2023

Climate change equity and extreme vulnerability

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:45:38 +0000

Climate change equity and extreme vulnerability Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 11:45

Climate change equity and extreme vulnerability

By: Steve Vanderheiden

Abstract:

Climate justice scholars have called for equity to serve as a guiding ideal in international responses to climate change, typically noting that the countries and peoples most vulnerable to climate change are often among the least responsible for causing it. Typically, vulnerability to climate change has been associated with claims on international adaptation finance to facilitate vulnerability reduction, but extreme vulnerability (i.e. a very high impact on social and economic systems of climate variation) may resist standard adaptation measures. Whereas extreme vulnerability has in the climate justice literature been associated primarily with small island states or coastal regions that are vulnerable to sea level rise, in sub-Saharan Africa, it challenges the notions of how vulnerability is to be treated under equity norms, since it involves disruption to different systems and requires different kinds of remedies. Here, I consider how sub-Saharan Africa's vulnerabilities compare and contrast with those of more commonly theorised regions or peoples and propose several ways of accommodating the unique nature of its dependence on a stable climate system.

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Mitigation duties of poor and vulnerable countries

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:43:47 +0000

Mitigation duties of poor and vulnerable countries Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 11:43

Mitigation duties of poor and vulnerable countries

By: Steve Vanderheiden

Abstract:

Following the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, national responsibilities to contribute toward climate change mitigation have been guided by that treaty provisions that parties contribute on the basis of their ‘common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities’ (or the CBDR+RC principle). Initially, this was though to entail that developed country parties to the convention be exempted from any mitigation responsibilities, as they were under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. This so-called ‘Bali firewall’ has remained controversial despite the Paris Agreement move away from centrally assigned and binding mitigation commitments, which has been maintained through the 2021 Glasgow Accord, with the ethical question of whether and how much such parties ought to contribute toward global mitigation efforts despite their relatively small historical or current responsibility for climate change remaining central to the normative basis of climate justice itself. This chapter explores this question, proposing and defending a framework for specifying such remedial obligations and considering the various ethical issues that such mitigation burden-sharing involves.

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Evaluating Whether a Learning by Doing Initiative Meets DEI Goals

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:09:29 +0000

Evaluating Whether a Learning by Doing Initiative Meets DEI Goals Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 11:09

Evaluating Whether a Learning by Doing Initiative Meets DEI Goals

By: Sarah Sokhey

Abstract:

How can we best evaluate if a learning by doing initiative is accomplishing its goals including its priorities in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion? Drawing on my own previously co-authored published work (Nonnemacher and Sokhey 2022), I discuss how diversity and inclusion goals inspired the creation of an undergraduate research lab at a large flagship state university. Studio Lab was created to match research mentors with undergraduate students who work as paid research assistants at the �Ͼ�Ʒ��. In 2020 Studio Lab began in the Department of Political Science, in 2021 it expanded to the Division of Social Sciences, and in 2022 it expanded to the College of Arts & Sciences. I present suggestions for those wishing to advance similar initiatives. I then focus on the DEI goals associated with the lab and provide a template for evaluating whether these goals are being met.

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Learning Together: Experimental Evidence on Promoting Connections in Remote Classes

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:07:56 +0000

Learning Together: Experimental Evidence on Promoting Connections in Remote Classes Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 11:07

Learning Together: Experimental Evidence on Promoting Connections in Remote Classes

By: Michelle E Benedum, Sarah E Brown, Tyler Garrett, Sarah Wilson Sokhey

Abstract:

How can instructors best foster connections among students when learning is fully remote? This article describes a pedagogical experiment conducted in two large introductory political science courses at a large public university in the 2020–2021 academic year. We randomly assigned groups of students to different sets of instructions on how to study together remotely for an exam. Our strongest finding is that almost any effort by an instructor prompting students to work together helps students to feel more connected to one another; however, students often need to see and hear one another to feel connected. We find this to be tremendously encouraging—relatively easy interventions can result in significant improvements in learning.

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Cracking the Nest Egg: Comparing Pension Politics in Post-Communist Russia and Hungary–ERRATUM

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:06:03 +0000

Cracking the Nest Egg: Comparing Pension Politics in Post-Communist Russia and Hungary–ERRATUM Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 11:06

Cracking the Nest Egg: Comparing Pension Politics in Post-Communist Russia and Hungary–ERRATUM

By: Daria Prisiazhniuk, Sarah Wilson Sokhey

Abstract:

In addition, the authors wish to make the following amendment to their acknowledgements: We would like to thank Professor Linda Cook and Professor Michael Titterton for organising this themed section and for their invaluable comments and suggestions on the article. Daria Prisiazhniuk acknowledges that the article was prepared within the framework of the Basic Research Program at HSE University.

