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Stefan Cetkovic @stefancetkovic.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Wow, quite a populist speech from the Serbian President Vucic yesterday at the UN General Assembly, even by his standards. Everything was in there: shadow rulers and self-proclaimed elites who believe they are God-given to govern all of us without legitimacy and against the will of the people...

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Stefan Cetkovic @stefancetkovic.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

How democracies die and rise up again. Mass student-led anti-government protests yesterday in Belgrade. Officially 107,000 people gathered, in reality far more. Everything went peaceful with students even cleaning up the streets after the protests ended. Impressive! edition.cnn.com/2025/03/15/e...

edition.cnn.com

Over 100,000 people rally in massive anti-corruption protest against Serbian government | CNN

At least 100,000 people descended on Belgrade on Saturday for a mass rally seen as a culmination of months-long protests against Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his government.

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Reposted by Stefan Cetkovic

Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.”
• The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives.
• The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000.

Each point represents a federal agency:
• Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs.
• Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs.

Key Observations:
• Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates.
• Notable targeted agencies include:
• HHS (Health & Human Services)
• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
• NIH (National Institutes of Health)
• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)
• Dept. of Education
• USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development)
• The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies.
• A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size.

Takeaway:

The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology.

Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

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Stefan Cetkovic @stefancetkovic.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

We are inviting papers for an ECPR panel on the politics of conflicts between accelerated renewable energy deployment and nature protection! Please do get in touch with an abstract by Dec 18 if you broadly work on this topic! RT much appreciated! @ecpr.bsky.social #energypolicy #energy

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Reposted by Stefan Cetkovic

Robert A. Huber @robert-a-huber.bsky.social · 28/11/2023

Great to see our @jeppjournal.bsky.social article (w/ @tomasmaltby.bsky.social @szulecki.bsky.social @stefancetkovic.bsky.social ) cited in the latest @financialtimes.com Europe Express newsletter: ( ep.ft.com/permalink/em... ) We explore the variation in populists' approach to climate change.

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