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Writing in The Conversation, Dr Vageesh Jain (UCL Institute for Global Health) looks at the connection between a country's democratic strength and the success of it's response to Covid-19. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that an effective response to an emergency of this nature goes beyond the health system.

Scott Morrison and Barnaby Joyce were the most unpopular leaders of any party since 1987, new analysis of the 2022 federal election from The Australian National University (ANU) shows. The findings come from the joint ANUpoll/Comparative Study of Electoral Systems survey of more than 3,500 voters, which examined Australians' political attitudes before and after the 21 May vote.

In Europe, far-right parties have emerged as the most vocal defenders of restricting welfare benefits to citizens only. Study: How Distributional Conflict over In-Kind Benefits Generates Support for Far-Right Parties Why do voters find such a policy platform attractive? A new study examines the role played by competition between natives and immigrants over access to social benefits.

With the nation bitterly divided over a range of issues, new research co-authored at UC Berkeley finds that easing polarization through brief, cross-partisan dialogue is enormously difficult. (AP photo by Jacquelyn Martin) The premise is simple, and it seems like common sense: If Republicans and Democrats could come together for good faith dialogue, the conversations would reduce tensions and ease the corrosive polarization that threatens U.S. democracy.

A new study finds parenting styles are a strong indicator for how people think about a wide range of social issues, from education to elder care Parenting style - helicopter parenting (disciplinarian) versus free-range explorer (nurturing) - may be a key to the country's political future. A new study out of Carnegie Mellon University has found a person's parenting style tips their hand to the adoption of future government policies across a wide range of social issues, including education, elder care and medicine.

Regardless of race, ethnicity and even political party preference, two separate UCLA-led surveys reveal that majorities of people in each group support access to legal abortion in the United States. Recent large-scale surveys of voters and non-voters by UCLA political scientists Lorrie Frasure, Matt Barreto, Lynn Vavreck and Chris Tausanovitch took a pulse on a variety of policy issues, including abortion.

Canvassing campaigns aimed at increasing women's political participation in developing countries with patriarchal gender norms are more likely to succeed when they target men as well as women, according to a new study co-authored by Yale political scientist Sarah Khan.

Mariano Torcal and Josep Maria Comellas, researchers at the UPF Research and Expertise Centre for Survey Methodology (RECSM), are the authors of an introductory article for a special issue of the jou

If infection numbers drop significantly over the course of a pandemic in response to policy measures, this lowers people's sense of fear and panic-related behaviour more strongly than the infection rates and the measures themselves.

More than 11 million people have fled their homes in Ukraine since the war began. Five million of them looked for safety and shelter in the EU. Political scientist Polly Pallister-Wilkins discusses fundamental differences we witness in this crisis. 'To the Ukrainian refugees we see a completely different response that relates to the EU visa regime.

Nobody enjoys being stopped by the police. But civilians who believe the officer interacting with them is attempting to behave fairly are more likely to perceive the officer's authority as legitimate and cooperate, even if the encounter still results in a citation, suggests a new study coauthored by Yale political scientist Gregory Huber.

Professors Olena Antonaccio and Robert J. Johnson are working on several studies that examine the mental health and other detrimental impacts of war on Ukrainians. The impacts of war can be destructive on many fronts. But new research from two University of Miami faculty members reveals that the mental health toll of military conflicts for people living in Ukraine is particularly severe.

Study shows that divergent opinions need not necessarily lead to polarisation We naturally feel close to people who are similar to us, who share our interests or partake in related activities, for instance. This natural feeling of closeness can be funnelled to reduce political differences and increase consensus on conflictual political topics.

The Corona pandemic has not only impinged on daily life around the world for around two years now - it is increasingly shifting science and research into the focus of public debate. One aspect is the trust people have in the work done by scientists. A team of researchers led by Prof. Rainer Bromme, a psychologist at the University of Münster, now have published a study, which concludes that science has so far passed the pandemic stress test of public trust in science.

R esearchers at the University of Toronto, Dartmouth College, the University of Exeter and the University of Kent have found that fact checking can quickly correct misperceptions about COVID-19 - but that beliefs in wrong information often return.

Conspiracy theories have mutated into conspiracism , a transformation marked by people rejecting proof and evidence in favour of frivolous speculation. That's what political scientists Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum suggest in their book A Lot of People are Saying . In short, conspiracism is conspiracy without the theory.

Results of surveys involving more than 100,000 participants in 26 countries show a correlation between belief in conspiracies and identification as far-left, and, in particular, far-right 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.

What are European citizens' ideal visions of the European Union (EU)- According to an international study undertaken by political scientists from the University of Münster, people across all countries studied primarily support more participation and justice.

Researchers at KU Leuven (belonging to the imec-DistriNet research group) and New York University (Cybersecurity for Democracy) have demonstrated that on a global scale, Facebook misjudges up to 83 percent of ads that they or the researchers deemed political. In some cases, Facebook does not recognise them as political ads, while they often wrongfully label non-political ads as political.

In the past everyone used to read the same news (one size fits all), but now we get our own made-to-measure news portions. News is selected based on our taste and online behaviour. Does it matter that we no longer see and read the same things? 'The divide between citizens who choose political news and citizens who choose entertainment seems to be growing in the digital society,' says communication scientist Susan Vermeer, who studied our news consumption.