Political Science
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- Divisions within the US population on social and political issues have increased by 64% since 1988, with almost all this coming after 2008, according to a study tracking polarization from the end of the Reagan era to the dawn of Trump's second term.
- City council public comment periods may focus on local issues, such as housing and public services. But new research from the University of Michigan shows they also serve as powerful forums for expressing broader societal concerns, including democracy, equity and social justice. The study is published in the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media.
- International labor migration plays a vital role in supporting families across low- and middle-income countries, often providing a critical source of income for families back home. However, when mothers migrate abroad for work, young children may be left without steady parental care during important developmental stages. While this concern is widely discussed, there has been limited real-world evidence showing how policies that restrict maternal migration affect children's outcomes.
- Leading English-language news outlets often misuse the term "hard-right" to describe far-right political movements, potentially softening their extremist image and boosting their electoral appeal, according to a new study published in the journal European Political Science. The research, conducted by Dr. Georgios Samaras from King's College London's School for Government, analyzed 140 articles from seven outlets published between 2022 and 2025.
- A report published today by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law shows that 53% of transgender youth between the ages of 13 and 17 in the U.S.—approximately 382,800 young people—live in 29 states with laws or policies that restrict their access to gender-affirming care, sports, bathrooms and facilities or restrict the use of gender-affirming pronouns in schools.
- On February 4, the New START Treaty, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, is set to expire. Signed in 2010, the agreement caps deployed strategic nuclear forces at 1,550 warheads and 700 delivery systems. It also establishes one of the most extensive verification systems ever negotiated, including on-site inspections, continuous data exchanges, and government-to-government notifications about missile tests, weapons movements, and changes to nuclear forces.
- Firearm purchasing patterns can shift in response to specific events, including presidential elections, according to Rutgers Health researchers.
- It's common to wonder as tax season ramps up: Are taxes too high? According to a new study by University of Cincinnati economics professor David Brasington, the answer is no, at least when it comes to Ohio's city service taxes. These taxes go toward local services such as funds for the fire department, road repair and park upkeep.
- As controversy over Australia's new hate laws continues, last weekend's so-called March for Australia rallies were the latest in a string of events that have raised the temperature of public debate.
- Legal efforts to tackle excessive personal information collection by social media giants could transcend international boundaries if nations moved away from a focus on assessing competition using the value of data, a new study says.
- A new analysis of 471 U.S. counties has found that, for everyday travel, people from counties with particularly strong political leanings—whether liberal or conservative—are more likely to visit like-minded destinations. Zhengyi Liang and Jaeho Cho of the University of California, Davis, U.S., present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One.
- Engineering and the quest for peace: Experts challenge profession to move beyond weapons and defenseEngineering can create weapons systems or systems for defense and well-being. But can engineering create peace? In a Perspective, Guru Madhavan and colleagues propose an expansive mode of engineering practice that seeks to reduce conflict. The work is published in PNAS Nexus.
- Estimates of unlicensed online gambling in the Nordic countries vary widely and are often based on non-transparent data sources. This is shown by a new scoping review published in PLOS ONE. Led by researchers from, among others, Karolinska Institutet, the study reviews 32 reports and finds that figures describing the "black market" are frequently used as political arguments, despite unclear underlying methodologies.
- When people encounter racism or discrimination, they don't all respond in the same way. Some calmly challenge the remark, some file a complaint, others confront the offender aggressively—and many say nothing at all.
- There's been much published about the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study, which looked at the impact of intervention on delinquency in young Massachusetts boys. The groundbreaking research followed up with study participants for decades after the fact and found that the interventions they received as youths did not help them later in life. But until now, not many have cast an investigative eye on Joan McCord, the noted criminologist who directed CSYS from 1975 to 2004.
- Generative deep learning models are artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can create texts, images, audio files, and videos for specific purposes, following instructions provided by human users. Over the past few years, the content generated by these models has become increasingly realistic and is often difficult to distinguish from real content.
- Academic freedom is often described as a cornerstone of democratic society. Politicians regularly claim to defend it, universities invoke it in mission statements and most members of the public say they support it in principle.
- Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing our society and economy. A new study shows that the majority of people believe that artificial intelligence is displacing more human labor than it is creating new opportunities. Scientists at the University of Vienna and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) demonstrated a causal link: the stronger this perception, the more dissatisfied people are with democracy—and the less they participate in political debates about future technological developments. These effects occur even though artificial intelligence has had only a limited impact on the labor market so far.
- The House of Lords has voted to back a ban on social media for under-16s, putting pressure on the government ahead of its own upcoming consultation on the matter.
- Career pressure—not ideology—causes military officers to protect or overthrow dictators. New research from the Department of Political Science shows that ambition and anxiety can transform "ordinary men" into the regime's ruthless henchmen—or into those who bury the regime.
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