David Attewell
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davidattewell6.bsky.social
David Attewell
@davidattewell6.bsky.social
2K followers 2.2K following 110 posts
SNSF Postdoc Mobility Fellow in political science at Aarhus University, by way of the University of Zurich. Research on deservingness, solidarity, and social cleavages in politics.

Website: https://www.davidattewell.net/
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Reposted by David Attewell
gefjonoff.bsky.social
New publication w/ my friend & amazing coauthor @fedetrastulli.bsky.social in @ejprjournal.bsky.social! 🎉

doi.org/10.1017/S147...

We explore: Who considers which political issues as important & how is this related to sociodemographic/socioeconomic variables?
Who prioritises what? Determinants and measurement of voters’ issue prioritisation | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core
Who prioritises what? Determinants and measurement of voters’ issue prioritisation
doi.org
November 21, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by David Attewell
dpzollinger.bsky.social
In this new paper, we use open-ended survey questions to study how people perceive (changes in) social hierarchies. 

We show how and among whom status gains of women, ethnic minorities, or LGBTQ+ people are saliently perceived–namely among progressives, not just conservatives!
mabreyer.bsky.social Magda Breyer @mabreyer.bsky.social · 6d
New article out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social with Tabea Palmtag and @dpzollinger.bsky.social 📝
We use open-ended survey questions (in Germany) to assess how and among whom social status shifts are perceived. This tests cultural backlash narratives in voters' perceptions.

🔗 doi.org/10.1177/0010...
Abstract It is widely accepted in political science – and remarkably established in public discourse – that status anxieties fuel a far right backlash against progressive politics. This narrative suggests that right-wing conservatives perceive the status of women, racial, or sexual minorities as threatening. Using open-ended survey questions fielded in Germany, we show that women and minorities indeed figure in people’s perceptions of status hierarchies, but in very specific ways: First, overall, people still perceive status as largely socioeconomically determined. Second, sociocultural groups figure in perceptions of who is gaining/losing status, less so in perceptions of the top/bottom of society. Third, more than conservative voters, it is social progressives who mention women and minorities as “winners”. While on race/ethnicity, we find evidence for a backlash, on gender and sexuality we find more evidence for a progressive momentum. This matters for progressive politics today and for how we empirically study status concerns.
November 21, 2025 at 8:29 AM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
Fantastic paper and yet another great example of the power of open-ended survey questions.
mabreyer.bsky.social Magda Breyer @mabreyer.bsky.social · 6d
New article out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social with Tabea Palmtag and @dpzollinger.bsky.social 📝
We use open-ended survey questions (in Germany) to assess how and among whom social status shifts are perceived. This tests cultural backlash narratives in voters' perceptions.

🔗 doi.org/10.1177/0010...
Abstract It is widely accepted in political science – and remarkably established in public discourse – that status anxieties fuel a far right backlash against progressive politics. This narrative suggests that right-wing conservatives perceive the status of women, racial, or sexual minorities as threatening. Using open-ended survey questions fielded in Germany, we show that women and minorities indeed figure in people’s perceptions of status hierarchies, but in very specific ways: First, overall, people still perceive status as largely socioeconomically determined. Second, sociocultural groups figure in perceptions of who is gaining/losing status, less so in perceptions of the top/bottom of society. Third, more than conservative voters, it is social progressives who mention women and minorities as “winners”. While on race/ethnicity, we find evidence for a backlash, on gender and sexuality we find more evidence for a progressive momentum. This matters for progressive politics today and for how we empirically study status concerns.
November 21, 2025 at 8:45 AM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
"The entrepreneurs in the slump are longing for a boom; why do they not gladly accept the synthetic boom which the government is able to offer them? It is this difficult and fascinating question with which we intend to deal in this article."
November 20, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
sophieehill.bsky.social
My antitrust attitudes paper with Nick Short and Jacob Brown is out now @poppublicsphere.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1017/S153...

