The World Cup is entering the quarterfinal stage. So I've put together a thread on political science research involving soccer. Can star soccer players ⬇ prejudice in their home fans? @a_alrababah, Marble, @salma_mousa_ , @aasiegel l show they can.

They find that Mo Salah's arrival ⬇ hate crimes in the Liverpool area & ⬇ anti-Muslim hate speech on Twitter among LFC supporters cambridge.org/core/services/…

Because antisemitism is once again trending, I put together an explainer about what makes antisemitism such a unique and insidious form of prejudice.

A 🧵 Antisemitism is one of the oldest prejudices—at its core it's a conspiracy theory.

Jews hold too much power in media, finance, or politics, they use it to benefit other Jews, and this is the cause of many problems in the world.

penguinrandomhouse.com/books/533182/a… newyorker.com/news/the-new-y…

A recent article by @JonHaidt claims that social media is behind most of our problems. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… 🧵

It seems straightforward: things are bad now, & we have social media=> therefore "social media did it."

But this argument is not just wrong, it's also insidious. Myth 1: Social media has led us to the post-truth era.

Reality: Fake news is not widely consumed, we are not living in filter bubbles, and fact checks do work (see @BrendanNyhan washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-m… )

There's a lot of focus on if Putin would accept a negotiated settlement over Ukraine, and what that settlement might look like.

But there's been much less discussion of what Zelensky and Ukraine might be willing accept.

A 🧵 on the Ukrainian politics of any settlement Back in 2019, there were two main charges leveled against then candidate Zelensky (other than his inexperience):

1) He'd be a tool of the oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky ("puppet")

2) He was soft on Russia & would sell-out Donbas ("Kremlin candidate")

rferl.org/a/ukraine-zele…

I’ve seen more and more academics and elites say that the U.S. is likely headed towards civil war or secession.*

Not only is this wrong, it's also incredibly dangerous.

Here's why. 🧵

*See washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… and ft.com/content/31d265… The idea that there's a wide swath of Americans that support violence is wrong. See @seanjwestwood et al (2021). osf.io/a8m3n/

How can we understand the protests over racism and police violence that have broken out in the U.S.? It's helpful to look outside the U.S. to what scholars know about the ethnic violence and riots. --Thread 1/9-- When do riots & ethnic violence happen (Pt I)? Bolken Thomas and Sergenti (2010) looking at Hindu-Muslim riots in India, show that riots are more likely to happen when the economy is bad=> more opportunity for participation. --2/9--

What does the political violence literature say are the results of killing leaders (such as al-Baghdadi) on violent social movements? It's quite mixed. ---Thread 1/8--- For instance, @JennaEJordan looks at leadership decapitation strategies and she finds that many organizations, such as Al-Qaida (following Bin-Laden's death) are resilient to their leader's deaths. 2/8 mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.11… She also a new book out. amazon.com/Leadership-Dec…