Joost van Spanje
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joostvanspanje.bsky.social
Joost van Spanje
@joostvanspanje.bsky.social

Professor of Political Science, RH University of London

elections | new parties | cordons sanitaires | hate speech | militant democracy | political communication

Bitcoin and politics, media & public opinion

ERC Consolidator Grant | NWO Veni & Vidi .. more

Political science 64%
Sociology 12%
Pinned
The Green Deal is incomplete.

The analogy is the US New Deal.

But that deal addressed economic worries that everyone shared.

Today's EU sees the higher educated worry about climate change while others worry about immigration.

The deal addresses only the former.

We need a Green-Immigration Deal.

Vandaag in @volkskrant.nl, een interessant interview met voormalig directeur @leefomgeving.bsky.social Klaas van Egmond.

Ouch!

The D66 communications crowd are having a bad day.

Today in Dutch newspaper @volkskrant.nl:

"D66 the PM, VVD the policies
(..)
Comparing the government coalition agreement with each of the three party manifestoes leads to the conclusion:
the VVD receives a lot while D66 gets just a little".
Great @theguardian.com piece by @catherinedevries.bsky.social:

"attention itself has become a strategic battlefield of int'l politics.
Attention wars aren't won by reacting faster.
They're won by deciding what deserves focus.
Europe (..) needs to outplan" Trump.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump wants our attention. Let’s stop falling for his geopolitical clickbait | Catherine De Vries
Whether he’s targeting Greenland, tariffs or Iran, Trump’s agenda is to distract – because a Europe that is always reacting is never planning, says political scientist Catherine De Vries
www.theguardian.com

Vandaag in @volkskrant.nl:

"Cijfers over hoeveel Nederlanders (..) direct cryptomunten in bezit hebben zijn beperkt beschikbaar."

Die heb ik, sinds 2020, en daarbij antwoorden op vragen omtrent percepties, houdingen, (beleids)voorkeuren, prijsverwachtingen en koopintentie.

Plus vragen over CBDCs.

Sinds 2020 stelde ik elke paar maanden telkens >1.000 Nederlanders (en Britten) een fors aantal vragen.

O.a. naar de rol van criminaliteit, volatiliteit en verwachtingen.

Ondanks aanwijzingen voor het tegendeel is de wijdverbreide perceptie dat Bitcoin er vooral is voor criminelen en terroristen.

Hoeveel Nederlanders hebben cryptovaluta?

Wat vinden we van Bitcoin, andere crypto, en CBDCs?

Moet Bitcoin worden verboden?

Wat zijn de verwachtingen van Nederlanders?

Hoeveel is Bitcoin in het nieuws, hoe negatief, en met welke insteek wordt erover bericht?

Voor data hierover, vraag me gerust.

De dag die je wist dat zou komen:

De dag dat een Nederlandse bank "beleggen in cryptovaluta" zou gaan aanbieden.

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

Gênant verhaal dit nieuws.ing.nl/nl-NL/259818...
nieuws.ing.nl

Today in Dutch newspaper @parool.nl:

2% of working people in the Netherlands live in poverty.

Half of these 175,000 working poor live well below the poverty line.

Even for people with average salaries, it can be difficult to make ends meet.

And, it is often impossible to find affordable housing.

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

Smallbones died in 1976. He seems never to have talked about what he did. I suspect like others he felt guilt at not saving more.

The British Government acknowledged the existence of the Smallbones Scheme in 2008.

He was posthumously awarded the medal of a British Hero of the Holocaust in 2013 /22

Today in Dutch newspaper @volkskrant.nl:

Impeached South Korean President Yoon Sok Yeol sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.

This is the first of several court cases surrounding his 2024 coup attempt.

Just as, for instance, Jair Bolsonaro's plans in Brazil, this coup attempt will not go unpunished.
Portugal is having a presidential election tomorrow (Sunday).

It is a fairly unusual one, which is representative of how much the political landscape has changed in the country.

Here is some quick context about it, in case that is of interest:

1/9

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

Miku Matsunaga & @joostvanspanje.bsky.social : The stigma on right-wing parties: perceptions and voting behaviour 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

⏰ Last chance to apply to this postdoc in the LSE Government Department today 👇

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

Kennelijk vroeg ik vijf jaar geleden aan @sldelange.bsky.social en @joostvanspanje.bsky.social wat de voor- en nadelen van een minderheidskabinet zijn.

