A recent debate on the left pits “abundance” vs “anti-monopoly”
Is the problem that we've made it too hard to build? Or that extractive corporations dominate the economy?
My new paper argues: both reflect a deeper shift.
We've entered an economy oriented toward scarcity—the Anti-Growth Machine.
Partisans, what partisans?
Research by @jonadejong.bsky.social & Baldassari suggests that, contrary to earlier research using fictitious settings, in real encounters, Republicans and Democrats experience partisanship mostly as invisible and not something they find particularly important:
For those following along, some thoughts on Thurner et al.'s reply to our critique to their "connectivity causes polarization" claim. At first sight, this looks like a solid rejoinder, perhaps even justifying the mildly sarcastic tone. Upon closer inspection, not so much. So, another thread... 1/
Amazing, congratulations!
Happy to share our new paper published in PNAS!
Using epigenetic clocks and egocentric network data, we find each additional "hassler" in your close social network is associated with ~9 months of extra biological age and 1.5% faster pace of aging.
NEW PUBLICATION
“How the Media Cordon Sanitaire Crumbles: Lessons from Germany” now out in @prxjournal.bsky.social
🔓 doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2026.2621808
I’m very happy that this paper is out – this project is particularly important to me.
My brother wanted a London pub crawl. The result? My new Substack post: "Britain Lost 14,000 Third Places. They were Called Pubs. Is Your Local Next?" How private equity reshaped the local, which pubs are most at risk and most importantly what to do about it.
open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...
📢WORK! At the Sociology department of @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social we are hiring a postdoc who will work on applications of AI in sociological research. Join our vibrant-yet-cohesive research community doing cutting-edge research. Please share or apply! www.uu.nl/en/organisat...
Earlier, I voiced my doubts here about a recent PNAS paper claiming that an alleged "rise in connectivity" explains an increase in polarization. PNAS was kind enough to publish our comments this week: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
This is paper is a good reminder that political scientists all too often think people care as much about politics as they do.
The US is often seen as an extreme case where polarization erodes democracy bc partisanship now permeates all everyday sociability and affects. But this is now being contradicted by a whole number of studies. Besides the really interesting new work by @jonadejong.bsky.social, there is... (quick 🧵)
Nice to see this shown empirically. I suppose many colleagues had this prior. Spot on.
Second, the situation may change in the future. We do find evidence of a subset (19%) of socially radicalized respondents, who do avoid out-partisans. A small group of radicals can have destabilizing effects, even if society at large remains moderate.
16/16
I close with two caveats. First, our results do not downplay polarization at the level of elites and the media, nor do they speak to political radicalization or political violence. But fears of excessive partisan division at the level of interpersonal relationship formation are misplaced.
15/16
Moreover, results offer scope conditions to the external validity of using group labels to assess relationship formation, discrimination, or cooperation. Intended behavior towards abstract categories should not necessarily be taken as indicative of real-world behavior towards actual people.
14/16
Our results suggest that the interpersonal consequences of partisanship have been exaggerated. While
partisan labels consistently evoke real feelings of hostility, ordinary people who happen to be out-partisans
do not do so at scale (caveats below)
13/16
We conclude that partisanship plays a limited role in relationship formation. This may explain why despite decades of elite and media polarization, individuals still entertain relationships with numerous out-partisan close
ties and acquaintances (see: sociologicalscience.com/articles-v12...)
12/16
We close with conjoints, where explicit information of partisanship is provided. A setting which, we maintain, remains rare in everyday life.
Here, people express a wish to avoid profiles with out-partisan labels. Though note that strong out-partisans are avoided much more than moderates.
11/16
In each setting, partisanship is deemed relatively unimportant. Almost any other characteristic, from personality, to setting-specific traits, to most demographics, is considered more important
than knowing whether a potential partner is a Republican or a Democrat.
10/16
Next, we move to experimental evidence. First, we test whether people look for partisanship when it is invisible.
We ask them about the relative importance of various characteristics of potential coworkers, neighbors or sports club partners, and run pairwise comparisons.
9/16
If they find out that their new acquaintance is an out-partisan, most people indicate not to care, or to avoid talking politics.
In other survey questions, they indicate to be surrounded by out-partisans in various social environments, but to mostly not avoid them.
8/16
As the relationship unfolds, some people find out - at the same rate as religion. But 42% still don't know today, several months, or even a year after meeting for the first time.
If partisanship drove relationship formation, you'd expect people to know and learn about it instantly.
7/16
Invited to think about the last friend or acquaintance they made in real life, only 15% of respondents knew the partisanship of their new acquaintance during their first encounter. This is statistically indistinguishable from religion, another often invisible trait.
6/16
To test the role of partisanship in the process of relationship formation in the US, we ran two surveys (N = 5900), in November 2022 and July 2025.
First, we introduce a novel survey module to trace knowledge and relevance of partisanship in the unfolding of new social relationships.
5/16
In contrast, when meeting a real person, partisanship may be invisible, or ambiguous. People can hide their politics, be moderately political, politically moderate, or cross-pressured. They may not care about politics, nor look for it. Therefore, partisanship may remain in the background.
4/16
When confronted with an out-partisan label in a survey, people often imagine stereotypical others – ideologically extreme and very politically involved. No wonder they express a strong desire to avoid them.
3/16
In surveys and experiments, US citizens express a wish to avoid fictitious out-partisans. This is often taken as evidence of actual avoidance of fellow citizens. However, we believe that expressed behavior towards partisan labels differs markedly from actual behavior towards out-partisans.
2/16
Do ordinary Republicans and Democrats really avoid each other in everyday life? In a new working paper with Delia Baldassarri, we present descriptive and experimental evidence to challenge the view that partisanship drives the formation of social relationships.
osf.io/preprints/so...
1/15
We stress the importance of social structure for polarization along a new cleavage --> policies shaping network segregation matter!
Also see this paper by @jonadejong.bsky.social @jonnekamphorst.bsky.social who come to similar conclusions based on different data/countries. tinyurl.com/47edtwtc
How are contemporary cleavage structures stabilized in times of declining mass social and political organizations?
In this new paper with @davidattewell6.bsky.social @bjpols.bsky.social, we suggest that homogeneous social (educational) networks provide part of the answer.
tinyurl.com/49cs8jwp
