Society

Whether somebody engages civically or not, does not substantially influence their well-being. This is the central finding from two recent studies from Germany and the UK, conducted by researchers from the Universities of Vechta and Bochum. The studies were published in Journal of Happiness Studies and in Social Indicators Research.... Read more

Party polarization tends to come before voter polarization, according to new research co-led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.... Read more

Conspiracy theories have mutated into conspiracism, a transformation marked by people rejecting proof and evidence in favor of frivolous speculation. That's what political scientists Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum suggest in their book "A Lot of People are Saying."... Read more

While the American Rescue Plan Act provided a major infusion of economic aid to low-income and middle-class Americans, more should be done to tackle racial wealth inequality and the structural issues in the tax code that allow those at the top of the income distribution to benefit disproportionately from tax... Read more

Conspiracy theories have circulated at all times, in all cultures, and among all populations. They routinely appear in conjunction with major incidents, such as those that today take the form of terrorist attacks, the COVID-19 pandemic, and presidential elections. As two recent surveys undertaken in 26 countries have demonstrated, an... Read more

Investors react more negatively to transactions between firms in different countries if there is evidence of weak political affinity, a new study suggests.... Read more

Since the start of the pandemic, communities throughout the UK have rallied to help vulnerable and isolated people. Churches, charities, football clubs, mosques, local councilors and groups of concerned neighbors have distributed food, home-learning technology, emotional support and everything in between.... Read more

Support for populist parties and politicians, and agreement with populist sentiment, has diminished during the pandemic, according to a "mega-dataset" taking in attitudes of over half a million people across 109 countries since 2020.... Read more

There is too much focus on online radicalisation, says Joe Whittaker, when this is just one of the factors that make someone become a terrorist. In fact, Whittaker's research shows that terrorists who use the internet are less successful in achieving their goal than those who stay offline. He will... Read more

Research suggests the failure of the Truman administration to pursue rapprochement with Chinese Communists before the founding of the People's Republic of China was not based on ideological distance or domestic politics, as has previously been suggested.... Read more

Sophia Kalantzakos' scholarship focuses on how the climate crisis impacts global power politics. Her book China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths, focuses on resource competition between the major industrial nations (U.S., E.U., Japan) and China. In this interview with Via Sarfatti25, Kalantzakos warns that the era of hyper-competition particularly... Read more

Professionals and managers are becoming more liberal while blue collar workers, who were once the backbone of leftist politics in the U.S., now show more conservative views on a number of issues that liberal politicians have elevated in recent elections, reports a study led by UC Riverside professor of sociology... Read more

People are more likely to condemn COVID rule-breaking by those who have opposing political views to their own, according to research by Nottingham Trent University.... Read more

Long-running conflicts, such as that between Israel and Palestine, are inflamed by the political process itself as politicians adopt tough 'hawkish' policies to get themselves re-elected, according to a new study.... Read more

In a week when the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has admitted to breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules, a new study has found that impartial, transparent and truthful government communications are fundamental for achieving and maintaining government trust during public health emergencies.... Read more

When hurricanes Eta and Iota barrelled into Central America in November 2020, they flooded towns and cities, caused catastrophic losses in the agricultural sector and contributed to food insecurity. In all, 4.7 million Hondurans were affected, and tens of thousands decided to leave, forming migrant caravans in a desperate attempt... Read more

Both Democrats and Republicans in US elections are more likely to be emotionally moved or angered by political advertising produced by the party to which they identify. This suggests that most ads today do little to sway the other side, but rather help motivate a party's faithful to support a... Read more

As the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol prepares for televised hearings later this month, public attitudes toward the attack are divided sharply along partisan lines.... Read more

A team of 50 experts from across 29 governmental agencies has released a report created to respond to President Joe Biden's call for more integrity in government science agencies. The report, called "Protecting the Integrity of Government Science," was released on January 11. Biden administration officials Alondra Nelson and Jane... Read more

In 1993, South Africa announced to a largely surprised world that it had built nuclear weapons in the 1980s, before dismantling its arsenal. For the first time, a country outside of the elite world powers had obtained nuclear capabilities while keeping matters a secret from almost everyone else.... Read more

"Whatever they say, I do the opposite. If they tell me to wear a mask, I won't wear a mask. And I'm not going to have the vaccine."... Read more

British people tend to overestimate the prevalence of different minority demographics, beliefs, and behaviors among the public, according to a study publishing December 22 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.... Read more

Birds of a feather flock together. The popular saying applies to politics and to the computational analysis of complex networks in research on corruption, judging from a study by scientists at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.... Read more

Autonomous weapon systems—commonly known as killer robots—may have killed human beings for the first time ever last year, according to a recent United Nations Security Council report on the Libyan civil war. History could well identify this as the starting point of the next major arms race, one that has... Read more

During the pandemic, physical summits were replaced by Zoom meetings, and global political leaders had to quickly adjust. How did they visually convey their status in this new world of digital diplomacy? A new study from Lund University in Sweden analyzed over 50 photos from the first virtual G20 meeting... Read more

