Leonardo Carella
@leonardocarella.bsky.social
Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer, University of Vienna, Department of Government. Former minor twitter celebrity/hate figure. https://www.leonardocarella.com/
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
On December 31, 1995, Bill Watterson published the final 'Calvin & Hobbes' comic strip. #CalvinandHobbes
December 31, 2025 at 1:01 PM
On December 31, 1995, Bill Watterson published the final 'Calvin & Hobbes' comic strip. #CalvinandHobbes
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
"Did you see what Mark Cuban posted? Oh did you see the clapb—"
You shake yourself awake in the cold North Atlantic water. You are not online. It is July of 1858. You are a baleen whale, and you have changed your mind. The future most not come to pass. The telegraph cable must break.
You shake yourself awake in the cold North Atlantic water. You are not online. It is July of 1858. You are a baleen whale, and you have changed your mind. The future most not come to pass. The telegraph cable must break.
December 27, 2025 at 2:06 AM
"Did you see what Mark Cuban posted? Oh did you see the clapb—"
You shake yourself awake in the cold North Atlantic water. You are not online. It is July of 1858. You are a baleen whale, and you have changed your mind. The future most not come to pass. The telegraph cable must break.
You shake yourself awake in the cold North Atlantic water. You are not online. It is July of 1858. You are a baleen whale, and you have changed your mind. The future most not come to pass. The telegraph cable must break.
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
On 26 December 1965, Franca Viola, then aged 16, is kidnapped from her home in Alcamo. She is raped by her ex-fiancé, who then puts pressure on her and her family to accept a "rehabilitating marriage". Franca becomes the first woman in Italy to publicly refuse this practice [Thread] >> 1
December 26, 2024 at 4:23 PM
On 26 December 1965, Franca Viola, then aged 16, is kidnapped from her home in Alcamo. She is raped by her ex-fiancé, who then puts pressure on her and her family to accept a "rehabilitating marriage". Franca becomes the first woman in Italy to publicly refuse this practice [Thread] >> 1
The success of the future Democratic administration (provided there is going to be one) is to be measured in years. Cumulative jailtime years for members and associates of the current administration. Anything less than a four-figure number is a Merrick Garland-sized failure.
December 26, 2025 at 4:28 PM
The success of the future Democratic administration (provided there is going to be one) is to be measured in years. Cumulative jailtime years for members and associates of the current administration. Anything less than a four-figure number is a Merrick Garland-sized failure.
Merry Christmas. 🎄 youtube.com/shorts/HcYwE...
December 25, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Merry Christmas. 🎄 youtube.com/shorts/HcYwE...
The UAE is an accomplice of crimes against humanity, possibly amounting to genocide, in Sudan. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/o...
December 25, 2025 at 8:01 AM
The UAE is an accomplice of crimes against humanity, possibly amounting to genocide, in Sudan. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/o...
Trump is destroying democracy abroad too. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/w...
December 25, 2025 at 7:40 AM
Trump is destroying democracy abroad too. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/24/w...
The Starmer government rejects the false choices and cynicism of zero-sum politics. They have discovered negative-sum politics. Make some people permanently mad as hell for no ultimate gain for anyone else.
Inheritance tax for farmers to kick in at £2.5m, not £1m as planned, in government U-turn to help farming community - www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
December 24, 2025 at 12:26 PM
The Starmer government rejects the false choices and cynicism of zero-sum politics. They have discovered negative-sum politics. Make some people permanently mad as hell for no ultimate gain for anyone else.
You may get the EU to stand up to Putin. You may even get the EU to stand up to Trump. But you will never get the EU to stand up to farmers.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU leaders at their summit today that the Mercosur trade won't be signed as scheduled on Saturday and instead would wait until next month, two EU diplomats told POLITICO.
Mercosur signing delayed until January, von der Leyen tells leaders
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni requested postponement of the signature to reassure farmers.
www.politico.eu
December 18, 2025 at 8:22 PM
You may get the EU to stand up to Putin. You may even get the EU to stand up to Trump. But you will never get the EU to stand up to farmers.
