklären? Und warum erinnert es so sehr an Diktaturen und ihre Geheimpolizei? Unser neues Buch liefert Antworten - wie wir heute in der @zeit.de erklären.

Buch: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Many dictatorships use foreign helpers to influence democracies.

In our new study, we examine why, when, which authoritarian regimes employ Western PR firms - a particularly important type of foreign helper.

Study + summary are open-access 👇

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

😆

Thanks @hcrichardson.bsky.social for featuring our work on the staffing of secret police organizations and how it is related to ICE.

Our forthcoming book delves deeper into the authoritarian security apparatus and examines who serves where and why:

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

👇

Thanks for mentioning our work @iansociologo.bsky.social

Our book "Making a Career in Dictatorship", which is coming out soon, also talks about recent developments in the United States:

Oxford Uni Press:
global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Amazon:
www.amazon.de/Making-Caree...

Abstract for the article: How does right-wing terrorism affect electoral support for populist radical right parties (PRRPs)? Recent research has produced contrary answers to this question. We argue that only high-intensity attacks, whose motives and targets mirror PRRPs’ nativist agenda, are likely to generate a media backlash that dampens electoral support for PRRPs. We test this argument by combining high-frequency survey and social media data with a natural and survey experimental design. We find that right-wing terror reduced support for the radical right party Alternative für Deutschland after one of the most intense nativist attacks in recent German history. An analysis of all ninety-eight fatal right-wing attacks in Germany between 1990 and 2020 supports our argument. Our findings contribute to an understanding of how political violence triggers partisan detachment and have important implications for media responsibility in the aftermath of terrorist attacks.

🚨 New article out!

“Right-Wing Terror, Media Backlash, and Voting Preferences for the Far Right” in @bjpols.bsky.social

👉 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

We (Alex De Juan, @juvoss.bsky.social & I) examine how right-wing attacks shape support for the far-right in Germany.

Short summary thread below 👇

Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science (3-4 years) (288628) | University of Oslo Job title: Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science (3-4 years) (288628), Employer: University of Oslo, Deadline: Monday, November 17, 2025

We are hiring PhDs and postdocs to work on the ERC project GETGOV, where I am the PI.

We will investigate governing elites since 1789. I am sure that it will be a lot of fun and result in great research!

Postdocs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

PhDs: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

Are you interested in research on corruption/illicit finance/kleptocracy? We are hiring a Research Fellow at @acdatacollective.bsky.social: acdatacollective.org/wp-content/u...
Please share in your networks, this could be a great gig.

So many echoes from this article for US politics....

Thanks for the follow-up. We wanted to avoid an apple-and-oranges comparison because the finalist selection for the Intervision 2025 was not entirely clear.

#3

While the Eurovision participant countries represent a rather coherent group of democracies, this is different for tonight's Intervision event.

Many of the participating countries have governments that systematically violate the civil liberties of their citizens.

#2

This is in stark contrast to the Eurovision song contest, where most participant countries are fully fledged democracies.

Average polyarchy score of Eurovision finalists: 0.8
Average polyarchy score of Intervision finalists: 0.3

#1:

There are a lot of autocracies and dictatorships participating in Putin's alternative song contest.

Quite a few are BRICS members and close allies of Russia.

To provide a first answer, @belengonzalez.bsky.social and I quickly collected the data on the participant/finalist countries and merged it with the dataset by the @vdeminstitute.bsky.social.

Here is what we found:

Intervision 2025 - Wikipedia

We know that Putin and other dictators try to build a new world order. Soft power plays a crucial role in this.

Today, Russia hosts the Intervision 2025 – a competitor event to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Which regimes participate in this contest?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervi...

Big congrats!

Call for two or more open-rank academic positions in Sociology

We're hiring in wonderful Copenhagen 🇩🇰

Two or more open rank sociology professorships (tt assistant, associate with tenure, or full prof with tenure).

You'll join a leading sociology department in Europe with many core fields represented!

#sociology

More 👇

jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...

Fantastic special issue - Thanks so much for putting it together @laiabalcells.bsky.social @apvjustino.bsky.social @andrearuggeri.bsky.social 💪
[full disclosure: our article is part of it as well]

Had the chance to talk to the fantastic team of @worldpolitics.bsky.social about my new article on soft power, study abroad programs, the effectiveness of foreign influence campaigns and what all this has to do with Henry Kissinger. 👇

Making a Career in Dictatorship: The Secret Logic behind Repression and Coups Making a Career in Dictatorship: The Secret Logic behind Repression and Coups [Gläßel, Christian, Scharpf, Adam] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Making a Career in Dictatorship: The Secret Logic behind Repression and Coups

Thanks for the shout-out, Jacob. Christian and I have been thinking a lot about how our theory applies to security organizations in the US, (e.g. ICE and the FBI). There will be more on it in our book, which will be published by the end of the year.

Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics - Audiobook - alexander cooley, Alexander Dukalskis - ISBN 9798318530715 - Storytel International Following the end of the Cold War, the world experienced a remarkable wave of democratization. Over the next two decades, numerous authoritarian regimes

If you prefer to listen to your books, the audio book version of Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics by me & @cooleyoneurasia.bsky.social was released today.

Get it wherever you get your audio books - Audible, Amazon, Apple, Storytel, your library, etc.

I am hiring! 1-2 post-docs to join my project on political violence in democracies at @uupeace.bsky.social!

The European Political Science Society is now accepting paper & panel proposals for its annual conference!

📢 Call for Papers: EPSS 2026 – Belfast

🗓️ June 18–20, 2026

📍 ICC Belfast

📬 Deadline: Nov 7, 2025

🧵

New UN ideal point estimates available. These are for the first time based on years rather than UNGA sessions. For more, see here: dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...