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How Do We Change America?

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The national uprising in response to the brutal murder of George Floyd , a forty-six-year-old black man, by four Minneapolis police officers, has been met with shock, elation, concern, fear, and gestures of solidarity. Its sheer scale has been surprising. Across the United States, in cities large and small, streets have filled with young, multiracial crowds who have had enough. In the largest uprisings since the Los Angeles rebellion of 1992, anger and bitterness at racist and unrestrained police violence, abuse, and even murder have finally spilled over in every corner of the United States.

More than seventeen thousand National Guard troops have been deployed—more soldiers than are currently occupying Iraq and Afghanistan—to put down the rebellion. More than ten thousand people have been arrested ; more than twelve people, mostly African-American men, have been killed. Curfews were imposed in at least thirty cities, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Omaha, and Sioux City. Solidarity demonstrations have been organized from Accra to Dublin—in Berlin, Paris, London, and beyond. And, most surprisingly, two weeks after Floyd’s death, the protests have not ended. Last Saturday saw the largest protests so far, as tens of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall and marched down the streets of Brooklyn and Philadelphia.

The relentless fury and pace of rebellion has forced states to shrug off their stumbling efforts to subdue the novel coronavirus that continues to sicken thousands in the United States. State leaders have been much more adept in calling up the National Guard and coördinating police actions to confront marchers than they were in any of their efforts to curtail the virus. In a show of both cowardice and authoritarianism, Donald Trump threatened to call up the U.S. military to occupy American cities. “Crisis” does not begin to describe the political maelstrom that has been unleashed.

There have been planned demonstrations, and there have also been violent and explosive outbursts that can only be described as a revolt or an uprising. Riots are not only the voice of the unheard, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said ; they are the rowdy entry of the oppressed into the political realm. They become a stage of political theatre where joy, revulsion, sadness, anger, and excitement clash wildly in a cathartic dance. They are a festival of the oppressed.

For once in their lives, many of the participants can be seen, heard, and felt in public. People are pulled from the margins into a powerful force that can no longer be ignored, beaten, or easily discarded. Offering the first tastes of real freedom, when the police are for once afraid of the crowd, the riot can be destructive, unruly, violent, and unpredictable. But within that contradictory tangle emerge demands and aspirations for a society different from the one in which we live. Not only do the rebels express their own dismay but they also showcase our entire social dilemma. As King said , of the uprisings in the late nineteen-sixties, “I am not sad that Black Americans are rebelling; this was not only inevitable but eminently desirable. Without this magnificent ferment among Negroes, the old evasions and procrastinations would have continued indefinitely. Black men have slammed the door shut on a past of deadening passivity. Except for the Reconstruction years, they have never in their long history on American soil struggled with such creativity and courage for their freedom. These are our bright years of emergence; though they are painful ones, they cannot be avoided.”

King continued, “The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing the evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.”

By now, it should be clear what the demands of young black people are: an end to racism, police abuse, and violence; and the right to be free of the economic coercion of poverty and inequality.

The question is: How do we change this country? It’s not a new question; for African-Americans, it’s a question as old as the nation itself. A large part of the reason that rebels swell the streets with clenched fists and expressive eyes is the refusal or inability of this society to engage that question in a satisfying way. Instead, those asking the question are patronized with sweet-sounding speeches, made with alliterative apologia, often interspersed with recitations about the meaning of America, and ultimately in defense of the status quo. There is a palpable poverty of intellect, a lack of imagination, and a banality of ideas pervading mainstream politics today. Old and failed propositions are recycled, but proclaimed as new, reviving cynicism and dismay.

Take the recent comments of the former President Barack Obama. On Twitter, Obama counselled that “Real change requires protest to highlight a problem, and politics to implement practical solutions and laws.” He continued to say that “there are specific evidence-based reforms that would build trust, save lives, and lead to a decrease in crime, too,” including the policy proposals of his Task Force on 21st Century Policing, convened in 2015. Such a simple, plain-stated plan fails to answer the most basic question: Why do police reforms continue to fail? African-Americans have been demonstrating against police abuse and violence since the Chicago riots of 1919. The first riot directly in response to police abuse occurred in 1935, in Harlem. In 1951, a contingent of African-American activists, armed with a petition titled “We Charge Genocide,” tried to persuade the United Nations to decry the U.S. government’s murder of black people. Their petition read :

Once the classic method of lynching was the rope. Now it is the policeman’s bullet. To many an American the police are the government, certainly its most visible representative. We submit that the evidence suggests that the killing of Negroes has become police policy in the United States and that police policy is the most practical expression of government policy.

It has been the lack of response, and a lack of “practical solutions” to beatings, harassment, and murder, that has led people into the streets, to challenge the typical dominance of police in black communities.

Many have compared the national revolt today to the urban rebellions of the nineteen-sixties, but it is more immediately shaped by the Los Angeles rebellion of 1992 and the protests it unleashed across the country. The 1992 uprising grew out of the frustrated mix of growing poverty, violence generated by the drug war, and widening unemployment. By 1992, official black unemployment had reached a high of fourteen per cent, more than double that of white Americans. In South Central Los Angeles, where the uprising took hold, more than half of people over the age of sixteen were unemployed or out of the labor force. A combination of police brutality and state-sanctioned accommodation of violence against a black child ultimately lit the fuse.

