From Oct. 23-24, a delegation consisting of 21 MIT students, one MIT postdoc, and four students from the University of the District of Columbia met in Washington for the MIT Science Policy Initiative’s Executive Visit Days (ExVD). Now in its 13th cycle, this trip offers a platform where university students and young researchers can connect with officials and scientists from different federal agencies, discuss issues related to science and technology policy, and learn about the role the federal government plays in addressing these issues. The delegation visited seven different agencies, as well ..read more

U.S. politics is heavily polarized. This is often regarded as a product of irrationality: People can be tribal, are influenced by their peers, and often get information from very different, sometimes inaccurate sources. Tribalism and misinformation are real enough. But what if people are often acting rationally as well, even in the process of arriving at very different views? What if they are not being misled or too emotional, but are thinking logically? “There can be quite reasonable ways people can be predictably polarized,” says MIT philosopher Kevin Dorst, author of a new paper on the subj ..read more

In a polarized country, how much does the media influence people’s political views? A new study co-authored by MIT scholars finds the answer depends on people’s media preferences — and, crucially, how these preferences are measured. The researchers combined a large online survey experiment with web-tracking data that recorded all of the news sites participants visited in the month before the study. They found that the media preferences individuals reported in the survey generally mirrored their real-world news consumption, but important differences stood out.   First, there was substantia ..read more

As political conversations shift online, Chloe Wittenberg PhD ’23 is learning how the information Americans consume shapes their attitudes and beliefs. An MIT postdoc in political science who recently earned her doctorate at the Institute, Wittenberg is interested in comparing the persuasive powers of video-based political content to text-based content. As Americans increasingly turn to social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok for their news, her work takes on greater urgency. “The American political system is founded on the notion of an informed, engaged public, so we should strive to u ..read more

It is widely recognized that the period in the early 1970s in which Salvador Allende was president of Chile was a moment of political innovation, when people thought they could bring about socialist transformation peacefully and within existing democratic institutions. “People thought that this would be a political third way,” says Eden Medina, an associate professor in MIT’s Program in Society, Technology, and Society. Ultimately, a military coup brought a premature end to Chilean democracy and resulted in Allende’s death. But it’s a period of political and cultural history to which Medina ha ..read more

In the United States, social institutions from church organizations to sports leagues occupy key roles in shaping political life, with unions perhaps the most familiar player, affecting change in realms from protest movements to elections.    But while these civil society institutions draw little notice in a democracy, they turn heads in settings where political life is more constrained.      Elizabeth “Biff” Parker-Magyar, a sixth-year doctoral student in political science at MIT, is investigating this phenomenon.   “It’s quite puzzling when some organizations ma ..read more

Although women’s wartime roles and agency tend to be neglected in conventional discourses on conflict, there are times when women not only take up arms but also shape the practices and policies of insurgent groups they fight for. Apekshya Prasai, a PhD candidate in MIT’s Department of Political Science, studies how rebel groups subvert entrenched patriarchal structures, ideas, and norms, and the role women play in this process.     “All insurgents operate in, recruit from, and depend on communities where half the population is female,” says Prasai, a member of the Security Studies Pr ..read more

Misinformation pervades U.S. politics. The outcome of the 2020 presidential election is perhaps the most pressing case in point. Every serious-minded academic and legal inquiry into the subject — including two cases that came before the U.S. Supreme Court — has rejected former President Donald Trump’s assertion that he did not lose the election. Major media organizations now routinely label these statements “lies.” Yet Trump’s unfounded claims have gained wide traction among his followers. “The evidence against claims that the 2020 election was stolen is overwhelming and clear,” writes MIT pol ..read more

Many scholars, analysts, and other observers have suggested that resistance to innovation is an Achilles’ heel of authoritarian regimes. Such governments can fail to keep up with technological changes that help their opponents; they may also, by stifling rights, inhibit innovative economic activity and weaken the long-term condition of the country. But a new study co-led by an MIT professor suggests something quite different. In China, the research finds, the government has increasingly deployed AI-driven facial-recognition technology to surpress dissent; has been successful at limiting protes ..read more

Recent U.S. elections have raised the question of whether “microtargeting,” the use of extensive online data to tailor persuasive messages to voters, has altered the playing field of politics. Now, a newly-published study led by MIT scholars finds that while targeting is effective in some political contexts, the “micro” part of things may not be the game-changing tool some have assumed. “In a traditional messaging context where you have one issue you’re trying to convince people on, we found that targeting did have a substantial persuasive advantage,” says David Rand, an MIT professor and co-a ..read more