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The full armor of god: The mobilization of Christian nationalism in American politics

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:48:35 +0000

The full armor of god: The mobilization of Christian nationalism in American politics Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 10:48

The full armor of god: The mobilization of Christian nationalism in American politics

By: Paul A Djupe, Andrew R Lewis, Anand E Sokhey

Abstract:

Academic research on Christian nationalism has revealed a considerable amount about the scope of its relationships to public policy views in the US. However, work thus far has not addressed an essential question: why now? Research by the authors of this Element advances answers, showcasing how deeper engagement with 'the 3Ms' – measurement, mechanisms and mobilization – can help unpack how and why Christian nationalism has entered our politics as a partisan project. Indeed, it is difficult to understand the dynamics of Christian nationalism without reference to the parties, as it has been a worldview used to mobilize Republicans while simultaneously recruiting and demobilizing Democrats. The mechanisms of these efforts hinge on a deep desire for social dominance that is ordained by God – an order elites suggest is threatened by Democrats and 'the left.' These elite appeals can have sweeping consequences for opinion and action, including the public's support for democratic processes.

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Federal Slavery Legislation and Voting in US Gubernatorial Elections, 1840—1860

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 16:46:33 +0000

Federal Slavery Legislation and Voting in US Gubernatorial Elections, 1840—1860 Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 10:46

Federal Slavery Legislation and Voting in US Gubernatorial Elections, 1840—1860

By: Alexander Jensen, Madeline Mader, Srinivas C Parinandi, Anand Sokhey, Michael Byrd

Abstract:

The demise of the Whig Party in the 1850s has long been a subject of great attention among scholars and the general public. However, this historical development has received less attention from the vantage point of quantitative empirical analysis. Using state-level gubernatorial electoral returns from 1840 to 1860, we assess how major events like the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act/Compromise of 1850, the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the rise of the Know Nothing Party influenced the transformation of America party system in the lead up to the Civil War. We find evidence linking the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to a drop in support for Northern Whigs, Free Soilers, and (more suggestively) Northern Democrats. The results are consistent with a narrative of the Kansas-Nebraska Act unleashing fears among Free Soilers, ultimately leading to a coalescing around the new Republican Party.

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Measuring Media Freedom

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:34:11 +0000

Measuring Media Freedom Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 08:34

Measuring Media Freedom

By: Christopher Barrie, Neil Ketchley, Alexandra Siegel, Mosaab Bagdouri

Abstract:

The ability of news media to criticize government is a core pillar of media freedom and is often taken as evidence of meaningful democratization. Existing indices typically use scoring criteria or expert surveys to develop over-time measures of media freedom. In this article, we use the largest existing dataset of Arabic-language news to evaluate how political reporting about the government changes over the course of successful and failed democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia. Using entirely unsupervised ALC wordembedding techniques, we demonstrate how to generate temporally granular measurements of media criticism that closely correlate with measurements derived from expert surveys for both countries. Crucially, the technique we propose is computationally inexpensive, opensource, and cost-free—making it eminently scalable. Our work therefore points to new possibilities in the monitoring and measurement of media capture within authoritarian and transitional settings.

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Opinion manipulation on Farsi twitter

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:32:41 +0000

Opinion manipulation on Farsi twitter Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 08:32

Opinion manipulation on Farsi twitter

By: Amirhossein Farzam, Parham Moradi, Saeedeh Mohammadi, Zahra Padar, Alexandra A Siegel

Abstract:

For Iranians and the Iranian diaspora, the Farsi Twittersphere provides an important alternative to state media and an outlet for political discourse. But this understudied online space has become an opinion manipulation battleground, with diverse actors using inauthentic accounts to advance their goals and shape online narratives. Examining trending discussions crossing social cleavages in Iran, we explore how the dynamics of opinion manipulation differ across diverse issue areas. Our analysis suggests that opinion manipulation by inauthentic accounts is more prevalent in divisive political discussions than non-divisive or apolitical discussions. We show how Twitter network structures help to reinforce the content propagated by clusters of inauthentic accounts in divisive political discussions. Analyzing both the content and structure of online discussions in the Iranian Twittersphere, this work contributes to a growing body of literature exploring the dynamics of online opinion manipulation, while improving our understanding of how information is controlled in the digital age.

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How threats of exclusion mobilize palestinian political participation

Avery Lord — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:30:25 +0000

How threats of exclusion mobilize palestinian political participation Avery Lord Wed, 06/17/2026 - 08:30

How threats of exclusion mobilize Palestinian political participation

By: Chagai M Weiss, Alexandra A. Siegel, David Romney

Abstract:

Do exclusionary policies mobilize minority political participation? We theorize that the threat of exclusionary policies creates and resurfaces grievances that facilitate mobilization. To test our theory, we leverage Donald Trump's announcement of a peace plan for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which posed a threat to the citizenship status of Palestinian citizens of Israel residing in the Triangle area adjacent to the West Bank. First, using more than 170,000 posts from public Facebook groups and pages, we show that Trump's announcement was indeed a more salient political event for Triangle residents. Then, employing locality-level election data as well as records detailing the origin of citizens’ joining a Jewish-Arab social movement, we use a difference-in-difference design to demonstrate that the threat to citizenship imposed by Trump's plan increased mobilization in the Triangle area. Our evidence from three distinct data sources suggests that threats of exclusion can mobilize minority political behavior.

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