Henry Farrell
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himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell
@himself.bsky.social
35K followers 600 following 5.6K posts

Professor of democracy and international affairs. http://www.henryfarrell.net and newsletter at http://www.programmablemutter.com. Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Holt, Penguin). https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781250840554. .. more

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Henry Farrell is an Irish-born political scientist at Johns Hopkins University. He previously taught at the University of Toronto and earned his PhD from Georgetown University. His research interests include trust and co-operation; e-commerce; the European Union; and institutional theory. He is an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations. .. more

Political science 57%
Economics 15%
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Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Lisa W. Fazio, Brendan Nyhan , and 1 more

natematias.bsky.social
J. Nathan Matias @natematias.bsky.social · 8h
Good news; a judge has blocked the detention of a technology researcher that the State Department had slated to deport.

However, this is just the start of what will certainly be a longer-term challenge. What can we do about this? A thread.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/u...
Judge Blocks Detention of British Researcher Who Scrutinizes Online Hate
www.nytimes.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 10h
I liked this essay very much.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 10h
I'd have to re-read, but at the least she convinced me that it was a very one-dimensional reading of a book that was much more many-sided and interesting than I was giving it credit for.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 10h
It's very interesting to see the bits of books that do get taken up and those that get neglected (there was a good Hollis Robson piece a while back about how no-one ever mentioned the chapter on cybernetics and China's one-child policy in Dan Wang's Breakneck.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 10h
The book is completely explicit on this, and on the notion of a better urban life as a vision of the good life, but it hasn't gotten taken up in the political debate, because it fits awkwardly with the agendas both of the critics and many of the boosters.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 10h
I had my own bad reading of the book (E.P. Thompson as fantasy novelist basically), which Clarke gently but firmly corrected back in the day when Crooked Timber still did those kinds of things. She has a Dickensian fascination with people's contrariness, while Kuang is all about systems.

Reposted by Diane Coyle, Steve Peers, Henry Farrell

donmoyn.bsky.social
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 10h
New, from me: Time for something fun - I wrote about themes and fashions of the Knives Out Universe (KOU). 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/exploring-...
Exploring the Knives Out Universe
Are they just entertaining murder mysteries or something more?
donmoynihan.substack.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 11h
thx!

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 11h
They seem very _different_ in tone though; JSAMN pokes fun at nearly all its characters (the apparent protagonists especially). Though I've thought for the last decade that a 'weirdness of the English countryside' reading of it would be an interesting reading www.theguardian.com/books/2015/a...
The eeriness of the English countryside
Writers and artists have long been fascinated by the idea of an English eerie - ‘the skull beneath the skin of the countryside’. But for a new generation this has nothing to do with hokey supernatural...
www.theguardian.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 11h
Did Kuang write that up anywhere? (I bounced off Babel despite Kuang's quite serious talent because it felt overdetermined by its politics in a way that JSAMN did not)

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 12h
life that should be obvs.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 12h
I should be clear that this piece is basically a riff on Sergey's arguments about Putin.
filipecampante.bsky.social Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 3d
Really perceptive piece, by two of my brilliant @jhu.edu colleagues, @himself.bsky.social and @radchenko.bsky.social.
theguardian.com The Guardian @theguardian.com · 3d
Trump and Putin share a craving for status. That’s why they both want to destroy Europe | Henry Farrell and Sergey Radchenko

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 13h
It argues explicitly that consumption goods such as big TVs etc are no substitute for the good live, of great neighborhoods, housing security etc. It's a flavor of big city urbanism asking why the cities that ought be great have lost their edge.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 13h
Building on the foundations of Comrade Shalizi Thought bactra.org/weblog/699.h...
The Singularity in Our Past Light-Cone
bactra.org

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 1d
Happy Christmas from Ireland and the world's most rotund Christmas tree.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 2d
In contrast, I think these measures are ineffective showboating that are more about publicity than consequences. We may see more serious and effective measures in future. We may not.

