Society

In 2020, as many states of emergency were declared around the world during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as there were in the entire previous decade. The influence of neighboring countries on each other, weak democracies and poor pandemic preparedness are some of the explanations, according to research... Read more

Social media posts about the "political outgroup"—criticizing or mocking those on the opposing side of an ideological divide—receive twice as many shares as posts that champion people or organizations from one's own political tribe.... Read more

Women who lose local or state elections are just as likely to run for office again as men, suggesting the recent surge in women running for office may have a long-term impact on women's political representation, according to a new study by researchers from Harvard and the University of California,... Read more

John Schaubroeck, a professor of management at the University of Missouri, believes hiring refugees can boost the economies of host countries. In fact, research has shown that assimilation is easier for refugees who work, making it more likely that they will contribute to their new communities.... Read more

An international survey by the University of Münster's Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics" provides the first empirical evidence of an identity-related political cleavage of European societies that has resulted in the emergence of two entrenched camps of substantial size. "We see two distinct groups with opposing positions, which we... Read more

A new article analyzes Chile's transition in 1990 from dictatorship to democracy, the nature of democracy between 1990 and 2019, and the appearance of several social movements geared to expanding this democracy. The article, by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), appears in The Latin Americanist, a publication of the... Read more

Ethiopia, Nigeria, Colombia, Myanmar and Syria are just a handful of the places around the world currently engaged in ongoing civil wars. Even when peace agreements can be negotiated to end civil wars, maintaining stability is incredibly challenging. In these fragile post-conflict areas, a small communal dispute can easily escalate... Read more

UK and European policymakers operating in West Africa should focus on the opportunities that young people and migration create for the region instead of simply trying to stop migrants traveling to Europe, a new study recommends.... Read more

Those who deactivated their Facebook profiles report a lower regard for other ethnic groups, and this effect was more prevalent among people living in more ethnically homogenous areas, shows a new study of users in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The findings run counter to a commonly held view that social... Read more

Humans often cooperate, but ample research has shown that they're conditionally cooperative; that is, they are far more likely to cooperate with those who they consider "good."... Read more

A team of researchers from Harvard University and Boston University has found evidence showing that white boys who grew up with Black neighbors are more likely to be registered as Democrats as adults. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes comparing data from the 1940... Read more

An international panel is offering a suite of recommendations to prevent the next pandemic—including a new global body of heads of state—but the effort's leaders said more urgent than any single item is concerted international action before the window of opportunity pried open by COVID-19 closes.... Read more

Fraud is going uninvestigated by police who are "hiding behind the veil" of the Action Fraud national crime reporting agency.... Read more

Poor individuals are more affected by the local community than others. They rely more on their local networks and show higher levels of solidarity with their neighbors. If voting is the social norm in the community, then the chances are higher that a poor person will vote. This means that... Read more

If your idea of conspiracy theories entails aliens, UFOs, governmental cover-ups at Roswell Air Force Base, and the melody of The X-Files—you're not alone. That was, indeed, the classic notion, says Scott Tyson, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Rochester.... Read more

Rising unemployment, inadequate benefits and low paid work are the main causes of poverty and destitution in Stoke-on-Trent according to the findings of a new study.... Read more

Finland carried out the first nationwide randomized experiment on basic income. A study by the VATT Institute for Economic Research and the Labour Institute for Economic Research shows that replacing minimum unemployment benefits with a basic income of equal size has minor employment effects at best. Additionally, participation in reemployment... Read more

Many contemporary political conflicts are between those who would prioritize the needs of local or national communities and those with a more universal outlook. According to a new study by IASS researcher Silvia Weko, this split between 'communitarian' and "cosmopolitan" Europeans is also evident in their attitudes towards European climate... Read more

Conservative and liberal viewers on YouTube engage in crosstalk—although it's mostly one-sided—with conservatives commenting on left-leaning videos twice as much as liberals remarking on right-leaning videos, according to a large-scale study from the University of Michigan School of Information.... Read more

During the first year of the pandemic, it was wealthier countries, with their comparatively stronger health systems, civil services, legal systems and other public services, that suffered the highest rates of COVID-19. Indeed, countries rated to be best prepared to respond to public health threats such as pandemics—those with the... Read more

Conservatives are less able to distinguish political truths from falsehoods than liberals, mainly because of a glut of right-leaning misinformation, a new national study conducted over six months shows.... Read more

The number of people fleeing violence, poverty and conflict is skyrocketing worldwide and refugees often become permanently displaced. Syria's decade-long civil war has caused millions of people to flee the country, with many settling in neighboring Lebanon.... Read more

Does it matter where the virus that causes COVID-19 came from? In terms of frontline medicine, perhaps not—patients still need to be treated and the public health crisis managed.... Read more

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If you're confused about opinion journalism and what it is, you're not alone. Many Americans are. But even so, the editorials, opinion columns and letters to the editor that fill the op-ed pages could help bridge political divides in the U.S. and offer some help to struggling local news outlets.... Read more