We find:
- voters are skeptical about M&A
- current law marginalizes important public concerns (layoffs, bailout risk, lobbying)
- expert/public cleavage > partisan diffs
What Is Ideological Capture and How Do We Measure It? Using Antitrust Reform to Understand Expert-Public Cleavages Nicholas Short, Sophie Hill and Jacob Brown Scholarship on regulatory capture—when businesses lobby regulators to act contrary to the public interest—has thrived since the 1970s. Yet it ignores an important dimension of influence, what we call ideological capture. This occurs when experts design regulatory frameworks that marginalize important public values and produce favorable outcomes for special interests even in the absence of lobbying. We present a theoretical and empirical framework for understanding ideological capture, rooted in expert-public cleavages, and measure its presence in an important policy domain (antitrust review of business mergers) with an original survey of the public and of antitrust lawyers. Our results suggest that the main framework for evaluating anticompetitive conduct, the consumer welfare standard, marginalizes important public concerns but is deeply popular among antitrust lawyers. With prior vork showing the standard arose not from conventional processes but from judicial and bureaucratic activism, we conclude that antitrust policy evidences ideological capture. Keywords: political economy, bureaucracy, regulatory capture, economic ideas, public opinion Figure 4 The Public Is Skeptical that Large Mergers Deliver Some Economic Benefits Bar charts Note: A plurality of the public disagrees that large mergers lower prices (their main purported benefit) or make it easier to start a new business but agrees that large mergers increase innovation. Respondents were less certain about the effect of large mergers on product quality. Figure 5 The Public Agrees that Large Mergers Have Significant Social Risks Note: A majority of the public agree that large mergers weaken the ties between companies and local communities, create companies that are too big to fail, have too much power to infringe on individual liberties, and have too much influence in politics. Figure 3 Expertise Outweighs Partisanship in Shaping Support for Replacing the CWS
November 18, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
heimbergecon.bsky.social
"academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it... The dominant four collectively generated... $12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024."
November 18, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
tabouchadi.bsky.social
Next week, with the Progressive Politics Research Network, we are going to publish 8 new research briefs on the politics of housing. While housing has become a huge grievance across Europe, it is often absent from progressive parties‘ agendas. Our group of experts discusses different aspects of this
November 18, 2025 at 11:33 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
westervangaal.bsky.social
Almost certain now EPP will rely on far-right groups, including Germany’s AfD, to push through amendments on #csddd #csrd, despite Manfred Weber’s promise never to collaborate with them. Will anybody in Berlin notice?
November 12, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by David Attewell
benbraun.bsky.social
The central argument in this excellent paper & thread is that the open-access turn has neglected profit; indeed, it turbo-charged publishers’ margins. As political economists who know a thing or two about profit and power we should speak up a lot more. As it says below: What we’re doing is crazy.
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 15d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 12, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
donmoyn.bsky.social
Three German universities offering post-docs for researchers "who cannot conduct or continue their work in the USA appropriately because of actual political pressure. "
www.uni-konstanz.de/zukunftskoll...
Early Career Rescue Fellowship
www.uni-konstanz.de
November 11, 2025 at 7:10 PM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
French public broadcaster admits (with no apology) outrageous falsehoods in interview asking LFI MP to condemn Zohran Mamdani:

1) Mamdani had not condemned October 7th
2) Mamdani called to "Globalize the Intifada"
3) Mamdani raised $ for Hamas-colluding UNRWA

www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/...
Manuel Bompard : "Il me semble évident qu'avant Noël, il y aura une nouvelle motion de censure"
Budget, PLFSS, union de la gauche, Mamdani, Mercosur... Le député Manuel Bompard, coordinateur national de La France insoumise, est l'invité de Questions politiques.
www.radiofrance.fr
November 11, 2025 at 8:21 PM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
Europe rn:

Rad left: Mamdani shows with radical policy, leftists can win on their own. Lander who?

Soc dems: Mamdani shows how to beat the far right. What? Lol no we don't support any of his policies.

Center: Mamdani, Newsom & Jetten are the same

Rad right: AAH LGBTQ sharia is coming for us all!
November 7, 2025 at 9:41 AM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
Excited to have this paper on social networks as a mechanism for cleavage stabilization with @dpzollinger.bsky.social out!

If we have you intrigued, also pairs with (and empirically engages) our theoretical piece on puzzles of contemporary cleavage research:

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
dpzollinger.bsky.social Delia Zollinger @dpzollinger.bsky.social · 20d
How are contemporary cleavage structures stabilized in times of declining mass social and political organizations?

In this new paper with @davidattewell6.bsky.social @bjpols.bsky.social, we suggest that homogeneous social (educational) networks provide part of the answer.

tinyurl.com/49cs8jwp
Educational Networks, Social Closure, and Cleavage Stabilization | British Journal of Political Science | Cambridge Core
Educational Networks, Social Closure, and Cleavage Stabilization - Volume 55
tinyurl.com
November 6, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
himself.bsky.social
One of the least remarked parts of Mamdani's speech yesterday was its strong implication that he wants his army of 100k volunteers to stick around and do stuff.
November 5, 2025 at 1:32 PM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
It's striking to see all strands of the Left (in FR, UK, Canada) claim Zohran Mamdani's victory as a vindication of their approach.

