Generali Endowed Chair in European Policies, President of the Institute of European Policy Making at Bocconi University (she/her)
www.catherinedevries.eu
Respect the Marble Substack: catherineeunicedevries.substack.com
Catherine E. de Vries is a Dutch political scientist. She is Dean of Diversity & Inclusion and Professor of Political Science at Bocconi University. She is known for her research on European politics, including political behaviour, comparative European politics and political economy. She is also a columnist for the Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad. .. more
💡 Conversations with writers + thinkers about how ideas last.
First guest: Simon Kuper, FT columnist & author of Football Against the Enemy & Chums
🔗 catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/etched-in-...
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Next week’s conversation is with @drodrik.bsky.social so stay tuned!
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Read it here:
catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/etched-in-...
And if you take one idea with you, let it be this:
Clarity doesn’t begin with knowing, it begins in questioning.
7/
“Socrates’ reminder: I know that I don’t know.”
Not as humility alone, but as a method.
Writing becomes the place where ideas are tested, unsettled, rebuilt, never final, always in pursuit of knowledge.
6/
Blueprint first, prose second.
The structure is the scaffolding, but the spark comes only once she’s already in motion.
Writing is a combination of “discipline and grace,” according to Ypi.
5/
Not in terms of argument, but autobiography.
What some saw as risk, she saw as clarity: Ideas are more accountable when we reveal what shaped them.
4/
“You don’t start from where everyone is,” Ypi told me. “You build from the ground up.”
It’s slower, more vulnerable, but also more rewarding.
3/
Philosophy sharpened her rigor, but also muted her creative voice.
It took Brexit, a pandemic, & a sense of civic urgency for her to return to writing without a safety net.
She gave herself permission to take risks.
2/
Philosopher, novelist, author of Free & Indignity, Ypi uses writing to push ideas into daylight. Not as way to prove she’s right, but to see what survives when doubt is allowed in.
catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/etched-in-...
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Reposted by Catherine E. De Vries
Reposted by Catherine E. De Vries
Reposted by Catherine E. De Vries
@rfrbrghs.bsky.social (@unil.bsky.social) will present a fascinating paper (with @julianbernauer.bsky.social & Adrian Vatter) on "How Political Institutions Can Impede Democratic Backsliding"
@sspunil.bsky.social
Writing is the same. Feeling stuck isn’t a verdict. It’s a sign that you need a skeleton.
Link: catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/feeling-st...
Big thanks to @simonkuper.bsky.social & @abenewman.bsky.social for sharing their thoughts
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- Make a skeleton - Stress-test claims - Let the skeleton evolve - Revise skeleton before writing
- Draft with restraint, then edit
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Drafting = discovery (messy)
Revising = presentation (legible)
Getting stuck usually means you’re trying to present before you’ve fully discovered.
catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/etched-in-...
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- Where the logic wobbles. - Where evidence thins. - Where a conclusion goes too far.
It saves you from writing yourself into a corner.
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Not a draft. Not transitions. Not ideas for prose.
A skeleton: claims, counterclaims, evidence, laid out in their bare form.
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We polish before we understand.
We write paragraphs before knowing what they’re meant to support.
The result? Beautiful sentences marching confidently toward the wrong argument.
6/
What will the reader not understand here?
That’s the heart of good writing: not showing off, but guiding someone through your thinking.
5/
“I never get stuck because I have a map.
If you’re stuck, it’s because you didn’t plan.”
For him, the structure always comes first.
catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/etched-in-...
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But the real work of writing is much harder to capture: shaping a structure strong enough to hold what you mean to convey.
3/
In a 1925 diary entry, she wrote: “Arrange whatever pieces come your way.”
A century later, that writing advice still lands.
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This week’s Respect in Marble post is about something deceptively simple: most writing problems are structure problems.
Feeling stuck isn’t a verdict, it’s a signal. It means you need a skeleton.
Link: open.substack.com/pub/catherin...
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Reposted by Stefanie Walter
Reposted by Stuart J. Turnbull‐Dugarte, Tarik Abou‐Chadi
Reposted by Simon Hix, Ben H. Ansell, Jan Rath , and 11 more Simon Hix, Ben H. Ansell, Jan Rath, Catherine E. De Vries, Gregory B. Lee, Fabián Muniesa, Peter Holmes, Ben Worthy, Tom van der Meer, Jens Rydgren, Simon Usherwood, Stuart J. Turnbull‐Dugarte, Oliver Nachtwey, Dionyssis G. Dimitrakopoulos
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Catherine E. De Vries
Reposted by Catherine E. De Vries
🔗 politi.co/4a3GuNH