https://phys.org/science-news/political-science/ en-us The latest news on political science Before murdering Molly Ticehurst in April 2024, court documents show Daniel Billings had threatened to exploit the limits of policing in her country town: "I will come in the middle of the night … The police won't stop me. I will get to you quicker than they will." https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rural-policing-gaps-domestic-violence.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 22:20:02 EDT news708932449 The European Union has committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, a process that will require rapid and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all economic sectors. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-europe-emissions-deindustrializing.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:40:07 EDT news708955862 Legislation that affects or discriminates against transgender and gender-diverse individuals can cause more psychological distress than personal experiences of discrimination, according to new Virginia Commonwealth University research published in the journal American Psychologist. The study also found that individuals with those identities experienced psychological distress from anti-transgender laws even if they lived in a state with legislation that is friendly toward transgender and gender-diverse individuals. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-anti-transgender-legislation-psychological-distress.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:20:08 EDT news708949322 When a multimillion-dollar masterpiece vanishes from a museum, the public calls for tougher criminal penalties and better-funded police task forces. But research from Wake Forest University suggests that some of these intuitive solutions can backfire, resulting in more art crime, not less. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-art-heist-paradox-police-stolen.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:04 EDT news708948661 A new study sheds light on how Syrian archaeologists risked their lives to rescue approximately 30,000 priceless artifacts from the Deir ez-Zor Museum during the summers of 2014 and 2015 as the city faced the imminent threat of capture by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as Daesh. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-archaeological-treasures-imminent-destruction-syria.html Archaeology Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:40:04 EDT news708943201 A study published in Police Quarterly explores how Canadian courts respond when police officers break the law. The research, co-led by Brock University Assistant Professor of Political Science Danielle McNabb and University of Guelph Associate Professor of Political Science Kate Puddister, presents the first large-scale empirical analysis of how Canadian courts sentence police officers convicted of breaching the public's trust. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-canadian-courts-police-misconduct-sentencing.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:00:01 EDT news708930121 A new report from the Brookings Institution presents evidence that increasing the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal could make nuclear crises more likely. This raises an important challenge to arguments that the U.S. must consider increasing its stockpile in response to China's growing nuclear capabilities. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nuclear-arsenal-americans-safe.html Political science Fri, 18 Sep 2026 03:00:03 EDT news708917447 The ground is shifting beneath the feet of Australian authors and other creatives. A leaked proposal seen by the ABC suggests the government might grant artificial intelligence (AI) companies access to the copyrighted works of Australians under an opt-out system. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-opt-ai-weaken-australian-copyright.html Political science Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:00:10 EDT news708854282 Americans are grappling with artificial intelligence—from its lightning-fast development to the construction of data centers to support it—and are becoming more skeptical of its benefits. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nebraskans-wary-artificial-intelligence.html Social Sciences Thu, 17 Sep 2026 11:00:29 EDT news708848701 Immersive boot camps for women could be a way to overcome the stark gender imbalance in political leadership, according to new research that examined how to increase the political ambitions of talented women. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-political-boot-women-redress-gender.html Social Sciences Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:40:08 EDT news708844262 A new report by the International Bar Association (IBA) has found a significant gap between the importance legal professionals attach to fundamental rule of law principles and their assessment of how effectively those principles are implemented in practice. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-survey-reveals-significant-gap-countries.html Political science Wed, 16 Sep 2026 20:20:01 EDT news708793801 Election officials can build public trust in procedures and results—even among suspicious voters who fear partisan manipulation—by creating videos that factually explain their security safeguards in simple terms. These are the findings of studies co-authored by a UC Riverside scholar, offering strategies for election officials to respond to false claims and conspiracy theories about election fraud and security, as well as suspicions that arise when mail-in ballot counting delays results. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-simple-messaging-elections.html Social Sciences Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:20:01 EDT news708779591 Most employees aren't discussing the latest political polls during meetings or debating hot-button issues around the coffee maker. But that doesn't mean politics isn't affecting the workplace. A study from Texas A&M University found that the political information employees consume outside of work can influence how they feel and behave on the job. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-youre-politics-office.html Political science Wed, 16 Sep 2026 16:00:12 EDT news708773642 As local news organizations continue to disappear across the United States, George Washington University researchers are linking shrinking access to community-based journalism to stronger feelings of isolation and loneliness. