Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Jacob Edenhofer 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jacob Edenhofer 🇪🇺 🇺🇦
@edenhofer_jacob
BA, @PPEWarwick / MPhil, Comparative Government @UniofOxford & @SomervilleOx / DPhil student in Politics @NuffieldCollege & @Politics_Oxford
3 subscribers
Oct 7 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Some thoughts on the strategic logic behind Kemi Badenoch’s announcement that she’d scrap the Climate Change Act (CCA).
It serves two functions:
1️⃣ It appeals to lukewarm pivotal voters in marginal seats sceptical of costly green measures.
2️⃣ It is designed to placate or, even, Image boost the relative power of the climate sceptics in the Tory party, especially the Net Zero Scrutiny Group.
In a first-past-the-post system (FPTP), what matters electorally isn’t the national majority view, but where voters sit geographically. Winning
theguardian.com/environment/20…
Oct 3 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
German Reunification Day invites both gratitude and reflection.
Gratitude, because the peaceful revolution of 1989 was nothing short of a miracle — a bloodless dismantling of a repressive regime.
Reflection, because the wounds of the transition still mark the country —and because misleading narratives about the East persist when we don’t think carefully about what “persistence” actually means.
East–West differences in voting, trust, and economic outcomes are real. But they are too often construed as evidence of a either
Sep 20 • 24 tweets • 5 min read
It is simple: @JohnHCochrane believes the political externalities of a Zucman-style wealth tax would be negative. @ojblanchard1, by contrast, believes that they would be positive.
The Cochrane-type position follows from basic libertarian principles. By eroding the principle of private ownership, it risks discouraging productive activity and damaging institutional credibility, especially of property rights (also might fuel envy). The libertarian worry, as articulated by Friedman and Hayek, is that doing so will erode freedom and give rise to Image
Image
Sep 15 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Here is the sketch of my tentative conceptual answer to the questions below -- let me know what you think. I'd argue that higher wages have two countervailing effects. They raise competence (by reducing opportunity costs), but may lower morality (by crowding out intrinsicially motivated types).
1. Opportunity Cost Channel (Competence Effect) If pay in office is low compared to private-sector outside options, highly skilled individuals self-select out of politics. Raising wages reduces this incentive, making office more attractive to people with better
Aug 17 • 29 tweets • 8 min read
That strikes me as too strong a claim. I think it's more accurate to say that accommodation *can* work when: (i) the party system (probably yes in Denmark, less clear in Germany) and internal party politics allows for electoral arbitrage (gains from programmatic accommodation), (ii) the general equilibrium effects - notably thenormalisation of right-wing attitudes and its wider behavioural manifestations -- don't outweigh the electoral gains, and (iii) voters' distrust in mainstream parties is sufficiently low and the policies used for accommodation are
Jul 20 • 36 tweets • 6 min read
🧵Ein paar tentative Gedanken zur politischen Ökonomie eines möglichen AfD-Verbotsverfahrens.
Ich bin an Kritik sehr interessiert – denn ich bin mir selber unsicher.
Die strategische Lage lässt sich, denke ich, mit einem 5-stufigen "Spiel" ganz gut erfassen (als Approximation erster Ordnung)
1️⃣ Mainstream-Parteien entscheiden, ob sie ein Verbotsverfahren einleiten.
2️⃣ Die AfD entscheidet über Mobilisierungsstrategie.
3️⃣ Das BVerfG fällt ein Urteil.
4️⃣ Wähler:innen & Partei reagieren auf das Urteil.
5️⃣ Mainstream-Parteien reagieren programmatisch
Jun 30 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
🧵 @ChFlachsland and I posted the first draft of our Climate Politics Framework (CPF) paper—our attempt to provide a structured synthesis of the insights of modern social science into why ambitious climate mitigation is politically such a wicked problem, and under what conditions it becomes feasible (see figure below). Critical feedback is warmly welcome.
The CPF’s central structure is: Fundamental problems → mass and elite politics → climate policy platforms → strategic challenges → mass/elite politics & GHG outcomes. Image
Jun 10 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
I disagree with this -- both because the empirical literature Caplan relies on is not particularly convincing and because most "voters' stupidity is to blame for Trump" takes don't contend seriously with alternative "rational" explanations. Note: Caplan might still be right; yet, the evidence he draws on doesn't support his very strong conclusions.
Tl;dr summary:
1. A fair amount of the "evidence" that is used to argue that voters are irrational is observationally equivalent with "rational" models. This of course doesn't nowpublishers.com/article/Detail…Image
Apr 17 • 36 tweets • 10 min read
Some thoughts on the strategic rationale behind the "Brandmauer” – the cordon sanitaire vis-à-vis the AfD – and the challenges associated with maintaining it. Seems pertinent, given that senior CDU/CSU figures regularly float the idea of ditching it and exploring avenues for closer cooperation.
As for the strategic rationale, let me make two points.
1. I am sceptical that “Entzauberung” is a good strategy – betting on the AfD revealing itself as incompetent once in power *and* voters punishing the AfD for such incompetence.
First, the welfare
Feb 3 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
🚨 New working paper! 🚨
@grattonecon and I just completed the first draft of "The Rise and Fall of Technocratic Democracies". Excited to present it in Munich this week—thanks to @LauraSeelkopf, @christoph_knill & others for hosting us! 🧵👇
▶️ Motivation
Many democracies have Image have witnessed a process of "technocratization", with unelected technocrats having gained greater discretion over important realms of public policy (e.g. monetary policy). Populists explicitly oppose this narrowing of the purview of majoritarian policymaking, instead vowing to
Jan 23 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
@KaiGehring1 Yes -- this argument depends on a number of assumptions, though, which are rarely spelt out:
1. Voters have a clear objective they want to see achieved (is -10% immigration enough? -50%?). If this is a moving target, then parties' will be pulled away ever more from the centre. @KaiGehring1 2. Voters will actually realise that an "issue" has been solved. This rules out that populists can conjure up beliefs by exploiting misperceptions about immigration/immigration.
