Thomas Zeitzoff
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zeitzoff.bsky.social
Thomas Zeitzoff
@zeitzoff.bsky.social
9.5K followers 2.7K following 290 posts
Professor @au-spa.bsky.social

Pol Violence | Pol Psychology

New Book: “NO OPTION BUT SABOTAGE”

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/no-option-but-sabotage-9780197796849

1st Book: "Nasty Politics"

https://www.zeitzoff.com/book-project.html
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zeitzoff.bsky.social
Thomas Zeitzoff @zeitzoff.bsky.social · Jul 29
Thrilled to share the cover of my upcoming book, out February 2026 from @oxfordacademic.bsky.social

NO OPTION BUT SABOTAGE
The Radical Environmental Movement and the Climate Crisis

global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Cover image of my book. Orange cover with bold white font of the title, and a large wrench superimposed over a forest fire. No Option but Sabotage The Radical Environmental Movement and the Climate Crisis Thomas Zeitzoff Provides a unique perspective on one of the most important and salient issues facing the public: the threat of climate change and how activists are confronting it Features in-depths interviews with more than 100 past and current activists and experts Incorporates case studies of the radical environmental movement from origins of Earth First! to the ELF to ecofascism to present-day climate activists
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
cambup-polsci.cambridge.org
#OpenAccess from @psrm.bsky.social -

Red lines versus negotiables: how exposure to wartime violence influences support for peace settlements in Ukraine - https://cup.org/4qsk25R

- A.Getmansky, A.Grushetsky, N.Kostyuk, T. Sinmazdemir, @austinlw.bsky.social & @zeitzoff.bsky.social

#FirstView
Logo of Political Science Research and Methods featuring the initials "PSRM" in a stylized grey font on a black background.
December 30, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
busbyj2.bsky.social
Delighted to have consulted on this story. The Trump administration recognizes importance of batteries for drones & AI but is biased against EVs which is biggest source of demand for batteries. Can the US have a vibrant battery sector w/o robust production of EVs? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/c...
The Pentagon and A.I. Giants Have a Weakness. Both Need China’s Batteries, Badly.
www.nytimes.com
December 26, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
beamagistro.bsky.social
1/ 🚨 New paper ("Causal Beliefs and the Potential for Political Backlash Against AI") accepted at @poqjournal.bsky.social w/ @sborwein.bsky.social @rmichaelalvarez.bsky.social @bartbonikowski.bsky.social and Peter Loewen.
🧵👇
doi.org/10.31219/osf...
OSF
osf.io
December 18, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
I rarely post on Bluesky, but wanted to share the findings from a project I've been working on for a while.

🔗 Interactive results: annagetmansky.github.io/refugee-conj...

📖 Published in @isq-jrnl.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1093/isq/... (Additional paper recently accepted in @fpa-isa.bsky.social)
December 17, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
pbump.com
Change in employment since Trump took office, by sector. www.ms.now/opinion/trum...
December 17, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
gabelenz.bsky.social
New paper in PNAS: Your homicide risk follows you around the country. If you’re born in the historically violent Wild West, Appalachian Highlands, or Deep South, a higher risk of violent death trails you wherever you go. 🧵1/14
December 8, 2025 at 5:19 PM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
Chag sameach, happy Hanukkah, and peace
Chanukah m and m cookies Double menorahs showing the first light
December 14, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
janzilinsky.bsky.social
My latest for @goodauth.bsky.social goodauthority.org/news/what-we...
December 12, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
donmoyn.bsky.social
Would be a wild "Author Meets Critics" roundtable if they could pull it off
davidleheny.bsky.social David Leheny @davidleheny.bsky.social · 20d
But still eligible for a sales bump if it wins an APSA book prize
“American Canto” also failed to make the New York Times bestseller list and ranked No. 30 in the political science category last week, Circana reported, a surprisingly low rank for a book that was rolled out with excerpts and articles in some of the world’s most respected publications.
December 12, 2025 at 12:50 AM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
An unordered list of my favorite books I read this year.