It shows the success of a popular front model: a democratic socialist left building the broad (contradictory) coalition needed to win in the face of rising fascism.
November 5, 2025 at 9:40 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
bjpols.bsky.social
NEW -

Seeking Opportunity in the Knowledge Economy: Moving Places, Moving Politics? - https://cup.org/3LgxVos

"moving to opportunity results in... more left-leaning self-identification, and lower support for far-right parties"

- @valentinaconsiglio.bsky.social & @thmskrr.bsky.social

#OpenAccess
BJPolS abstract discussing the dynamic between knowledge economy migration and political shifts in Germany, specifically addressing urban versus rural opportunities and its implications on political perspectives and migration trends.
October 30, 2025 at 8:50 AM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
How can we compare the size and structuring power of different cleavages over time? Check out @jacobgunderson.bsky.social 's great paper and dataset for scholars working on cleavages at the party system level!

The latest from @dpzollinger.bsky.social and I's Special Issue in @wepsocial.bsky.social.
wepsocial.bsky.social WEP Journal @wepsocial.bsky.social · Oct 25
💥OUT NOW!

"Cleavage size and stability in turbulent times: introducing the bloc volatility and fragmentation dataset" by @jacobgunderson.bsky.social

Part of SI "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies", edited by @dpzollinger.bsky.social & @davidattewell6.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1080/0140...
Abstract of the article "Cleavage size and stability in turbulent times: introducing the bloc volatility and fragmentation dataset" by Jacob R. Gunderson. Published online first in West European Politics. Figure 2, displaying the Loess curves showing trajectory of bloc-weighted cleavage salience index (WCS) over time for transnational (lower curve) and traditional (upper curve) cleavage types from 1951 to 2023 for 14 west european countries. Figure 3, displaying the Loess curves of WCS pooled across 15 West European countries from 1951 to 2023. Figure 4, displaying the effective number of bloc parties for the left and right camps in 15 west european countries from 1951 to 2023.
October 27, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by David Attewell
bjpols.bsky.social
#OpenAccess from August 2025 -

Media Platforming and the Normalisation of Extreme Right Views - cup.org/4mmVIAL

"exposure to uncritical interviews increases agreement with extreme statements and perceptions of broader support in the population"

- @dianebolet.bsky.social & @florianfoos.bsky.social
BJPolS abstract discussing the effects of extensive media exposure on public perceptions and normalization. It references specific research surveys conducted on Sky News UK and Australia, analyzing changes in public attitudes and policy effects due to media strategies.
October 13, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by David Attewell
lwestheuser.bsky.social
JUST OUT: "Boundaries and Cleavages: Elements of a Cultural Sociology of Political Divides."

OA: direct.mit.edu/ecps/article...

It develops what the cultural sociology of group formation can contribute to research on political cleavages.

(And why "Somewheres vs Anywheres" really doesn't cut it.)
October 8, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by David Attewell
dpzollinger.bsky.social
New SI "Cleavage Politics in Western
Democracies" @wepsocial.bsky.social!

If you're interested in transforming social & political divides in advanced democracies, this is for you.

The intro by @davidattewell6.bsky.social & me maps contributions around 3 challenges for contemp. cleavage research.
davidattewell6.bsky.social David Attewell @davidattewell6.bsky.social · Oct 7
@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social!

Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan:

🧵⬇️
October 7, 2025 at 12:11 PM
davidattewell6.bsky.social
@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social!

Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan:

🧵⬇️
October 7, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
vincenzoemanuele.bsky.social
🎯New publication out in @wepsocial.bsky.social
'Lipset and Rokkan meet data': a 🧵on our study (with Bruno Marino) on the electoral structuring of traditional cleavages (1870–1967) across 17 Western European countries 👇

Read the full article (open access):
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com
September 18, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by David Attewell
britishelectionstudy.com
🚨New Research 🚨

Ahead of the release of Wave 30 of the BES Internet Panel, the team has examined Labour's decline since the 2024 GE.

Labour's support has splintered into mostly indecision or left-liberal parties, but they've also lost their few right-wing voters.

🧵⬇️

tinyurl.com/3m62exph
Looking for Labour’s lost voters - The British Election Study
www.britishelectionstudy.com
September 3, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
dpzollinger.bsky.social
Another fantastic piece out in our "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" special issue! (co-edited with @davidattewell6.bsky.social )

@mierkezat.bsky.social et al investigate the role of civil society in contemporary cleavage formation. 

There are a few more SI contributions still to come!
mierkezat.bsky.social Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki @mierkezat.bsky.social · Aug 28
I’m very excited to share that my paper “Cleavage theory meets civil society: A framework and research agenda” with @eborbath.bsky.social & Swen Hutter has now been published online in ‪@wepsocial.bsky.social‬ (w/ open access funding thanks to @wzb.bsky.social‬!)

