Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
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Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
@trymnf.com
140 followers 310 following 9 posts
political science postdoc, University of Oslo.
trymnf.com
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mauricestierl.bsky.social
Wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian: "Since migration has become the cornerstone of the current authoritarian turn, it is precisely around migration that resistance needs to form."
www.theguardian.com/world/commen...
Ten years of fortress Europe has served only cruelty, profiteers and racists. The next decade is up to us | Maurice Stierl
The hard right and far right are the political winners from the migration ‘crisis’, but only because centrist parties keep legitimising them, says migration and border researcher Maurice Stierl
www.theguardian.com
December 18, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
parkermolloy.com
They updated the website today to remove the word "independent"

Before (left), after (right)
The FCC's Mission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations. The FCC's Mission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. A U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.
December 17, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
trymnf.com
My paper "Technical Legitimacy" has just been accepted for publication in @polstudies.bsky.social. A preprint available here for those who just can't wait for the typeset version: www.trymnf.com/files/papers...
Abstract: In studies of non-majoritarian institutions, there is a widespread idea that political neutrality, epistemic authority, and technical expertise are sources of legitimacy. Empirical studies tend to find that such appeals are effective sources of legitimacy, but theorists are overwhelmingly skeptical of their normative appeal. This paper’s conceptual ambition is to unify the disparate debates under the term technical legitimacy. The paper’s theoretical ambition is to improve on the normative debate on technical legitimacy. Existing defenses fail to robustly satisfy the reasons that ground delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. I propose conditions for accepting technical legitimacy that are reasonably robust against counterfactuals. Technical legitimacy must meet three criteria. Institutions must promote a functionally specified common good; build on sound and undistorted expertise; and, perhaps counterintuitively, contain appropriate venues for value input.
December 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM
trymnf.com
My paper "Technical Legitimacy" has just been accepted for publication in @polstudies.bsky.social. A preprint available here for those who just can't wait for the typeset version: www.trymnf.com/files/papers...
Abstract: In studies of non-majoritarian institutions, there is a widespread idea that political neutrality, epistemic authority, and technical expertise are sources of legitimacy. Empirical studies tend to find that such appeals are effective sources of legitimacy, but theorists are overwhelmingly skeptical of their normative appeal. This paper’s conceptual ambition is to unify the disparate debates under the term technical legitimacy. The paper’s theoretical ambition is to improve on the normative debate on technical legitimacy. Existing defenses fail to robustly satisfy the reasons that ground delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. I propose conditions for accepting technical legitimacy that are reasonably robust against counterfactuals. Technical legitimacy must meet three criteria. Institutions must promote a functionally specified common good; build on sound and undistorted expertise; and, perhaps counterintuitively, contain appropriate venues for value input.
December 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
kjephd.bsky.social
Rachel Carson, in giving advice to a high schooler who was going to debate Silent Spring, showed a better awareness than many contemporary Democrats of how an opponent will ascribe positions to you that you do not espouse in bad faith to win over a public too inattentive to check for themselves.
One thing that fascinates me is this: Has “the thesis of Rachel Carson” been defined with precision as a preliminary to the debate? If it has not, you will probably find that you and your opponent are talking about entirely different things. I say this because a great many people who are talking about the book have not read it; they are arguing, not about what I have said, but about what the pesticide industry wants people to believe I said. Therefore, if you find your opponent saying my “thesis” is to abandon controls and “let nature take over,” I hope you will bring him back to reality by quoting from my concluding chapter.
November 24, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
ulriken1.bsky.social
Ok, her har vi jo en ny KI-skandale. Og den innbefatter jo attpåtil Riksrevisjonen. De har gått helt god for et notat fra Menon (av alle steder) om at KI vil effektivisere staten med 155 000 årsverk. Hvordan Menon har kommet frem til tallet? Ved å spørre Chat GPT. www.scup.com/doi/10.18261...
October 16, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
kjephd.bsky.social
I'm gonna try to articulate something I've been thinking about for a while, regarding *why* disillusionment, distrust, & dissatisfaction with democracy are rising.

Almost everything I read takes this phenomenon as an exogenous shock, assuming no one chose to make it so. I suspect that's incomplete.
October 15, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
elsakugelberg.bsky.social
Hallvard is in @ethicsjournal.bsky.social !!! Feasibility, Sandven argues, is superfluous or moralised in normative discourse 🤔🤔 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
September 26, 2025 at 8:27 AM
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olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."

me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
How Can We Live Together? - Boston Review
Ezra Klein is wrong: shame is essential.
www.bostonreview.net
September 23, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
asheeshksi.bsky.social
when the interview goes well: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...
Screenshot from New Yorker interview by Isaac Chotiner with Cass Sunstein
September 23, 2025 at 4:13 PM
trymnf.com
Two new publications today, both in Publius: The Journal of Federalism.

