Sam D. Schmid

🚨PRE-PRINT🚨 This forthcoming chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Comparative Immigration Law gently introduces readers to quantitative data methods in the field. I hope it is useful! @globalcit.bsky.social @migcitpol.bsky.social @migcitizenapsa.bsky.social @mpc-eui.bsky.social @migobs.bsky.social

These are remarkable figures

Immigration experts have never known more, but mattered less. In my new JEMS article, "Immigration for Realists," I argue that we have ourselves contributed to this gap and suggest ways to fix it. We misread the public, misrepresent the evidence, and lose our credibility as a result.

In Swiss direct democracy, voters can say YES to a new constitutional provision, only to say NO later to the law implementing it. For example, in 2024, voters approved a 13th monthly pension payment for retirees. Now the proposal to fund it by increasing VAT is likely to be rejected in a referendum

This is a wonderful study @lwestheuser.bsky.social & Koen Damhuis, showing the unique contribution qualitative research can make to a field dominated by quantitative studies (but, of course, created by qualitative scholars). 👏

would be interested to hear from @simonecremaschi.bsky.social @catherinedevries.bsky.social and @ajpseditor.bsky.social what they think about this assessment by @statmodeling.bsky.social substack.com/@statmodelin...

Explaining historical persistence in Germany's electoral geography across 130 years: a cleavage-perspective on continuity in spatial patterns of party support: https://osf.io/4grdj

Der Wahlerfolg der Berliner Linken wird mit Zohran Mamdanis Kampagne in New York verglichen: Fokus auf junge, migrantische Wählergruppen und hohe Wohnkosten. Unsere Datenanalyse im @tagesspiegel.de deutet darauf hin, dass das funktioniert haben könnte. 🧵 interaktiv.tagesspiegel.de/lab/der-berl...

Having a job in a workplace with a considerable proportion of university-educated coworkers is associated with an increase in culturally liberal attitudes www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Saxony-Anhalt went to the polls, with the AfD falling just short of a majority. Here are some takeaways based on the preliminary results across all 218 municipalities and local socioeconomic characteristics. A thread 🧵(1 /n) Full analysis + write-up: juliuskoelzer.de/saxony-anhal...

Die derzeit in den Medien hochgejazzte Debatte zum Ost-West-Konflikt behauptet, eine Realität zu beschreiben, die medial inszeniert und zum Teil erzeugt wird. In den sozialwiss. Umfragen ist dieser Konflikt nachrangig, hinter vielen anderen, unter anderem zwischen Arm und Reich.

Brilliant first International Office Hours of this semester. All four people showed up, had great questions, and interesting projects. Good women and Global South representation (even though studying at Global North unis) International Office Hours for September 4 are open now!

Der Ökonom Christoph Schaltegger strebt im Namen der Wissenschaft nach immer mehr politischem Einfluss. Dabei begann alles mit einer Irreführung des Stimmvolks, zeigen Republik-Recherchen. Eine Recherche von @yvesgwegelin.bsky.social. Zum Beitrag 👉 republik.link/7s3wj (Illustration: Joan Wong)

„Echte Unterschiede gibt es also weniger bei Sachfragen als vielmehr beim Ausmass der Radikalität. Die AfD-Wählerschaft ist in dieser Hinsicht durchaus heterogen, es gibt nach wie vor nicht den einen typischen Rechtsaussen-Anhänger“ Die drei Typen von AfD-Wähler:innen: www.zeit.de/politik/deut...

Popular by Design keeps growing, and we're now open to guest posts on policies that work! We're looking for essays too evidence-heavy for an op-ed and too timely to wait on peer review. If you have a fitting post idea, or know someone who does, subscribe, pitch us, and spread the word:

🗳️ Radical parties have institutionalized and entered political competition and democratic institutions. Yet their voters do not seem to become more satisfied with democracy after this inclusion. Why is this the case? In a newly published paper with @morganlcj.bsky.social we propose a response 🧵

When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money". But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings: doi.org/10.1093/9780...

New paper out 📄 How do citizens mentally map political divides — and where do they go wrong? Using German survey data on immigration, we split perceptual error into 3 biases (egocentrism, conservatism & false polarization) that mirror the very divides they distort. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

‘Polarization’ has become the master concept for diagnosing our current democratic crisis. But this is not polarization. It is the radicalization of the political right. By misdiagnosing it, we risk becoming complicit in the crisis. 🧵 Just out in Perspectives on Politics doi.org/10.1017/S153...

NOW OUT ON FIRSTVIEW!! It’s Not #Polarization; It’s the #Radicalization of the #Political #Right By @pettertornberg.com doi.org/10.1017/S153...

