James Dennison

Oh, hello. Burnham tells today's cabinet:"The Brexit deal left by the last government had been bad for the UK and had led to a harder Brexit than had been promised at the referendum. The Prime Minister said the deal had led to low growth and also made it harder to control immigration."

The best reform proposal I’ve seen is from @jamesrdennison.bsky.social; reform both chambers at once, Lords (Senate) becomes constituency based, Commons is pure party list PR. Tidily keeps the constituency link but shifts house, MPs focus on national legislation only: cadmus.eui.eu/entities/pub...

It's been quite the ride, with lots of supporters: I've received a @ukri.org Future Leaders Fellowship to examine how data visualization matters for what people know, think, and want on climate change, migration, and economic development and inequality. For details, see www.visualizer.org.uk #flf

Far right parties strategically increase the (descriptive) representation of women assuming it helps them win votes in general and, in particular, from women. Does it work? In this short descriptive piece, I show the answer in the case of Reform UK is a clear ‘no’ doi.org/10.1332/2515...

You know those (rare) papers that really make you proud? In new piece out at APR, we show that #AffectivePolarization likely spills onto other types of non-political polarization - notably, PREFERENCES FOR CATS VS. DOGS (aka “affective PAWlarization”) paper: tinyurl.com/jn48bypp data: osf.io/4p2zu

With news that Zack Polanski will contest Keir Starmer’s former seat of Holborn and St Pancras, @jamesrdennison.bsky.social reflects on what exactly explains the rise of the Greens. Read the full article: politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/from-pr...

“Towards a European demos? On the growth of European identity and attachment” New evidence from across Europe on the remarkable growth of European attachment & identity since the early 2010s—including in the UK—for a special issue marking ten years since Brexit. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Experts and politicians on a decade since the Brexit vote. The Brexit Effect @universitypress.cambridge.org, review by @jamesrdennison.bsky.social @mpc-eui.bsky.social for @lsereviewofbooks.bsky.social Read it here 👉 blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofb... @lsepbs.bsky.social @lse-ei.bsky.social

A decade after Brexit, perhaps the most striking common thread across Leave and Remain is not triumph but lament—and an emerging recognition that Britain’s future remains profoundly European, albeit in new ways.

New #openaccess in @politicalquarterly.bsky.social "From Protest to Pluralist? The Green Party of England and Wales after a Decade of Political Upheaval" Thanks @pjsloman.bsky.social & editors of PQ for the invitation to reflect on 10+ years of research on this single, evolving case! t.ly/qwui6 🔗

New #openaccess in @politicalquarterly.bsky.social "From Protest to Pluralist? The Green Party of England and Wales after a Decade of Political Upheaval" Thanks @pjsloman.bsky.social & editors of PQ for the invitation to reflect on 10+ years of research on this single, evolving case! t.ly/qwui6 🔗

A few things (international) commentatoes should remember. Only 2 million people live in Sachsen-Anhalt. Half of Berlin, a tenth of NRW. Around 400k will vote AfD. Even with this strong result, 80% of people living in S-A will not have voted for the AfD. In a state that is a far-right stronghold.

Pleased to contribute to this El País piece on immigration, the crisis in Ceuta, and the implications for the radical right in Spain. And nice to see our new book with @andrewpgeddes.bsky.social What Europeans Think About Immigration and Why It Matters mentioned too! elpais.com/espana/2026-...

Why can two people see the same facts about immigration and walk away believing opposite things? @jamesrdennison.bsky.social breaks it down in his new book with @andrewpgeddes.bsky.social. 🎥 https://loom.ly/89C1HUs

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This by @jamesrdennison.bsky.social and @andrewpgeddes.bsky.social looks brilliant - and very timely! global.oup.com/academic/pro...

🚨New Science Advances🚨 Untrustworthy sources on Facebook and Instagram in 2020: Concentrated exposure but no attitudinal effects www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... -Exposure very low but highly concentrated -Reducing exposure by ~70% for months had no measurable effects *even among frequent consumers*

How much of what we know about attitudes to immigration actually generalises beyond Western countries? My new OA paper in Public Opinion Quarterly tests one of the field's biggest assumptions using data from 66 countries. Most findings travel well but three don't academic.oup.com/poq/advance-...

Latest PollBase is out, with all the British voting intention polls since the 1930s

Free for you: definitions are optional when it comes to the far/radical/extreme/populist/new right.

