Pluralistic: Metabolizing the theory of "political capitalism" (06 Dec 2025)

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/06/big-nascent-important/

What kind of difference-in-differences studies (ideally with data available) do other #PoliticalScience folks use in teaching? Thanks for sharing and boosting #Diff-in-diffs

A comprehensive guide to understanding how nations make decisions on the global stage. Foreign Policy Analysis by Dr. Naim Tahir Baig offers clear insights into theory, process, and practice for advanced students and scholars.
#ForeignPolicy #InternationalRelations #NewRelease #DrNaimTahirBaig #PoliticalScience #BookLaunch #IRStudies

Life Inside a Political Party

Outsiders believe that the party insiders have some common goal and purpose.

Other than winning the next election, there is not much commonality. Rather party members compete against each other.

https://www.tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=32&id=112

#tiereddemocraticgovernance
#politicalscience

Reminder: On 5 December 2025, 2–4 PM (c.t.), Dr Margret Frenz will give a lecture on “A Part, and Apart. Transcontinental Lives in Imperial Times” in Lecture Hall 1010 (KG I), University of Freiburg.

Dr Frenz is a transnational and imperial historian whose work explores migration, memory, and colonial entanglements. She currently coordinates restitution and colonial-provenance matters at the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts Baden-Württemberg. @mwk_bw

All are warmly invited – no registration required.

@unifreiburg @dfg_public @empires @mehlera @jabunna @ManuelaBoatca @histodons @sociology @politicalscience #empires #history #colonialism #decolonial #migration #memory #histodons #academicmastodon #politicalscience #sociology

🤦🏻 Golf lesson: Study shows political polarization hurts performance at work

https://phys.org/news/2025-11-golf-lesson-political-polarization.html

#politics #politicalscience #polarization #performance #sports #golf #research #socialscience #work

Fediverse, there was an incredible interview in the New Yorker, Nov 17, 2022, with John Mearsheimer, an international relations scholar from the Realist tradition. In this interview, Mearsheimer continues to defend his assertion that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a natural response to Western aggression and not Russian imperialism, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Further, he gets weirdly defensive about his meeting with white nationalist and autocrat Viktor Orban.

But now I don't have access to it! I really want to assign it to my class, but the college doesn't have this issue. Does anyone have a free/pdf version of this article?

#academia #AcademicMastodon #polisci #PoliticalScience #International #InternationalRelations #ForeignAffairs #Russia #Ukraine #NATO

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/john-mearsheimer-on-putins-ambitions-after-nine-months-of-war

From an amazing new publishing house:
#philosophy #psychology #sociology #history #psychoanalysis #politicalscience #religion #religiousstudies #academia #academicchatter #technology #war #Trump #frankfurtschool #criticaltheory #middleeast #MENA #newbooks

Book Review: Open Democracy

An esteemed political scientist wrote this book about improving democracy. I was not impressed:

https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=33&id=196

We need a better way.

#tiereddemocraticgovernance
#politicalscience

I would like to encourage any who are not allergic to the very concept of the chatbot, and who is interested in the dynamical situation encompassing the individual in society, to try out the prompt on this page: https://chatbotics.org/prompts/personality_ecosystem_analyst #psychology #sociology #politicalscience #ai

No Political Parties

Political scientists believe there is no way to govern without political parties.

So for humanity to progress beyond this limitation, it will have to look to other "experts":

https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=31&id=144

#tiereddemocraticgovernance
#politicalscience

🚀 Now open for applications! 🚀

The DFG Research Training Group 2571 “Empires. Dynamic Change, Temporality and Post-Imperial Orders” at @unifreiburg is recruiting four three-year PhD positions (65%, TV-L E13), starting on 1 May 2026.

🗓 Application deadline: 31 December 2025
📍 Location: Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

Full call and details: https://uni-freiburg.de/empires/jobs-and-opportunities/

@empires @dfg_public @mehlera @jabunna @ManuelaBoatca @histodons @fs_islamwissenschaft @sociology @politicalscience #empires #phd #phdpositions #politicalscience #history #histodons #decolonial #academicmastodon #callforapplications

The Society of the Spectacle

https://library.hrmtc.com/2025/11/21/the-society-of-the-spectacle-2/

#anarchism #art #artsHobbies #artsPhotographyCriticism #book #classesSociales #communism #criticismTheory #guyDebord #historyTheoryOfPolitics #kenKnabb #philosophy #philosophyPolitical #politicalIdeologies #politicalPhilosophy #politicalScience #politics #postCommunismSocialism #proletariat #psychologieSociale #review #socialClasses #socialPsychology #societyCurrentAffairs #tPolyphilus

RESPOND Explained: Q&A Behind the Research

A RESPOND series bringing you quick, clear answers to the big questions behind our work on political corruption. Straight from the researchers. In their own words.

👇 Watch and share the playlist and follow us for more insight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEx8iy2mAjQ&list=PLs4X1Ney_NDtSAh2V8ohOzMXBIddyQl4i .

#RESPONd #RESPONDProject #RESPONDExplained #Research #PoliticalCorruption #Corruption #Governance #PoliticalScience #ResearchInsights #AntiCorruption #EU #SocialSciences

“This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy”*…

A hundred years ago a new theory about human nature was put forth by Sigmund Freud. He had discovered he said, primitive and sexual and aggressive forces hidden deep inside the minds of all human beings. Forces which if not controlled led individuals and societies to chaos and destruction.

This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.

But the heart of the series is not just Sigmund Freud but other members of the Freud family.

This episode is about Freud’s American nephew Edward Bernays. [See here.]

