Adam Przeworski
@AdamPrzeworski
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Joined August 2019
I will no longer post on X, moving to Bluesky, where I am
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First time I tweet something personal. When I was 4, a bomb fell 10 meters away from me and the memory remained indelible. I am thinking about the future of Ukrainian 4 year olds.
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This is my current understanding of the value and the essence of democracy, in 350 words.
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Final blow to the myth that counter-majoritarian institutions protect rights. Depends on who is on the Court.
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Unfortunately, Andrew, I am less certain today than I was 17 years ago.
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I realized that I may care more about futbol than politics. And I believe that the final will be Brasil-France, 50/50.
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Hay algo perverso en la izquierda antiamericana en América Latina: "Los yanquis lo hicieron, entonces es legítimo hacerlo". Se utiliza para justificar las violaciones de los derechos humanos y las atrocidades rusas en Ucrania.
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I do not know how but my theoretical nose tells me that Putin will go:.
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Part IV of Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942) is the best political science text ever written.
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Sorry, Gerry, but this list ignores Marxism, notably Poulantzas, as well as early O'Donnell. See my The State and the Economy under Capitalism (Harwood, 1990).
Since Weber, the study of the state has become more and more refined and complex. Here are 10 concepts or conceptual distinctions all social scientists interested in the study of the state should understand. References in 🧵
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A brilliant paper. Answers questions I wondered about for a long time. Exceptionally thorough.
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China reminds me of an old Soviet joke: A man distributes leaflets on Red Square. A policeman grabs one, look at it, and exclaims: "What are you doing? Nothing is written!" The man replies: "Why write? Everybody knows.".
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Prigozhin's rebellion was not an attempt at a coup but a pronunciamento, an old Spanish tradition.
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This must be a joke.
Democracy Index 2021. Top 10 Countries. Norway🇳🇴🥇.New Zealand🇳🇿🥈.Finland🇫🇮🥉.Sweden🇸🇪.Iceland🇮🇸.Denmark🇩🇰.Ireland🇮🇪.Taiwan🇹🇼.Australia🇦🇺.Switzerland🇨🇭. @TheEconomist
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The Polish election is the first instance of a backsliding government defeated having had completed two terms. Moreover, average income increased 31% during past 8 years. I did not expect it.
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Note that this index considers only corruption in the public sector, which biases it in favor of countries where the public sector is smaller. I wonder how the US would rank on corruption in the private sector.
🔵 OUT NOW! We analysed 180 countries to see how they scored in the fight against corruption. Check out your country’s score! #CPI2023
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Economic deprivation combined with dissension within elites leads to political overthrows. Obviously, the painful question is how many people will die in the meantime.
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Why did democracies react slower than autocracies to the pandemic? Was it because they had to consider individual rights? See Covid_Paper at
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The US invaded or bombed many countries. But one has to be a moral idiot to invoke it to condone Putin's atrocities; any war, anywhere.
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The combination of capitalism and nationalism will kill many people. The obvious solution to the scarcity of vaccines is to buy out Pfizer's and Moderna's property rights and let anyone produce it.
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Here is my, quite bleak, take on "The Future of Social Democracy:
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Corruption is a systemic problem. But this is corruption of public officials. What about corporate corruption?.
Latin America has, with few exceptions (Costa Rica, Chile, Uruguay), corrupt democracies, in which political actors, civil servants, security agents, members of the judiciary, participate actively or passively in acts of corruption. Corruption is a systemic problem for democracy.
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Some fundamental issues about democracy raised by Kelsen and Schumpeter. See
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Why democracy, backsliding, or autocracy? Unabashedly, I think this model has exceptionally rich results. The introductory overview is intended to be self-explanatory without delving into the math. See
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Sí, las investigaciones muestran que todo importa y nada importa mucho.
There are some who say they have found 𝙩𝙝𝙚 cause of economic growth. This figure, from a handbook on interdisciplinary studies, suggests that that such an argument is hardly credible.👇. Also, the determinants of economic growth are most likely not only economic factors.
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Another thought on Poland: How does one undo backsliding without backsliding? PiS packed state institutions. If the opposition responds in kind, it will be backsliding. If it does not, it will be undermining its future electoral chances. "Restoring democracy" is a tricky task.
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The V-dem report on democracy is just a publicity stunt. See Andrew Little and Anne Meng, "Subjective and Objective Measures of Democratic Backsliding,"
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FRANCE: Someone already said it but worth repeating: If the conversation does not take place in the parliament, it does on the streets.
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Thank you Rodrigo.
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This should be a correct link to my recent article in the Journal of Democracy:
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Defending democracy, without illusions. A corrected version at
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Understanding popular support for autocracies is full of puzzles. See
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I prefer "reproducible" to "objective" in describing data. Reproducible: Given the coding instructions and the same facts, all potential coders must generate the same code.