3. Voter will credit a government consisting of mainstream parties with this. The deeper the distrust,
Jan 12 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
Das finde ich sehr plausibel, da der/die Medianwähler:in immer älter wird. Meine Frage ist: Denkt man dieses Argument zu Ende, wäre das nicht auch ein Grund, die Schuldenbremse nicht aufzuheben? Dazu ein sechs politÜkonomische Gedanken und Fragen. 1⃣ Deutschland befindet sich in einer Situation, in der diejenigen, die von investiven Ausgaben vor allem profitieren, relativ an Gewicht verlieren, sowohl anteilig an der BevÜlkerung als auch (und noch mehr) an der Wählerschaft (geringere Wahlbeteiligung jßngerer Menschen).
Jan 6 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
Interessante Argumente, denen ich allerdings nur in Teilen zustimme. Bin aus folgenden GrĂźnden skeptischer.
1. Die Kostenreduktionen bei den erneuerbaren Energien müssen auch vor dem Hintergrund des technologischen Fortschritts bei der Extraktion von Öl and Gas gesehen werden -- insbesondere, weil die geopolitischen Anreize, die Extraktionskosten weiter zu reduzieren, beträchtlich sind. Das wird auch deutlich, wenn man sich vergegenwärtigt, dass die Öl- und Gas-Produktion unter Harris
academic.oup.com/isq/article-ab…Image
Jan 3 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Interessanter Artikel, den ich allerdings nur mäßig überzeugend finde.
Zunächst bin ich – anders als Zürn – skeptischer, was die „explanatory power“ der politikwissenschaftlichen Erklärungen für den Aufstieg der Rechtspopulisten betrifft. Die Effektgrößen (meistens zwischen 1 bis 10 Prozentpunkten) der gut identifizierten Studien reichen eher nicht aus, um das "support level" zu erklären -- und die Studien, die zu "großen" Effekten kommen, sind empirisch wackelig sind. Das hat auch damit zu tun, dass es schwierig Image
Dec 17, 2024 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Möchte dies zum Anlass nehmen, auf meinen Bsky-Post von vor ~2 Wochen zu verweisen. "Für mich ist das Attraktive an der liberalen Demokratie, dass sie eben auch mit ganz gewöhnlichen Menschen funktioniert – also Menschen, deren Motive meist eine
bsky.app/profile/jacobe… x.com/sabinedoering/… ganze Menge Egoismus und ein Wenig Altruismus widerspiegeln und die kognitiv erhebliche Beschränkungen haben, weshalb sie Fehlwahrnehmungen und "inferential mistakes" aufsitzen. Das unterscheidet die liberale Demokratie von anderen Systemen, die – wenn überhaupt – nur
Dec 16, 2024 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Here is my list.
1. “Special Interest Politics” by Grossman and Helpman
mitpress.mit.edu/9780262571678/… x.com/edenhofer_jaco… 2. “The Normalization of the Radical Right” by @ValentimVicente
academic.oup.com/book/57946
Dec 3, 2024 • 32 tweets • 10 min read
Ok, I'll bite - mainly because the idea that accommodating the radical right on immigration is almost bound to work electorally seems to be rather popular among mainstream politicians.
Let me try to provide a basic overview of the party competition literature and, in doing so, explain why there are good reasons to be sceptical about the claim that accommodation will reap electoral rewards. This doesn't mean that accommodation never works -- just that there is little reason to be as confident about its radical-right-dampening potential as many
Nov 24, 2024 • 24 tweets • 9 min read
RIP Walter Korpi -- one of the key figures in the development of the "power resources theory". Let me take this opportunity to connect some recent work in (labour) economics to this way of thinking about the welfare state and the political economy of redistribution. Most (political) economists think about redistribution and the welfare state in terms of the Meltzer-Richard-Romer model (see 👇) for a summary of the demand- and supply-side assumptions. The famous macro-level prediction is that, as the right-ward skew of the income ... Image
Image
Image
Image
Nov 8, 2024 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
@kyleichan has a very interesting post, arguing that -- because China is more dependent on the US than the other way around -- Trump's desire to ratchet up the trade war with China might work to the advantaged of the US. While I'm not qualified to assess high-capacity.com/p/beijing-brac… the overall argument, I think the post under-estimates the political costs that the first trade war engendered for Trump. Here are three interesting papers documenting these costs.
1. @fetzert , and Carlo Schwarz. 2021. ‘Tariffs and Politics: Evidence from Trump’s Trade Wars’.
Oct 20, 2024 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Interesting podcast, which reminded me of this book chapter:
@benwansell and @jrgingrich. 2021. ‘The End of Human Capital Solidarity?’ In Who Gets What?: The New Politics of Insecurity, eds. Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Margaret Weir. 52–78. cambridge.org/core/books/abs… x.com/voxeu/status/1… I seem to remember that one of the authors did a thread on this when it came out, but I can't find it. In lieu of linking to thread, I'll post some of favourite passages from their chapter.
Their chapter is especially important against the backdrop of the flattening or even Image
Oct 17, 2024 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
It's the political selection stupid (at least in the US). The supply-side dynamics of US politics over the last ~40 years or so seem like an underrated factor in explaining elite-level polarisation and its downstream ramifications. Let me collect some explanations.
1. The cost of running for office have increased. Given these high opportunity costs (in terms of money and time), only wealthy people take the risk of running in elections, and even they rely heavily on campaign contributions. That is