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The Path Not Taken

thepathnottaken.net

Politics through the lens of ideology and institutional theory. Click to read The Path Not Taken, by Thomas Prosser, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

Society / politics / economy

’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
118 from 8 Sep 2021 to 21 Jun 2026
Posting
monthly (9 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://www.thepathnottaken.net/feed

2026 5

  1. My Brexit, ten years on
  2. Welsh politics may be finally maturing
  3. The rise of liberal misunderstanding
  4. Fiasco - the People’s Vote seven years on
  5. Our new book is out today!

2025 14

  1. I still think J.K. Rowling has moved away from liberalism: a reply to my critics
  2. What happened to J.K. Rowling?
  3. What happened to J.K. Rowling?
  4. Labour is getting it right on immigration
  5. I can’t find evidence for ‘progressive cat ladies’
  6. Bluesky as a space of progressive radicalization, constraint and consolation
  7. Our new book, Beyond Woke and Anti-Woke, is available for pre-order now!
  8. When left and liberal don’t go together - the case of strikes
  9. Do young left-liberal women favour security over freedom?
  10. Gender trouble
  11. Assisted dying, rightsideism and the future of liberal democracy
  12. Academic undersupply, social justice ideology and our new book
  13. The future of The Path Not Taken
  14. The year behind and ahead

2024 25

  1. Is cancel culture a panic? A review of The Cancel Culture Panic by Adrian Daub
  2. Is Parliament capable of debating assisted dying?
  3. Why I’m staying on Twitter/X
  4. Tuesday’s US election and why social justice ideology might not be so bad for liberal democracy
  5. It’s crucial to put problems with academic freedom in perspective
  6. I can’t find evidence for the luxury beliefs hypothesis
  7. Memory lane, post-industrial decline and the future of British politics
  8. After all this week’s fuss, I still disagree with scholar-activism
  9. You can’t end the culture war
  10. Three thoughts on Thursday's election
  11. What would a Labour supermajority tell us?
  12. We’re all excellent now
  13. If Starmer is so untrustworthy, how can I vote Labour?
  14. Evidence for elite overproduction could be better
  15. Two announcements and an event
  16. Britain’s instability problem
  17. Notes on an academic spat
  18. James O’Brien and low liberalism
  19. A retracted paper tells us something important about academia
  20. Lindsay Hoyle must resign
  21. If Labour is elected, the sky probably won’t fall in
  22. Welsh Labour isn’t working
  23. Christopher Rufo and the problem of anti-wokeness
  24. How the corporate-sociocultural alliance shaped our times
  25. The state of The Path Not Taken

2023 27

  1. Evidence for low liberalism and why it has no conservative equivalent
  2. The crisis of scholar-activism
  3. What's driving social justice ideology? The US and UK compared
  4. The limits of heterodoxy - my review of the Battle of Ideas
  5. In a divided Poland, restoring democracy won’t be easy
  6. Why conservatives find it harder in academia
  7. The sad tale of GB News
  8. With few conservatives, academia will struggle to develop a theory of progressivism
  9. Why is Keir Starmer so untrustworthy?
  10. Polish democracy’s key test
  11. Why are the Celtic nations so progressive?
  12. The Farage and Coutts case shows that low decouplers threaten liberal democracy
  13. Proportional representation just isn’t worth the hassle
  14. Scotland and Wales aren’t ready for further powers
  15. Should I stay or should I go?
  16. The long march of low liberalism - A review of Bringing Down Goliath by Jolyon Maugham
  17. Why Poland matters
  18. A review of Matt Goodwin’s Values, Voice and Virtue
  19. Three questions about the sociocultural class
  20. The rise of low liberalism
  21. The crisis of teenage girls and social media may not have a good solution
  22. If Kate Forbes opposes gay marriage, SNP members have the right to oppose her
  23. Brexit may end dreams of Scottish and Welsh independence
  24. Whatever their arguments, Covid vaccine sceptics will probably never convince me
  25. To protect freedom of speech, universities should disaffiliate from Stonewall
  26. The Conservatives didn’t become a workers' party, but may be becoming a party of the middle
  27. The extension of political conflict is corroding liberal democracy

2022 33

  1. Why Britain may never rejoin the EU
  2. Why liberals cannot acknowledge Twitter discrimination against conservatives
  3. How I teach Brexit (and other controversial topics)
  4. We need to talk about queer theory in schools
  5. Why liberals cannot escape intolerance
  6. Gove’s remarks about experts have aged well
  7. Why has UK politics become so unstable?
  8. The Truss debacle (or how party selectorates are holding Britain hostage)
  9. Why political tribes are becoming more dangerous than ever
  10. The bilingual backlash (or why unpopular hypotheses can be legitimate)
  11. Bilingual road signs may kill
  12. A podcast with Anand Menon - Why is so much political commentary misleading?
  13. Why liberals should oppose Paypal’s assault on liberal democracy
  14. Why Edmund Burke matters – a conversation with Jesse Norman
  15. Why the masturbation paper indicts academia
  16. How conservatism became more reasonable
  17. Why is so much political commentary misleading?
  18. Why I’m celebrating the Jubilee
  19. Does immigration erode welfare states?
  20. Does liberal bias affect academia? Advancing a deadlocked debate
  21. Why the transgender issue matters
  22. Why the crisis of academic credibility may not have a solution
  23. The conservative case against Marine Le Pen
  24. What happens when the public lose confidence in academic findings?
  25. Why academia needs debate
  26. How would Labour govern?
  27. Are Covid deniers stupid?
  28. Luxury beliefs with Rob Henderson
  29. Why conservatives won’t save freedom of speech
  30. Can riots be just?
  31. The return and redistribution of political anxiety
  32. The cross and the rainbow
  33. From Coronavirus to the economy, almost everything you know about the performance of Boris Johnson’s government is wrong – commentators are using phantom metrics

2021 14

  1. Merry Christmas!
  2. Liberal democracy may not be ended with a gun, but on a Zoom call
  3. The biggest secret in political science
  4. How bad have universities got?
  5. The return of concealed opinions
  6. Why civilizations move through stages
  7. Why the left can’t redistribute anymore
  8. Why don’t liberals support free speech anymore?
  9. Why don't the left support the family?
  10. Why ideologies harm individuals
  11. Why Keir Starmer should not be Prime Minister
  12. Does the Johnson government threaten liberal democracy?
  13. The freedom of speech crisis is about discouraged speech, not forbidden speech
  14. Why I am writing this Substack