Governance

Xavier Medina Vidal, University of Texas at Arlington and Christopher Chambers-Ju, University of Texas at Arlington Mexico will have its first woman president following a landmark vote on June 2, 2024. After an election period marred by violence, ruling Morena party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor, emerged as the victor with about...

On October 17, 1953, constitutional reform granted women the right to vote in Mexico, and two years later, women cast ballots for the first time in a federal election. Now, nearly 70 years later, Mexico has elected a woman president for the first time, according to an official quick count. Claudia Sheinbaum, the former mayor...

Daniel Thompson, UCLA assistant professor of political science, co-authored a study that found private funding did not substantially affect the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. This private funding involved more than $400 million from Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, to cover COVID-related polling site accommodations. Twenty-eight states have banned private funding for...

A review of Peter Pomertantsev, “How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler” (PublicAffairs, 2024) “And who, in this moment, is the real Sefton Delmer?” asks Peter Pomerantsev about the subject of his new book, “How to Win an Information War.” “Which is his real voice, the one that expresses his ‘true’...

Dr. Carl Senior identified two types of smile – affiliative and reward – given by political leaders during the last UK general election in 2019 The eventual winner, Boris Johnson, was found to display the affiliative smile, which acts to align voter behaviour The study is the first to look at how supporters of election...

Are Mexicans ready for a woman president? As two female candidates lead in Mexico’s presidential race, the question has appeared in polls, debates, media and conversations across Mexico. But it is also a sample of the sexism and “macho” culture that continues to permeate Mexico, according to political analysts. The question of whether Mexicans are ready...

Marijuana campaigners in Germany lit celebratory joints on Monday as the country liberalized rules on cannabis to allow possession of small amounts. The German Cannabis Association, which campaigned for the new law, staged a “smoke-in” at Berlin’s landmark Brandenburg Gate when the law took effect at midnight. Other public consumption events were scheduled throughout the...

The bill represents the culmination of a legislative trend on child safety that traces back to fall of 2021. Members of Congress love to complain about social media platforms. The spectacle of tech executives being berated in front of congressional committees has, over the past few years, become a semi-regular feature of American politics, and lawmakers have introduced piles of legislation aimed...

Due to gender-based discrimination, women politicians often lead as “iron ladies” rather than peacemakers—eschewing, not pursuing, peace with foreign adversaries. Editor’s Note: Are female leaders less likely to go to war? Joshua Schwartz of Carnegie Mellon and Princeton’s Christopher Blair argue that while, in general, women may have more pacifistic learnings than men, women leaders face...

Over half of the 60 countries holding national elections this year are experiencing a democratic decline, risking the integrity of the electoral process, as reported in the latest Democracy Report from the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg. The worsening election quality is concerning, given the pivotal role elections play in either reinforcing or...