New post: Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? (No. No it can't. Come on, now.)
davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/can-ai-rep...
05.03.2026 16:49
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New post: Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? (No. No it can't. Come on, now.)
davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/can-ai-rep...
What makes technical expertise a legitimate source of authority? Trym Nohr Fjørtoft (@trymnf.com) examines "technical legitimacy", proposing conditions under which expertise can justify delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/b3DAdu1
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #ECRs
New paper forthcoming in Comparative European Politics! I argue that the legitimacy of non-majoritarian institutions doesn't hang on their embedding in a coherent democratic people. Preprint here, typeset version coming soon.
→ www.trymnf.com/files/papers...
"The resignation of the Justice Department’s top antitrust cop is fueling a fear — even from some of Donald Trump’s own supporters — that corporate influence is corroding the populist antitrust movement the president championed at the beginning of his second term."
oh my god who could have ever predicted this in a million years
(Politico was one of countless outlets, including CNN, Reuters, and others, that repeatedly propped up the lie that Republicans had done a miraculous good faith 180 on antitrust reform and monopoly power, something that was never real)
John Erik Fossum og jeg har meninger om demokratiets stilling i Europa. I Internasjonal Politikk nå – sammen med andre gode bidrag fra @unioslo-arena.bsky.social og @nupinytt.bsky.social.
→ doi.org/10.23865/int...
What makes technical expertise a legitimate source of authority? Trym Nohr Fjørtoft (@trymnf.com) examines “technical legitimacy”, proposing conditions under which expertise can justify delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. Read OPEN ACCESS: buff.ly/b3DAdu1
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social #ECRs
Abstract: In studies of non-majoritarian institutions, there is a widespread idea that political neutrality, epistemic authority, and technical expertise are sources of legitimacy. Empirical studies tend to find that such appeals are effective sources of legitimacy, but theorists are overwhelmingly skeptical of their normative appeal. This article’s conceptual ambition is to unify the disparate debates under the term technical legitimacy. The article’s theoretical ambition is to improve on the normative debate on technical legitimacy. Existing defenses fail to robustly satisfy the reasons that ground delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. I propose conditions for accepting technical legitimacy that are reasonably robust against counterfactuals. Technical legitimacy must meet three criteria. Institutions must promote a functionally specified common good; build on sound and undistorted expertise; and, perhaps counterintuitively, contain appropriate venues for value input.
My Technical Legitimacy piece is now out in @polstudies.bsky.social! Pretty happy with this one, where I try to sort out the common claim that neutrality and expertise may be sources of legitimacy for unelected bodies.
➡ doi.org/10.1177/0032...
Abstract: In studies of non-majoritarian institutions, there is a widespread idea that political neutrality, epistemic authority, and technical expertise are sources of legitimacy. Empirical studies tend to find that such appeals are effective sources of legitimacy, but theorists are overwhelmingly skeptical of their normative appeal. This article’s conceptual ambition is to unify the disparate debates under the term technical legitimacy. The article’s theoretical ambition is to improve on the normative debate on technical legitimacy. Existing defenses fail to robustly satisfy the reasons that ground delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. I propose conditions for accepting technical legitimacy that are reasonably robust against counterfactuals. Technical legitimacy must meet three criteria. Institutions must promote a functionally specified common good; build on sound and undistorted expertise; and, perhaps counterintuitively, contain appropriate venues for value input.
My Technical Legitimacy piece is now out in @polstudies.bsky.social! Pretty happy with this one, where I try to sort out the common claim that neutrality and expertise may be sources of legitimacy for unelected bodies.
➡ doi.org/10.1177/0032...
i think powell's response here is a demonstration of the folly of the idea that democratic accountability requires presidential control. what if the president is not acting in the public interest? you want independent agencies to be able to push back and pursue their *congressional mandate*
Wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian: "Since migration has become the cornerstone of the current authoritarian turn, it is precisely around migration that resistance needs to form."
www.theguardian.com/world/commen...
They updated the website today to remove the word "independent"
Before (left), after (right)
Abstract: In studies of non-majoritarian institutions, there is a widespread idea that political neutrality, epistemic authority, and technical expertise are sources of legitimacy. Empirical studies tend to find that such appeals are effective sources of legitimacy, but theorists are overwhelmingly skeptical of their normative appeal. This paper’s conceptual ambition is to unify the disparate debates under the term technical legitimacy. The paper’s theoretical ambition is to improve on the normative debate on technical legitimacy. Existing defenses fail to robustly satisfy the reasons that ground delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. I propose conditions for accepting technical legitimacy that are reasonably robust against counterfactuals. Technical legitimacy must meet three criteria. Institutions must promote a functionally specified common good; build on sound and undistorted expertise; and, perhaps counterintuitively, contain appropriate venues for value input.
My paper "Technical Legitimacy" has just been accepted for publication in @polstudies.bsky.social. A preprint available here for those who just can't wait for the typeset version: www.trymnf.com/files/papers...
Abstract: In studies of non-majoritarian institutions, there is a widespread idea that political neutrality, epistemic authority, and technical expertise are sources of legitimacy. Empirical studies tend to find that such appeals are effective sources of legitimacy, but theorists are overwhelmingly skeptical of their normative appeal. This paper’s conceptual ambition is to unify the disparate debates under the term technical legitimacy. The paper’s theoretical ambition is to improve on the normative debate on technical legitimacy. Existing defenses fail to robustly satisfy the reasons that ground delegation to non-majoritarian institutions. I propose conditions for accepting technical legitimacy that are reasonably robust against counterfactuals. Technical legitimacy must meet three criteria. Institutions must promote a functionally specified common good; build on sound and undistorted expertise; and, perhaps counterintuitively, contain appropriate venues for value input.
