news 2020

Expectations are rising that the 2021 Northern Ireland census may act as a trigger for a referendum on Irish unification, but 'new' census questions on religious background and national identity are likely to shape the debate about Northern Ireland's constitutional future, a new study reveals. While 'sectarian head-counting' has featured in Northern Irish politics since partition in 1921, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA) introduced a mechanism for a 'border poll' on Irish unification.

Researchers at the University of Bristol and King's College London are leading a major new study to investigate COVID-19 perceptions and misperceptions, lockdown compliance and vaccine hesitancy. The research team is gathering longitudinal survey data on trust and compliance with public health requirements over the course of the pandemic, enhancing and extending the 'Life Under Lockdown' study fielded between April and June this year.

People who are dogmatic about their views seek less information and make less accurate judgements as a result, even on simple matters unrelated to politics, according to a study led by UCL and Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics researchers. The researchers say their findings, published in PNAS , point to differences in thinking patterns that lead people to hold rigid opinions.

A short online game in which players are recruited as a "Chief Disinformation Officer" and use tactics such as trolling to sabotage elections in a peaceful town has been shown to reduce susceptibility to political misinformation in its users. Fake news and online conspiracies will continue to chip away at the democratic process until we take seriously the need to improve digital media literacy across populations Sander van der Linden The free-to-play  Harmony Square  is released to the public today, along with a study on its effectiveness published in the  Harvard Misinformation Review.

As the political divide expands in the United States, one Carnegie Mellon University student's research explores a simple idea to bridge the gap - reframe political ideas using the other side's language. Anirudh Narayanan developed an early interest in politics, running for positions in high school as class representative in Dover, Delaware.

If both camps take a more empathetic approach when there's an argument, it generally makes it easier to listen to what the other side is saying and alleviate tension. This isn't the case, however, when the conflict is about immigration. Discussions about immigration are heated, even antagonistic. But what happens when supporters and opponents undertake to show more empathy and engage in perspective taking, two types of behaviour that can ease tension?

Exploration and utilisation of resources from the world's oceans is not equally distributed across the globe. Although many of these resources originate in the Global South, they are mostly being researched by just a few countries from the North. Accordingly, this is also where most of the benefits and profits are flowing to, despite the Convention on Biological Diversity.

In an increasingly polarized political system, Democratic control has a meaningful impact on narrowing the gender gap New research from the University of California San Diego reveals that Democratic control of state houses leads to substantial improvement in women's incomes, wages and unemployment relative to men.

Fighting in baboons can be fierce David Clode Like Napoleon Bonaparte, chimpanzees are masters of intergroup conflict Franceso Ungaro [chimpanzee photograph] Vigilance is key in a world of rival outsiders Andy Radford [meerkat photograph]; Michalis Mantelos [red-ruffed lemur photograph] 6 October 2020 From ants to primates, 'Napoleonic' intelligence has evolved to help animals contend with the myriad cognitive challenges arising from interactions with rival outsiders, suggest researchers at the University of Bristol in a paper published today [Tuesday 6 October].

From addressing how to vote safely during a pandemic to tackling disinformation and misinformation on social media, Stanford scholars examine the issues and uncertainties facing American voters as they cast their ballot in November's general election. This November, Americans are casting their ballot amid turmoil and uncertainty: a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic; a summer of civil unrest and a racial reckoning; disinformation and conspiracy theories muddying the media landscape; an economy rebounding in spurts; record-shattering weather and climate disasters.

We tend to have strong feelings when it comes to politicians, ranging from disgust to enthusiasm. So just how deep-seated are these feelings? Bert Bakker, Matthijs Rooduijn and Gijs Schumacher studied physical reactions to political messaging and found that the human body actually reacts to politics.

Members of parliament in Iceland tweet less than once a day on average, whereas parliamentarians in Turkey tweet six times a day on average. In Canada, the Netherlands, Turkey and the US upwards of 97% of active politicians are on Twitter, but in Austria the number is only 47%. These are some of the early findings offered up by the Twitter Parliamentarian Database (TPD), built by the researchers from the UvA's Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research and Sweden's Chalmers University of Technology.

Politics, above COVID-19 cases or deaths, determined whether states enacted mask mandates during the first months of the pandemic, a new study finds. States with Republican governors delayed imposing indoor mask requirements by an average of nearly 30 days, controlling for other factors.

Mail-in voting has come under partisan scrutiny, but according to Stanford research, it does not appear to benefit one political party over the other. However, challenges to mail-in and absentee voting remain as states and voters make a shift this November. As the coronavirus persists and the U.S. November election nears, some states are expanding options for voters to cast their ballot either by mail or absentee - a decision that has raised concerns that mail-in voting could favor one political party over the other.

Every four years, U.S. presidential campaigns collectively spend billions of dollars flooding TV screens across the country with political ads. But a new study co-authored by Yale political scientist Alexander Coppock shows that, regardless of content, context, or audience, those pricey commercials do little to persuade voters.

It is conventional wisdom that Americans cherish democracy - but a new study by Yale political scientists reports that only a small fraction of U.S. voters are willing to sacrifice their partisan and policy interests to defend democratic principles.

Microtargeting allows political players to send tailored messages to citizens in order to influence them. This could explain the successful Leave campaign in the UK, not to mention the surprising election of Donald Trump. But what about the Netherlands? UvA communication scientist Tom Dobber decided to investigate.

Where various ethnic groups live together, cities grow at a slower rate. That is the conclusion reached by a researcher from the University of Basel and his colleagues based on worldwide data that shows how the diversity of language groups in 1975 has influenced urban growth 40 years later. The scientists have reported their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

With the nation deeply polarized, research by David Broockman and Joshua Kalla has found that advocates for hot-button issues can improve their chances of changing an opponent's mind when they ask questions, listen sincerely and engage them with stories. (Photo by Tania Liu via Flickr The nation is locked in a state of polarization unprecedented in the past half-century, with deep, volatile divisions around issues of politics, race, religion and the environment.

V oter ID laws are becoming more common and more strict, and the stakes for American democracy are high and growing higher by the year. New research from the University of California San Diego provides evidence that voter ID laws disproportionately reduce voter turnout in more racially diverse areas.