Youth turnout in the recent United States midterm elections was the highest it has been in 25 years. The midterms also saw the average age of congressional representatives go down by 10 years.
If someone asks you why you chose the election candidate you voted for, you will likely have a good answer. Maybe you agree with the candidate’s policy stances.
- By Tom Shillam
Seventy years after Gandhi’s assassination on the streets of New Delhi, Ramachandra Guha’s new book, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914-48, reopens a familiar debate around his legacy.
A record number of women are headed to statehouses and Capitol Hill in 2019. One hundred women were elected to the U.S. House, which means that at least 121 women will serve in the 116th Congress – up from the current 107.
In October 2005 Stephen Colbert was just starting his eponymous show, The Colbert Report. It is somewhat chilling to realize that this was when he came up with the word truthiness: it seems so now.
Voter turnout among 18 to 29-year-olds in the 2018 midterm elections was 31 percent, according to a preliminary estimate by The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. It’s a major increase from turnout in the 2014 midterms, which was 21 percent.
On the morning of Election Day, the top trending search on Google was “donde votar,” which means “where to vote” in Spanish. Lack of access to non-English ballots can be an obstacle to voting for immigrants. Simply put, if voters can’t understand the ballot, they may not vote.
When it comes to being politically active, young people typically have a bad reputation. In democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom, young voters tend to have low turnout rates – but there are early signs that this is changing.
- By Grant Duncan
Trust is at a breaking point. Trust in national institutions. Trust among states. Trust in the rules-based global order. Within countries, people are losing faith in political establishments, polarization is on the rise and populism is on the march.
- By John Armor
For our first 125 years, about 35 percent of the members of the House retired before every election, because they believed that was good for them and good for the nation. Congressmen had not yet learned the art of feathering their own nests with hundred-thousand-dollar salaries, million-dollar pensions, large and obsequious staffs, and all the perks and privileges that power is heir to. In short, remaining in Congress for decades was not as attractive then as now.
The next United States Congress will have at least 123 women in the House and Senate, including two Muslim-American women, two Native American women and two 29-year-olds.
- By Pippa Norris
Questions about the legitimacy of the 2016 U.S. presidential election continue to reverberate and deepen partisan mistrust in America. Doubts have been compounded by the indictment of 12 Russians following intelligence reports of Russian interference with the election.
Iceland is a small country tucked away on the edge of Europe. It has a population of only about 340,000 people. Iceland’s prisons are small too. There are only five, altogether housing fewer than 200 prisoners.
The 2018 mid-terms broke the records on female candidates in US elections. More than 20 women were on the Senate ballot, while more than ten times that number stood for the House of Representatives.
Now that's an intense statement: We are responsible for the mess we made! And for some, it might tend to bring up anger, defensiveness, guilt, shame, feelings of being blamed, discouragement, and other such emotions. However, for me, I see it as good news! If we are responsible for the mess we made, then we can clean it up, and we can fix it.
It seems every election is the most important. Why? Because every election has been. Why? Democracy is a very young form of governance. Those that seek power also seek to dismantle it.
Republican women have faced a conundrum repeatedly in the last two years. In the cases of Donald Trump, Roy Moore and Brett Kavanaugh, the question facing them has been whether to support a male Republican leader accused of sexual assault – or to press for male accountability.
Disconnects between different levels of government make it challenging to address important challenges that confront American cities, such as fixing worn-out infrastructure. These issues require federal, state and city agencies to work together to identify funding – mostly from higher levels of government – and to plan and carry out projects.
Sociologists understand experiences of violence and neglect in childhood are part of what’s known as a Toxic Socialization (TS) process. Put simply, TS is a socialization process characterized by violence and neglect. Violence includes emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical violence. Neglect includes neglect of our physical, emotional, psychological and cognitive needs.
- By Gyorgy Toth
In the thick of 1968’s seismic social upheavals, Native Americans also reached for their rights, and activists renewed their campaign for recognition and status as fully sovereign nations.
Violent protests can undercut public support for popular causes, according to new research inspired by recent confrontations between white nationalist protesters and anti-racist counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Berkeley, California.
- By Matt Swayne
While outrage is generally considered a hurdle in the path to civil discourse, new research suggests outrage—specifically, moral outrage—may have beneficial outcomes, such as inspiring people to take part in long-term collective action.
The duelling sides in today’s cultural wars about “Western civilization” are united in one thing, at least - each is inclined to gloss over the extent to which “Western civilisation” has always been deeply complex and divided.