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Cole Harvey

@colejharvey.bsky.social
597 followers 156 following 70 posts

Assistant professor of political science; PhD UNC-CH; election manipulation, authoritarianism, former USSR region colejharvey.github.io

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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
How do people react to different forms of election manipulation in politically polarized settings? New from me at Democratization @democratization.bsky.social, with survey-experimental evidence from Georgia 🇬🇪: doi.org/10.1080/1351...
doi.org
Polarization and the legitimacy costs of electoral manipulation tactics: survey-experimental results from the 2024 election in Georgia
Elections can be manipulated in a variety of ways, both legal and illegal. Legal, or formal, electoral manipulation is common, while illegal manipulation is somewhat more variable. This variation h...
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Vladimir Putin, a much savvier authoritarian, made it a point to get all his national security principals to publicly support his war of choice before he launched it. Even in the Kremlin publicity photos of the event, most of them look petrified. www.en.kremlin.ru/events/presi...
en.kremlin.ru
Security Council meeting
The President held a meeting of the Russian Federation Security Council at the Kremlin.
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Not loving this new morning routine of waking up, seeing a "truth" so extreme that it has to be fake, then scrolling to find with dawning horror that it is not.
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
New website! 📖 With updated information on my book manuscript on: ❌ How mass protest fails to prevent election manipulation ❌ How dictators who manipulate more are better at defeating protest ⚖️ What *does* interfere with manipulation efforts colejharvey.github.io/book.html
colejharvey.github.io
Cole J. Harvey, PhD - Book project: The Machinery of Manipulation
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
President Trump at only +2.6 net approval in Oklahoma seems hard to believe, and I'm sure reliable point estimates are hard to pin down for such a small state. But then again my neighbor recently replaced his Trump flag with an American flag, so... 👀
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
I am adopting ~10 chapters from this book for my intro comparative politics course this fall!
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Reposted by Cole Harvey
David Szakonyi @szakonyi.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
It was painful to write an obituary, from an academic's perspective, for one of Russia's most important civil society organizations @themoscowtimes.com www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/07/11/w...
themoscowtimes.com
Why Russia's Last Independent Election Monitor Mattered to the World - The Moscow Times
Opinion | After 25 years of work, Russia’s only independent election monitoring organization, Golos, is sadly no more.
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
There definitely seems to have been a phase shift this semester
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Денег нет, но вы держитесь! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%2...
en.wikipedia.org
There's no money, but hang in there - Wikipedia
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
I am genuinely very curious how easily the president will be able to remove from power a man who: 1) apparently has access to / control over govt payroll and Social Security payment infrastructure, and 2) has a large portion of his wealth tied to the idea that he has governing influence 🤔🤔🤔
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Musk's turnout-buying scheme in WI is probably illegal (electionlawblog.org?p=149196). As a social scientist of election integrity, what's interesting here is the effort to build a patronage-based election manipulating apparatus in a society that doesn't have one.
electionlawblog.org
Elon Musk Appears to Be Breaking Wisconsin Law Against Vote Buying in Offering a Chance to Win $1 Million to Anyone Who Voted in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race #ELB
During the 2024 elections, there was a question whether Elon Musk was breaking federal law in offering various incentives only to registered voters, including what was essentially a lottery open only ...
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Very encouraging for democratic resilience
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Not to add undue alarm, but two things I have not yet seen in the Discourse: 1) If Musk's team has made code changes to the the federal payments system, what happens if he is sidelined? I.e. if Trump pushes him out, does anyone else know how to cut the checks? www.wired.com/story/elon-m...
wired.com
A 25-Year-Old With Elon Musk Ties Has Direct Access to the Federal Payment System
The Bureau of the Fiscal Service is a sleepy part of the Treasury Department. It’s also where, sources say, a 25-year-old engineer tied to Elon Musk has admin privileges over the code that controls So...
