Tobias Widmann

📢 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! 🙏

Only 3 more weeks left to apply! Please share widely 🙏

⚽📚 The Ultimate World Cup Research Thread I've set up a little automated thread: every day of the 2026 World Cup (11 Jun–19 Jul) it shares one study on what football does to society: politics, economics, migration, health, crime & more. One paper a day. Kickoff below 👇

Back from hiatus with some good news: my book has come out in German! Thankful to @springer.springernature.com for publishing and to Patrick Kraft for his help with this.

I’m hiring 2 doctoral researchers in Politics of Climate Change at Heidelberg University 🌍 📊 Survey Research & Political Participation 🗣️ Qualitative Research & Group Formation Part of “The New Climate Divide” Deadline: 21 June 2026 Calls: www.ipw.uni-heidelberg.de/en/about-us/... Please share!

Today I have joined the #PhDone ranks 🙂‍↕️ Thanks to the best committee, @turnbulldugarte.com & @twidmann.bsky.social & Jami Taylor; I’ve had a blast!!

New paper out in Nature Human Behaviour. "Government policy documents across 185 countries largely cite Global North sources" with @seramirezruiz.bsky.social DOI: doi.org/10.1038/s415... Ungated: rdcu.be/fh0Ss

📯One month left to apply 📯If you want to join our team @au.dk to study young people's beliefs about political power, this is your chance! Two 2-year postdocs in my ERC-funded project YOPOW: international.au.dk/about/profil...

🚨 New paper accepted at the @bjpols.bsky.social: we were in the field while Brexit dominated British politics. Do MPs respond differently when constituents disagree with the party line? What we find surprised us: a null! url: osf.io/preprints/os...

🧺 Paper Picnic 2.0 is here! More journals. New features. An easier way to keep up with the latest research in political science and adjacent fields. 🧵👇

🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social): We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys. Short version: It mostly doesn’t. w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social URL: osf.io/preprints/os...

📄 New WP version out: revised text, tightened argument, and new analysis. The Politics of Evidence Selection (w/ @jesperasring.bsky.social) Grateful for the helpful comments and presentation opportunities. Further feedback welcome! 🔗 osf.io/preprints/so...

🫵WE WANT YOU 🎓 Are you interested in political communication, negative campaigning, and social norms? Are you experienced in quantitative methods? Do you have good rain clothes? Then our postdoc position might be just for you: werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies... Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas

🥳 New year, new publication 📑"Contested memories: the political effects of de-commemoration proposals" @jeppjournal.bsky.social With Francesco Colombo, we study a street renaming proposal in Berlin and find -contrary to conventional wisdom- no political backlash, but a positive feedback effect.

📢On Wednesday, January 7th (5:15 PM, VMP9 B130), we are pleased to welcome @twidmann.bsky.social (Aarhus University) in our HPS³ seminar series. All are welcome to attend! No prior registration is needed. For more information 👇 www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/en/fachberei...

Last day 📢📢📢

"Mainstream parties are increasingly allowing the far right to set the agenda" - for the @theguardian.com, @ashifakassam.bsky.social summed up our study. @tevoelker.bsky.social and I answered some questions to put our results into context. Give it a read! Study: bit.ly/4hhRFUN

I had the pleasure to teach a 3-day crash course on #LLMs for PhD students. We covered: 1️⃣ Text Representation and Embeddings 2️⃣ Machine Learning & Transformer Architecture 3️⃣ Generative Models for Social Sciences The 6 slide sets and 10 notebooks are available on github: github.com/nicolaiberk/...

📣 MORAL APPEALS IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION 📣 New version of @twidmann.bsky.social and my working paper answering: * Have moral appeals increased over time? * Is the tendency to moralize ideologically patterned? * Are some topics consistently more moralized than others? osf.io/preprints/os...

Ever asked yourself how to detect and extract social groups from texts with computational social science? @haukelicht.bsky.social and me have a solution for you out at @bjpols.bsky.social. You can also find the pre-trained models on huggingface!

This is such a great and important paper – especially when read alongside those two by @kristinabsimonsen.bsky.social & @twidmann.bsky.social in @psrm.bsky.social & @bjpols.bsky.social: 📄 #1 (PSRM): www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 📄 #2 (BJPS): www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Now in an issue @psrm.bsky.social: I show that the 🇩🇰 Social Democrats could have won policy support for a pro-immigrant platform if their messaging were framed in moral terms. Findings provide a central corrective to the popular notion that the Social Democrats were destined to go anti-immigrant 👇🏻

📣 Jobs, jobs, jobs! Aarhus University’s Department of Political Science is hiring: 🔹 Assistant Professor 🗓 Deadline: 25 August 🔗 international.au.dk/about/profil... 🔹 Associate Professor 🗓 Deadline: 8 September 🔗 international.au.dk/about/profil...