The EU poured millions into Gaza — and looks away when it’s turned to rubble

Delighted to contribute to Self-Evident Truths, a new Harvard collection marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. My argument: 1776 fused rights with national liberation—and created the definitive template for modern global politics. Does America still believe in it? t.ly/gcHtK

Johnson: If we lose the midterms, these Democrats will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they'll go after the president's family, the cabinet, his donors, friends, half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. We’ll take care of you.

In this #EUIresearch video @jamesrdennison.bsky.social is in conversation with María Hernández about our new book 'What Europeans Think about Immigration and Why it Matters', imminently forthcoming with Oxford University Press. www.eui.eu/news-hub?id=...

I'll see you and raise you @timbale.bsky.social - I don't agree at all - just knock it on the head and don't even engage with the possibility - the country wants some governing to actually happen, not to have it all thrown back at us again

📢 I’m hiring 2 three-year postdocs at Dept of Political Science, @au.dk! Come work with me on The Politics of Shaming and Shamelessness — a new project on elite rhetoric, emotions, norms, hostility and political violence. Deadline: 31 August 2026 Start: Dec 2026–Feb 2027 Please share widely! 🙏

I'm exceptionally proud of this paper so it is nice to hear that others found some merits in it too. Very grateful to the award committee for taking the time to read and engage with the paper. It is exhibit 79816 in the school of "partisanship is one helluva drug" doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

It's courageous for any victim of sexual abuse to go to trial, but when your abuser is a man as powerful as Jeffrey Donaldson, it is on another level. Solidarity to those women today

How can you test restrospective voting within the first 2 years of a 5 year term? I don't get the logic. E.g., Starmer claims 500k kids "lifted out of poverty" as a signature achievement. But that number is a *forecast*. We can't test "deliverism" based on things that haven't been delivered yet!

Surely the worst crime committed by the leader of a UK political party. Horrendous.

Looks like Michel Barnier agrees with me that the EU would welcome Britain back as a member and, if it wants, Britain could stay out of Schengen and the euro : internationalbusinessnews.co.uk/rejoining-th...

Trump's approval rating is in freefall

It's deja-vu all over again! (Source, @jamesrdennison.bsky.social on the 2015 general election: doi.org/10.1093/pa/g...)

I wonder how much of this is the fact that universities now expect students to read entire textbooks on a computer or tablet using buggy ebook apps. My experience of these things has been uniformly terrible and I wouldn’t fare well either.

So what happened is that Hungary has allowed the EU to send a letter to Ukraine and Moldova confirming they have fulfilled the benchmarks for cluster one. Now, EU countries will work on a common position for the negotiations. This position needs to be endorsed before the IGC on 15 June.

How do immigration threat perceptions relate to policy preferences and political behaviour? @J.Dennison shows that threat perceptions are multidimensional, driven by threat sensitivity and migrant cues, shaping policy preferences and influencing behaviour indirectly. doi.org/10.1093/migr...

A group of EU countries is poised to approach countries outside the bloc about setting up centers for rejected asylum applicants. The push comes as officials aim to finalize talks on the Returns Regulation today. Brussels Playbook has more 👇

Triple lock how are ye?

Labour lost almost four times as many voters to the Greens as they did to Reform UK in the local elections, according to new YouGov polling

"Akshually we won the war already but the other guys refused to quit" certainly seems to be a favourite for apologists these days

An entire article "ultra-processed foods" being banned from hospitals in Brazil that does not even attempt to define what "ultra-processed" means! 🤦‍♀️ www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

terrible. 20 years ago, the internet was full of hobbyist blogs and forums. over time, these have been replaced by paywalled substacks and private discord channels, each a walled garden. google's decision to prioritize AI just makes it less likely people will create free, public info

Reform are very good at moving the goalposts. They said they’d win Gorton and Denton (lost by 12pts), win Wales (lost by 6pts), destroy the Tories in 2026 (PNS rose vs 2025) and win six London boroughs (won one). Each time journalists concluded those outcomes were clear from the outset

3/"I am old enough to remember that in the mid 2000s several economists thought that China would need to take multiple decades to catch up to the level of tech development in the OECD. Time flies!"- ‪@fgenovese.bsky.social‬ NYTimes on what everyone in science knows www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Imagine if journal editors actually gave a shit about the dangerous slop that gets published under their brand? Imagine if the Guardian employed a science journalist who knows that correlation does not equal causation?

Step 1: Run regression of [scary Y] on [trendy X] using observational data Step 2: Magically "adjust" for the 20 bajillion imperfectly-measured confounders Step 3: Wait for a credulous journalist to write it up as causal www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Some things to bear in mind for politicians considering spouting nonsense about gilts (again) Me, 300 free clicks: - as.ft.com/r/031c1f71-5...