Forty-two percent of Americans consider the U.S. to be the world’s leading economic power — a higher figure than at any time since 2008. This essentially matches the 44% who say it is China, which had been the clear leader from 2011 to 2016. The percentage naming the U.S. is […] Read more »
Elites v. Populists: The conflict goes back at least 500 years
How to deal with the Trump-supporting working class? Since the election, that question has rippled through liberal circles. Should white workers be condemned and quarantined, or cultivated and persuaded? The debate is not new. A version of it played out 500 years ago, between Erasmus of Rotterdam, the greatest of […] Read more »
As West Fears the Rise of Autocrats, Hungary Shows What’s Possible
The senior leaders of Fidesz gathered on the banks of the Danube, in a building known as the Hungarian White House, stunned by the scale of their good fortune. Their right-wing party had won unexpectedly sweeping political power in national elections. The question was how to use it. Several men […] Read more »
American democracy sold to the highest bidder
Aristotle measured the quality of democracy by the extent to which politics constrains the economically powerful, allowing the preferences of the landless to be reflected in public policy. According to a new analysis, American democracy gets a failing grade on Aristotle’s test while the countries of northern Europe are star […] Read more »
Powerful or warm? Liberal and conservative voters favor different traits in a politician
Several decades of research in political and electoral behaviour have concluded that a candidate’s personality matters when voters cast their ballots. Unsurprisingly, the main take-away from most of these studies is that voters tend to vote for candidates that they find appealing. However, existing research is still unclear about the […] Read more »
17 striking findings from 2017
Pew Research Center studies a wide array of topics both in the U.S. and around the world, and every year we are struck by particular findings. Sometimes they mark a new milestone in public opinion; other times a sudden about-face. From an increase in Americans living without a spouse or […] Read more »