We remember that, on March 3, 1991, Rodney King, a black motorist, was beaten by four L.A. police officers by the side of the freeway. But it is also true that, two weeks later, a fifteen-year-old black girl, Latasha Harlins, was shot in the head by a convenience-store owner, Soon Ja Du, after a confrontation about whether Harlins intended to pay for a bottle of orange juice. A jury found Du guilty of manslaughter and recommended the maximum sentence, but the judge in the case disagreed and sentenced Du to five years probation, community service, and a five-hundred-dollar fine. The L.A. rebellion began on April 29, 1992, when the officers who had beaten King were unexpectedly acquitted, but it was also fuelled by the fact that, a week earlier, an appeals court had upheld the lesser sentence for Du.

In the immediate aftermath of the verdict, a multiracial throng of protesters gathered outside the headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department, chanting, “No justice, no peace!” and “Guilty!” As people began to gather in South Central, the police arrived and attempted to arrest them, before realizing that they were overmatched and deserting the scene. At one point, the L.A. Times recounted, at Seventy-first and Normandie streets, two hundred people “lined the intersection, many with raised fists. Chunks of asphalt and concrete were thrown at cars. Some yelled, ‘It’s a black thing.’ Others shouted, ‘This is for Rodney King.’ ” By the end of the day, more than three hundred fires burned across the city, at police headquarters and city hall, downtown, and in the white neighborhoods of Fairfax and Westwood. In Atlanta, hundreds of black young people chanted “Rodney King” as they smashed through store windows in the business district of the city. In Northern California, seven hundred students from Berkeley High School walked out of their classes in protest. In a short span of five days, the L.A. uprising emerged as the largest and most destructive riot in U.S. history, with sixty-three dead, a billion dollars in property damage, nearly twenty-four hundred injured, and seventeen thousand arrested. President George H. W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act , to mobilize units from the U.S. Marines and Army to put down the rebellion. A black man named Terry Adams spoke to the L.A. Times , and captured the motivation and the mood. “Our people are in pain,” he said. “Why should we draw a line against violence? The judicial system doesn’t.”

The uprising in L.A. shared with the rebellions of the nineteen-sixties an igniting spark of police abuse, widespread violence, and the fury of the rebels. But, in the nineteen-sixties, the flush economy and the still-intact notion of the social contract meant that President Lyndon B. Johnson could attempt to drown the civil-rights movement and the Black Power radicalization with enormous social spending and government-program expansion, including the passage of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968, which produced the first government-backed, low-income homeownership opportunities directed at African-Americans.

By the late nineteen-eighties and early nineties, the economy was in recession and the social contract had been ripped to shreds. The rebellions of the nineteen-sixties and the enormous social spending intended to bring them under control were wielded by the right to generate a backlash against the expanded welfare state. Political conservatives argued that the market, not government intervention, could create efficiencies and innovation in the delivery of public services. This rhetoric was coupled with virulent racist characterizations of African-Americans, who relied disproportionately on welfare programs. Ronald Reagan mastered the art of color-blind racism in the post-civil-rights era with his invocations of “welfare queens.” Not only did these distortions pave the way for undermining the welfare state, they reinforced racist delusions about the state of black America that legitimized deprivation and marginalization.

The Los Angeles uprising not only exposed the police state that African-Americans were subjected to but also uncovered the hollowed-out core of the U.S. economy after the supposed economic genius of the Reagan Revolution. The rebellions of the nineteen-sixties were disparaged as race riots because they were confined almost exclusively to segregated black communities. The L.A. rebellion spread rapidly across the city: fifty-one per cent of those arrested were Latino, and only thirty-six per cent were black. A smaller number of whites were also arrested. Public officials had used racism as a crowbar to dismantle the welfare state, but the effects were felt across the board. Though African-Americans were disproportionate recipients of welfare, whites made up the majority, and they suffered, too, when cuts were imposed. As Willie Brown, who was then the speaker of the California Assembly, wrote, in the San Francisco Examiner , days after the uprising, “For the first time in American history, many of the demonstrations and much of the violence and crime, especially the looting, was multiracial—blacks, whites, Hispanics, and Asians were all involved.” Though typically segregated from each other socially, each group found ways to express their overlapping grievances in the furious revolt against the L.A.P.D.

The period after the L.A. rebellion didn’t usher in new initiatives to improve the quality of the lives of people who had revolted. To the contrary, the Bush White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater blamed the uprising on the social-welfare programs of previous administrations, saying, “We believe that many of the root problems that have resulted in inner-city difficulties were started in the sixties and seventies and that they have failed.” The nineteen-nineties became a moment of convergence for the political right and the Democratic Party, as the Democrats cemented their turn toward a similar agenda of harsh budget cuts to social programs and an insistence that African-American hardship was the result of non-normative family structures. In May, 1992, Bill Clinton interrupted his normal campaign activities to travel to South Central Los Angeles, where he offered his analysis of what had gone so wrong. People were looting, he said, “because they are not part of the system at all anymore. They do not share our values, and their children are growing up in a culture alien from ours, without family, without neighborhood, without church, without support.”

Democrats responded to the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion by pushing the country further down the road of punishment and retribution in its criminal-justice system. Joe Biden , the current Democratic Presidential front-runner, emerged from the fire last time brandishing a new “crime bill” that pledged to put a hundred thousand more police on the street, called for mandatory prison sentences for certain crimes, increased funding for policing and prisons, and expanded the use of the death penalty. The Democrats’ new emphasis on law and order was coupled with a relentless assault on the right to welfare assistance. By 1996, Clinton had followed through on his pledge to “end welfare as we know it.” Biden supported the legislation, arguing that “the culture of welfare must be replaced with the culture of work. The culture of dependence must be replaced with the culture of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility. And the culture of permanence must no longer be a way of life.”

