Adam Scharpf

How does an authoritarian leader build — and maintain — a fiercely loyal security force?

And how much of that playbook shows up in developments around the U.S. Department of Homeland Security?

We followed @donmoyn.bsky.social’s invitation and wrote a guest post - based on our new book 👇

Herzliche Glückwünsche - zum Geburtstag und zum Grimme Preis! 🥳

Authoritarian Persuasion at Home and Abroad: The Partial Effectiveness of Foreign Influencers in Propaganda Work - Siyu Liang, Lachlan McNamee, 2026 How do authoritarian regimes make propaganda persuasive? This study evaluates the impact of foreign influencers in propaganda. Social media videos and state bro...

Foreign influencers help authoritarian regimes: while they may not sway domestic audiences already saturated with propaganda, they can reshape the perceptions of more credulous foreign publics journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Just arrived: MAKING A CAREER IN DICTATORSHIP.

Featuring original visualizations throughout, the book reconstructs an entire military organization using career data from 15k officers.

A deep dive into how the security apparatus in autocracies really works.

Excited to finally hold it in my hands.

🤩👇🥳

Sehr gerne!

Vielen Dank Jens. Das freut uns sehr! Bei Fragen stehen Christian und ich jederzeit gerne zur Verfügung.

Thank you so much, Sabine!

What do PhD students and ICE agents have in common? Career pressure People who are under pressure in their professional lives are willing to act brutally to climb the career ladder. And this can be exploited, new Copenhagen study shows.

Together with his colleague Christian Gläßel from Hertie School, @ascharpf.bsky.social #UCPH has set out to investigate what it is that has ordinary people committing atrocities: uniavisen.dk/en/what-do-p...

Thank you so much, Fiona – also for your excellent feedback in the book workshop!

👇😉

Thanks so much Anita! What a great time it was! 🤩

Thank you so much for your kind words, Rahel.

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@tashlindstaedt.bsky.social
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Last but not least:

We are tremendously grateful for the feedback and support by friends, peers, and colleagues, including:

@feiyonah.bsky.social
@smsaideman.bsky.social
@j2bryson.bsky.social
@sabinecarey.bsky.social
@vcharnysh.bsky.social
@agnescornell.bsky.social
@sirianned.bsky.social

Invitation:

If you’re using the book in your teaching, please get in touch!

We'd be happy to present it to your students or answer questions during an online "Meet the Authors" session.

🧑‍🔬🧑‍🔬💻

The book has been years in the making. We actually started working on it back in grad school.

With all the news about eroding democracies and growing autocracies around the globe, we hope it helps protect societies and human rights today and in the future.

Here are a few features that we think make the book really unique:

A big 🙏 to all those who've already featured some of our findings:
@hcrichardson.bsky.social
@iansociologo.bsky.social
@donmoyn.bsky.social
@timfrye.bsky.social
@svobodster.bsky.social
@bostonglobe.com
@zeit.de

We are thrilled — and very grateful — for the fantastic endorsements the book has received from outstanding scholars across different fields, including a Nobel Laureate.

We would also like to thank @dfg.de for their financial support of our project.

Here is what the book is about in a nutshell.
👇

Russia, Venezuela, Iran, China, the Sahel region, the United States ...

Want to know why state agents carry out brutal repression — or participate in illegal coups?

Our new book "Making a Career in Dictatorship" provides answers — it just got published by @academic.oup.com:

tinyurl.com/ystwm3tf

Congratulations, Alex!

Autokratien brauchen karrieregeile Menschen, keine Sadisten Warum beteiligen sich Menschen in Autokratien an Repressionen? Der Politikwissenschaftler Christian Gläßel sagt: weil sie unter Karrieredruck stehen.

Reißerischer Titel, aber lesenswerter Artikel:
Interview mit meinem Ko-Autor Christian Gläßel über unser neues Buch „Making a Career in Dictatorship“ auf @krautreporter.bsky.social.
👇

Ben Jennings on Donald Trump and his ‘board of peace’ – cartoon The US president has claimed the world is ‘richer, safer and much more peaceful than it was just one year ago’

In light of my data-based graph (☝️), I find the cartoon of the “Board of Peace” by @bjennings90.bsky.social for @theguardian.com to be absolutely spot on:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Key takeaway (at least for me):

It's not surprising that autocrats and dictators try to erode or replace the rule-based international order.

What is new, however, is that the United States—the world's most powerful democracy—now also seems to be leading such efforts.

The graph ranks the countries based on their BoP status and their ruling regime.

Data: BoP status comes from Wikipedia, data on regimes from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social.
Note: Regime data for Vatican City and the EU is not available.

Board of Peace - Wikipedia

Donald Trump just officially launched his "Board of Peace" (BoP) at the World Economic Forum.

Some fear that the goal is to undermine the United Nations.

But which countries participate, which don't, and which haven't yet decided?

Let's quickly look at this!

[Caution: Data-based hot take]