Vladimir Putin’s regime uses extensive propaganda to win public support for war against neighboring countries. But can such efforts really convince ordinary Russians?

Our new @ScienceAdvances article shows that the answer is a resounding YES!

A short 🧵👇🏾 1/7: Before, during, and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Putin regime filled the Russian media landscape with fictive propaganda stories about threatening provocations by neighboring countries against Russia. 2/7

Think Europeans are getting increasingly fed up with their democracies? You might be in for a surprise!

The @EurobarometerEU 50-year data tells a different story. Here are the numbers you usually don’t see.

A brief 🧵👇🏾 1/5 Big smiles in small countries:
Denmark, Finland, Ireland, and Luxembourg inhabit Europe’s most satisfied citizens. In Denmark, for example, 9 out 10 are happy with their democracy. What an achievement! 2/5

How democratic are ordinary citizens in Western democracies?

Academic research has extensively studied this question recently.

This 🧵summarizes some of the most important findings from the past 10 years in 22 short tweets 👇🏾 The literature can be grouped into three strands:

(1) Do citizens support democracy?
(2) Why do citizens often accept undemocratic behavior by politicians?
(3) How can we intervene and improve citizens’ democratic values?

Let’s take each strand by turn.

A worrying development in our democracies today is that many of us are willing to accept undemocratic behavior by politicians if we agree with them politically.

In my new @apsrjournal article, I scrutinize the perceptual logic behind such behavior in the US & globally.🧵👇🏾 Democratic politics often confront citizens with undemocratic behavior. Recent examples include Donald Trump attempting to overturn the US 2020 presidential election or the Fidesz government’s closure of various Hungarian media outlets. 2/15