The 1994 crime bill was a pillar in the phenomenon of mass incarceration and public tolerance for aggressive policing and punishment directed at African-American neighborhoods. It helped to build the world that young black people are rebelling against today. But the unyielding assaults on welfare and food stamps have also marked this latest revolt. These cuts are a large part of the reason that the coronavirus pandemic has landed so hard in the U.S., particularly in black America . These are the reasons that we do not have a viable safety net in this country, including food stamps and cash payments during hard times. The weakness of the U.S. social-welfare state has deep roots, but it was irreversibly torn when Democrats were at the helm.

The current climate can hardly be reduced to the political lessons of the past, but the legacy of the nineties dominates the political thinking of elected officials today. When Republicans insist on tying work requirements to food stamps in the midst of a pandemic, with unemployment at more than thirteen per cent, they are conjuring the punitive spirit of the policies shaped by Clinton, Biden, and other leading Democrats throughout the nineteen-nineties. So, though Biden desperately wants us to believe that he is a harbinger of change, his long record of public service says otherwise. He has claimed that Barack Obama’s selection of him as his running mate was a kind of absolution for Biden’s dealings in the Democrats’ race-baiting politics of the nineteen-nineties. But, from the excesses of the criminal-justice system and the absence of a welfare state to the inequality rooted in an unbridled, rapacious market economy, Biden has shaped much of the world that this generation has inherited and is revolting against.

More important, the ideas honed in the nineteen-eighties and nineties continue to beat at the center of Biden’s political agenda. His campaign advisers include Larry Summers, who, as Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, was an enthusiastic supporter of deregulation, and, as Obama’s chief economic adviser during the recession, endorsed the Wall Street bailout while allowing millions of Americans to default on their mortgages. They also include Rahm Emanuel, whose tenure as the mayor of Chicago ended in disgrace, when it was revealed that his administration covered up the police murder of the seventeen-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot sixteen times by a white police officer. But Emanuel’s damage to Chicago ran much deeper than his defense of a particularly racist and abusive police force. He also carried out the largest single closure of public schools in U.S. history—nearly fifty in one fell swoop, in 2013. After two terms, he left the city in the same broken condition he found it, with forty-five per cent of young black men in Chicago both out of school and unemployed.

This points to the importance of expanding our national discussion about what ails the country, beyond the racism and brutality of the police. We must also discuss the conditions of economic inequality that, when they intersect with racial and gender discrimination, disadvantage African-Americans while also making them vulnerable to police violence. Otherwise, we risk reducing racism to the outrageous and intentional acts of depraved individuals, while downplaying the cumulative impact of public policies and private-sector discrimination that, regardless of personal intent, have crippled the vitality of African-American life.

When the focus narrows to the barbarism of the act that stole George Floyd’s life, it allows for the likes of the former President George W. Bush to enter the conversation and claim to deplore racism. Bush wrote, in an open letter on the Floyd killing, that “it remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young African American men, are harassed and threatened in their own country.” This would be laughable if George W. Bush were not the grim reaper who hid beneath a shroud he described as “compassionate conservatism.” As the governor of Texas, he oversaw a rampant and racist death-penalty system, personally signing off on the execution of a hundred and fifty-two incarcerated people, a disproportionate number of them African-American. As President, Bush oversaw the stunningly incompetent government response to Hurricane Katrina, which contributed to the deaths of nearly two thousand people and displaced tens of thousands of African-American residents of New Orleans. That Bush is able to sanctimoniously enter into a discussion about American racism while ignoring his own role in its perpetuation and sustenance speaks to the superficiality of the conversation. Although many are becoming comfortable spurting out phrases like “systemic racism,” the solutions proposed remain mired in the system that is being critiqued. The result is that the roots of oppression and inequality that constitute what many activists refer to as “racial capitalism” are left in place.

Joe Biden, in a recent, rare public appearance, came to Philadelphia to describe the leadership necessary to emerge from this current moment. His speech sounded as if it could have been made at any time in the last twenty years. He promulgated a proposal to end choke holds—even though many police departments have done that already, at least on paper. The New York Police Department is one of them, though this did not prevent Daniel Pantaleo from choking Eric Garner to death, nor did it cause Pantaleo to be sent to jail for it. Biden called for accountability, oversight, and community policing. These proposals for curbing racist policing are as old as the first declarations for reform that came out of the Kerner Commission, in 1967. Then, too, as the nation’s cities combusted into a frenzy of uprisings, federal reformers enumerated changes to police policy such as these, and, more than fifty years later, the police remain impervious to reform and often in arrogant refusal to heel. It is simply astounding that Joe Biden has not a single meaningful or new idea to offer about controlling the police.

Barack Obama, in an essay that he posted on Medium, describes voting as the road to making “real change,” although he also writes that “if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.” Obama has developed a tendency to intervene in political debates as if he were a curious and detached observer, rather than a former officeholder of the most powerful position in the world. The Black Lives Matter movement bloomed during the final years of Obama’s Presidency. At each stage of its development, Obama seemed unable to curb the police abuses that were fuelling its development. It is easy to get bogged down in the intricacies of federalism and the constraints on executive power, given that police abuse is such a local issue. But Obama did, after all, convene a national task force aimed at providing guidance and leadership on police accountability, and we can consider its effectiveness from the standpoint of today.

Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing delivered sixty-three recommendations, including ending “racial profiling” and extending “community policing” efforts. It called for “better training” and revamping the entire criminal-justice system. But they were no more than suggestions; there was no mechanism to make the country’s eighteen thousand different law-enforcement agencies comply. The Task Force’s interim report was released on March 2, 2015. That month , police across the country killed another hundred and thirteen people, thirty more than in the previous month. On April 4th, Walter Scott, an unarmed black man running away from a white cop, Michael Slager, in North Charleston, South Carolina, was shot five times from behind. Eight days later, Freddie Gray was picked up by Baltimore police, placed in a van with no restraints, and driven recklessly around the city. When he emerged from the van, his spine was eighty-per-cent severed at his neck. He died seven days later. Baltimore exploded in rage. And Baltimore was not like Ferguson, Missouri, which was run by a white political establishment and patrolled by a white police force. From Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to a multiracial police force, Baltimore was a black-led city.

Even as the wanton violence of law enforcement has come into sharper focus in the last five years, there has been almost no consequence in terms of municipal budget allocations. Police continue to absorb absurd portions of local operating budgets—even in departments that are sources of embarrassment and abuse lawsuits. In Los Angeles, with its homelessness crisis and out-of-control rents, the police absorb an astounding fifty-three per cent of the city’s general fund. Chicago, a city with a notoriously corrupt and abusive police force, spent thirty-nine per cent of its budget on police. Philadelphia’s operating budget needed to be recalibrated because of the collapse of tax collections due to the coronavirus pandemic; the only agency that will not suffer any budget cuts is the police department. While public schools, affordable housing, violence-prevention programming, and the police-oversight board prepare for three hundred and seventy million dollars in budget cuts, the Philadelphia Police Department, which already garners sixteen per cent of the city’s funds, is slated to receive a twenty-three-million-dollar increase.

Throughout the Obama and Trump Administrations, the failures to rein in racist policing practices have been compounded by the economic stagnation in African-American communities, measured by stalled rates of homeownership and a widening racial wealth gap. Are these failures of governance and politics all Obama’s fault? Of course not, but, when you run on big promises of change and end up overseeing a brutal status quo, people draw dim conclusions from the experiment. For many poor and working-class African-Americans, who still have enormous pride in the first black President and his spouse, Michelle Obama, the conclusion is that electing the nation’s first black President was never going to change America. One might even interpret the failures of the Obama Administration as some of the small kindling that has set the nation ablaze.

We cannot insist on “real change” in the United States by continuing to use the same methods, arguments, and failed political strategies that have brought us to this moment. We cannot allow the current momentum to be stalled by a narrow discussion about reforming the police. In Obama’s essay, he wrote, “I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come back. So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it.” If we are thinking of these problems in big and broad strokes, or in a systemic way, we might ask: Why is there only a single grocery store in this woman’s neighborhood? That might lead to a discussion about the history of residential segregation in that neighborhood, or job discrimination or under-resourced schools in the area, which might, in turn, provide deeper insights into an alienation that is so profound in its intensity that it compels people to fight with the intensity of a riot to demand things change. And this is where the trouble actually begins. Our society cannot end these conditions without massive expenditure.

In 1968, King, in the weeks before he was assassinated, said, “In a sense, I guess you could say, we are engaged in the class struggle.” He was speaking to the costs of the programs that would be necessary to lift black people out of poverty and inequality, which were, in and of themselves, emblems of racist subjugation. Ending segregation in the South, then, was cheap compared with the huge costs necessary to end the kinds of discrimination that kept blacks locked out of the advantages of U.S. society, from well-paying jobs to well-resourced schools, good housing, and a comfortable retirement. The price of the ticket is quite steep, but, if we are to have a real conversation about how we change America, it must begin with an honest assessment of the scope of the deprivation involved. Racist and corrupt policing is the tip of the iceberg.

We have to make space for new politics, new ideas, new formations, and new people. The election of Biden may stop the misery of another Trump term, but it won’t stop the underlying issues that have brought about more than a hundred thousand COVID -19 deaths or continuous protests against police abuse and violence. Will the federal government intervene to stop the looming crisis of evictions that will disproportionately impact black women? Will it use its power and authority to punish police, and to empty prisons and jails, which not only bring about social death but are now also sites of rampant COVID -19 infection ? Will it end the war on food stamps and allow African-Americans and other residents of this country to eat in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? Will it finance the health-care needs of tens of millions of African-Americans who have become susceptible to the worst effects of the coronavirus, and are dying as a result? Will it provide the resources to depleted public schools, allowing black children the opportunity to learn in peace? Will it redistribute the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to rebuild devastated working-class communities? Will there be free day care and transportation?

If we are serious about ending racism and fundamentally changing the United States, we must begin with a real and serious assessment of the problems. We diminish the task by continuing to call upon the agents and actors who fuelled the crisis when they had opportunities to help solve it. But, more importantly, the quest to transform this country cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police alone. It must conquer the logic that finances police and jails at the expense of public schools and hospitals. Police should not be armed with expensive artillery intended to maim and murder civilians while nurses tie garbage sacks around their bodies and reuse masks in a futile effort to keep the coronavirus at bay.

We have the resources to remake the United States, but it will have to come at the expense of the plutocrats and the plunderers, and therein lies the three-hundred-year-old conundrum: America’s professed values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, continually undone by the reality of debt, despair, and the human degradation of racism and inequality.

The unfolding revolt in the U.S. today holds the real promise to change this country. While it reflects the history and failures of past endeavors to confront racism and police brutality, these protests cannot be reduced to them. Unlike the uprising in Los Angeles, where Korean businesses were targeted and some white bystanders were beaten, or the rebellions of the nineteen-sixties, which were confined to black neighborhoods, today’s protests are stunning in their racial solidarity. The whitest states in the country, including Maine and Idaho, have had protests involving thousands of people. And it’s not just students or activists; the demands for an end to this racist violence have mobilized a broad range of ordinary people who are fed up.