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
NEW: Labour just announced the biggest change in planning policy in 80 years.
My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed.
www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...
My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed.
www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...
Labour are finally taking the housing shortage seriously
Is the new National Planning Policy Framework Labour’s biggest pro-growth move?
www.samdumitriu.com
December 17, 2025 at 11:49 AM
NEW: Labour just announced the biggest change in planning policy in 80 years.
My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed.
www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...
My breakdown of the key measures and whether they will succeed.
www.samdumitriu.com/p/labour-are...
Virtually every other email on academic mailing lists these days: How do you integrate the endless possibilities of AI in your research workflow?
Me:
Me:
December 14, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Virtually every other email on academic mailing lists these days: How do you integrate the endless possibilities of AI in your research workflow?
Me:
Me:
In practice, US institutions work more like pre-modern republics with multi-tier indirect elections than modern democracies. Effectively, the ruling body is a Council of Nine selected from members of a professional guild by a Grand Doge elected by state-level magistrate slates chosen by voters.
December 13, 2025 at 12:28 PM
In practice, US institutions work more like pre-modern republics with multi-tier indirect elections than modern democracies. Effectively, the ruling body is a Council of Nine selected from members of a professional guild by a Grand Doge elected by state-level magistrate slates chosen by voters.
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
An early Christmas gift from @demresjournal.bsky.social: new publication with @cantonwiner.bsky.social and Milan Kovačič on sexuality using dating app data. A great example of how social scientists and industry can collaborate to produce global, inclusive research.
A global study of 913k Zoe users shows lesbian (48%) and bisexual (40%) identities dominate worldwide, while younger generations show rising diversity, with 6.6% pansexual, 3.4% queer, and 0.7% asexual. Sexuality is evolving globally.
www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...
www.demographic-research.org/articles/vol...
December 12, 2025 at 9:28 AM
An early Christmas gift from @demresjournal.bsky.social: new publication with @cantonwiner.bsky.social and Milan Kovačič on sexuality using dating app data. A great example of how social scientists and industry can collaborate to produce global, inclusive research.
Italy's entire foreign policy is geared towards making ketchup on pasta an actual crime against humanity. www.ansa.it/english/news...
Italian cuisine wins UNESCO World Heritage status - Food & Wine - Ansa.it
Italian cuisine was added to UNESCO's 'Intangible Cultural Heritage' lists at a meeting of the UN agency's Intergovernmental Committee in New Delhi on Wednesday. (ANSA)
www.ansa.it
December 10, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Italy's entire foreign policy is geared towards making ketchup on pasta an actual crime against humanity. www.ansa.it/english/news...
Use of mental health medications in the population of Swedish PhD students is 40% higher than a matched sample by the fifth PhD year.
Be kind to PhD students. Don't take up PhD students you can't invest in. Alert prospective students of the reality of a PhD.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Be kind to PhD students. Don't take up PhD students you can't invest in. Alert prospective students of the reality of a PhD.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
December 6, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Use of mental health medications in the population of Swedish PhD students is 40% higher than a matched sample by the fifth PhD year.
Be kind to PhD students. Don't take up PhD students you can't invest in. Alert prospective students of the reality of a PhD.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Be kind to PhD students. Don't take up PhD students you can't invest in. Alert prospective students of the reality of a PhD.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Going through my data cleaning replication files is an emotional journey.
December 5, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Going through my data cleaning replication files is an emotional journey.
Rachel Reeves energy
December 4, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Rachel Reeves energy
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
Man, the Bluesky Wrapped 2025 is pretty brutal
December 3, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Man, the Bluesky Wrapped 2025 is pretty brutal
When I was at an Oxford college whose library for some reason has a copy of Reeves’ BA thesis, I was separately approached by two different people asking for help to get hold of it. The obsession with taking down her intellectual credentials is revealing - and absolutely mental.