Nonfiction:
December 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
jimgoldgeier.bsky.social
I don’t think Trump continuing to look weak by trying to give Putin what he wants does much for him politically. And how can Zelensky agree to give up territory currently under Ukrainian control? Trump’s Russia First policy is an utter disaster.
December 10, 2025 at 3:17 AM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
The current Trump pressure campaign against Ukraine to accept a pro-Russia peace deal is actually worse than it looks.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/w...
Zelensky Rejects Ceding Land as U.S. Seeks ‘Compromise’ on Russian Demand
www.nytimes.com
December 10, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
andrew.heiss.phd
Some closing thoughts for my students this semester on LLMs and learning #rstats datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-12...
Will you incorporate LLMs and AI prompting into the course in the future? No. Why won’t you incorporate LLMs and AI prompting into the course? These tools are useful for coding (see this for my personal take on this). However, they’re only useful if you know what you’re doing first. If you skip the learning-the-process-of-writing-code step and just copy/paste output from ChatGPT, you will not learn. You cannot learn. You cannot improve. You will not understand the code. In that post, it warns that you cannot use it as a beginner: …to use Databot effectively and safely, you still need the skills of a data scientist: background and domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, and coding ability. There is no LLM-based shortcut to those skills. You cannot LLM your way into domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, or coding ability. The only way to gain domain knowledge, data analysis expertise, and coding ability is to struggle. To get errors. To google those errors. To look over the documentation. To copy/paste your own code and adapt it for different purposes. To explore messy datasets. To struggle to clean those datasets. To spend an hour looking for a missing comma. This isn’t a form of programming hazing, like “I had to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow and now you must too.” It’s the actual process of learning and growing and developing and improving. You’ve gotta struggle. This Tumblr post puts it well (it’s about art specifically, but it applies to coding and data analysis too): Contrary to popular belief the biggest beginner’s roadblock to art isn’t even technical skill it’s frustration tolerance, especially in the age of social media. It hurts and the frustration is endless but you must build the frustration tolerance equivalent to a roach’s capacity to survive a nuclear explosion. That’s how you build on the technical skill. Throw that “won’t even start because I’m afraid it won’t be perfect” shit out the window. Just do it. Just start. Good luck. (The original post has disappeared, but here’s a reblog.) It’s hard, but struggling is the only way to learn anything. You might not enjoy code as much as Williams does (or I do), but there’s still value in maintaining codings skills as you improve and learn more. You don’t want your skills to atrophy. As I discuss here, when I do use LLMs for coding-related tasks, I purposely throw as much friction into the process as possible: To avoid falling into over-reliance on LLM-assisted code help, I add as much friction into my workflow as possible. I only use GitHub Copilot and Claude in the browser, not through the chat sidebar in Positron or Visual Studio Code. I treat the code it generates like random answers from StackOverflow or blog posts and generally rewrite it completely. I disable the inline LLM-based auto complete in text editors. For routine tasks like generating {roxygen2} documentation scaffolding for functions, I use the {chores} package, which requires a bunch of pointing and clicking to use. Even though I use Positron, I purposely do not use either Positron Assistant or Databot. I have them disabled. So in the end, for pedagogical reasons, I don’t foresee me incorporating LLMs into this class. I’m pedagogically opposed to it. I’m facing all sorts of external pressure to do it, but I’m resisting. You’ve got to learn first.
December 9, 2025 at 8:17 PM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
First time making pozole—a lot of fun to make, tasty, and a perfect winter stew!
Dried guajillo, chipotle, and New Mexico chilies 🌶️ Rehydrating the chilies Pozole in the pot Pozole in the bowl with avocado, lime, cheese, and a crisped tortilla
December 7, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
cdsamii.bsky.social
A great example of combining the strengths of various methods is this paper by Allen et al. (a recent favorite of mine):

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Quantifying the impact of misinformation and vaccine-skeptical content on Facebook
Low uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in the US has been widely attributed to social media misinformation. To evaluate this claim, we introduce a framework combining lab experiments (total N = 18,725), c...
www.science.org
December 4, 2025 at 3:12 PM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
Agree with much of what Cyrus says in his blog post and the comments below.

I'd add that some of the best recent work in poli sci is mixed methods, and uses a combo of observational data, experiments/quasi-experiments, and in-depth interviews/case studies to answer a puzzle from multiple angles.
cdsamii.bsky.social Cyrus Samii @cdsamii.bsky.social · 28d
A blog post giving a more thorough take on survey experiments and the credibility revolution: cyrussamii.com?p=4168
December 4, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
carotorreblanca.bsky.social
New paper! @william-dinneen.bsky.social @guygrossman.bsky.social Yiqing Xu and I use GPT to code 91k articles from 174 polisci journals (2003–2023)and track research designs, transparency practices, and citations. How has the credibility revolution reshaped the discipline? doi.org/10.31235/osf...
🧵
December 2, 2025 at 11:46 PM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
Every professor I know is struggling with AI in a different way. I found a few things that really helped this semester.

1) I banned cellphones and laptops in class— made a huge difference in attention and quality of discussions.
November 21, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
jimgoldgeier.bsky.social
This is not a peace deal and it’s not asking anything of the Russians. It’s just the US on behalf of the Russians pressuring Ukraine to surrender www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
U.S. pushing Ukraine to sign peace deal by Thanksgiving or lose support
The U.S. is now sending “signals” that everything could be off the table if Kyiv does not quickly sign a proposal, which was drawn up by special envoy Witkoff.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 21, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
joshmccrain.bsky.social
new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
November 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
garciaponce.bsky.social
In Mexico, the share of income captured by the 1% has declined noticeably in recent years. This shift toward lower income concentration—alongside poverty reduction—helps explain not only the popularity of AMLO and Sheinbaum, but also some of the ongoing political battles and sources of polarization.
November 16, 2025 at 6:50 PM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
A few things are true at once:

1. Trump is deeply unpopular and increasingly seen as a lame duck. The economy is also looking shaky.

And the Epstein Files.
The Economist: Trump at -18% approval Reuters: IMF sees signs of US economic strain NYTimes: Epstein Alleged in Emails that Trump Knew of His Conduct
November 14, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
dcinbox.bsky.social
Releasing 20,000+ pages of Epstein files related documents as .jpgs via a shared google drive owned by oversight.gop.119 is sorta wild, but also sort of exactly where we're at.

The drive: drive.google.com/drive/folder...
IMAGES - Google Drive
drive.google.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:36 PM
zeitzoff.bsky.social
A few observations based on this week's election results

1) Trump is unpopular and the elections were a rebuke to him and his unpopular policies.
Trump approval rating stands at 39% from The Economist/YouGov polling Cook Political Report: A Blue Wave Wave is Building: What We Learned from Election Night 2025
November 7, 2025 at 6:16 PM
Reposted by Thomas Zeitzoff
jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Cool new working paper on why and how cable news threw gasoline on the culture war fire. The culture war isn't optimal for electoral candidates, but it's optimal for cable news companies.

ungated: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/27v4x...
November 3, 2025 at 7:45 PM