news 2024

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be a weapon of mass disinformation, but a recent report has demonstrated that its impact thus far has been limited Voters in nearly 100 countries - including Taiwan, the US and Senegal - went to the polls this year, and AI was often used during the election campaigns.

McGill-led researchers developed a model of the factors that go into citizens' calculations about whether to bribe officials, information that can help authorities fight corruption. Even in countries where corruption is rife, "bribery is situational, and people consider lots of different elements when they are considering whether to give a bribe," explained Aaron Erlich , an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill and one of three co-authors of a recent paper in Comparative Political Studies .

Using South Korea as an example, researchers also find general war experiences may have opposite effect Study: Can a Sense of Shared War Experience Increase Refugee Acceptance? (DOI: 10. Highlighting shared wartime experiences can foster greater acceptance of refugees, according to new research from the University of Michigan.

A comprehensive study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, now found that while there is a connection between political orientation and prosociality, it is weaker than previously assumed. It is often assumed that people who hold left-wing political beliefs have stronger prosocial traits and are more altruistic than those who support right-wing parties.

Northerners, Scots and Irish excel at detecting fake accents to guard against outsiders, study suggests People from Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin and the north-east of England are better at detecting someone imitating their accent than people from London and Essex, new research has found. Cultural, political, or even violent conflict are likely to encourage people to strengthen their accents as they try to maintain social cohesion Jonathan Goodman People from Belfast proved most able to detect someone faking their accent, while people from London, Essex and Bristol were least accurate.

In western Germany, approval of xenophobic statements has increased significantly, bringing it closer to attitudes in the east. In the eastern German states, satisfaction with democracy as it is practised in Germany is at its lowest level since 2006. These are the key findings of the Leipzig Authoritarianism Study 2024, which was presented today (13 November) at the Federal Press Conference in Berlin under the title "United in Resentment" by Oliver Decker and Elmar Brähler from the Competence Center for Right-Wing Extremism and Democracy Research at Leipzig University.

By comparing data from three experiments in the UK and the Netherlands, PhD researcher Yi Sheng and her co-authors found that when ethnic issues are more salient - often triggered by major social events - majority group tends to act more kindly toward individuals from minority groups. Yi: "The research showed that after events that brought high salience to ethnic issues - such as the rise of the worldwide #BlackLivesMatter movement - people with majority background were more likely to treat individuals from ethnic minority groups with greater kindness.

The right to vote is an important part of a democracy. But not everyone makes use of it. A researcher at the University of Basel has investigated the possible causes of this.

A new study by Yale political scientist Josh Kalla shows that experts performed little better than chance in identifying effective political messaging. Political campaigns spend big bucks hiring consultants to craft persuasive messaging, but a new study coauthored by Yale political scientist Joshua L. Kalla demonstrates that political professionals perform no better than laypeople in predicting which messages will sway voters.

The state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg have caused political upheaval due to the AfD's results. Exploratory talks on the future formation of a government are still ongoing. An interdisciplinary study as part of the Volkswagen Foundation's NurtureDEMOS project at the University of Trier and the Centre for Research on Right-Wing Extremism, Democracy Education and Social Integration (KomRex) at the University of Jena has recorded and analyzed attitudes and voting behaviour in the states in the run-up to the state elections.

The new study also identifies factors that can make these efforts more successful. When an election result is disputed, people who are skeptical about the outcome may be swayed by figures of authority who come down on one side or the other. Those figures can be independent monitors, political figures, or news organizations.

How does the increasingly heated public discourse on feminist and LGBTIQ+ issues affect individuals and communities in everyday life? What difficulties do they face in Germany and how do they confront them? The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts investigated these questions as part of the European Horizon project RESIST.

Protected areas have historically been created to preserve biodiversity, but they are not immune to political decisions. Using the United States as an example, and relying on data from 2001 to 2018, researchers from INRAE, the Institut Agro Montpellier, Duke University and WWF have demonstrated that a shift to a Republican majority in state government increases the risk of reducing or downgrading protected areas.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have been working with researchers from Ukraine and Germany to investigate how to rebuild Ukraine's destroyed energy infrastructure based on renewable energy. They have determined that solar and wind energy would quickly deliver a distributed power supply system and prevent corruption.

Migration can have different causes such as military conflicts or poverty. However, there is hardly any research to date on whether international sanctions influence the decision to leave one's homeland or not. Researchers at the University of Hamburg and Trier University have now published the first statistical analysis on sanction-driven emigration in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Sometimes you just can't win, and that goes double for people navigating the increasingly polarized political landscape in the United States. Having nuanced opinions of politics in the U.S. turns out to be a very lonely, and unpopular, road, according to a recent study from a research team that includes assistant professor Aviva Philipp-Muller from Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business.

Research exposes the long-lasting effects of losing a family member in war-torn regions Each year, hundreds of thousands of people are affected by armed conflict, both directly, through loss of life, or indirectly, through the loss of family members. Researchers studied the extent and duration of bereavement among those who lost immediate family members in high-intensity conflicts.

Research shows 'new chauvinism' characterised by softer, more subtle language New research from the University of Bath has identified a 'new chauvinism', fuelled by a resurgence in right-wing populism, and distinguished by the use of softer, more subtle language than traditional chauvinism. The study focused on language and attitudes in software development, a profession known for perpetuating chauvinistic language.

War-related disinformation most effective among conspiracy-minded people Most people do not believe the disinformation spread by Russia about the war in Ukraine, even if they regularly use social media. Instead, the decisive factor in the efficacy of this propaganda is whether a person is fundamentally receptive to conspiracy narratives.

According to a study by UC3M and the Elcano Institute The individual pressure that each person can exert to combat climate change has a significant effect on their environment to promote green behaviour. This is one of the conclusions of a scientific study by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Elcano Royal Institute for International and Strategic Studies that analyses the socio-political factors that influence the acceptance of climate policies in Spain.