New Article from our latest issue (Issue 7, 2025): "The Evolution of Global Cleavages: A Historical Analysis of Territorial and Functional World Alignments Based on Automated Text Analysis, 1843–2020" by Daniele Caramani, Siyana Gurova, and @twidmann.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

🚨 New publication 🚨 : Happy to share that my paper, "Losing Touch: The Rhetorical Cost of Governing" is now forthcoming at @cpsjournal.bsky.social. Short 🧵 about the paper here 👇 1/10

🚨 working paper (w. @morganlcj.bsky.social @markuswagner.bsky.social): Protesters are not judged equally - even if tactics of groups are similar. We ran an experiment in 🇩🇪 testing how people react to farmers vs. climate activists blocking roads. What we find is disturbing: osf.io/preprints/os...

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When politicians use simple language, citizens understand more and see them as less elite. New paper with @danbischof.bsky.social out in @thejop.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1086/736693

Should democracies ban parties that threaten democracy? In the DEMOTRADEOFF project survey we asked people in 15 countries about this. A short 🧵 with some results Citizens are deeply divided about this issue Support for bans is highest in 🇮🇱 🇮🇹 🇪🇸 🇳🇱 🇵🇹 🇨🇭 🇩🇪 www.dw.com/en/germany-i...

Happening now at #COMPTEXT2025 🤩🤩🤩 @ahrabhikat.bsky.social @krangelie.bsky.social @indiiigo.bsky.social

We're organizing another round of the Summer School for Women* in Political Methodology 🎉 summerschoolwpm.org Our super-cool speakers include msands.bsky.social @allisonwkoh.bsky.social @melinscribe.bsky.social @rebeccakittel.bsky.social @fabiennelind.bsky.social & @indiiigo.bsky.social 📆01/05

💥Postdoc call 💥 Join my @erc.europa.eu project #YOPOW at Aarhus University 🎇 3-y position (possibility of 1-y extension) ❓How societal norms give rise to biased beliefs about political power in youth 🤖 Computational social science (large-scale text & image data) Deadline May 15: bit.ly/4hIpSeD

And if you won't be at COMPTEXT, feel free to get in touch at bakkaer@ps.au.dk if you have questions. Team members from my current research project are also happy to talk: @twidmann.bsky.social (widmann@ps.au.dk), Juliane Høgh Schmidt (jhs@ps.au.dk), Anna van Vree (aavv@ps.au.dk).

‼️If you haven't seen the call already, this is your reminder‼️ 3-year postdoc in computational social science at Aarhus University to study societal norms about political power 🫅 I'll be @comptext.bsky.social in Vienna (April 24-26) if you want to meet up and hear more about the position ☕🗣️

⭐I am looking for 2 PhD candidates w/ focus on qualitative representation research in my ERC project INCONEX at University of Salzburg! On the project: sites.google.com/view/inconex... Applications due: 2 May 2025 Full ad: sites.google.com/view/inconex... #EUsky #poliscijobs #qualitativemethods

Gestern vor 22 Jahren haben Rechte in Frankfurt (Oder) Enrico Schreiber ermordet. todesopfer-rechter-gewalt-in-brandenburg.de/enrico-schre... Auch jetzt, wo rechte Gewalt in Brandenburg wieder Höchstwerte erreicht ist es wichtig daran zu erinnern. www.opferperspektive.de/aktuelles/st...

Wonderful project, wonderful uni, wonderful opportunity! 👇👇

This is a fantastic postdoc opportunity, to work with a one of the top scholars of political behaviour in Europe. Go for it!

For everyone interested in working with computational tools, this is an amazing Postdoc position at the Political Science Department in Aarhus If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

📢 CALL FOR PAPERS 📢 "Moral Economies of the Polycrisis. Conflict, Critique, and Legitimation in Critical Times" Workshop, June 16-17 University of Hamburg Deadline for abstracts: 07/04 Supported by the Economic Sociology section of @dgsoziologie.bsky.social linuswestheuser.com/cfp-moral-ec...

Thanks to @twidmann.bsky.social for a wonderful collaboration - and go read his thread for the study's key take-aways: bsky.app/profile/twid...

‼️ No party is immune from the competitive pressures that polarization places on them to moralize: the language of right and wrong, good and evil is used by parties positioned at extreme ends as well as those in the middle of the ideological spectrum ⚡️⚡️⚡️ A key conclusion from our new study 👇🏼

Tomorrow, in the CIS Colloquium @ethzurich.bsky.social and @ipz.bsky.social I'll be presenting new work on the electoral potentials (and pitfalls) of using moral rhetoric for individual politicians 📣🗳️ Joint work with @twidmann.bsky.social Come if you're around!