Social Identity Theory is a prominent account of intergroup hostility and hence super interesting for political scientist. Groundbreaking work in this field was carried out by Henri Tajfel, who ran fascinating experiments back in the 1960s and 70s. Today, many of these would go nowhere near an IRB.
If you have 19 minutes to spare, this podcast delivers both a vignette of Tajfel’s life and a useful primer of Social Identity Theory ? ?
Rupert Brown on Henri Tajfel #socialScienceBites
I was always lousy with Theory™. I still am lousy, but thankfully, it does not matter so much anymore. To be fair, I’m OK with empirical theories. It’s the big ideas stuff that throws me. There was a Theorist™ on my PhD committee, but he seemed to be an OK geezer. Unfortunately, he and my…
Back in the mist of time that would eventually coalesce into my memories of the 1990s, I met a fellow PhD-er at a summer school. She had just returned to the fatherland after doing an MA in the UK and found re-integration into German Political Science rather difficult. The toughest bit, according to her, was…
— Kai Arzheimer 🇪🇺 (@kai_arzheimer) June 14, 2020
A retired “general”, a symbolism that is borrowed from France’s Yellow Vests – what could possibly go wrong? Meet Italy’s latest populist craze, the Orange Jackets.
Germany’s Home Secretary said in an interview that the AfD wants to destroy the state and put this interview on the Home Office’s website. Now the FCC ruled that he was not allowed to do that. But the ruling does not say that Seehofer’s claim is factually incorrect. Like in previous cases, the judges upheld a kind of two-bodies-theory. As a politician, Seehofer was free to make this statement, but as a minister he was not allowed to use his official platform for distributing it.
Over at the Quantiative Peace, Joshua Zingher looks at Trump’s base. The bottom line? Trump’s 2020 path to the presidency is narrow. May he stray from it.
“Why are German Nazis training in Russia“? That is a bit of a rhetorical question, but the article has at least some answers.
Bonus track: German IR theory-building kit (thread)
German IR theory-building kit:
1. Define concepts, sub-(sub-) concepts & mechanisms. Quote Weber
2. Based on 1, draw model in Word. Use many arrows!
3. Illustrative case study (EU or UN) or descriptive statistics
4. Discuss normative implications from implicit liberal standpoint— Kilian Spandler (@KilianSpandler) June 10, 2020
In the US and elsewhere, ethnic minority groups are hit much harder by COVID-19 than whites. Mortality rates are often more than twice as high for members of these groups.
As a social scientist, I’m not in a position to comment on a possible link between genetic traits and susceptibility to the novel Corona virus. But even I know that the variance of most genetic traits is far bigger within “races” than between “races” (see what I did here?).
Conversely, it is great to see that MDs and other scientists who study the details of our messy biologies are acutely aware of the strong correlation between ethnicity on the one hand and social, political and economic inequality on the other.
Tune in into this episode of the Big Picture Science podcast to hear more about how racialised inequality makes the pandemic worse for some people, and how the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe implemented safeguards of their own.
This is an interesting article about the legacy of fascist architecture in ??. The unfavourable comparison with ?? is a bit misleading: while swastikas are banned & some buildings were destroyed, we have/should have similar debates
Germany’s far-right group PEGIDA is mobilizing weekly ‘virtual marches’ livestreamed on YouTube. PEGIDA demonstration in Dresden December 16, 2018 | Derbrauni / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
On a Monday evening in early April 2020, around 1,000 users are waiting for a YouTube livestream, ho…
What? I’m currently working on a paper that looks into the role that Germany’s eastern states (aka “the new Länder”, the ex-GDR …) played for the breakthrough and the consolidation of the “Alternative for Germany” party. This figure shows support for the AfD from 2013 to 2020. [su_box]Hey, this paper has finally been published. Click…
Die Umfragewerte der AfD sind vergleichsweise schlecht, in der Corona-Krise ist die Partei kein relevanter Akteur. Die Gründe dafür sind nicht ganz neu. Mit dem Kurier aus Wien habe ich über die strukturellen Probleme der Partei gesprochen. [contentcards url="https://kurier.at/politik/ausland/afd-alte-graeben-wieder-aufgerissen/400850855" target="_blank"]
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