Hun antwoorden van toen zijn nog steeds relevant:

www.nu.nl/formatie-202...
Dit zijn de voor- en nadelen van een minderheidskabinet volgens de experts
Een kabinet van partijen met een meerderheid in de Tweede Kamer lijkt na de bezwaren van VVD en CDA tegen PvdA én GroenLinks niet langer haalbaar. Daarom wordt er in Den Haag hardop nagedacht over een...
www.nu.nl
PLEASE SHARE

📣 Multi-position (PhD and postdoc) call for an interdisciplinary project on "AI in the News Ecosystem: Navigating Trust and Authenticity”

Project @ddc-sdu.bsky.social (Digital Democracy Centre (SDU)).

Multiple positions with different backgrounds and profiles.

Links in🧵

#commsky

"the closest precedent for dealing with Venezuelan debt is the savage (..) diktat that resulted in Iraq's creditors getting roughly 10 cents on the dollar"

Like Venezuela, Iraq had immense resources, experienced collapse and could have satisfied its debt
- but only at the cost of delaying recovery.

Great piece by @emmarjanssen.bsky.social:

"insiders shouldn’t get rich off of policy decisions—but even more concerning is the possibility that people are skewing policy outcomes to make their bets pay off
(..)
Donald Trump Jr., adviser to Kalshi & Polymarket, has invested millions into Polymarket"
A whale went on Polymarket a few days ago & earned $400,000 correctly predicting Maduro's capture.
@emmarjanssen.bsky.social had already been studying how easy it would be for White House officials to use prediction markets to self-enrich based on their own policy decisions.
This is a great report.
Monetizing Regime Change - The American Prospect
It is trivially easy for administration officials to use prediction markets to bet on the policies they authorize. We may have just seen it in Venezuela.
prospect.org

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

A whale went on Polymarket a few days ago & earned $400,000 correctly predicting Maduro's capture.
@emmarjanssen.bsky.social had already been studying how easy it would be for White House officials to use prediction markets to self-enrich based on their own policy decisions.
This is a great report.
Monetizing Regime Change - The American Prospect
It is trivially easy for administration officials to use prediction markets to bet on the policies they authorize. We may have just seen it in Venezuela.
prospect.org

Great point.

Nor is there any reason to believe the US government is interested in bringing democracy or in anything else but US elite interests.

Just as for previous governments during previous involvement in Latin America, authoritarianism will typically do, as long as it serves these interests.

You may have a rough day, but imagine winning the Nobel Peace Prize, then dedicating that award to a U.S. President who had already illegally bombed countries, and even lauding his illegal bombing of your own country, only to get trashed by him before an audience of millions worldwide that same day.

Een afrekening in het criminele circuit. Gaan we nog vaker zien dit jaar, vrees ik.

Vlotjes geschreven, vaak leerzaam, altijd interessant:

het boek met de geweldige titel "Het kon minder: De lessen van Johan Remkes" door Thijs Broer en Peter Kee (2025).

Vele dossiers waar Remkes zich sinds de jaren zeventig, gevraagd of (soms) ongevraagd, tegenaan heeft bemoeid passeren de revue.

De EO brengt The Lobster in de praktijk.

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

Herhaalde oproep. Juist in deze tijd is het belangrijk een kritische, diepgravende, doorvragende en uitleggende publicatie te steunen. Follow the Money is dat.
Word lid! Ze zijn bijna bij de 50.000!
www.ftm.nl/word-lid

Yesterday in Dutch newspaper @volkskrant.nl:

"The world's 25 richest families have gained another $358.7 billion this year, thanks in part to their oil and gas reserves.
(..)
ultra-rich burden the environment many times more than others
(..)
role of inheritances is becoming increasingly important".

Reposted by Joost van Spanje

🫨How do voters respond to economic shocks from abroad?

➡️ @costinciobanu.bsky.social & @joostvanspanje.bsky.social show that after the 2008 Lehman collapse, economic satisfaction fell but voters rallied behind incumbents in several European countries www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView
Happy to see my article with @joostvanspanje.bsky.social on the short-term political consequences of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy announcement published in @psrm.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

Today in Dutch newspaper @volkskrant.nl:

The European Commission wants to get rid of the 2035 ban on combustion engine cars.

Ignoring concerns among tens of millions citizens, the EC keeps protecting the bankrupt business model of the dirty part of the car industry despite its failures & scandals.
🚨We're #hiring!

We're looking for a #Research #Fellow to join our team. The successful candidate will be part of the research project "Political #Finance in #Africa" led by Associate Professor @sarahbrierley.bsky.social for 2 years.

🗓️Apply by Monday 12 January 👇🏽

jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...
Research Fellow (Political Finance in Africa (POLFINA))
Research Fellow (Political Finance in Africa (POLFINA)), , <p style="background: white; margin: 0cm; text-align: center;"><em><span style="color: #333333;">LSE is committed to building a diverse, equi...
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