The protests are building on the incredible groundwork of a previous iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement. Today, young white people are compelled to protest not only because of their anxieties about the instability of this country and their compromised futures in it but also because of a revulsion against white supremacy and the rot of racism. Their outlooks have been shaped during the past several years by the anti-racist politics of the B.L.M. movement, which move beyond seeing racism as interpersonal or attitudinal, to understanding that it is deeply rooted in the country’s institutions and organizations.

This may account, in part, for the firm political foundation that this round of struggle has begun upon. It explains why activists and organizers have so quickly been able to gather support for demands to defund police, and in some cases introduce ideas about ending policing altogether. They have been able to quickly link bloated police budgets to the attacks on other aspects of the public sector, and to the limits on cities’ abilities to attend to the social crises that have been exposed by the COVID -19 pandemic. They have built upon the vivid memories of previous failures, and refuse to submit to empty or rhetoric-driven calls for change. This is evidence again of how struggles build upon one another and are not just recycled events from the past.

Race, Policing, and Black Lives Matter Protests

• The death of George Floyd , in context.
• The civil-rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson examines the frustration and despair behind the protests.
• Who, David Remnick asks, is the true agitator behind the racial unrest ?
• A sociologist examines the so-called pillars of whiteness that prevent white Americans from confronting racism.
• The Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi on what it would mean to defund police departments , and what comes next.
• The quest to transform the United States cannot be limited to challenging its brutal police.

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By Isaac Chotiner

November 20, 2018

How Political Opinions Change

A clever experiment shows it's surprisingly easy to change someone’s political views, revealing how flexible we are

By Philip Pärnamets & Jay Van Bavel

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Our political opinions and attitudes are an important part of who we are and how we construct our identities. Hence, if I ask your opinion on health care, you will not only share it with me, but you will likely resist any of my attempts to persuade you of another point of view. Likewise, it would be odd for me to ask if you are sure that what you said actually was your opinion. If anything seems certain to us, it is our own attitudes. But what if this weren’t necessarily the case?

In a recent experiment , we showed it is possible to trick people into changing their political views. In fact, we could get some people to adopt opinions that were directly opposite of their original ones. Our findings imply that we should rethink some of the ways we think about our own attitudes, and how they relate to the currently polarized political climate. When it comes to the actual political attitudes we hold, we are considerably more flexible than we think.

A powerful shaping factor about our social and political worlds is how they are structured by group belonging and identities . For instance, researchers have found that moral and emotion messages on contentious political topics, such as gun-control and climate change, spread more rapidly within rather than between ideologically like-minded networks. This echo-chamber problem seems to be made worse by the algorithms of social media companies who send us increasingly extreme content to fit our political preferences.

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We are also far more motivated to reason and argue to protect our own or our group’s views. Indeed, some researchers argue that our reasoning capabilities evolved to serve that very function .  A recent study illustrates this very well: participants who were assigned to follow Twitter accounts that retweeted information containing opposing political views to their own with the hope of exposing them to new political views. But the exposure backfired—increased polarization in the participants. Simply tuning Republicans into MSNBC, or Democrats into Fox News, might only amplify conflict. What can we do to make people open their minds?

The trick, as strange as it may sound, is to make people believe the opposite opinion was their own to begin with.

The experiment relies on a phenomenon known as choice blindness. Choice blindness was discovered in 2005 by a team of Swedish researchers . They presented participants with two photos of faces and asked participants to choose the photo they thought was more attractive, and then handed participants that photo. Using a clever trick inspired by stage magic , when participants received the photo it had been switched to the person not chosen by the participant—the less attractive photo. Remarkably, most participants accepted this card as their own choice and then proceeded to give arguments for why they had chosen that face in the first place. This revealed a striking mismatch between our choices and our ability to rationalize outcomes. This same finding has since been replicated in various domains including taste for jam , financial decisions , and eye-witness testimony .

While it is remarkable that people can be fooled into picking an attractive photo or a sweet jam in the moment, we wondered whether it would be possible to use this false-feedback to alter political beliefs in a way that would stand the test of time.

In our experiment, we first gave false-feedback about their choices, but this time concerning actual political questions (e.g., climate taxes on consumer goods). Participants were then asked to state their views a second time that same day, and again one week later. The results were striking.  Participants’ responses were shifted considerably in the direction of the manipulation. For instance, those who originally had favoured higher taxes were more likely to be undecided or even opposed to it.

These effects lasted up to a week later. The changes in their opinions were also larger when they were asked to give an argument—or rationalization—for their new opinion. It seems that giving people the opportunity to reason reinforced the false-feedback and led them further away from their initial attitude.

Why do attitudes shift in our experiment? The difference is that when faced with the false-feedback people are free from the motives that normally lead them to defend themselves or their ideas from external criticism. Instead they can consider the benefits of the alternative position.

To understand this, imagine that you have picked out a pair of pants to wear later in the evening. Your partner comes in and criticizes your choice, saying you should have picked the blue ones rather than the red ones. You will likely become defensive about your choice and defend it—maybe even becoming more entrenched in your choice of hot red pants.