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-loneliness-local-news-isolation.html Social Sciences Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:20:09 EDT news708773161 Allowing petty offenders in South Africa to remain in the community may reduce their risk of committing serious crimes compared with imprisonment, according to a study published in PLOS One by Farai Nyabadza of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-incarceration-escalate-criminal-behavior-south.html Social Sciences Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:00:26 EDT news708679921 Republicans and conservatives are more likely than Democrats or liberals to justify political violence in 17 surveyed situations, according to a study published in PLOS One by Garen J. Wintemute of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-americans-political-violence-vary-sharply.html Social Sciences Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:00:24 EDT news708777241 From social media to the streets of Washington, D.C., the organized white nationalist movement has become more visible in the United States over the past few decades. But the extent of this extremist movement's appeal to the broader public is less certain. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-predominantly-online-friendships-linked-greater.html Social Sciences Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:00:05 EDT news708776221 It's annual property tax collection season, and with it may come questions about how those property taxes are used and, if there's a tax increase, why. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-surplus-tax-hike.html Economics & Business Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:20:04 EDT news708767882 Over a third of U.S. adults (35%) cannot name all three branches of the government, and under half can name four of the five rights protected by the First Amendment, according to the 2026 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. Of the five First Amendment rights, only freedom of speech is identified by more than half of survey respondents. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-americans.html Political science Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:20:04 EDT news708755341 Americans are heading into the 2026 midterm elections with widespread uncertainty about the integrity of the vote, according to a new national survey from the University of California San Diego. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-americans-free-fair-midterms.html Political science Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:40:04 EDT news708754741 The tolerance of individual Canadians for radical forms of environmental activism depends on several factors. Overall, however, Canadians do not support vandalism or violence as forms of protest. Those are the key findings of a new study by researchers from McGill University and Université Laval. The findings are published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-young-eco-anxious-canadians-disruptive.html Social Sciences Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:20:01 EDT news708697177 New research co-led by the University of Bedfordshire and the University of Lancashire has highlighted the need for more consistent child-centered and safeguarding-led approaches across policing, with children and young people's experiences varying depending on where they live, whom they encounter, the reason for these encounters and how well systems support frontline practice. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-child-centered-policing-children.html Social Sciences Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:20:10 EDT news708685922 More than one-third of Western Australia's police officers report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), new research led by Edith Cowan University (ECU) and published in the journal Australian Psychologist has found. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-frontline-trauma-alarming-ptsd-wa.html Social Sciences Tue, 15 Sep 2026 08:00:01 EDT news708672481 When people hear something new about a topic, they should update their beliefs to reflect the new information. But many people either underreact or overreact, with their responses varying based on different factors, including the environment. In "The Inference-Forecast Gap in Belief Updating," researchers compared how people make inferences and revise their beliefs in light of the same information. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-economists-people-infer-beliefs.html Economics & Business Mon, 14 Sep 2026 16:00:06 EDT news708618542 The Clean Air Act of 1970 helped standardize pollution limits at the national level, but individual politicians can wield significant influence over industrial emission rates in their districts, according to a new analysis conducted by a multi-institutional team that includes researchers at Penn State. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-local-industrial-emissions-linked-congressional.html Political science Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:00:09 EDT news708604142 As we reflect on the 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, terrorism remains an ongoing yet evolving threat that defies easy answers. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-people-terrorism.html Social Sciences Fri, 11 Sep 2026 07:40:04 EDT news708327182 London has one of the lowest violent crime rates of any region in England and Wales, tops a global ranking of the best cities, and pays more in taxes than it receives back in public spending—but the public overestimates how likely Londoners are to become victims of crime, underestimates the capital's international standing, and has little idea it is the key contributor to public finances, according to a new study from the Policy Institute at King's College London. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-london-misperceptions-reveals-britons-wrong.html Political science Thu, 10 Sep 2026 22:40:01 EDT news708262736 A quarter-century after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, religious bias in America has not disappeared, but the forces shaping it have changed. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-years-landscape-religious-bias.html Social Sciences Thu, 10 Sep 2026 18:20:04 EDT news708276482 How do we form a picture of conflicts? A new study published in the journal Nature explores how different types of data can be combined to give a fuller understanding of armed conflicts. Lead author Valerie Sticher uses the examples of Ukraine and Myanmar to explain the advantages and limitations of automatically analyzed satellite data. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-qa-satellite-imagery-reveals-casualty.html Political science Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:40:01 EDT news708184441 Trust in scientists in the UK is strong overall, with 63% indicating they have high trust in scientists in general—but a major new study finds this trust is closely shaped by people's values, identity and politics, showing some of the same patterns of division over science that have emerged in the U.S. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-polarized-scientists-driven-values-identity.html Social Sciences Wed, 09 Sep 2026 20:20:04 EDT news708165767