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The US and other countries that produce covid vaccines just blocked the proposal at WTO to waive property rights. I am not imputing it as a motivation but note that eradicating the pandemic is not the market interest of vaccine producers.
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Poland's democracy score increased because V-Dem raters like the party that won the election; Italy's decreased because that do not like it?.
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I cannot figure out why China changed the covid policy so abruptly. Some political motives must be at play but I could not solicit an explanation from people who should know. Any ideas?.
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3. A Russian friend of mine once defined the Russian middle class as "those who travel abroad." If so, there is no more middle class in Russia. 4. Oligarchs lost not only some of their fortunes but also hopes and perhaps relations with their Westernized children.
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Fruit of discussions in Argentina and Chile: "Defending Democracy" at
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I was asked what is better than V-dem. Glib answer: anything, even Polity, which has issue of its own. Golden rule: the score must be reproducible by anyone who knows the coding rules and the facts. Otherwise, only biases of coders are measured.
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The best book on autocracy I have ever read, political science literature included: Hedi Kaddour, La Nuit des Orateurs.
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Thanks to Dalson Figueiredo for solving my problem with downloading the WID dataset, which is not user friendly.
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To my best knowledge what happened in the UK is the first time ever that markets reacted negatively to tax reductions. True?.
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In principle, I am not against continuous measures of democracy (above some threshold). But I know of no continuous measure that is reproducible, that is, for which all observers exposed to the same facts must arrive at the same score.
Quality before Quantity. Democracy is a quality that regimes can have or not have. Only if a regime is a democracy can it vary in its degree of democracy. Yet most democracy indices ignore this point & treat all regimes as democratic. Fortunately, others avoid this error.👇. 🧵
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5. The Minister of Defense is a former construction foreman, who orders the professional military. 6. The propaganda bubble is so brazen that it is unsustainable.
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Cuestionar las credenciales académicas del profesor Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca es indignante. Es un académico reconocido internacionalmente, excepcionalmente innovador, riguroso y productivo; un destacado estudioso español de su generación. Le tengo un respeto inmenso.
Cualquiera que conozca la trayectoria del profesor Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca sabe de su honestidad intachable como intelectual y como persona. Está claro que le tienen muchas ganas los inquisidores de la política, la universidad y los medios.
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A great book: Deborah Boucoyannis, Kings as Judges. Erudite, clearly constructed, slays every ideological myth about property rights.
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Died Angel Flisfisch, a leading protagonist in Chilean return to democracy. Wise and courageous, a rare combination.
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1. There are parents who lost their sons and many who will fear losing theirs. 2. Russians will suffer not only a sudden loss of purchasing power but shortages and irregular services.
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Fernando no sólo es uno de los primeros estadísticos de América Latina y un gran maestro sino que también fue el centro delantero de los Gitanos de Nunoa en 1970-71!.
Fernando Cortés, profesor emérito de la FLACSO y el Colegio de México, escribió mucho sobre la metodología de las ciencias sociales👇. Su útil artículo sobre el "Desarrollo de la metodología en ciencias sociales en América Latina" puede bajarse acá:
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Luo's and my paper on the dynamics of backsliding is finally out from QJPS. It is accessible here and readable without going into the math.
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El libro de Saguir es el menos conocido, pero es excepcionalmente agudo analíticamente y rico históricamente.
𝗟𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗼́𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗹 𝗘𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗱𝗼 𝗔𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗼. Estoy leyendo sobre la formación del Estado en América Latina y, en particular, libros que discuten casos en profundidad. Estas son algunas de las fuentes sobre la formación del Estado Argentino en el siglo XIX.
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Excellent. Thanks, Gerry.
As @AdamPrzeworski noted, many concepts used in the study of the state draw on a Marxist approach and characteristically focus on the relationship between the state and the capitalist class. Here is a list of 10 such concepts or conceptual distinctions. References in 🧵
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According to Freedom House (see Washington Post, March 9), the number of countries where democracy scores declined in 2022 was the lowest in 17 years while the number where these scores increased rose. Compare with V-Dem and decide what to think about expert ratings.
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From time to time someone asks me whether I am "still" a Marxist. Here is my answer:
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As many others, I have been thinking about what we are going through and what the future may bring. See "Musings" at There will be more.
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Congratulations!!!.
ALACIP informa que el II Premio de Trayectoria Académica 2024, destinado a reconocer colegas que hayan realizado contribuciones de relevancia en el estudio de la política en América Latina, fue otorgado, por unanimidad del jurado, a Argelina Cheibub.