Now imagine instead that your partner switches the pants while you are distracted, instead of arguing with you. You turn around and discover that you had picked the blue pants. In this case, you need to reconcile the physical evidence of your preference (the pants on your bed) with whatever inside your brain normally makes you choose the red pants. Perhaps you made a mistake or had a shift in opinion that slipped you mind. But now that the pants were placed in front of you, it would be easy to slip them on and continue getting ready for the party. As you catch yourself in the mirror, you decide that these pants are quite flattering after all.

The very same thing happens in our experiment, which suggests that people have a pretty high degree of flexibility about their political views once you strip away the things that normally make them defensive. Their results suggest that we need rethink what it means to hold an attitude. If we become aware that our political attitudes are not set in stone, it might become easier for us to seek out information that might change them.

There is no quick fix to the current polarization and inter-party conflict tearing apart this country and many others. But understanding and embracing the fluid nature of our beliefs, might reduce the temptation to grandstand about our political opinions. Instead humility might again find a place in our political lives.

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Nonviolent resistance proves potent weapon

Michelle Nicholasen

Weatherhead Center Communications

Erica Chenoweth discovers it is more successful in effecting change than violent campaigns

Recent research suggests that nonviolent civil resistance is far more successful in creating broad-based change than violent campaigns are, a somewhat surprising finding with a story behind it.

When Erica Chenoweth  started her predoctoral fellowship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 2006, she believed in the strategic logic of armed resistance. She had studied terrorism, civil war, and major revolutions — Russian, French, Algerian, and American — and suspected that only violent force had achieved major social and political change. But then a workshop led her to consider proving that violent resistance was more successful than the nonviolent kind. Since the question had never been addressed systematically, she and colleague Maria J. Stephan began a research project.

For the next two years, Chenoweth and Stephan collected data on all violent and nonviolent campaigns from 1900 to 2006 that resulted in the overthrow of a government or in territorial liberation. They created a data set of 323 mass actions. Chenoweth analyzed nearly 160 variables related to success criteria, participant categories, state capacity, and more. The results turned her earlier paradigm on its head — in the aggregate, nonviolent civil resistance was far more effective in producing change.

The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) sat down with Chenoweth, a new faculty associate who returned to the Harvard Kennedy School this year as professor of public policy, and asked her to explain her findings and share her goals for future research. Chenoweth is also the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Erica Chenoweth

WCFIA:  In your co-authored book, “ Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict ,” you explain clearly why civil resistance campaigns attract more absolute numbers of people — in part it’s because there’s a much lower barrier to participation compared with picking up a weapon. Based on the cases you have studied, what are the key elements necessary for a successful nonviolent campaign?

CHENOWETH:  I think it really boils down to four different things. The first is a large and diverse participation that’s sustained.

The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide how violent the confrontation with — and reaction to — the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other security elites, economic and business elites, state media. There are lots of different pillars that support the status quo, and if they can be disrupted or coerced into noncooperation, then that’s a decisive factor.

The third thing is that the campaigns need to be able to have more than just protests; there needs to be a lot of variation in the methods they use.

The fourth thing is that when campaigns are repressed — which is basically inevitable for those calling for major changes — they don’t either descend into chaos or opt for using violence themselves. If campaigns allow their repression to throw the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they’re essentially co-signing what the regime wants — for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they’re probably going to get totally crushed.

In 2006, Erica Chenoweth believed in the strategic logic of armed resistance. Then she was challenged to prove it.

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

WCFIA:   Is there any way to resist or protest without making yourself more vulnerable?

CHENOWETH: People have done things like bang pots and pans or go on electricity strikes or something otherwise disruptive that imposes costs on the regime even while people aren’t outside. Staying inside for an extended period equates to a general strike. Even limited strikes are very effective. There were limited and general strikes in Tunisia and Egypt during their uprisings and they were critical.

WCFIA: A general strike seems like a personally costly way to protest, especially if you just stop working or stop buying things. Why are they effective?

CHENOWETH: This is why preparation is so essential. Where campaigns have used strikes or economic noncooperation successfully, they’ve often spent months preparing by stockpiling food, coming up with strike funds, or finding ways to engage in community mutual aid while the strike is underway. One good example of that comes from South Africa. The anti-apartheid movement organized a total boycott of white businesses, which meant that black community members were still going to work and getting a paycheck from white businesses but were not buying their products. Several months of that and the white business elites were in total crisis. They demanded that the apartheid government do something to alleviate the economic strain. With the rise of the reformist Frederik Willem de Klerk within the ruling party, South African leader P.W. Botha resigned. De Klerk was installed as president in 1989, leading to negotiations with the African National Congress [ANC] and then to free elections, where the ANC won overwhelmingly. The reason I bring the case up is because organizers in the black townships had to prepare for the long term by making sure that there were plenty of food and necessities internally to get people by, and that there were provisions for things like Christmas gifts and holidays.

WCFIA: How important is the overall number of participants in a nonviolent campaign?

CHENOWETH: One of the things that isn’t in our book, but that I analyzed later and presented in a TEDx Boulder talk in 2013 , is that a surprisingly small proportion of the population guarantees a successful campaign: just 3.5 percent. That sounds like a really small number, but in absolute terms it’s really an impressive number of people. In the U.S., it would be around 11.5 million people today. Could you imagine if 11.5 million people — that’s about three times the size of the 2017 Women’s March — were doing something like mass noncooperation in a sustained way for nine to 18 months? Things would be totally different in this country.

“Countries in which there were nonviolent campaigns were about 10 times likelier to transition to democracies within a five-year period compared to countries in which there were violent campaigns — whether the campaigns succeeded or failed.” Erica Chenoweth

WCFIA:   Is there anything about our current time that dictates the need for a change in tactics?

