Thomas Paster

Why do some trade unions support the EU’s Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages, while others oppose it? Eriks Ozols, Stefan Ivanov Hristov and I investigate this question in a new article in Economic and Industrial Democracy. doi.org/10.1177/014383… 🧵A thread (1/7)

Very sad news. Peter Handke, novelist, author and Nobel Prize in Literature for 2019, has died.

Great piece by Peter Osborne on Habermas and his biography by Müller-Doohm, from 2017. Very insightful on Habermas’s life, career and work, from someone very close to the heritage of Critical Theory. newleftreview.org/issues/ii108/a…

Ses contemporains n‘étaient pas toujours tendre avec #Habermas. Voilà la l‘échange entre Raymond Aron et Karl Popper en 1970

Für mich ein Klassiker: Der Essay "Die neue Unübersichtlichkeit" (1985), in dem Habermas drei Reaktionsmuster auf die Krise des Sozialstaats identifiziert: Legitimismus, Neokonservativismus, und Wachstumskritik. merkur-zeitschrift.de/artikel/die-ne…

Capitalism, State, Democracy This week my graduate seminar focuses on two macro-transformations, capitalist development and state formation, and their impact on the prospects of democracy. These works launched an approach to the study of democracy I call power structure theory.

Why do unions in Denmark and Sweden—unlike many of their European counterparts—oppose EU involvement in wage-setting? Eriks Ozols, Stefan Ivanov Hristov, and I examine the roots of this opposition in our article in Economic and Industrial Democracy. doi.org/10.1177/014383…

An Interview with Charles Tilly Philosopher @dlittle30 conducted an interview with Tilly that covers many of his signature interests: state formation, historical sociology, big questions, causal mechanisms. A real treasure. See the interview here: youtube.com/watch?v=hlJVsM…

Revisiting a modern classic by @thomas_paster: simple and elegant explanation of why employers become proactive in welfare policies. Simple asnwer; they face a radical opposition. Reformist movements are instead faced with containment strategies.

Electoral Systems in Early Democracies This new book by Emmenegger and Walter elaborates a neo-Rokkanian theory of electoral system choice that explains how parties manipulate electoral markets for partisan advantage. Open Access: academic.oup.com/book/62098?sea…

I’m sharing this beautiful and powerful song from @springsteen, that he wrote in dedication to the people of Minneapolis and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Take a listen. The art of resistance, the voice of artists, well known and every day people all over the world singing, writing, speaking up and out is so inspiring. We the people are alive, empowered, and making a difference with our voices. My friends: use your voice in whatever way makes sense to you! Poetry, singing, writing, speaking, loving, cooking, painting. Show up in the way that you can. We are all creative beings with a voice. We the united people, of these United States, are rising above. We are showing that we care about our neighbors, our fellow human beings. Have no doubt the people are rising. It’s a beautful thing.

If you would like to get an overview of international regulatory initiatives against corporate tax avoidance, take a look at my entry to the Elgar Encyclopedia of Business and Government: elgaronline.com/display/book/9…

Fascism as historical event and as political practice: fascist "movements promote supremacist identities, violence as a central political tool, paramilitarism as the preferred organizational structure, and anti-democratism as their core attitude & goal" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00…

How did religion influence welfare state development? An important contribution to historical sociology:

Through the Roof by Alexander Reisenbichler Unveils divergent American and German housing policies over the past century and their major impact on each country's capitalist model. 📚 cup.org/4niQC8Z

John Mearsheimer says President Trump is "pursuing a reckless foreign policy" in Venezuela: "This demonstrates that the US is a rogue state. This has nothing to do with the Monroe Doctrine. Basically what Trump is doing here is overthrowing a government he doesn't like."

My latest, in the @nytimes: nytimes.com/2026/01/06/opi…

This is deeply troubling. Researchers are more likely to choose statistical models whose results align with their ideological priors. Seventy-one research teams independently analyzed the same dataset on the effect of immigration on public support for social welfare programs. Teams composed of pro-immigration researchers were more likely to conclude that the effect was positive. Teams composed of anti-immigration researchers were more likely to find a negative effect. Let me repeat: they analyzed literally the same dataset. Full paper in the first comment.

Europe’s dilemma on Venezuela: If Europe acquiesces in U.S. actions against the Maduro regime, it risks weakening the legal principles that underpin its opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If it condemns those actions, however, Europe risks alienating its primary security guarantor and straining transatlantic unity at a moment when collective defense against Russia is especially critical. This dilemma exists only because international law has been applied inconsistently for decades. Europe must now choose between legal principle and strategic necessity, a choice that reveals whether the so called “rules-based order” ever had genuine normative content or was always just a legitimizing discourse for Western hegemony.