iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Last chance to register for the 13th SGEU Biennial Conference in Catania 🇮🇹, 1-3 July 2026. The registration deadline is this Sunday (19 April)! ecpr.eu/Events/341 Join the biggest academic event on EU politics and governance @ecprsgeu.bsky.social

ecpr.eu

13th Biennial Conference of the SGEU, Università di Catania, 1 – 3 July 2026

European Consortium for Political Research

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Intra-EU migration has positive fiscal effects on the net fiscal position, while extra-EU migration has a negative effect when background characteristics are controlled for. This is the main result of a new comparative study of the net fiscal position of migrants in Europe. doi.org/10.1007/s107...

doi.org

Decomposing the net fiscal position of migrants in Europe - International Tax and Public Finance

In this study, we examine differences in the net fiscal positions of migrants and native-born individuals across 15 EU countries between 2007 and 2018. To do so, we combine EU-SILC cross-sectional dat...

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

We are grateful to @tadegquillien.bsky.social and the @hotpoliticslab.bsky.social group for very useful comments on earlier drafts. The editor and reviewers @polpsyispp.bsky.social were also very helpful in improving this study 🙏.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Loyalty to favoured groups trumps the effects of causal structure in making causal judgments on issues of politics. When identities are not provided, causal structure matters; when they are known, they are almost all that matters. Here is the link to our study onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Motivated causal judgments and responsibility for civilian casualties in military conflicts

Causal judgments are ubiquitous in politics and crucial for assigning responsibility and blame. Cognitive science has demonstrated that people are more likely to pick factors as “causal” when they ma...

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Our article with @honoratam.bsky.social on ✨motivated causal judgements✨ is out in @polpsyispp.bsky.social! When something bad happens, whose actions produced the outcome and who bears responsibility? It depends much more on the identity of the actors than on the details of the situation.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Thank you! I'm working on a new edition, so any feedback and suggestions are welcome.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Nope, you cannot make statements about whether scientisits as a whole find Twitter useful (as in the title) from the subset who also have accounts on another platform. This is a form of selection bias.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

data is not shared because of 'privacy concerns' .... huh? how difficult is it to delete the column with the twitter handles and share the rest?! And what would be an 'unreaasonble' request to obtain the data?

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Is this a joke 🤡? The sweeping claims are based on a sample of 813 self-selected responses on a survey posted on the author's feeds. Respondents *self-declared* to be scientists 😉and were *required* to have a bluesky account. The 'survey' was open for one month (it doesn't say in which year 🤷).

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

I wish this was a settled question already, but it ain't. Conspiratorial claims that the government reactions to the pandemic were unnecessary abound. Yes, it's really hard to identify the causal impact of policy. But, to the extent that we can do that, it apepars to be significant and positive.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Our study of the impact of policy on excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic is out @plosone.org. We find that the policy measures saved lives. They did so by reducing mobility (in addition to people's direct reactions to the pandemic) and other channels. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

journals.plos.org

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

The European Parliament voted yesterday to refer the MERCOSUR deal to the European Court of Justice. The two biggest party groups were quite split: - 28% of the present European Socialists (S&D) voted in favor of this motion; - 24% of the present European People's Party (EPP) MPs voted in favor.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

The Bulgarian government resigns in the wake of the mass protests. Now the current parliament will fail to form another government, the president will appoint an interim cabinet and schedule new elections, which - most likely - will lead to another stealmate. www.reuters.com/world/europe...

reuters.com

Bulgarian government resigns after weeks of street protests

Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov handed in his government's resignation on Thursday following weeks of street protests over its economic policies and its perceived failure to tackle corruptio...

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Finally, the classic Left-Right vs. pro-anti Europe plot of party positions, to confirm that at the party level the pattern still holds in 2024, with some small but significant variations across regions. You can explore the country-level relationships in the app here: dimiter.shinyapps.io/ches/

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Next, we look at the measure of internal party dissent with regard to EU positions. Dissent is of course related to the clarity of positions, but the two are not the same. Western European parties with moderate positions on Europe have the highest levels of internal dissent, on average.

Dissent and party positions on European integration

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Next, blur of positions on European integration: Again, Eurosceptic and pro-European parties have the clearest positions, whille the parties in the middle are the most likely to have blurred or unclear positions on Europe. This is especially true for parties in Eastern and Southern Europe.

Blur and party positions on European integration

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

First, let's look at salience: A rather pronounced inverted U-curve, with the most Eurosceptic and the most pro-European parties having the highest levels of saliance. Not much difference across Europen regions, but in Western Europe, the dip in saleince for centrist parties is the deepest

Salience and party positions on European integration

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

It is almost 10 years since Hanspeter Kriesi published his seminal article on the politicization of European Integration @jcms-eu.bsky.social. A short thread on how things stand as of 2024, with @chesdata.bsky.social, looking at salience, clarity, and unity of party positions towards the EU 🧵:

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

My study of 🇪🇺 public opinion is now published! Check it out if you want to know how attitudes towards European integration really covary with political ideology, which policy views predict EU support, and how party positions structure public opinion. www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandg...

cogitatiopress.com

Political Ideology, Policy Attitudes, and Public Support for European Integration | Article | Politics and Governance

Dimiter Toshkov

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Reposted by Dimiter Toshkov

ECPR Standing Group on the European Union 🇪🇺 @ecprsgeu.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Deadline extended until 14 December (Sunday) ⌛! You can still apply to the ECPR SGEU 2026 conference (1 – 3 July 2026) until the end of thes week! Join us in sunny Sicily, in the air-conditioned rooms of Università di Catania! ecpr.eu/Events/341

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

That's a great way to put it!