CHENOWETH: Mobilizing without a long-term strategy or plan seems to be happening a lot right now, and that’s not what’s worked in the past. However, there’s nothing about the age we’re in that undermines the basic principles of success. I don’t think that the factors that influence success or failure are fundamentally different. Part of the reason I say that is because they’re basically the same things we observed when Gandhi was organizing in India as we do today. There are just some characteristics of our age that complicate things a bit.

WCFIA: You make the surprising claim that even when they fail, civil resistance campaigns often lead to longer-term reforms than violent campaigns do. How does that work?

CHENOWETH: The finding is that civil resistance campaigns often lead to longer-term reforms and changes that bring about democratization compared with violent campaigns. Countries in which there were nonviolent campaigns were about 10 times likelier to transition to democracies within a five-year period compared to countries in which there were violent campaigns — whether the campaigns succeeded or failed. This is because even though they “failed” in the short term, the nonviolent campaigns tended to empower moderates or reformers within the ruling elites who gradually began to initiate changes and liberalize the polity.

One of the best examples of this is the Kefaya movement in the early 2000s in Egypt. Although it failed in the short term, the experiences of different activists during that movement surely informed the ability to effectively organize during the 2011 uprisings in Egypt. Another example is the 2007 Saffron Revolution in Myanmar, which was brutally suppressed at the time but which ultimately led to voluntary democratic reforms by the government by 2012. Of course, this doesn’t mean that nonviolent campaigns always lead to democracies — or even that democracy is a cure-all for political strife. As we know, in Myanmar, relative democratization in the country’s institutions has been accompanied by extreme violence against the Rohingya community there. But it’s important to note that such cases are the exceptions rather than the norm. And democratization processes tend to be much bumpier when they occur after large-scale armed conflict instead of civil resistance campaigns, as was the case in Myanmar.

WCFIA:  What are your current projects?

CHENOWETH: I’m still collecting data on nonviolent campaigns around the world. And I’m also collecting data on the nonviolent actions that are happening every day in the United States through a project called the Crowd Counting Consortium , with Jeremy Pressman of the University of Connecticut. It began in 2017, when Jeremy and I were collecting data during the Women’s March. Someone tweeted a link to our spreadsheet, and then we got tons of emails overnight from people writing in to say, “Oh, your number in Portland is too low; our protest hasn’t made the newspapers yet, but we had this many people.” There were the most incredible appeals. There was a nursing home in Encinitas, Calif., where 50 octogenarians organized an indoor women’s march with their granddaughters. Their local news had shot a video of them and they asked to be counted, and we put them in the sheet. People are very active and it’s not part of the broader public discourse about where we are as a country. I think it’s important to tell that story.

This originally appeared on the Weatherhead Center website . Part two of the series is now online.

The artwork, “Love and Revolution,”  revolutionary graffiti at Saleh Selim Street on the island of Zamalek, Cairo, was photographed by Hossam el-Hamalawy on Oct. 23, 2011.

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Political Context and Social Change

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In this essay we describe how changes in the political system (such as German unification after the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe) may affect individual quality of life . We begin with the description of the ecological contexts in which individual development is embedded and argue that political changes may affect all these contexts as...

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5 Political Acceptance and the Process of Political Change

• Published: May 2015
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Understanding political change requires us to pay attention not only to how discourse diffuses from elected officials and other elites down through news media to ordinary citizens, but also how new political discourses may effervesce from the bottom up. Other studies of the success of movements in political science ascertain the success of the movement from the number of favorable policies that advocates are able to win. However, they miss a crucial aspect of social movement success. That is, the degree to which the framing of issues in public discourse during policy fights can affect the political understanding of issues and thus change the politics of what is at stake.

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Essay on Politics: Topics, Tips, and Examples for Students

Defining What is Politics Essay

The process of decision-making that applies to members of a group or society is called politics. Arguably, political activities are the backbone of human society, and everything in our daily life is a form of it.

Understanding the essence of politics, reflecting on its internal elements, and critically analyzing them make society more politically aware and let them make more educated decisions. Constantly thinking and analyzing politics is critical for societal evolution.

Political thinkers often write academic papers that explore different political concepts, policies, and events. The essay about politics may examine a wide range of topics such as government systems, political ideologies, social justice, public policies, international relations, etc.

After selecting a specific research topic, a writer should conduct extensive research, gather relevant information, and prepare a logical and well-supported argument. The paper should be clear and organized, complying with academic language and standards. A writer should demonstrate a deep understanding of the subject, an ability to evaluate and remain non-biased to different viewpoints, and a capacity to draw conclusions.

Now that we are on the same page about the question 'what is politics essay' and understand its importance, let's take a deeper dive into how to build a compelling political essay, explore the most relevant political argumentative essay topics, and finally, examine the political essay examples written by the best essay writing service team.

Politics Essay Example for Students

If you are still unsure how to structure your essay or how to present your statement, don't worry. Our team of experts has prepared an excellent essay example for you. Feel free to explore and examine it. Use it to guide you through the writing process and help you understand what a successful essay looks like.

How to Write a Political Essay: Tips + Guide

A well-written essay is easy to read and digest. You probably remember reading papers full of big words and complex ideas that no one bothered to explain. We all agree that such essays are easily forgotten and not influential, even though they might contain a very important message.

If you are writing an essay on politics, acknowledge that you are on a critical mission to easily convey complicated concepts. Hence, what you are trying to say should be your main goal. Our guide on how to write a political essay will help you succeed.

