Max Heermann
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maxheermann.bsky.social
Max Heermann
@maxheermann.bsky.social
Political Scientist at ETH Zürich. Previously University of Konstanz.

Digital policy, European integration, International solidarity.
Pinned
📣 Happy to announce the publication of our article (w @sharonbaute.bsky.social & @leuffen.bsky.social) on democratic backsliding and public opinion @jeppjournal.bsky.social!

📌https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2025.2503973

Study funded by @excinequality.bsky.social
Reposted by Max Heermann
🚨 New article out in @jeppjournal.bsky.social with @svenhegewald.bsky.social

“The changing geography of support for European integration in the shadow of the Ukraine war."

How did Russia’s invasion reshape public support for EU policies?

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
October 21, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Tariffs might be the word of 2025.

Given the state of *looks around* we asked: is there demand for tariffs in Europe?

@grahn.bsky.social @katharinalawall.bsky.social @sophiemainz.bsky.social Maria Nordbrandt & I show the answer is a resolute no
@jeppjournal.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1080/1350...
A game of tariffs: is there demand for tariffs in Europe?
In April 2025, the United States introduced sweeping tariffs on imports from the European Union and the United Kingdom, raising transatlantic tensions and prompting debate over Europe’s response. T...
doi.org
October 13, 2025 at 8:01 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Out now in Competition & Change
@compchange.bsky.social

“Dependent development in digital
capitalism: The politics of startup
policies in the new periphery”

@journals.sagepub.com
#polisky
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

1/n
October 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Reposted by Max Heermann
🇪🇺🇨🇭For a long time, most voters in Switzerland hardly cared about the country’s relationship with the EU.

Now, in the wake of Trump’s 39% tariff bombshell, it has surged to become the 3rd most important issue for voters!

Healthcare costs remain top concern

Just revealed by @leewas.bsky.social
𝗚𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗵𝗲𝗶𝘁𝘀𝗸𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻 – 𝗱𝗮𝘀 𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝗔𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗿ä𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀𝘁𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗮𝘀 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗵ä𝗹𝘁𝗻𝗶𝘀 𝘇𝘂𝗿 𝗘𝗨 𝗻𝗲𝘂 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗧𝗼𝗽3: Das und vieles mehr zeigt die neue @20min.ch -/Tamedia-Wahlumfrage von @leewas.bsky.social

cc @lucasleemann.bsky.social
October 2, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Residential mobility also matters: Urbanites who grew up in rural areas but later moved to cities are less polarised. Divided loyalties dampen affective divides — helping explain why ruralites are consistently more polarised than urbanites. 5/7
October 1, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Missed it over the summer? For those interested in legislative behavior, multinational societies or Imperial Austria:
Check out our (not so new) article in @lsqjournal.bsky.social. Thrilled to have written this with my two amazing co-authors Phil Howe & Christina Zuber.
doi.org/10.1111/lsq.70029
September 30, 2025 at 4:17 PM
It was a great keynote indeed in an amazing venue last week at #sisp in bella Napoli.
"science fictional visions of the earth being devoured by machine intelligences and transformed into paperclips are not nearly weird enough to capture what is happening all around us, right now." www.programmablemutter.com/p/understand...
September 12, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Max Heermann
We already had a fifth freedom, the Freedom of Movement of Non Personal Data. What, you hadn’t heard?
September 10, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Reposted by Max Heermann
As if the whole academic publishing business wasn't squeezing authors (and taxpayers) enough.
Journal publishers *are* bundling your papers up in "data licensing agreements" for big tech companies to use for AI model training. Our publisher, T&F, got £75m from Microsoft for that last year alone.
September 7, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
This has important implications:

1) Creating a common front (or, "firewall" / "cordon sanitaire") against a radical right challenger requires a mainstream-party consensus. Once one party leaves this broad coalition, the effects of elite messaging weaken significantly.
September 3, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Interesting speech by European Council president Costa at the Bled Forum today

Confirms security / Ukraine aspect of EU US deal that VDL pushed back strongly against. Clear break here
September 1, 2025 at 12:39 PM
"The Brussels effect began to sputter. Now, the world that it was crafted for is to all intents and purposes dead." @abenewman.bsky.social
1/New in @financialtimes.com w/ @himself.bsky.social on the Brussels Defect. Europe's longstanding path to power -- market regulation -- now a source of vulnerabilities. Europe's national security and democracy are at risk. Defection might be the only escape.