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Perhaps the senior Democratic cohort thinks they can replay 2005 and W. Bush's failed social security reform: Trump overreach ➡️ Dems taking Congress in 2026. But this won't work: the fight is about the rules of the game, not just policy. A few thoughts from a scholar of electoral authoritarianism 🧵
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Reposted by Cole Harvey
Authoritarian Political Systems Group @apsgworkshop.bsky.social · 15/11/2024
We noticed there wasn't a starter pack on authoritarian politics yet – Now there is! go.bsky.app/UFHn7sS Spread and ask to join!
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 13/11/2024
Beyond the problems identified in the quoted posted, each new post-elections news story like this one (www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/b...) takes my fury to new heights, considering how many pre-election stories were variations on "BREAKING: Trump campaigns in Wisconsin"
nytimes.com
How Trump’s Immigration Plans Could Affect the Economy
Expelling noncitizens on a mass scale is likely to raise prices on goods and services and lower employment rates for U.S. workers, many economists say.
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 31/10/2024
Line stretching to the construction sign was ~15% of the people waiting to vote in Tulsa. Took about 1.75hrs. Inspiring to see the commitment, but sad state of voting in OK. Tulsa (380,000 registered voters) has *2* early polling places. Compare to Durham NC (250,000 RV) with 12 polling places!
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 27/10/2024
Situation in 🇬🇪 developing rapidly; major opposition parties are refusing their parliamentary mandates and the country's president refuses to recognize the official results (which show the ruling party with a narrow majority). civil.ge/archives/631... For background and survey data, see quoted post!
civil.ge
BREAKING: President Zurabishvili Rejects Election Results
After a day of intensive consultations with opposition parties following the 26 October parliamentary elections, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili held a briefing in which she said she would not ...
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 23/10/2024
While we Americans are justifiably stressed abt Nov. 5, there's another consequential election coming up--in the Republic of Georgia. Like the US, Georgia is undergoing political polarization and threats to democracy. See my analysis here with original survey data, via PONARS: tinyurl.com/66s3k2t6
ponarseurasia.org
Survey Data from Republic of Georgia Highlights Risks of Polarization Ahead of 2024 Election - PONARS Eurasia
Image credit/license PONARS EURASIA POLICY MEMO NO. 914 (PDF) The Republic of Georgia will hold highly consequential elections on October 26. This is the first parliamentary election conducted under a...
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 22/07/2024
Agreed, which makes the prediction markets wildly overconfident in a Trump win, in my (non-betting) opinion:
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 28/06/2024
So the last 12 hours or so have significantly increased the odds of Supreme Court reform in 2029, though, right?
media.tenor.com
Bright Side GIF
ALT: Bright Side GIF
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 25/04/2024
I have little doubt that SCOTUS will rule in a way that benefits candidate Trump; the question remains how much damage will be done to the constitutional order along the way. [PS: most authoritarian presidential regimes I know have absolute presidential immunity, note how well that works out.]
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 31/10/2023
Hello polisky ! To introduce myself on Bluesky: I study authoritarian politics, election manipulation, and geographically Russia, Ukraine, etc. To get started, I wrote a longish thread here on the attempted pogrom in Dagestan two days ago, and what it tells us about 🇷🇺 politics. Thoughts welcome!
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 30/10/2023
Like Kevin notes here, when the videos from Makhachkala cycled up from regional accounts to more generalist journos/commentators, the vibe shifted to "Look what Putin has done." I think that's right...but in the most roundabout way possible. 1/n on Dagestan and authoritarianism, and RU politics
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
The Republican party has been having hard days doing politics at the politics factory
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 24/10/2023
Hello Comparativesky and PoliSkyData 📊 folks! Posting to see if anyone knows of an archive of the precinct-level results for 🇺🇦 Ukraine's 2019 elections. The official databases are 404-ed, and the Wayback Machine archive is naturally spotty. Appreciate any ideas!
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Cole Harvey @colejharvey.bsky.social · 12/10/2023
@profmusgrave.bsky.social Hello! Could you add me to the Polisky list at your convenience? Thanks for your help; I found the blog post on adjusting to Bluesky very helpful
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