Europe’s growing urban-rural divide in voting along the transnational cleavage is not merely a reflection of underlying educational differences, as @theresakuhn.bsky.social, @bramlancee.bsky.social and I show in this new study in @ejprjournal.bsky.social. A short thread 🔽

Die Hälfte (!) der Mitglieder des neuen #AfD Bundesvorstands ist durch die 'Kaderschmiede' der #Jugendorganisation gekommen. Langfristige Loyalitäten und Netzwerke scheinen sich auszuzahlen. Falls noch jemand an der Relevanz dieser Unterorganisation zweifelt: doi.org/10.1177/0192... #afdbpt #ef0407

Here's what I have to say about Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

LOL! 😂😂😂

POV: very, very ordinary people in a v ordinary setting. That is the 7 Swiss govt members on their annual 2-day trip called #Bundesratsreisli. No secret service, just lots of unscripted contact with citizens. And the ppl reward them for it: the Swiss govt enjoys the highest trust levels worldwide

A fifth of Leave voters have died.

Why do our societies seem so deeply divided when most citizens actually occupy a broad political middle ground? @steffenmau.bsky.social, @thomaslux.bsky.social & @lwestheuser.bsky.social unpack this paradox in Trigger Points, pub. today @brisunipress.bsky.social, Foreward @mikesavagelse.bsky.social

Only 2 days until Switzerland's probably most important direct democratic vote in (at least) a decade: Will Switzerland cap its population at 10 million and terminate bilateral EU treaties? Not only has media coverage been very high, but turnout numbers indicate the highest turnout in >30 years.

Switzerland will soon vote on whether to cap its population. But who is actually entitled to vote? In one of the 26 cantons, a majority of residents have *no* political rights (50.3%). A minority of residents is empowered to decide the fate of those who are most directly affected by the outcome

New Blog 📣 Christian Fernández 🇸🇪 Swedish Exceptionalism – An Autopsy New citizenship rules are creating a two-tiered citizenship that separates natives from migrants and their descendants. This is a far cry from the universal egalitarianism that defined the Swedish model 🔖 tinyurl.com/yj9y3x4j

The vote on the 10M population cap will happen in a week's time. It will also be the day of the feminist strike. And the day before, Switzerland plays its first World Cup match with one of the most diverse national teams. Mny players have a migration background or are the children of immigrants

Remember that recent paper claiming to show that "ideological bias" determined the results obtained by immigration policy research teams? A careful, open-code reanalysis by @kauspurg.bsky.social & Josef Brüderl finds that the result arises from a coding error. —> doi.org/10.31222/osf...

Important read 👇

📚New paper with @jakobschwoerer.bsky.social @saengler.bsky.social in @prxjournal.bsky.social📚 We show that moving toward the far right on immigration doesn't benefit mainstream parties. Not even in elections where immigration is salient. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Since finding my place in the “third space” at the University of Lucerne, research is not in my job description anymore. But I love it far too much to abandon it completely, so it's now a hobby. Today, I am happy to share a new pre-print publication: www.samdschmid.com/publications...

“Every 2nd person in 🇨🇭 is taking huge risks without any real necessity. The initiative is an expression of a widespread decadence born from prosperity. Apparently, we have completely lost our senses if we are using our political system to engage in such reckless nonsense“ www.nzz.ch/meinung/10-m...

Congratulations to Dr Ahmed Ajil, who will carry out his ERC Starting Grant Project at the University of Lucerne!

Im Herbst sind Landtagswahlen in Sachsen-Anhalt. @cendt.de & Team haben 1000 mögliche Wahlergebnisse simuliert. In deren 369 holt die AfD eine absolute Mehrheit. Dann könnte sie allein regieren. „Jetzt gehts um wirklich alles“, kommentiert der ZEIT-Chefredaktor www.zeit.de/politik/2026...

This 💯👇

On 7 May 2026, Britain ran a PR experiment: Scottish Parliament: a Mixed-Member Proportional system Welsh Senedd: a (new) Low-Magnitude Party List system Same day, same political context, different outcomes. Which version of PR would be better for Westminster? 🧵

#POLITKOLUMNE: It’s not so much what people think that has changed, but what has become *publicly sayable*. The fear of social stigma when voting for the radical right has declined. Very glad to have been able to cover @valentimvicente.bsky.social ’s seminal research www.derbund.ch/radikale-rec...

Bewerbungsschluss morgen: Im Projekt "Knowledge, Epistemic Marginalization, and the Politics of Resentment" (Co-PI: Joachim Blatter) gibt es eine Postdocstelle an der Uni Bremen. Vertragsdauer: 3,5 Jahre Stelle: 100% Bewerbung: Bis 05.05. Stellenausschreibung: www.uni-bremen.de/universitaet...

So krass.

THE lesson from Petér Magyar’s defeat of Viktor Orbán is that, in a competitive authoritarian system, you have to tailor-make your campaign to the gamed political system you operate in. Clearly, the Democrats have still not learned that lesson.

++BREAKING++ The most radical popular initiative yet launched by the far-right SVP, aiming to cap Switzerland’s population at 10M, is currently polling with a narrow majority. Importantly, there is considerable volatility. Follow @leewas.bsky.social for the latest and most accurate polling ⬇️

#OpenAccess from @poppublicsphere.bsky.social - AI, the Future of Work, and the Politics of the Welfare State - https://cup.org/423HfBh - @julianachueri.bsky.social #FirstView #AI