Bernays is almost completely unknown today but his influence on the 20th century was nearly as great as his uncles. Because Bernays was the first person to take Freud’s ideas about human beings and use them to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations for the first time how to they could make people want things they didn’t need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Out of this would come a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying people’s inner selfish desires one made them happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate our world today…

From the introduction to Adam Curtis‘ remarkable 2002 BBC documentary series, Century of Self, all-too-relevant today– how propaganda, marketing and advertising, political messaging, management techniques all “flowered” from Freud’s seed.

Here is a complete transcript of the series.

Readers can find the (riveting) documentaries themselves at:

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode Four

Hypernormalization, Curtis’ 2016 BBC (sort of) sequel is here.

And keep an eye peeled for What Is It That’s Coming, a (tentatively-titled series, projected at nine parts) on which he’s currently at work.

* Adam Curtis

###

As we sort signal from noise, we might consider just how far we have– and haven’t– come, as it was on this date in 1859 that Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species.  Actually, on that day he published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life; the title was shortened to the one we know with the sixth edition in 1872.

 Title page of the 1859 edition

#adamCurtis #advertising #centuryOfSelf #darwin #evolution #history #hypernormalization #marketing #originOfTheSpecies #politicalScience #propaganda #science #socialPsychology #sociology

Exploring society or power—that’s the big question. This article dives deep into sociology vs political science, breaking down how each studies people, institutions, and behavior from different angles. Whether you’re choosing a major or just...
Read it here: https://www.djoinerbooks.com/sociology-vs-political-science/
#Sociology #PoliticalScience #SocialStudies #CareerPaths

Below is a unified, clean, publication-ready version of the research on **soft power**, written in neutral analytical style and translated fully into English. No playful tone, no persona elements — just a clear professional text.
**Title**
Soft Power: How States Influence Without Coercion and Why Political Science and Intelligence Services Study It
**Introduction**
Soft power refers to a state's ability to shape the preferences, decisions, and behavior of other actors not through coercion or economic pressure, but through attractiveness, legitimacy, and credibility. Culture, education, media, values, international institutions, and national branding form the visible layer of this influence. Beneath that surface lies a strategic mechanism: the ability to set agendas, define narratives, and cultivate long-term loyalty across societies and elites.
For political science, soft power is a tool for understanding how global influence works in a world where military force and economic leverage no longer guarantee compliance. For intelligence services, soft power represents a terrain of indirect influence — the environment in which alliances are shaped, public opinion is molded, and decision-makers form their perceptions and risk assessments. Today’s geopolitical competition increasingly unfolds not on battlefields but in cultural exports, educational programs, media ecosystems, expert networks, and information flows.
**Core Analysis**
Soft power, introduced as a concept by Joseph Nye, complements traditional "hard power" (military and economic force) by focusing on persuasion and attraction. Its effectiveness depends on perceived legitimacy, cultural resonance, credibility of institutions, and narrative consistency.
Modern states combine soft and hard power into so-called *smart power* strategies. Democratic systems typically emphasize openness, cultural presence, and institutional cooperation. Authoritarian regimes, while also deploying soft power, often rely on “sharp power,” which uses manipulative or opaque information practices to influence foreign publics and institutions.
Soft power operates across several levels:
**Cultural influence**: Media, film, music, literature, language.
**Educational influence**: Scholarships, academic exchanges, research partnerships.
**Institutional influence**: International organizations, NGOs, think tanks.
**Narrative influence**: Global reputation, national values, political identity.
**Technological and digital influence**: Social networks, digital ecosystems, communication platforms.
Intelligence communities analyze soft power as part of the broader concept of strategic influence. This includes understanding how rival states extend cultural or informational reach, cultivate proxies or sympathetic elites, shape foreign debates, and exploit vulnerabilities in open societies.
**Target Audience**
This material is designed for readers interested in international relations, political strategy, intelligence analysis, information influence, security studies, and contemporary geopolitics. It will be useful for political scientists, policymakers, OSINT specialists, journalists, students in global affairs, and anyone seeking to understand how modern states compete without direct coercion.
**Bibliography**
Joseph S. Nye — *Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics*.
Joseph S. Nye — *The Future of Power*.
Hans Morgenthau — *Politics Among Nations*.
Robert Keohane — *Power and Interdependence* (with Nye).
Janice Bially Mattern — works on discursive power.
Christopher Walker — research on “sharp power”.
RAND Corporation — studies on influence operations.
CEPA — reports on strategic communication and foreign influence.
Chatham House — analyses of global soft-power competition.
IISS — geopolitical influence assessments.
Brookings Institution — comparative studies of U.S., EU, China, Russia.
Carnegie Endowment — research on authoritarian influence strategies.
*Oxford Handbook of Soft Power* — comprehensive academic overview.
**Hashtags**
#softpower #geopolitics #internationalrelations #politicalscience #intelligence #strategicinfluence #foreignpolicy #informationinfluence #diplomacy #globalpolitics #securitystudies #statecraft #powerdynamics #sharpower #publicdiplomacy #influenceoperations #nationalbranding #globalstrategy #politicalanalysis #thinktanks #discoursepower #culturalpower #globalinfluence
If you want, I can also format this into an article layout, add sections on case studies, or expand the intelligence-analysis angle.

Rereading this, I hate it even more. It seems like the deal you must take if you want your research to be in the conference is: Give MPSA all rights to anything they might record of you forever, or go dark and limit your research impact by changing your name in the video, turning off your camera/mic, etc.

Notably absent: any way for the authors/presenters/creators to own recordings of their own talks. In fact, that is explicitly prohibited.

#dataprivacy #data #professor #academic #politicalscience