www.ft.com/content/5820...
Europe urgently needs a remedy for the ‘Brussels defect’
The EU must stop thinking it can turn thorny political controversies into solvable technical issues
www.ft.com
August 25, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Thrilled to share this 16-country conjoint experiment with @catherinedevries.bsky.social & @simonhix.bsky.social. We find strong support for majoritarian reforms and tougher legal enforcement, even when paired with policies people dislike. Policy-inelastic institutional preferences exist! A 🧵...
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journals.sagepub.com
August 22, 2025 at 7:33 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
www.bostonreview.net/articles/hen... "Yet the door to Joe’s apartment—which argues with him and refuses to open because he has not paid it the obligatory tip—sounds ominously plausible. Someone, somewhere, is pitching this as a viable business plan to Y Combinator"
August 19, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by Max Heermann
The 2024 CHES included for the first time questions to measure positions on executive constraints & judicial independence, key features of horizontal accountability. Here, the rad right party family stands out as much less likely to support constraints on executives & judicial independence 4/
August 14, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
I detect confusion between a Trumpian trade “deal” and a real trade agreement. A Trumpian deal is based on the assumption that governments can simply tell companies what transactions they will do, whether in trade or investment. Most governments cannot do that. 1/
August 5, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Important takeaway for the next round of this: by itself, COM isn’t equipped to manage the domestic politics of this, it needs stronger backing from capitals. Convenient for member states to hide behind it and then blame it for the outcome (sometimes more than they blame the US I feel).
I agree, but COM was also caught between a rock and a hard place: I am not sure member state governments, and in particular the one in Berlin, would have had the polical stamina for a full-scale trade war. And of course they would have blamed the COM for all the collateral damage it would have had.
I think European leaders - both national and in the EU - are underestimating what it will do to their publics to be humilated by Trump.

Like the NATO summit and Rutte's 'Daddy' strategy, mabye the outcome could have been worse. But losing pride and being humilated is also a price that is paid.
July 28, 2025 at 10:28 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Even in his last days Joe Nye worked to make the world a safer place. Powerful podcast w/Bob Keohane on their work, friendship and the risks of the Trump presidency for US national interest.
www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/jos...
Joseph Nye and the End of the American Century
A Conversation With Robert Keohane
www.foreignaffairs.com
July 27, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
🚨 New piece for @ecpr.bsky.social's @ecprtheloop.bsky.social@maxheermann.bsky.social & I map trips of world leaders using @josefkorbelschool.bsky.social's COLT of over 78K+ foreign trips by heads of state and gov from 1990-2023.
Reference: bsky.app/profile/jose...
July 23, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Despite being a self-declared purist, at #IPSA2025 I learned to appreciate iced coffee more than ever.

If you're summer is also too hot (to immerse yourself in academic papers), I'm happy to offer two new short pieces perfectly timed for consuming with a cool coffee variant of your choice.
July 22, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Max Heermann
🌐 World leaders' first foreign trips reveal more than diplomatic protocol - they are carefully crafted political stories.
✈️ @meraymaddah.bsky.social and @maxheermann.bsky.social analyse inaugural diplomatic journeys to uncover stability and change in global networks
👇 bit.ly/4lY2FHQ
World leaders use their first foreign trips to signal political priorities
World leaders' first foreign trips reveal more than diplomatic protocol. They are carefully crafted political stories. Meray Maddah and Max Heermann analyse inaugural diplomatic journeys to uncover st...
bit.ly
July 21, 2025 at 8:03 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
A new paper in The Lancet, one of the world’s foremost peer reviewed medical journals, estimates that USAID prevented 91 million deaths across 133 countries over 20 years.

The paper estimates that Elon Musk’s DOGE funding cuts to USAID will lead to 14 million deaths by 2030 (4.5 million children).
Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis
USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the a...
www.thelancet.com
July 1, 2025 at 10:43 AM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Introducing #EPSS - the European Political Science Society and non-Profit alternative to #EPSA!
🚨 Big News for European Political Science 🚨

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the European Political Science Society (EPSS): a new, member-led, not-for-profit association built to support our scholarly community.

🔗 epssnet.org

Here’s a thread with everything you need to know.

🧵
June 26, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Max Heermann
Out now🎉 - Evidence (from distribution analyses and machine learning models on EES 2014-2024 data) of strong similarities and growing convergence in EU public opinion, particularly on economic issues. Common right-ward shifts on immigration, yes - but underlying drivers still vary. shorturl.at/KCx0S
June 20, 2025 at 2:04 PM