Jeremy Menchik

Tomorrow. 1,408 registered. SEE YOU THEN! www.bu.edu/cura/recent-...

'The underreported silent war: record levels of violence in the occupied West Bank since October 2023. More than 1,000 Palestinians — almost a quarter of them children — have been killed.'

www.unrwa.org/newsroom/off...

Voting in Authoritarian Elections Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025 TURKULER ISIKSEL Open the ORCID record for TURKULER ISIKSEL [Opens in a new window] and THOMAS B. PEPINSKY Open the ORCID record for THOMAS B. PEPINSKY [Opens in a new window] Show author details Article Figures Supplementary materials Comments Metrics Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window] Abstract Democratic theorists hold that voting contributes to some political good: individual and collective autonomy, equality, justice, pluralism, stability, better policies, and many others. But elections are common under authoritarianism, and empirical research finds that holding elections can stabilize authoritarian regimes. This creates what we term the democrat’s dilemma, where citizens who vote in authoritarian elections may bolster the regimes they wish to unseat, even when they cast a vote for the opposition. We identify three major ways of thinking about the democratic value of electoral participation—justice-based, epistemic, and proceduralist approaches—and use them to examine the complex moral considerations that confront voters in authoritarian regimes. We contend that authoritarian elections’ residual democratic value can justify voting, even when doing so could further entrench the autocrat. Our argument also implies that the democratic principles that justify voting in authoritarian elections oblige citizens to choose the most democratic alternative.

Alarmingly relevant new paper out in @apsrjournal.bsky.social by Turku Isiksel and @tompepinsky.com. They take on the question of whether citizens of authoritarian states should vote in their often unfair elections, & find reason to do so.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

📢 New on First View!

Andrei Mamolea (@andreimamolea.bsky.social) shows that a Latin American bloc with a common agenda emerged in Geneva in the 1920s.

#LeagueofNations #LatinAmerica #internationallaw #smallstates #transatlantic

Read Open Access here: doi.org/10.1017/S174...

Markets and Mobility: How Employers Structure Economic Opportunity

Intergenerational mobility, measuring the ability to achieve economic success regardless of family background, is a critical reflection of a society’s commitment to equality of opportunity. Rising income inequality has raised concerns about the potential erosion of upward mobility. While education has traditionally been viewed as the path to mobility, its transformative power is facing challenges in a rapidly evolving job market. This project reorients the focus of intergenerational mobility research by highlighting the labor market as an arena for the reproduction of advantage. It employs a comparative approach, using administrative data from four countries: Sweden, Austria, England, and the United States. It also incorporates evidence from a broader set of nations through cross-national surveys, longitudinal household surveys, labor force surveys, secondary data, and digital trace data. The project employs cutting-edge empirical methods, including quasi- experimental designs, event studies, within-family comparisons, decomposition analyses, counterfactual simulations, and diagnostic checks to rigorously assess the extent of inequalities in the labor market. The research investigates how family background influences the sorting of individuals to employers and workplaces, accounting for education and occupation, and explores variations in career progression within and between employers. It comprehensively catalogues and assesses mechanisms shaping workplace inequality, contributing to the development of social closure theory. Additionally, the project evaluates intervention strategies, encompassing both employer practices and government actions, to promote fair opportunity in the labor market.

JOB! I'm hiring a postdoc for 2 years on my ERC MaMo project.

Looking for someone with strong quant methods, ongoing work close to the project's aims, and a desire to publish in sociology. Start flexible in the next 12 months.

Formal call out shortly, but contact me first.

Opinion | I’m the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. This Is Something I Thought I’d Never Have to Write.

Secretary General of the Council of Europe says “International law is either universal or meaningless. Greenland will show which one we choose.” Yes, well. Did Gaza show which one we choose?

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...

Agree. I think our ability to talk about the severity of antisemitism is limited by binary categories. Maybe we need a scale.

Christian Zionism is 2 alarm fire antisemitism. White Nationalism is 5 alarm. The end of CZ may mean a return to WN. And that’s definitely worse for Jews.

This is a really thoughtful thread. But I do think you’re understating the antisemitic aspects of Christian Zionism. I’ve spent a lot of time around Southern Baptists, and they looooove Jews. But not real Jews. Not American Jews. Certainly not secular Jews. not me. Their love is 100% antisemitic.

Iran report says 16,500 dead in ‘genocide under digital darkness’ Witnesses tell of the brutality inflicted on those taking part in anti-regime protests

If you read one thing today, it should be this

Iran report says 16,500 dead in ‘genocide under digital darkness’

www.thetimes.com/article/01ba...

