Leonardo Puleo
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leonardo-puleo.bsky.social
Leonardo Puleo
@leonardo-puleo.bsky.social
82 followers 120 following 11 posts
Postdoc at CEVIPOL - Université Libre de Bruxelles | Researching on challenger parties, voting behaviour and illiberal ideas
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leonardo-puleo.bsky.social
Another piece of the illiberal puzzle? Some reflections on Italy’s new constitutional judicial reform: it risks weakening liberal democracy, especially alongside gov attacks on the judiciary, power shifts between PM and Pres of the Republic, and new limits on protest. @lseeuroppblog.bsky.social
Will the Nordio reform weaken liberal democracy in Italy? - EUROPP
The Nordio reform in Italy might appear limited in scope, but it could lead to a further weakening of liberal democracy under the leadership of Giorgia Meloni.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
December 9, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by Leonardo Puleo
kimlanelaw.bsky.social
The Guardian gets it. The real importance of Orban's visit to see Trump was getting financial backing for Orban's tough upcoming election campaign. And all indications are he got it. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The Guardian view on special Trump treatment for Hungary: roll on the next election | Editorial
Editorial: As polls suggest that Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian rule is under threat, Brussels can only wait and hope
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 6:54 AM
Reposted by Leonardo Puleo
hansonmark.bsky.social
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 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Leonardo Puleo
kai-arzheimer.com
Our friend @rrresrobot.bsky.social has finally broken the chains that tied it to evil Elon #farright #radicalright #research
The Radical Right Research Robot breaks free from Twitter - kai arzheimer
My Radical Right Research Bot is no longer dependent on Twitter. Yay!
www.kai-arzheimer.com
November 11, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Reposted by Leonardo Puleo
leoniedejonge.bsky.social
🎤 With @sldelange.bsky.social in @theguardian.com on the Dutch election outcome: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
Geert Wilders faces shutout as centrists hail huge gains in knife-edge Dutch election
Far right neck and neck with liberal D66 but all major mainstream parties have ruled out working with anti-Islam firebrand
www.theguardian.com
October 31, 2025 at 6:39 AM
leonardo-puleo.bsky.social
💫Second great news of the day
The book “Dissensus over Liberal Democracy: Insights from European Judges” is finally out with

@bloomsburyacad.bsky.social @hartpublishing.bsky.social

I’m truly happy to have co-edited this volume with Ramona Coman, Viktor Kazai, and Andrew Bradley.
A thread 🧵 1/N
October 31, 2025 at 9:41 AM
leonardo-puleo.bsky.social
🚀🚀🚀 First time posting here! I’m happy to share that I’ve just started a new FNRS-funded project at ULB (CEVIPOL/IEE): Party-Based Illiberalism in Europe. Over the next three years, I’ll study how illiberal ideas and practices spread across party systems and citizenry. @sciencepoulb.bsky.social
October 31, 2025 at 9:09 AM