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

In your example, the experiment primes identity, so it manipulates its recency and availability in the minds of respondents. This might be important for real world interventions, such as political speeches.

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Reposted by Dimiter Toshkov

Randy Besco @randybesco.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

New work on on Immigration attitudes, out in @irpp.org with @natashagoel.bsky.social We show dramatical increase in anti-immigration opinion in Canada over the past couple of years. Its very different than previous shifts like in 1990s...

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

I don't think that's correct. First, most survey experiments control 'which' vignette is presented, not the order. Second, the differences in answers to a question following exposure to alternatives vignettes is not necessarily the same as a stated preference.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

I think that's what practitioners of conjoints will say, only in their case the 'behavior' is actually responding to a different survey rather than an actual purchase, vote, etc.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Not a fan of conjoints, but for the sake of argument: asking directly would *not* reveal your preference for women due to social desirability bias or imperfect introspection. So the conjoint identifes a version of a causal effect (with limited transportability to the real-world IMO, but still).

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

In your example, you have estimated the causal effect of exposure to the word 'coffee' or 'tea' on my tendency to say 'yes' or 'no'. Whether this causal effect has any real-world or theoretical relevance is a different question. Meanwhile, you have *also* measured my preference for tea or coffee.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

The blog post puts 'priming interventions' as measurement-oriented. But they identify the causal effect of the prime, hence causal inference. And, in principle, this effect can be useful for policy purposes, for example in the design of information or communication strategies.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

If conducted properly, a survey experiment with randomized exposure to the treatment identifies the average causal effect of the treatment relative to the alternatives, no? This is 'measuring quantities' in the same sense that any other design is 'measuring quanitities', incl. lab exp-s, d-in-d, etc

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

I don't follow: survey experiments estimate the causal effect of an experimental intervention, which is often in the form of a vignette, audio stimullus, video message or whatever. So I agreee that they aren't central to the credibility 'revolution', but they aren't purely descriptive/measuerment.

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European Consortium for Political Research @ecpr.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

🚨 Today in #ECPRSeminars on the EU from 15:00 @ecprsgeu.bsky.social Our speakers argue that climate disasters can push voters 🗳️ away from mainstream parties, shaped by local economic conditions 🎙️@lisadellmuth.bsky.social @evemariejon.bsky.social @tntounias.bsky.social @cjschneider.bsky.social

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TODAY: Register FREE

Standing Group on European Union (SGEU) Seminar Series

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

The effect was ... 2 points on a 100-point scale 🙄. It was due to a LLM-based extension to X designed by the researchers to max polarization, not to changes in the native X alghorithm. Funny that the link in the Guardian article is to a commentary that is not very enthusiastic about the results.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

It's quite absurd that there is no funding to keep ParlGov updated: this is essential data infrastructure for political science! No funder is interested in keeping the data backbone of comparative politics alive, while millions get spent on all kinds of BS. Ridiculous!

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ECPR Standing Group on the European Union 🇪🇺 @ecprsgeu.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

The deadline (10 December) for the call for papers and panels for the 13th biennial SGEU conference (1-3 July 2026, Università di Catania) is approaching fast! Submit your panels and papers to one of 18 sections via the @ecpr.bsky.social webpage: ecpr.eu/Events/341.

ecpr.eu

13th Biennial Conference of the SGEU, Università di Catania, 1 – 3 July 2026

European Consortium for Political Research

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

yeps, it's telling that the Renew vote on the Omnibus Simplification Directive was split, with 17 MPs siding with the EPP.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Indeed, but the proximity between the EPP and Renew average positions makes you wonder about the reasons to have them as separate groups

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

For example, here are the positions on deregulation and the environment, relevant for the vote on the Omnibus Simplification directive last week. It is no mystery why the EPP voted with the ECR, PfN and ESN: their positions are much closer and allow the EPP to achieve its policy objectives.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

🤩 Party positions in the 2024 European Parliament 🇪🇺! I merged the CHES expert survey with EP composition data to visualize the political space of the current EP. The graphs make the center of gravity in the EP quite clear, on multiple dimensions and policy issues. dimiter.shinyapps.io/ches/

Party positions in the European Parliament 2024. Based on the CHES expert survey. Political space in the European Union 2024.

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Reposted by Dimiter Toshkov

Philipp Lutz @lutzphilipp.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Our study on public immigration misperceptions is out! Prior research overstated their prevalence due to flawed measurement. Our new approach separates real misperceptions from uninformed guessing — showing they’re less common than widely assumed and ideologically motivated. doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

doi.org

Beyond innumeracy: measuring public misperceptions about immigration | Political Science Research and Methods | Cambridge Core

Beyond innumeracy: measuring public misperceptions about immigration

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

It is an interesting paper 😉 osf.io/preprints/os... My suspicion is that some of the resistance to any work that doesn't follow the canon comes from young scholars who feel they need to 'enforce' the boundaries of the field they have been socialized into. But this is also just a hunch.

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Reviewer 2: You have no definition of 'sanctions'. Also, I don't like your definition of 'sanctions'. 😂😡🥹

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Dimiter Toshkov @dtoshkov.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

So findings from general studies of human behavior are invalid because people don't know much about international organizations 🤷‍♂️ ... One of the joys of doing social science for me is reading and learning from different fields. But too often reviewers encourage the exact opposite. Why?

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