My paper "Technical Legitimacy" has just been accepted for publication in @polstudies.bsky.social. A preprint available here for those who just can't wait for the typeset version: www.trymnf.com/files/papers...
One thing that fascinates me is this: Has “the thesis of Rachel Carson” been defined with precision as a preliminary to the debate? If it has not, you will probably find that you and your opponent are talking about entirely different things. I say this because a great many people who are talking about the book have not read it; they are arguing, not about what I have said, but about what the pesticide industry wants people to believe I said. Therefore, if you find your opponent saying my “thesis” is to abandon controls and “let nature take over,” I hope you will bring him back to reality by quoting from my concluding chapter.
Rachel Carson, in giving advice to a high schooler who was going to debate Silent Spring, showed a better awareness than many contemporary Democrats of how an opponent will ascribe positions to you that you do not espouse in bad faith to win over a public too inattentive to check for themselves.
Ok, her har vi jo en ny KI-skandale. Og den innbefatter jo attpåtil Riksrevisjonen. De har gått helt god for et notat fra Menon (av alle steder) om at KI vil effektivisere staten med 155 000 årsverk. Hvordan Menon har kommet frem til tallet? Ved å spørre Chat GPT. www.scup.com/doi/10.18261...
I'm gonna try to articulate something I've been thinking about for a while, regarding *why* disillusionment, distrust, & dissatisfaction with democracy are rising.
Almost everything I read takes this phenomenon as an exogenous shock, assuming no one chose to make it so. I suspect that's incomplete.
"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply."
me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually
www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...
Screenshot from New Yorker interview by Isaac Chotiner with Cass Sunstein
when the interview goes well: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...
Written with a great team of people: Katarzyna Andrejuk, Craig Parsons, Susanne Schmidt, Andy Smith, and Jarle Trondal – all part of the SINGLEMARKETS project at @unioslo-arena.bsky.social
We've done hundreds of interviews with small and large businesses, associations and officials. It's striking that Americans tend to see barriers to trade between US states as given and not a political problem. Europeans businesses much more likely to look to the EU for solutions.
Both are part of a special issue that compares the single markets in the EU and US. We find – surprisingly! – that the market in both construction services and spirits is more harmonised in the EU than the US. More American barriers to trade, and much less political will to harmonise.
Two new publications today, both in Publius: The Journal of Federalism.
🏗️ Why Do Americans Not Care about Interstate Barriers in Construction? doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaf027
🍸 Federal Spirits: Single Markets and the Case of Spirits Drinks doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjaf033
Still not as bad as Microsoft Teams
Serbia, Sprint Insight poll:
Scenario: joint government vs. student list
Student list-*: 55%
SNS/SPS+-EPP: 42%
Fieldwork: 23 June - 05 July 2025
Sample size: 1458
➤ europeelects.eu/serbia
This should be deeply embedded into everyone’s understanding: the pursuit of EU migration policy and the equivalent law-enforcement & surveillance agencies consistently violate the EU’s own laws. wearesolomon.com/mag/format/i...
Screenshot of the title page of linked article: "Noisy Politics, Quiet Technocrats: Strategic Silence by Central Banks" By Benjamin Braun and Maximilian Düsterhöft
🚨New article🚨 The consensus is that contestation pushed central banks to talk 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 about inequality & climate.
Our theory: At first, CBs seek to ward off politicization by talking 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 about controversial topics.
We tested this 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬.🧵
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Picture showing Vučić in front of the Kremlin
...endorsement of Putin's imperial war of conquest in Ukraine.
Vučić, the autocratic leader of an EU candidate country, is siding with the EU's geopolitical adversary. This is a pretty black and white affair: the EU has to react with meaningful measures, beyond mere statements.
Front page of the "Politika" daily showing Vučić arriving in Moscow
Aleksandar Vučić, treated by the EU as its closest ally in the Balkans, has arrived in Moscow to attend Putin's spectacle tomorrow, defying very clear warnings by EU leaders. Slovakia's Robert Fico is also expected to attend.
With their presence, these leaders signal their endorsement of...
Naturally this has implications for the way in which a political philosopher should communicate his ideas. One of the unwelcome side effects of turning political philosophy into an academic discipline has been the rise of the journal article as the preferred means of expression. Everything about it is forbidding to the lay reader. It has a formal structure that seems designed to reassure her that there will be no surprising turns of argument. It lays out in advance the conclusion to which she will be marched. It plods dutifully through the large literature on the topic, as though to confirm that no original thought is going to be expressed. It is weighed down with footnotes—in the worst case almost every sentence has a Harvard-style reference at the end. Everything about it signals that it’s intended only for the initiated— those who’ve already mastered the fifty-five other articles it cites. In all these respects it contrasts with the essay as a form of writing designed to convey ideas to the reader in an enticing and imaginative way and with little use of formal apparatus. For several centuries before this one, the essay was the primary means of conveying political-philosophical ideas to what Hume in his essay on the subject called ‘the conversible World’. ( D. Hume, ‘Of Essay Writing’, in D. Hume, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, edited by E. Miller (Liberty Press, 1985).
A footnote from David Miller, expressing highly recognisable reservations about the rise of the journal article.