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Boese et al (Democratization 2021), using V-Dem, claim that "once autocratization begins, only 1 in 5 democracies manage to avert breakdown." Weyland (PSQ 2022), studying cases, claims that "only 1 in 3 of populist governments effect significant democratic deterioration. ".
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Arsenal, with tears: It is over for this year. But next year!!! Is it not like democracy when your party loses?.
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En principio, no estoy en contra de medidas continuas de democracia (por encima de algún umbral). Pero no conozco ninguna medida continua que sea reproducible, es decir, por la cual todos los observadores expuestos a los mismos hechos deban llegar a la misma puntuación.
La democracia es una cualidad que los regímenes pueden tener o no tener. Y sólo si un régimen es democrático puede variar su grado de democracia. Pero casi todos los índices de democracia-con una excepción👇-ignoran este punto y tratan a todos los regímenes como democráticos. 🧵
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An updated version of "Formal Models of Autocracy: A Critique" is available at
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Belgium lost against a "weak opponent." So did Spain. So did Portugal. Should France be scared?.
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Ojo! Happy about Boric but thinking about Allende: He could not control his supporters and did not have majority in the Congress to pass their demands. Hope this situation will be avoided.
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My update on "American Exceptionalism and the 2020 Election." See
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For economists everything has economic causes.The causes of populism cannot be identified. See my Crises of Democracy (CUP 2019).
It was a treat to talk to @MESandbu at length about where we are (and heading) in globalization, labor markets, and populism.
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Excellent.
I just listened to the APSA Roundtable on Democratic Backsliding. It confirmed a concern I have had since working on democracy measures a while back. We need to be more upfront about the limitations of our global democracy indices and willing to sometimes say “we do not know.”.
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The tragedy of Griezmann is that he was, I think, the best player of the tournament until he completely collapsed in the last game. Feel truly sorry for him.
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Does anyone have World Inequality Database (WID) saved in Stata? If yes, please send it to me at ap3@nyu.edu. I have been trying to save it but cannot figure it out.
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My two cents on the French election: Between 1/4 and 1/3 of "extremist" voters voted for the other "extreme." The French political space is clearly not unidimensional and Macron is not the center but right-wing on economic issues.
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Reading books was punished also by Hitler.
I don’t think universities should have systems that allow you to report a student for reading a book .
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On the historical evolution of rules governing presidential elections and the US backwardness, see
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Nice paper. Shows that one cannot measure polarization without considering intensity (slope of utility functions around different ideal points). See
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Exceptionally clear. Clarified some of my confusions.
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@CatherineDVries Linz was wrong. The difference in survival rates disappears when controlled for previous military dictatorship. See Cheibub, Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, and Democracy, Chapter 6.
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Question: What policies equalize incomes without affecting employment or investment; not necessarily through the fisc?.
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One of the best books I have ever read.
The computational challenges of economic complexity — and whether AI could potentially address these — is really well addressed by Cosma Shalizi here, discussing the great book Red Plenty on the Soviet Union's planning challenges.
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How about indexing wages on dividends?.
🚨 PUBLICATION | A Modern Excess Profit Tax. Our new note presents a new way to tax excess profits. We propose to tax the rise in the stock market capitalization of companies that benefit from extraordinary circumstances. Read the whole note here 👇.
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Market incentives are to require repeated vaccinations, as with the flu. Rationality of capitalism?.
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This must have been generated by AI.
I’ve watched thousands of hours of political videos in the past 20 years and I have never seen anything like Senator Katie Britt’s rebuttal to the State of the Union.
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@Marcelaszy Demasiado de derechas para mí; propiedad de Musk. Y el contenido de ciencia política está desapareciendo.
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Yes, consider "Don't look up" to be a documentary. And think of negative reviewers of it as the TV characters in it.
I've just finished watching the new documentary "Don't look up" on Netflix. It is amazing and psychedelic. Easily the film of the year. Plus that Russian (Leonardo DiCaprio aka Lev Smirnoff) really did an amazing job. May many more Oscars pour onto him in the New Year.
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I wonder what after Putin could be in Russia. Could it be worse? It would be interesting to hear from people who have informed views.
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Amazing: growth forecast without climate crisis.
Exploring the prospects for economic growth in the US and other advanced countries in the next several decades, from @ChadJonesEcon
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See Will Fowler, "EL PRONUNCIAMIENTO MEXICANO DEL SIGLO XIX," Estudios de historia moderna y contemporánea de méxico/issn 0185-2620, n. 38, julio-diciembre 2009.
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Competition for stupidity. French government spokeswoman, Sibeth Ndiaye said: "The virus is spread by droplets, but does not spread through the air. In a football stadium, you are in the open air, there is no transmission by air. " .Who can beat it? No Trump entries, too easy.
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And he played much better unchained.
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Great paper. In France, access to services is conceptualized as "proximite.".
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