In liberal-leaning municipalities, there is an increased probability of far-right demonstrations in the wake of unexpectedly strong election results by right-wing populists. This is one of the insights from an investigation based on electoral results of the AfD party in Germany. The study reveals a surprise effect on the part... Read more

Do election campaigns shape public policy as they are supposed to in a democracy? Do the laws passed during a mandate really address the issues debated during elections? For countries with political systems as varied as Germany, Denmark, France and Italy, political scientists Isabelle Guinaudeau (CNRS) and Emiliano Grossman (Sciences... Read more

People whose moral beliefs and values align closely with other members of their online communities—including those on social networks Gab and Reddit—are more prone to radicalization, according to new USC research.... Read more

Our society is driven by social influence. The salesman who wants to sell you a car, the politician who wants your vote and the Tiktok influencer who wants you to "like" their videos have one thing in common: they are vying for your attention.... Read more

We can't understand polarization unless we analyze it as a complex system, argue SFI External Professor Scott Page (University of Michigan) and co-author Delia Baldassarri in a commentary for a special feature on the dynamics of political polarization in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.... Read more

Polarization is dangerous for democracy. Though the U.S. Constitution was designed to harness rivalry with a diverse, redundant, and modular set of institutions, if that rivalry curdles into the belief that your competitors are your enemies, those institutions may not be strong enough to hold a nation together.... Read more

Achieving consensus among countries in global climate negotiations is a long and complicated process. Researchers at Linköping University have developed a mathematical model that describes the achievement of the 2015 Paris Agreement and that may contribute to more efficient negotiations when striving for unanimity.... Read more

Conspiracy theories are powerful forces in the U.S. They have damaged public health amid a global pandemic, shaken faith in the democratic process and helped spark a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.... Read more

A new study shows that media coverage of crises can increase governments' allocation of emergency humanitarian aid—whether or not the crisis merits it.... Read more

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which is considered by many to be the most significant battle over abortion rights in decades. If the court upholds the Mississippi law or overturns Roe v. Wade altogether, as the justices appeared poised to... Read more

It's not that professors in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wyoming are involved in money laundering, but they are—sort of.... Read more

Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd on June 25, 2021. Since then, calls for police reform haven't been as loud.... Read more

Americans' attitudes and behaviors have become more liberal overall in the past 50 years and have taken a decidedly liberal tilt since the 1990s, shows a new analysis of public opinion data. Americans are substantially more liberal on matters of gender, sexuality, race, and personal liberty than they were in... Read more

District attorneys pursue crimes and longer sentences at higher rates in election years, according to a new working paper that looks at whether politics affect the behavior of prosecutors and hints at how changing cultural attitudes about crime may influence incarceration rates.... Read more

American democracy is in crisis—a majority of scholars and the public agree. Allegations of unfair voting practices, such as voter suppression and gerrymandering, abuses of executive power, and mounting concerns about the legitimacy of elections have become regular occurrence in the United States, rather than isolated events.... Read more

A computational analysis of billions of phrases found in tweets has uncovered new insights into the timelines of the many major stories that surrounded Donald Trump, former President of the United States, from 2016 to 2021. Peter Dodds of the University of Vermont, Burlington, and colleagues present these findings in... Read more

Today The Governance Lab at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering released an interactive report entitled "What Americans Want from Reform." The report by Paul C. Light, Paulette Goddard Professor at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service and Senior Fellow at the GovLab, analyzes six key indicators about American... Read more

Political divisions are deeper than at any time in the past 50 years, according to a new study led by the University of St Andrews.... Read more

U.S. companies that balance their political connections across party lines in a polarized partisan environment are in a position to see less volatility in their stock prices and profits, according to a University of Oregon-led study.... Read more

Fighting and preventing crimes may not be the only activity in a typical day in the life of a police officer in Canada; it's also filing paperwork, tons of paperwork.... Read more

A recent string of high-profile exonerations, including those of Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, two men wrongfully convicted in the 1966 killing of Malcolm X, has many asking the question: What is justice for people who have been failed by the criminal system?... Read more

Encouraging interactions between people on opposite ends of the political spectrum may not be the best way to foster tolerance in a polarized nation.... Read more

In 2019, following a years-long decline, crime rates were flat or at all-time lows nationwide. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and a very different pattern emerged. Though major crimes dropped overall, violent crime surged. Across the U.S., rates of gun violence rose by 30 percent. Nearly 5,000 additional homicides occurred... Read more

Much like an overexploited ecosystem, the increasingly polarized political landscape in the United States—and much of the world—is experiencing a catastrophic loss of diversity that threatens the resilience not only of democracy, but also of society, according to a series of new studies that examine political polarization as a collection... Read more

As people curate their online news feeds, they may be unwillingly sorting themselves into polarized networks, according to a study led by researchers at Princeton University.... Read more