Steve Rosenzweig

Why most polls overstate support for political violence Misperceptions about the popularity of violence increase public support for it — but you can help change that.

Why most polls overstate support for political violence
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/most-polls...

So happy to see this out! We caution against excessive optimism that the opposition will restore countries back to their democratic trajectories after electoral victory. Weakened institutions and the memory of repression makes it tempting to continue rather than buck the trend of autocratization.

More evidence of backlash against politicians associated with political violence

🚨 New Bright Line Watch report on state of US democracy
brightlinewatch.org/violence-red...

-Expert ratings ~= since April but ↓ substantially since January
-US now most closely resembles an illiberal democracy
-Partisan gap in democracy ratings highest since 2017

Full thread of results below

The State of American Democracy with Steven Levitsky, Adam Przeworski, Susan Stokes and Daniel Ziblatt | The Civic Forum E10 Spotify video

Here's 90 minutes with @adamprz.bsky.social,
Sue Stokes, Steven Levitsky, and
@dziblatt.bsky.social on the state of American democracy right now. It was a great honor for me to be able to convene this set of people to speak together at this moment. Please share! open.spotify.com/episode/0F8W...

All they say is it’s not safe for sleeping. So I interpret that to mean it’s fine when they’re awake.

when your wars are too crimey even for john yoo, boy howdy

Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany * Abstract. How do the media affect public support for democratic institutions in a fragile democracy? What role do they play in a dictatorial regime? We stu

and Nazi Germany

Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide * Abstract. This article investigates the role of mass media in times of conflict and state-sponsored mass violence against civilians. We use a unique villag

Would also mention the studies that show that hate speech/propaganda from the government/political elites increases violence against targeted groups, including Rwanda

Kuipers at al suggests that incumbency by religious extremists may increase local religious violence against minorities by increasing religious intolerance

Voter Backlash and Elite Misperception Cambridge Core - Comparative Politics - Voter Backlash and Elite Misperception

My book has some experimental evidence from Kenya that exposure to violent rhetoric increases support for violence

Hard estimand to get at, but:

We must stand resolutely against political assassination and political violence of all kinds, and just as resolutely against everyone who exploits acts of violence as the pretext or excuse for political repression of political opponents.

Agreed

Information environment has reached its grotesque conclusion in that there is a very real killer out there who has not been identified, apprehended, or investigated, a detail practically inconsequential to nearly every commentator’s purposes.

Yep. But it only works if it goes both ways.

I mean what on earth are district court judges supposed to do at this point other than get the message from SCOTUS to let Trump do whatever he wants to no matter what the law says.

Political violence in democracies: An Introduction - Andrea Ruggeri, Ursula Daxecker, Neeraj Prasad, 2025 It is well established that democracies experience less political violence than autocracies. Paradoxically, however, this widely accepted fact has led scholars ...

🚨🚨🚨Announcing a special issue on “Political Violence in Democracies” published by @jpeaceresearch.bsky.social and edited by @andrearuggeri.bsky.social, U Daxecker, and me. In this very long 🧵, I will introduce the special issue with its 14 articles. doi.org/10.1177/0022...

The Perverse Consequences of the Easy A In the era of grade inflation, students at top colleges are more stressed than ever.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Warnings From Weimar Why bargaining with authoritarians fails.

A new piece I wrote appearing in FOREIGN AFFAIRS today

www.foreignaffairs.com/germany/warn...

over the last week, several political scientists i trust have declared trump a dictator and that america is not a full functioning democracy anymore. see here:

goodpoliticsbadpolitics.substack.com/p/where-we-a...
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-author...

i think making a list clarifies this:

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

Conceptualizing Election-Related Violence Electoral violence has become an increasingly common manifestation of political violence around the globe. Reflecting the growing significance of this form of violence, there has been a sharp rise ...

“Conceptualizing Election-Related Violence” in Terrorism and Political Violence www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Conceptualizing Election-Related Violence Electoral violence has become an increasingly common manifestation of political violence around the globe. Reflecting the growing significance of this form of violence, there has been a sharp rise ...

Now out: new article w/ @niloufersiddiqui.bsky.social - "Conceptualizing Election-Related Violence" - takes stock of the rapidly growing literature on election violence, identifying points of agreement and disagreement across studies on how the concept is defined and disaggregated into sub-types.

We hope that by summarizing and clarifying what's at stake, the article generates greater attention to some of these fundamental conceptual issues and contributes to ever more productive and cumulative research in this vibrant area of research.

Overall, our analysis suggests that the choices scholars make about how to conceptualize election-related violence have important implications for what we focus on and the conclusions we draw about its causes and consequences.

We also examine the different dimensions along which scholars have disaggregated election violence into sub-types, analyzing how different ways of doing so are more or less useful for achieving certain analytical goals.

At the same time, we highlight the substantial challenges associated with operationalizing any motive-based definition of election violence, given the difficulty of observing motivations empirically. We provide some suggestions for doing so in practice.

We identify many commonalities--but also important differences--in how scholars have conceptualized election violence. We suggest that motive--a desire to affect or respond to election outcomes--is the key determinant distinguishing election violence from other, related forms of political violence.