Not Another Politics Podcast

Why don’t we prepare better for crises we know are coming? What effect will the coronavirus pandemic have on Trump’s 2020 chances? Should we even be having an election in the midst of a viral outbreak? On this episode, we turn to the best political science research to answer these questions and more about the politics behind COVID-19.

We’re constantly told by journalists and academics that America is too divided. That people no long just oppose members of the opposite party, but actually hate them. That something is broken, not just in our politics but in American life generally.

On this episode, we take these issues to one of the leading scholars in the world on polarization, Dr. Shanto Iyengar from Stanford University. We focus specifically on one of his papers, https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2015/iyengar-ajps-group-polarization.pdf, that argues that affective polarization really has gotten as bad as the experts say, and we discuss what we can do about it.

 Do primaries attract more extremist voters who skew elections toward candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump? The common thought has always been that extremist voters, because of their intense passion on issues, are more likely to vote in primaries. But one scholar at UCLA says the real story is far more complicated.   On this episode, we speak with esteemed political scientist Lynn Vavreck about her paper on representation in primary elections, and what her research can tell us about the current democratic primary.   Paper: <a title="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/on-the-representativeness-of-primary-electorates/06414B6E17368D52B3F77EC9C3BF1520" href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/on-the-representativeness-of-primary-electorates/06414B6E17368D52B3F77EC9C3BF1520" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/on-the-representativeness-of-primary-electorates/06414B6E17368D52B3F77EC9C3BF1520</a>

Could racially charged policies cause you to act racist, even if you aren’t actually a racist? That’s the story two political scientists, Stephane Wolton and Torun Dewan from the London School of Economics and Political Science, tell in a recent paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3397918

On this episode, we discuss the possibly hidden story behind symbolic policies like the Trump administration’s border wall and Muslim travel ban, or Europe’s burqa bans. Could these racially charged policies really be about economics?

Do divisive primaries actually affect how candidates will perform in general elections? It's a question political scientist have been trying and failing to untangle, but we found someone who may have an answer.

With the 2020 democratic primary getting into full swing, we're kicking off our inaugural episode with prof. Alexander Fouirnaies whose research gives us new insights into the effects of divisive primaries and what we can expect from the 2020 Presidential election.

You can find Fouirnaies' paper about primaries here.