A study by Prof. David Autor finds a shift in voting patterns in areas of the country impacted by trade with China, report Binyamin Appelbaum, Patricia Cohen and Jack Healy for The New York Times. “This undercurrent of economically driven dissatisfaction,” Autor explains, “works to the benefit of candidates who are noncentrist, and particularly right-wing candidates.”
In an NPR article about the difficulty of dispelling political rumors, Danielle Kurtzleben cites a study by Prof. Adam Berinsky that shows trying to correct political myths may only entrench them further.
In an article for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines how American voters have become increasingly concerned about the fairness of the electoral process. “The best hope is for a combination of voices, both partisan and nonpartisan, to remind Americans of the mechanisms in place to ensure that votes are counted fairly.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III writes for The Washington Post that the latest Pew Charitable Trust Elections Performance Index shows there has been improvement in U.S. election administration. Stewart explains that the index gauges “performance across several dimensions of election administration, including the quality of voter registration, ballot casting, and vote counting.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III speaks with NPR’s Pam Fessler about voter confidence in the American electoral system. "Ultimately the legitimacy of government rests on the belief among the losers that it was a fair fight," says Stewart.
A new study co-authored by Prof. David Autor examines how manufacturing job losses caused by trade have contributed to the current political discord, reports Nelson Schwartz and Quoctrung Bui for The New York Times. “There are these concentrated pockets of hurt,” explains Autor, “and we’re seeing the political consequences of that.”
John Tirman of the Center for International Studies writes for The Huffington Post about the politics behind the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments about President Obama’s executive order on immigration. Tirman writes that the case, “puts on hold a genuine solution to the status of these mostly Latino immigrants.”
Washington Post reporter Scott Clement compares the results of an analysis performed by MIT researchers of key issues on Twitter in the 2016 presidential race to a national survey. The researchers found that foreign policy and race are key issues on Twitter, while the national survey found that the economy and jobs were top priorities for voters.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Jill Terreri Ramos explores research by MIT political scientists into the political leanings of all 50 states over the past eight decades. “To understand national politics, we can learn about state politics,” explains Prof. Chris Warshaw.
Senior Lecturer Bill Aulet writes for The Boston Globe about whether Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker can “pull off something rarely seen in business and even less often in politics — to be both a great manager and a great leader.”
Ethan Zuckerman writes for CNN that policymakers should treat gun violence as a public health hazard. “Mass shootings are the secondhand smoke of America's dysfunctional relationship with guns,” writes Zuckerman. “They are the moments where something we know to be dangerous to their owners and those around them become deadly to the public as a whole.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III co-authored this op-ed for The Washington Post, which examines John Boehner’s resignation from the U.S. House speakership. “We see Boehner’s resignation as a signal that House leadership is undergoing a transition in how it is acquired and retained,” the authors write.
John Tirman, executive director of the MIT Center for International Studies, writes for WBUR about opposition within the Republican party to immigration reform. “Opposition to immigration reform is one of the more perplexing symptoms of Washington paralysis nowadays,” says Tirman.
In an article for The Huffington Post, John Tirman argues that the wave of migration from African and Latin American countries is a crisis caused partially by economic and political policies that American and European leaders have played a role in shaping. “Until the first world policies change, the third world will keep coming, at all costs,” Tirman writes.
Chun Han Wong writes for The Wall Street Journal about a study coauthored by MIT graduate student Yiqing Xu that finds an ideological divide in China based on geography. The researchers found that, “provinces with higher levels of economic development, trade openness, urbanization are more liberal than their poor, rural counterparts.”