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
September 2, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Reposted by David Attewell
owasow.bsky.social
“A racial reckoning?” New study by @amengel.bsky.social & Cindy Kam:

“Challenging the conventional wisdom, our analyses demonstrate that racial attitudes changed following George Floyd’s murder, but in ways dependent upon attitude measure and population subgroup.” www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
A racial reckoning? racial attitudes in the wake of the murder of George Floyd Andrew M. Engelhardt and Cindy D. Kam Abstract Did George Floyd’s murder and its ensuing protests produce a racial reckoning? Conventional social-science accounts, emphasizing the stability of racial attitudes, dismiss this possibility. In contrast, we theorize how these events may have altered Americans’ racial attitudes, in broadly progressive or in potentially countervailing ways across partisan and racial subgroups. An original content analysis of partisan media demonstrates how the information environment framed Black Americans before and after the summer of 2020. Then we examine temporal trends using three different attitude measures: most important problem judgments, explicit favorability towards Whites versus Blacks, and implicit associations. Challenging the conventional wisdom, our analyses demonstrate that racial attitudes changed following George Floyd’s murder, but in ways dependent upon attitude measure and population subgroup. Figure 1 shows four scatterplots with Lowess smoothing lines comparing Fox (gray squares, gray line) and MSNBC (black circles, black line) coverage of Black Americans in 2020, with a vertical red line marking George Floyd’s murder on May 25. Top left (Daily Counts of Activism Frames): Both networks show a sharp spike in activism-related mentions immediately after Floyd’s murder, then declining through the year, with similar levels across Fox and MSNBC. Top right (Daily Proportion of Mentions containing Activism Frames): The share of mentions with activism frames rises briefly after Floyd’s murder for both networks but quickly declines, with no clear partisan difference. Bottom left (Daily Counts of Backlash Frames): Fox shows a much larger spike in backlash-related mentions (e.g., “violence,” “mob”) after May, while MSNBC increases more modestly. Bottom right (Daily Proportion of Mentions containing Backlash Frames): From June to October, nearly half of Fox’s mentions of Black Americans include backlash frames, roughly twice the rate of MSNBC, which remains lower throughout. Overall, the figure shows that while both networks used more activism frames immediately after Floyd’s murder, Fox emphasized backlash frames much more heavily than MSNBC in the following months. Figure 2 shows six scatterplots with Lowess smoothing lines tracking mentions of racism or race relations as the most important problem in Gallup polls (2017–2021). Each dot is a monthly estimate, with a vertical red line marking George Floyd’s murder in May 2020. Top row: Full Sample: Mentions are low (under 5%) before 2020, then spike sharply in June 2020 (~16%) before falling but remaining above pre-2020 levels. Among Whites: Similar pattern as the full sample, with a ~10-point jump in June 2020, followed by a decline but remaining elevated relative to earlier years. Among Blacks: Higher baseline concern compared to Whites; mentions spike by ~21 points after Floyd’s murder and remain elevated through 2021. Bottom row: Among White Republicans: Very low pre-2020 mentions, a modest rise (~6 points) in June 2020, then rapid decline toward baseline. Among White Independents: Clear but moderate spike in June 2020, with some persistence above baseline. Among White Democrats: Low pre-2020 mentions, sharp June 2020 spike (~14 points), then decline but sustained higher levels through 2021. Overall, the figure shows a sharp discontinuity after Floyd’s murder across all groups, with the most sustained increases among Black respondents and White Democrats, and weaker persistence among White Republicans. Figure 4 presents six scatterplots of predicted weekly average IAT D-scores for 2019 (gray squares, gray line) and 2020 (black circles, black line), with a vertical red line marking George Floyd’s murder on May 25. Higher D-scores indicate stronger implicit anti-Black bias. Top row: Full Sample: Bias was declining before Floyd’s murder and drops further afterward in 2020, diverging from 2019. Among Whites: A clear decline in D-scores appears after Floyd’s murder, with lower bias sustained through 2020. Among Blacks: No sharp discontinuity; scores remain stable across 2019 and 2020. Bottom row: Among White Conservatives: Noticeable decline in anti-Black bias after May 2020, sustained through the year. Among White Neutrals: A clear drop in bias after Floyd’s murder, somewhat larger than among liberals. Among White Liberals: Small decline in bias after May 2020, though less pronounced than among conservatives or neutrals. Overall, the figure shows that implicit anti-Black bias decreased among White respondents across ideological groups after Floyd’s murder, with larger reductions among conservatives and neutrals than liberals. Black respondents show little change, consistent with already low baseline bias.
August 31, 2025 at 3:33 PM