🏗️ Why Do Americans Not Care about Interstate Barriers in Construction? doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaf027

🍸 Federal Spirits: Single Markets and the Case of Spirits Drinks doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaf033
American Services in European Perspective: Why Do Americans Not Care about Interstate Barriers in Construction?
Abstract. The European Union identifies the sector of construction services as a priority for its agenda to remove barriers to cross-border activity. Takin
doi.org
September 22, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
eclipticevader7.bsky.social
Still not as bad as Microsoft Teams
thehistoryguy.bsky.social Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · Jul 26
Today in 1184 Henry VI of Germany was having a strategy meeting when the wooden second storey floor collapsed. Most of the courtiers fell through into the latrine cesspit below the ground floor, where more than 50 drowned in liquid excrement.
July 26, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
europeelects.bsky.social
Serbia, Sprint Insight poll:

Scenario: joint government vs. student list

Student list-*: 55%
SNS/SPS+-EPP: 42%

Fieldwork: 23 June - 05 July 2025
Sample size: 1458

➤ europeelects.eu/serbia
July 17, 2025 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
proufos.bsky.social
This should be deeply embedded into everyone’s understanding: the pursuit of EU migration policy and the equivalent law-enforcement & surveillance agencies consistently violate the EU’s own laws. wearesolomon.com/mag/format/i...
Frontex unlawfully shared thousands of people's personal data with Europol
Under the banner of fighting migrant smuggling, Frontex has collected, and unlawfully siphoned to Europol, personal data for years—quietly drawing thousands of migrants, as well as EU citizens aiding ...
wearesolomon.com
July 8, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
benbraun.bsky.social
🚨New article🚨 The consensus is that contestation pushed central banks to talk 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 about inequality & climate.

Our theory: At first, CBs seek to ward off politicization by talking 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 about controversial topics.

We tested this 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬.🧵
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Screenshot of the title page of linked article: "Noisy Politics, Quiet Technocrats: Strategic Silence by Central Banks" By Benjamin Braun and Maximilian Düsterhöft
July 1, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
tobyvogel.bsky.social
...endorsement of Putin's imperial war of conquest in Ukraine.

Vučić, the autocratic leader of an EU candidate country, is siding with the EU's geopolitical adversary. This is a pretty black and white affair: the EU has to react with meaningful measures, beyond mere statements.
Picture showing Vučić in front of the Kremlin
May 8, 2025 at 5:43 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
tobyvogel.bsky.social
Aleksandar Vučić, treated by the EU as its closest ally in the Balkans, has arrived in Moscow to attend Putin's spectacle tomorrow, defying very clear warnings by EU leaders. Slovakia's Robert Fico is also expected to attend.

With their presence, these leaders signal their endorsement of...
Front page of the "Politika" daily showing Vučić arriving in Moscow
May 8, 2025 at 5:41 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
jowolff.bsky.social
A footnote from David Miller, expressing highly recognisable reservations about the rise of the journal article.
Naturally this has implications for the way in which a political philosopher should communicate his ideas. One of the unwelcome side effects of turning political philosophy into an academic discipline has been the rise of the journal article as the preferred means of expression. Everything about it is forbidding to the lay reader. It has a formal structure that seems designed to reassure her that there will be no surprising turns of argument. It lays out in advance the conclusion to which she will be marched. It plods dutifully through the large literature on the topic, as though to confirm that no original thought is going to be expressed. It is weighed down with footnotes—in the worst case almost every sentence has a Harvard-style reference at the end. Everything about it signals that it’s intended only for the initiated— those who’ve already mastered the fifty-five other articles it cites. In all these respects it contrasts with the essay as a form of writing designed to convey ideas to the reader in an enticing and imaginative way and with little use of formal apparatus. For several centuries before this one, the essay was the primary means of conveying political-philosophical ideas to what Hume in his essay on the subject called ‘the conversible World’. ( D. Hume, ‘Of Essay Writing’, in D. Hume, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, edited by E. Miller (Liberty Press, 1985).
April 25, 2025 at 12:48 PM
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nytpitchbot.bsky.social
Analysis | Trump is finally giving us the recession that Biden could never deliver.
April 7, 2025 at 12:36 PM
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polphilpod.bsky.social
Man, just LOOK at how everyone's reaction to Le Pen goes exactly in the quadrant my model says it would
April 1, 2025 at 12:38 PM
trymnf.com
Hør meg og @mariannedahl.bsky.social i Ekko om studentdemonstrasjoner og demokrati i Europa 📻

radio.nrk.no/serie/ekko/M...
Ekko - Ekko i P2 - NRK Radio
Bankane: Venn eller fiende? Dei tener stort medan vi slit. Vi ser på kvifor vi treng bankar og korleis dei eigentleg fungerar. Norsk plastoptimist i India Korleis kan ein bergensk ildsjel og ein indi...
radio.nrk.no
April 1, 2025 at 11:34 AM
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kjephd.bsky.social
Agree, with the exception that I have found republican worries about arbitrary power very helpful lately
andysabl.bsky.social Andrew Sabl @andysabl.bsky.social · Feb 12
Political theory has not prepared us well for this moment. Aspirational theories of social justice and deliberative/participatory democracy provide few resources for appreciating and defending an impartial civil service, the rule of law, independent prosecutors, and limits on executive power.
February 13, 2025 at 2:13 PM
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lastpositivist.bsky.social
In virtue of romantically engaged individuals having mixed their labour with the night,
February 10, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Reposted by Trym Nohr Fjørtoft
timothysnyder.bsky.social
Of course it’s a coup. Miss the obvious, lose your republic.
open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
Of course it’s a coup
Miss the obvious, lose your republic
open.substack.com
February 5, 2025 at 2:59 PM