Washington Post reporter Scott Clement compares the results of an analysis performed by MIT researchers of key issues on Twitter in the 2016 presidential race to a national survey. The researchers found that foreign policy and race are key issues on Twitter, while the national survey found that the economy and jobs were top priorities for voters.
Writing for The Boston Globe, Jill Terreri Ramos explores research by MIT political scientists into the political leanings of all 50 states over the past eight decades. “To understand national politics, we can learn about state politics,” explains Prof. Chris Warshaw.
Senior Lecturer Bill Aulet writes for The Boston Globe about whether Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker can “pull off something rarely seen in business and even less often in politics — to be both a great manager and a great leader.”
Ethan Zuckerman writes for CNN that policymakers should treat gun violence as a public health hazard. “Mass shootings are the secondhand smoke of America's dysfunctional relationship with guns,” writes Zuckerman. “They are the moments where something we know to be dangerous to their owners and those around them become deadly to the public as a whole.”
Prof. Charles Stewart III co-authored this op-ed for The Washington Post, which examines John Boehner’s resignation from the U.S. House speakership. “We see Boehner’s resignation as a signal that House leadership is undergoing a transition in how it is acquired and retained,” the authors write.
John Tirman, executive director of the MIT Center for International Studies, writes for WBUR about opposition within the Republican party to immigration reform. “Opposition to immigration reform is one of the more perplexing symptoms of Washington paralysis nowadays,” says Tirman.
In an article for The Huffington Post, John Tirman argues that the wave of migration from African and Latin American countries is a crisis caused partially by economic and political policies that American and European leaders have played a role in shaping. “Until the first world policies change, the third world will keep coming, at all costs,” Tirman writes.
Chun Han Wong writes for The Wall Street Journal about a study coauthored by MIT graduate student Yiqing Xu that finds an ideological divide in China based on geography. The researchers found that, “provinces with higher levels of economic development, trade openness, urbanization are more liberal than their poor, rural counterparts.”
A new study by researchers from MIT and Harvard finds a geographic divide between liberals and conservatives in China, reports Michael Forsythe for The New York Times. “China may even be divided, much like the United States, into ‘red’ conservative provinces mostly in the poorer rural interior and richer, urbanized ‘blue’ coastal provinces,” writes Forsythe.
Patrick J. Egan writes for The Washington Post about the racial diversity of police forces. In examining how politics may influence the makeup of a police force, Egan highlights a study co-authored by Prof. Chris Warshaw that found that municipal governments tend to adapt to voters’ views.
William Becker writes for The Huffington Post about a study from the MIT Energy Initiative and the Harvard University Center on the Environment that examined American public opinion on energy sources. "Americans don't really divide along partisan lines when it comes to their energy preference,” the researchers reported.
MIT PhD Student Tom O’Grady writes for The Washington Post about the upcoming vote on independence in Scotland. O’Grady argues Scotland’s case is unique in that nationalists and progressives are united in their support for leaving the UK.
In a piece for Forbes about U.S. foreign policy, Stephen Harner highlights Professor Barry Posen’s new book “Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy.” Harner outlines Posen’s argument that current U.S. policy should be replaced with a more restrained military approach.
Forbes reporter Naomi Shavin writes about the new MIT study that found that municipal governments accurately represent their residents’ political beliefs. The study also showed that “the most conservative cities are skewed toward being more liberal than one might expect,” Shavin writes.
“In a recent study, Boston was ranked the fifth most liberal city in the United States,” writes Megan Turchi for Boston.com about new research conducted by Professor Chris Warshaw. Warshaw’s study examined how closely aligned urban governments are with their constituents’ viewpoints and ranked the most liberal and conservative cities.