🎉 Vol 51(6) is out!🎉

This SPECIAL ISSUE includes 8️⃣ new research articles as well as an introduction from the special issue editors, @jelenasubotic.bsky.social & @elifkalay.bsky.social. The articles are all free to read this month, so be sure to take a look and enjoy 👇

📚Read Here ➡️ buff.ly/WxL7JlR

Third annual Conference on the Jewish Left, featuring Peter Beinart, Prof Marjorie Feld, Arielle Angel, Ian Lustick, Zol Zayn, Dove Kent, Liana Krupp, Fadi Quran, Prof Michael Zank, and 16 workshops led by scholars, faith leaders, and national orgs like the SPLC. Join us!

www.bit.ly/jewishleft

This has been the default imperialist position for centuries, so really the oddity was that brief period of comfortable unipolar hegemony where it seemed gauche to say it out loud. No clearer sign of late imperial anxiety than the contemporary return of this old ass monocle and pith helmet blather

American imperialism hasn’t changed

Some thoughts on what Trump has done in Venezuela and what it might mean for US national security. Caveat: not a Latin America scholar so this is focused on US policy. Clearly huge consequences for Venezuela that others can address.

First, despite the buildup, I didn't think Trump would do it.

1/

Woodrow Wilson and the Spirit of Liberal Internationalism Woodrow Wilson is among most influential presidents in U.S. foreign policy history, and the most pious. The challenge for scholars is joining Wilson's faith and his foreign policies. What was the r...

1st is on the spirit of Wilsonianism: doi.org/10.1080/2156....

3rd is a R&R on democracy promotion (forthcoming soon inshallah)

And the book manuscript is under review. Fingers crossed for a 2026 publication date🤞🏼🙏📗

Explicating American political science's entanglement with liberal Protestantism helps to explain longstanding gaps in knowledge and systematic exclusions.

Want to learn more? This is the 2nd of 3 articles related to my project on the missionary impulse in world politics.

For example, American political science's continued entanglement with liberal Protestantism has made the discipline's emphasis on liberal democracy appear natural and given rather than particularistic.

We are born of liberal Protestantism and we are still infatuated with the dependent variables entangled with that religious tradition. This entanglement has weakened over time, but remains influential on our concepts, questions, and emphases.

The Spirit and/of Political Science Abstract. The word “spirit” appears in discipline's leading journals more often than other expressions associated with religion like “Christianity,” “relig

My spiciest publication from 2025 is this article on religion in political science: academic.oup.com/psq/article-...

Ours is a liberal Protestant discipline.

Crater and clouds atop a mountain in Kauai

View from atop Haleakalā National Park Park

Haleakalā National Park. Surreal. And feels a lot like Mount Bromo in East Java.

A corollary to this principle is that finding a single hallucinated citation should lead to an automatic rejection. Automatic. This should be a matter of policy.

And this is one of easier AI-related problems for our journals!

So instead, we all have to work around the NED embargo, using presidential and senate archives. The Hoover Institute at Stanford has Allen Weinstein’s archives, the first NED president. Those are gold.

What do you think the NED is hiding? 🙈 🔬 🇺🇸

No one has ever gained access. No scholars, no students, no one. I’ve applied a few times. No luck. I ever had my Senator Elizabeth Warren inquire on my behalf. Rejected.

In 2007 the NED deposited its records at the Library of Congress. To much fanfare. Still closed.

Here’s my (ongoing) crazy story. The National Endowment for Democracy is the oldest and most influential democracy promotion org in the U.S. Founded by Reagan. Influential in Congress. Promotes democracy, rule of law, transparency, etc.

And… its archives are closed. Completed closed to the public.

Make a Bond movie academic

The Reviewer Who Loved Me

Just in time for Christmas: a great interview with an absolute legend.

Theda Skocpol and Edwin Amenta on her career, US politics, the erosion of democracy, and most of all, what to do about it.

sociologica.unibo.it/article/view...

Along with wonderful colleagues @jeanhong.bsky.social, @dnsltr.bsky.social, @yuhuawang.bsky.social, and Ann C. Lin, we would like to call your attention to the Asian Political History Workshop to be held on May 4– 5, 2026 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Apply here by Jan. 20, 2026. forms.gle/H9zPa6r2H1Ke...

It bears emphasizing: The same admin that is attacking and defunding our universities, over what they call an antisemitism crisis, is now saying antisemitism isn't a problem at all.

The state commission on antisemitism doubles down on its mistakes  - CommonWealth Beacon RIGHT-WING ANTISEMITISM is exploding. Nick Fuentes recently complained to Tucker Carlson about “organized Jewry” and Young Republicans think it’s normal

The Massachusetts State Commission on Combatting Antisemitism’s final report gives not a single paragraph of concentrated attention to ethnonationalism and right-wing antisemitism. Instead, it obsesses about criticism of Israel.

@alexgourevitch.bsky.social

commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/the-...

The Pardee School is seeking a junior scholar in Latin American studies. Open to any discipline, countries of specialization, and research topics. Deadline Jan 12.