Have we seen peak Pegida?

Authorities in the Saxonian city of Dresden have issued a blanket ban on marches, demonstrations and outdoor assemblies following alleged islamist death threats against the founder of the “Pegida” (“Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident”) movement, who has masterminded the mass demonstrations in Dresden for the last three months. This is a highly…

Are Greek MPs rational?

With all that is going pear-shaped in the world, you would be forgiven not to be aware of the latest instalment in the Great Greek Political Drama Series. It actually had a rather long lead: The current president’s term was coming to an end, and Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the radical left opposition faction…

Five Links I Liked

Still looking for a Christmas present? Now available in Paperback: Class Politics and the Radical Right – Routledge http://t.co/ilhCXBlczm #InstantClassic Crooked Timber: Fly Air Gini http://t.co/s85aIzxA4u Art Goldhammer on Sarko’s inevitable comeback: He’s baaaaaack! http://t.co/5Q9Eu0Rt5L This has already happened as hinted at here: Trouble in (the Guardian’s) Paradise: anti-immigration party could bring Swedish government down…

The Math of Post-Socialism

Much merriment in the Eastern state of Thuringia: 25 years after the fall of the wall, the Greens and the SPD in the state parliament are poised to form a coalition with the Left (die Linke), which would give the Left its first minister president ever. What’s the Matter with the Left? Predictably, this is…

New Book Project: Handbook of Electoral Behaviour

Very happy: The folks at Sage have kindly signed a contract with Jocelyn Evans, Michael Lewis-Beck, and my own good self to edit a two-volume tome on Electoral Behaviour in their Handbook series. The final product will have some 50 chapters on all aspects of psephology and should come out in 2016. Cat-herding 50+ academics…

One, two, three Excellent Online Surveys

[caption id="attachment_13291" align="alignright" width="225"] An Imperial Duck. Because.[/caption] My wonderful PhD students are running a series of short online surveys, two of them with a slightly unusual and rather intriguing format. If you read German, do them a favour and click on the link. You should be done in 10 minutes or less. And while…

Pretty Perplexing Pirates Posters

The Pirates are running a rather cheap electoral campaign: No faces (models or not) but only drawings in their trademark orange/blue tones. Their stinginess even extends to the meaning of their slogans. I was a bit thrown off by “Borders are so 80”, then discovered the small “er”, so borders are so 1980s, apparently. Well,…