A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that individuals who falsely believe they are able to identify false news are more likely to fall victim to it. In the article published today, Ben Lyons, assistant professor of communication at the University of Utah, and... Read more

Right-wing voices set out powerful but misleading arguments to justify inaction by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study of the rhetoric used by high-level government officials and influential commentators in the US during the first half of 2020.... Read more

Gender roles absorbed at an early age seem to have shaped today's youth regarding their involvement in politics, in line with traditional stereotypes, concludes a new study, conducted amongst adolescents and young adults aged between 15 and 30 in Italy, within the Horizon 2020 project, CATCH-EyoU: Processes in Youth's Construction... Read more

Sub-Saharan Africa is developing rapidly with its rich resources although still lags behind those developing regions that are hard on the heels of the developed nations. New research published in the International Journal of Sustainable Development considers how this development might be sustainable and how it might be financed to... Read more

The vast majority of Australians aren't confident in the country's aged care system, with more than one-in-10 saying they have no confidence at all, new analysis from The Australian National University (ANU) shows.... Read more

A new book by Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies Hiroshi Fukurai shows how Indigenous "original nations" around the world are fighting for sovereignty and the ecological preservation of their ancestral homelands across and within the geopolitical boundaries of state lines.... Read more

Last year one of my students in a history of science class commented that "no one knows which doctors to trust because they are politicizing the pandemic, just like politicians are." The interactions between science and politics are now so complex, so numerous and often so opaque that, as my... Read more

Swedish and Danish journalists describe their role as monitorial to a greater extent than journalists from other Nordic countries. Journalists from Norway and Iceland state they have the least experience of political influence and thus differ from Finnish journalists. This is shown by a new comparative study published by Nordicom... Read more

Schools in the U.S. are set to receive $123 billion in federal pandemic relief funding. Across the country, parents and school administrators are engaging in spirited debates about whether to teach critical race theory. And Americans are bitterly divided in their opinions about how and when to resume in-person instruction... Read more

Gaping policy shortfalls in the Australian Government's 'Closing the Gap' program have seen it fail to reduce disparities in Indigenous health, income, employment, child removal and incarceration, Flinders University researchers say.... Read more

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Idaho, like many states across the country, faced rising housing costs, low home-vacancy rates and increasing efforts by landlords to evict tenants.... Read more

Ending our dependence on coal is essential for effective climate protection. Nevertheless, efforts to phase out coal trigger anxiety and resistance, particularly in mining regions. The governments of both Canada and Germany have involved various stakeholders to develop recommendations aimed at delivering just transitions and guiding structural change. In a... Read more

More than six months after the astonishing polling embarrassment in the 2020 U.S. elections, survey experts examining what went wrong are uncertain about what led to the sharpest discrepancy between the polls and popular vote outcome since Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in a near-landslide in 1980.... Read more

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case challenging a Mississippi state law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, much earlier than the 24-week threshold generally established by the pivotal abortion rights case Roe v. Wade in 1973.... Read more

Despite ongoing controversy over COVID-19 vaccines, a clear majority of California voters say it's appropriate for some businesses to require customers and employees to be vaccinated, according to a new poll from the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies (IGS).... Read more

The different personalities of global leaders have influenced their reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, a new study shows.... Read more

How to support entrepreneurship in rural areas? The over-regulation and bureaucratic administration of the European Union's rural policy are seen as burdening rather than supporting the promotion of entrepreneurship. At the same time, enabling public administration has been called for in the Finnish state administration. Päivi Kujala's doctoral dissertation (University... Read more

Corruption is a crime which slows economic growth, undermines development, and causes inequality. With a cost to the global economy estimated at around US$2.6 trillion (£1.8 trillion) a year, it is often linked to politics and profiteering by large corporations. The Panama Papers, for example, exposed the vast and powerful... Read more

Since the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, many African Americans have reported feeling overwhelmed at times by the trauma, anguish, and outrage stirred up by Floyd's death, as well as other incidents of police violence against Black victims. The disturbing frequency of these events, and... Read more

Victims of cyberbullying and related crimes can now get redress thanks to a new online platform that seeks to empower internet users across Africa to report digital rights violations.... Read more

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on all Canadians, but new research shows how racialized and marginalized communities have been disproportionally affected.... Read more

Since the 1950s, political scientists have theorized that political polarization—increased numbers of "political partisans" who view the world with an ideological bias—is associated with an inability to tolerate uncertainty and a need to hold predictable beliefs about the world.... Read more

The recent conviction of white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, for the murder of a black man, George Floyd, was widely welcomed in the US and elsewhere. The US police force has long been seen as helping to maintain the country's racialised system of inequality. In the face of that,... Read more

Can expert commissions develop solutions for controversial issues that will enjoy broad democratic support? A team of researchers from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) has analyzed the work of Germany's "Coal Exit Commission" using a set of new criteria. While the authors view positively the Commission's success in... Read more

Schools and businesses are reopening, diners are returning to restaurants, and fans are returning to sports stadiums, but a new crisis in the COVID-19 pandemic may be just weeks away: the possible eviction of millions of Americans who have fallen behind in their rent.... Read more