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Politics & Polls #93: What-Ifs

In politics, like sports, moments arise that beg the question, “What if?” In baseball, some think, “What if the runner on third had made it home?” Politics is not quite different. Winners and losers in both, pivotal moments leave us wondering: what if it had happened differently?Joining this week’s episode to discuss the great…

Politics & Polls #92: The Politics of the Russia Investigation

Where is the Russia investigation going and what will the political impact be? While some wonder whether the investigation will soon come to a close, President Donald Trump has launched a counterattack by charging the FBI with having attempted to spy on his 2016 presidential campaign. The political implications of this are…

Jacob N. Shapiro of the Woodrow Wilson School welcomes attendees at the 8th Annual Meeting of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. (Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Helsing, United States Institute of Peace)

Experts Disentangle a Post-ISIS Landscape at Annual Conference

The Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) held its 8th Annual Meeting on May 10 in Washington, D.C., drawing academics, experts and policymakers from across the world to discuss global conflict.The conference, which focused on post-conflict stabilization in the Middle East following the decline of the Islamic State of…

Jacob N. Shapiro of the Woodrow Wilson School welcomes attendees at the 8th Annual Meeting of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. (Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Helsing, United States Institute of Peace)

Politics & Polls #91: Congress & the Class of ’74

In 1974, a new wave of legislators entered Congress after the Watergate Scandal, determined to change the American political landscape. While these “Watergate Babies” inspired great change, some argue they also contributed significantly to the growing divide between Republicans and Democrats.Could a similar situation play out…

Politics & Polls #90: ‘Our Towns’ Featuring James Fallows

Some feel these are the worst of times, that we’re living in an America fraught with political discord and governmental dysfunction. But how bad is it in American towns? Writers James and Deborah Fallows traveled 100,000 miles across the country to find out.Using a single-engine prop airplane, the husband-wife team visited…

Research Briefs

Purple Districts Elect the Most Extreme Legislators, Driving Polarization

So-called purple voting districts that change hands between Republicans and Democrats — rather than reliably conservative and liberal districts — are an underappreciated source of rising political polarization in state legislatures, according to a study co-authored by a Princeton University researcher.As judged by the views of…

Politics & Polls #89: What Happened at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner sparked a flurry of controversy this week, as she took several jabs at members of the Trump administration, some of whom were in the audience and on the dais.Julian Zelizer was in attendance at this year’s dinner hosted by the White House…

Politics & Polls #88: Voting Rights in America

The battle over voting rights has been one of the most contentious issues in American politics over the past five decades. The country has celebrated a number of advancements and achievements, only for some of them to be overturned later. It’s an issue that continues to resurface, as it’s at the heart of the American democratic…

Move over Fake News: Hostile Neighbors Pose Big Threats to Governance

Propaganda by way of “fake news” is one way a nation can wage war without firing a single shot. Another is through tactics of subversion and coercion, in which a country intentionally keeps neighboring countries weak in order to advance its own foreign policy interests, according to a new study from Princeton University. For…

WWS Reacts: The ISIS Files

Through five trips to Iraq, a team of journalists from The New York Times uncovered a trove of Islamic State documents that explain how the group took control of Iraq and Syria. Taken together, the documents show how ISIS, for a short period of time, established its own government, or caliphate. We discussed their findings…