Neil Robinson
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n-robinson.bsky.social
Neil Robinson
@n-robinson.bsky.social

“Ireland’s Most Unflappable Man of 2025”, Sunday Independent. Prof of comparative politics, University of Limerick, Ireland, interested in Russian and post-Soviet politics, hoping for an end to Putin and Putinism.

Political science 64%
Sociology 14%

You'd have to be an idiot to fail just like the old scientific communism tests

Deans and assistant deans wouldn't fit in the picture
A meme for the modern university...

Reposted by Neil Robinson

Russia plans to roll out an app to measure how strongly university students embrace “traditional values,” the Vedomosti business newspaper reported Tuesday, citing a government procurement notice.
Russia to Test Students’ ‘Traditional Values’ With New App - The Moscow Times
Russia plans to roll out an app to measure how strongly university students embrace “traditional values,” the Vedomosti business newspaper reported Tuesday, citing a government procurement notice.
www.themoscowtimes.com
A meme for the modern university...

Reposted by Neil Robinson

Ok let's talk a little about the infamous "statement". kremlin.ru/events/presi.... The most interesting bit is how Putin used the word "testing" to create a certain ambiguity around Russia's actions.
Заявление Президента Российской Федерации
kremlin.ru

Media complicity with Russian disinformation is shameful. Get the Russian viewpoint from Russian officials for reporting purposes so its nature is clear. Don't get it from 'independent' experts who are not independent. And Pekka Kallioniemi (@vatniksoup.bsky.social) can't catch them all. 7/

And he loves a label! He always uses his Royal Irish Academy and UCC affiliations, one more - vatnik - won't hurt. Are @ria.ie and @ucc.ie are happy with Kremlin funding? 6/

Can the Irish media now label him a 'foreign agent'? That's what Russia media would have to do to a Russian academic who'd taken money from the West. Roberts won't mind, such labelling results from a decision of Putin, and Putin, as Roberts has asserted several times, is a 'visionary'. 5/
Disruption: historians challenge Russophobic propaganda — Solidarity
British historian Geoffrey Roberts and other scholars push back against Western media’s vilification of Russia, calling for nuanced analysis of the Ukraine war. They challenge myths, expose biases, an...
www.solidarity.co.nz

Did he, like some other attendees get a jubilee medal "In Commemoration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Reunification of Crimea with Russia" from the head of the Parliament of the Republic of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov? 4/
В Крым к юбилею Ялтинской конференции приехали представители Франции, Чехии и Греции
В Ливадийском дворце 27-28 марта проходит международный научно-дипломатический конгресс
tass.ru

Was he comfortable listening to the greetings to the conference from one of its sponsors, Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign minister? 3/
mid.ru

The conference was sponsored by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Crimea, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia and the World Russian People's Council (the latter has called the war against Ukraine a 'holy war'). Did they pay for flights and accommodation? More? 2/
mgimo.ru

The next time @news.rte.ie @rteradio1.bsky.social @drivetime.bsky.social have Geoff Roberts on to spout the latest Kremlin line about Ukraine could they ask him who paid for his trip to the illegally annexed Crimea to attend a 'Congress to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Yalta Conference'? 1/

Comedy gold from Medvedev, the samogon must have been extra strong

About what I was expecting to be honest, MAGA nonsense and anyone who knows better keeping their heads down.

Doubt they noticed before they suggested it, or took advice.

Russia seems to have rejected it which will probably be good enough for Trump

50% tariff on APSA membership now!

Pleasure, well written and a good read, balanced and learned. I will be pleased of my students read it.

Good job @bdtaylor-su.bsky.social, very well presented digest of Russian politics

Reposted by Neil Robinson

Reposted by Neil Robinson

How can liberal #democracies respond to the rise of right-wing #populism?

Politicizing Political Liberalism: On the Containment of Illiberal and Antidemocratic Views by Gabriele Badano & @alasianuti.bsky.social (Oxford Academic) reviewed by @andrewshorten.bsky.social @politics-ul.bsky.social 👇
How liberal democracies can respond to the rise of right-wing populism
How should liberal democracies respond to the rise of right-wing populism? In this timely book, Politicizing Political Liberalism, Gabriele Badano and Alasia Nuti draw on and extend the influential…
blogs.lse.ac.uk

It was a bomb in our house

Richard Hofstadter is supposed to have once said ‘Other countries have ideologies, America is an ideology’. Perhaps a mobilised one after today.

I like to imagine that as Trump finished Xi picked up a phone, said ‘Release the next virus’ and then laughed maniacally.

Reposted by Neil Robinson

Never, ever buy a VanMoof bike. Overpriced, badly made, poor service provision (not the local service providers, the main company’s decisions cripple them).

Yeah, because of the electoral system and its encouragement of localism

Thank god

They should go and explain their reasoning on the frontline. I’ll chip in for the travel expenses.

At least these was some hope when the Greens backed up FF/FG. FF/FG backed up by gobshites (damn spell check, that should have read independents) less so. #GE24