Reposted by Henry Farrell

nilsgilman.bsky.social
Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 2d
Sanctioning individuals is a long-standing policy instrument for the U.S. — it’s just that the Trumpniks are no longer applying it to the likes of genocidaires or arms smugglers but instead are using it to harass human rights activists, climate campaigners, etc. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/t...
U.S. Bars 5 European Tech Regulators and Researchers
www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Laurent Pech, Henry Farrell

alemanno.bsky.social
Alberto Alemanno @alemanno.bsky.social · 2d
I expect US sanctions against @thierrybreton.bsky.social
to force the EU to reverse its deregulation wave, starting with the #digitalomnibus—a gift to US companies and an own goal for European consumer and citizen protection. www.reuters.com/legal/govern... @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu
US targets former EU commissioner, activists with visa bans over alleged censorship
The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed visa bans on a former European Union commissioner and anti-disinformation campaigners it says were involved in censoring U.S. social media platforms, in the...
www.reuters.com

Reposted by Sergey Radchenko, Henry Farrell

filipecampante.bsky.social
Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 3d
Really perceptive piece, by two of my brilliant @jhu.edu colleagues, @himself.bsky.social and @radchenko.bsky.social.

Reposted by Dani Rodrik, Stephen M. Walt

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 3d
"Trump boasts in ... the strategy that, at last, ‘America is strong and respected again”. The problem is that this obviously isn’t true. Countries ... treat it like an angry, incoherent drunk with a bazooka. You say whatever you hope might calm them down, but you certainly don’t respect them."
Trump and Putin share a craving for status. That’s why they both want to destroy Europe | Henry Farrell and Sergey Radchenko
Liberal democracies view Putin’s Russia as a bully – and Trump’s US as an angry drunk with a bazooka. The response is pure venom, say Henry Farrell and Sergey Radchenko of Johns Hopkins
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Henry Farrell

chanret.bsky.social
Chris Hanretty @chanret.bsky.social · 3d
Worth it for the last line alone

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 4d
American presidents who've had things named after them en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverv...
Hooverville - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

Reposted by Daniel W. Drezner

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 4d
YouTube just took it down.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 4d
rats and ships ain't in it.
himself.bsky.social Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 4d
Never been a huge fan of the 'if you lose ...' genre. But Hans von Spakovsky.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 4d
Never been a huge fan of the 'if you lose ...' genre. But Hans von Spakovsky.

Reposted by Nandita Sharma, Brendan Nyhan, Philip N. Cohen , and 13 more

phillewis.bsky.social
Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 4d
I just uploaded @jasonparis.bsky.social 's recording of the segment CBS News pulled from "60 Minutes" to YouTube:
WATCH: Segment CBS News Pulled From "60 Minutes"
YouTube video by Phil Lewis
www.youtube.com

Reposted by Henry Farrell

tonytassell.bsky.social
Tony Tassell @tonytassell.bsky.social · 4d
Big FT Investigation - Binance allowed suspicious accounts to operate even after 2023 US plea agreement. Details of the transactions come after Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in Oct. The Trump family has since expanded business ties with Zhao’s exchange www.ft.com/content/5d8a...
Binance allowed suspicious accounts to operate even after 2023 US plea agreement
Leaked files show continued activity despite links to terror networks, failed ID checks and other red flags
www.ft.com

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 5d
One of the things I have not seen anyone take up, either to praise or criticize, is that the Abundance book has a vision of the good life that is explicitly anti-consumerist.
mattyglesias.bsky.social Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 5d
Tariffs are Trump’s least-popular idea.

They’ve totally failed substantively.

But a little circle of brain-poisoned leftists hate “abundance” so much they want to defend Trump on trade.

Reposted by Henry Farrell

mattyglesias.bsky.social
Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 5d
Tariffs are Trump’s least-popular idea.

They’ve totally failed substantively.

But a little circle of brain-poisoned leftists hate “abundance” so much they want to defend Trump on trade.

himself.bsky.social
Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 5d
there's a dissertation to be written on Comrade French's profound intellectual influence on Comrade Lenin.