This is the point where the anti-Reeves stories tip into madness. Criticise her performance all you like but what the hell is this?
December 3, 2025 at 12:34 PM
When I was at an Oxford college whose library for some reason has a copy of Reeves’ BA thesis, I was separately approached by two different people asking for help to get hold of it. The obsession with taking down her intellectual credentials is revealing - and absolutely mental.
I had the same conversation with a colleague yesterday. It seems to me that students who started university well post-covid have adjusted to significantly better standards of attendance, participation, engagement than 2-3 years ago. AI is a problem but not as much as covid disruption was.
Definitely. I can't generalise beyond KCL, but my classes are incredibly engaged this year. I'm getting asked so many questions on the material. Lesson plans have gone out of the window as the classes carry themselves. Chatting with my office-mate, he was saying it's the same with first year UGs
November 29, 2025 at 1:04 PM
I had the same conversation with a colleague yesterday. It seems to me that students who started university well post-covid have adjusted to significantly better standards of attendance, participation, engagement than 2-3 years ago. AI is a problem but not as much as covid disruption was.
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
🚨 Job Alert! Postdoc in POLITICAL TEXT ANALYSIS in the MULTIREP project
You do quant text analysis? You are interested in political representation? Enjoy working in teams? Would like to live in a great city? Consider joining us in Vienna!
⏱️ Apply by 15/12/2025
wratil.eu/files/MULTIR...
1/4 🧵
You do quant text analysis? You are interested in political representation? Enjoy working in teams? Would like to live in a great city? Consider joining us in Vienna!
⏱️ Apply by 15/12/2025
wratil.eu/files/MULTIR...
1/4 🧵
November 10, 2025 at 6:50 AM
🚨 Job Alert! Postdoc in POLITICAL TEXT ANALYSIS in the MULTIREP project
You do quant text analysis? You are interested in political representation? Enjoy working in teams? Would like to live in a great city? Consider joining us in Vienna!
⏱️ Apply by 15/12/2025
wratil.eu/files/MULTIR...
1/4 🧵
You do quant text analysis? You are interested in political representation? Enjoy working in teams? Would like to live in a great city? Consider joining us in Vienna!
⏱️ Apply by 15/12/2025
wratil.eu/files/MULTIR...
1/4 🧵
Arguably, the last deliverable* manifesto from a major party was Theresa May's in 2017, and was monstered by the media for it.
*Ok, it still had the "tens of thousands" pledge on migration, but immigration promises have long been divorced from reality.
*Ok, it still had the "tens of thousands" pledge on migration, but immigration promises have long been divorced from reality.
The fact that in both 2019 and 2024, the winning party did so with a set of manifesto promises that could not be kept and dissolved upon contact with actual office is something that as an industry we should be much more bothered by than we are.
November 23, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Arguably, the last deliverable* manifesto from a major party was Theresa May's in 2017, and was monstered by the media for it.
*Ok, it still had the "tens of thousands" pledge on migration, but immigration promises have long been divorced from reality.
*Ok, it still had the "tens of thousands" pledge on migration, but immigration promises have long been divorced from reality.
POV: you're teaching political science but the internet has turned your brain to mush.
November 23, 2025 at 8:50 AM
POV: you're teaching political science but the internet has turned your brain to mush.
Reposted by Leonardo Carella
Do policy preferences of voters and non-voters differ in European democracies?
My new article in @ejprjournal.bsky.social finds: Yes, sometimes, but this is not the norm.
Let's break it down. 🧵 1/10
My new article in @ejprjournal.bsky.social finds: Yes, sometimes, but this is not the norm.
Let's break it down. 🧵 1/10
November 19, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Do policy preferences of voters and non-voters differ in European democracies?
My new article in @ejprjournal.bsky.social finds: Yes, sometimes, but this is not the norm.
Let's break it down. 🧵 1/10
My new article in @ejprjournal.bsky.social finds: Yes, sometimes, but this is not the norm.
Let's break it down. 🧵 1/10