Politics

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with Kara Miller of GBH’s Innovation Hub about his research examining the impact of social media on everything from business re-openings during the Covid-19 pandemic to politics.

MIT Prof. Charles Stewart III and Stanford Prof. Nathaniel Persily write for The Washington Post about a new survey they conducted that finds “registered voters harbor worries about voting in this election that diverge in predictable ways, given their partisan affiliations. Despite these worries, most are confident that their ballots will be counted accurately.”

Prof. Sinan Aral speaks with NPR’s Michael Martin about his new book, “The Hype Machine,” which explores the benefits and downfalls posed by social media. “I've been researching social media for 20 years. I've seen its evolution and also the techno utopianism and dystopianism,” says Aral. “I thought it was appropriate to have a book that asks, 'what can we do to really fix the social media morass we find ourselves in?'”

In a piece exploring why certain countries experience wealth or poverty, The Economist spotlights Prof. Daron Acemoglu’s book, “The Narrow Corridor,” and recent research by Acemoglu and Prof. Simon Johnson. The Economist notes that Acemoglu and Johnnson “found a further element of randomness which may explain contemporary patterns of wealth and poverty—namely, which countries are more prone to certain diseases.”

Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines the risks posed by voting by mail. “The greatest risks of voting by mail are voters’ own mistakes,” writes Stewart. “To minimize this problem, election officials can warn voters that a mistake on their absentee ballot means it won’t be counted — or they can design ballots and instructions using plain language.”

Newsweek reporter Meghan Roos writes that a study co-authored by Prof. Victor Chernozhukov finds a nationwide mask mandate in the U.S. could have reduced Covid-19 deaths by 40% among workers who regularly interact with the public. The researchers found “a national mask mandate for workers could have prevented between 17,000 and 55,000 deaths between the start of April and the start of June.”

A new book co-authored by Prof. Daron Acemoglu examines how countries become “prosperous, stable, well-governed, law-abiding, democratic and free societies.” “Their simple answer is: it is hard,” writes Martin Wolf for the Financial Times. “Their deep answer is: ‘Liberty originates from a delicate balance of power between state and society.’”

The Economist highlights a study by MIT researchers examining the impact of happiness on voting patterns. The researchers found that life satisfaction “was twice as important in explaining how incumbents did as the unemployment rate and about 30% more important than GDP growth.”

Jim Walsh, senior research associate at MIT’s Security Studies Program, speaks with Lisa Mullins on WBUR’s Here & Now about President Trump’s nuclear negotiations with North Korea. “Whether there’s any real progress remains to be seen,” says Walsh, “but, I’d rather them be talking than not talking.”

Graduate student Michael Freedman writes for The Washington Post about how growing religious polarization in Israel contributes to an unstable political environment. “Growing polarization in Israel may lead to electoral instability as it becomes harder to make political coalitions in Israel,” posits Freedman.

Axios reporter Steve Levine highlights Media Lab Director Joi Ito’s recent comments about how the internet may be heading toward a dark period due to rising violence and political tensions around the world. Ito notes that both democratic and authoritarian nations are creating “a balkanized and not-so-open internet everywhere.”

Prof. Regina Bateson examines President Trump’s proposal to cut off aid to several countries in Central America in an article for WBUR. Bateson argues that the “decision isn’t really about policy. It’s about populism.”  

A study co-authored by MIT researchers finds that a movie and texting campaign effectively encouraged people in Nigeria to report corruption, reports Yomi Kazeen for Quartz. “Given the popularity of the local movie industry and the prevalence of corruption in Nigeria,” writes Kazeen, “the researchers looked to study how Nigerians report corruption using high-profile actors to model behavior.”

Writing for The New York Times, Prof. Barry Posen argues for reevaluating America’s role in NATO. “President Trump has no strategy for returning the European allies to full responsibility for their own futures,” writes Posen, “the American foreign policy establishment could better spend its time devising such a strategy than defending the counterproductive trans-Atlantic status quo.”

Boston Globe reporter Kevin Lewis highlights a study by MIT researchers analyzing data on first-time misdemeanor offenders in Harris County, Texas. The researchers found that “black defendants who got jail time because they were randomly assigned to a more punitive courtroom were significantly less likely to vote in the next presidential election.”