Conduct Research for Your Politics Essay

After choosing a topic for the essay, take enough time for preparation. Even if you are familiar with the matter, conducting thorough research is wiser. Political issues are complex and multifaceted; comprehensive research will help you understand the topic better and offer a more nuanced analysis.

Research can help you identify different viewpoints and arguments around the topic, which can be beneficial for building more impartial and persuasive essays on politics. Sometimes in the hit of the moment, opposing sides are not able to see the common ground; your goal is to remain rational, speak to diverse audiences, and help them see the core of the problem and the ways to solve it.

In political papers, accuracy and credibility are vital. Researching the topic deeply will help you avoid factual errors or misrepresentations from any standpoint. It will allow you to gather reliable sources of information and create a trustworthy foundation for the entire paper.

If you want to stand out from the other students, get inspired by the list of hottest essay ideas and check out our political essay examples.

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Brainstorm Political Essay Topics

The next step to writing a compelling politics essay is to polish your thoughts and find the right angle to the chosen topic.

Before you start writing, generate fresh ideas and organize your thoughts. There are different techniques to systematize the mess going on in your head, such as freewriting, mind mapping, or even as simple as listing ideas. This will open the doors to new angles and approaches to the topic.

When writing an essay about politics, ensure the topic is not too general. It's always better to narrow it down. It will simplify your job and help the audience better understand the core of the problem. Brainstorming can help you identify key points and arguments, which you can use to find a specific angle on the topic.

Brainstorming can also help you detect informational gaps that must be covered before the writing process. Ultimately, the brainstorming phase can bring a lot more clarity and structure to your essay.

We know how exhausting it is to come up with comparative politics essay topics. Let our research paper writing service team do all the hard work for you.

Create Your Politics Essay Thesis Statement

Thesis statements, in general, serve as a starting point of the roadmap for the reader. A political essay thesis statement outlines the main ideas and arguments presented in the body paragraphs and creates a general sense of the content of the paper.

Creating a thesis statement for essays about politics in the initial stages of writing can help you stay focused and on track throughout the working process. You can use it as an aim and constantly check your arguments and evidence against it. The question is whether they are relevant and supportive of the statement.

Get creative when creating a statement. This is the first sentence readers will see, and it should be compelling and clear.

The following is a great example of a clear and persuasive thesis statement:

 'The lack of transparency and accountability has made the World Trade Organization one of the most controversial economic entities. Despite the influence, its effectiveness in promoting free trade and economic growth in developing countries has decreased.'

Provide Facts in Your Essay about Politic

It's a no-brainer that everything you will write in your essay should be supported by strong evidence. The credibility of your argument will be questioned every step of the way, especially when you are writing about sensitive subjects such as essays on government influence on economic troubles. 

Provide facts and use them as supporting evidence in your politics essay. They will help you establish credibility and accuracy and take your paper out of the realm of speculation and mere opinions.

Facts will make your essay on political parties more persuasive, unbiased, and targeted to larger audiences. Remember, the goal is to bring the light to the core of the issue and find a solution, not to bring people even farther apart.

Speaking of facts, many students claim that when they say ' write my essay for me ' out loud, our writing team is the fastest to respond and deliver high-quality essays meeting their trickiest requirements.

Structure Your Political Essay

Your main goal is to communicate your ideas to many people. To succeed, you need to write an essay that is easy to read and understand. Creating a structure will help you present your ideas logically and lead the readers in the right direction.

Sometimes when writing about political essay topics, we get carried away. These issues can be very emotional and sensitive, and writers are not protected from becoming victims of their own writings. Having a structure will keep you on track, only focusing on providing supported arguments and relevant information.

Start with introducing the thesis statement and provide background information. Followed by the body paragraphs and discuss all the relevant facts and standpoints. Finish it up with a comprehensive conclusion, and state the main points of your essay once again.

The structure will also save you time. In the beginning, creating an outline for essays on politics will give you a general idea of what should be written, and you can track your progress against it.

Revise and Proofread Your Final Politics Essay

Once every opinion is on the paper and every argument is well-constructed, one final step should be taken. Revision!

We know nothing is better than finishing the homework and quickly submitting it, but we aim for an A+. Our political essay must be reviewed. You need to check if there is any error such as grammatical, spelling, or contextual.

Take some time off, relax, and start proofreading after a few minutes or hours. Having a fresh mind will help you review not only grammar but also the arguments. Check if something is missing from your essays about politics, and if you find gaps, provide additional information.

You had to spend a lot of time on them, don't give up now. Make sure they are in perfect condition.

Effective Political Essay Topics

We would be happy if our guide on how to write political essays helped you, but we are not stopping there. Below you will find a list of advanced and relevant political essay topics. Whether you are interested in global political topics or political science essay topics, we got you covered.

Once you select a topic, don't forget to check out our politics essay example! It will bring even more clarity, and you will be all ready to start writing your own paper.

Political Argumentative Essay Topics

Now that we know how to write a political analysis essay let's explore political argumentative essay topics:

• Should a political party take a stance on food politics and support policies promoting sustainable food systems?
• Should we label Winston Churchill as the most influential political figure of World War II?
• Does the focus on GDP growth in the political economy hinder the human development index?
• Is foreign influence a threat to national security?
• Is foreign aid the best practice for political campaigning?
• Does the electoral college work for an ideal political system?
• Are social movements making a real difference, or are they politically active for temporary change?
• Can global politics effectively address political conflicts in the modern world?
• Are opposing political parties playing positive roles in US international relations?
• To what extent should political influence be allowed in addressing economic concerns?
• Can representative democracy prevent civil wars in ethnically diverse countries?
• Should nuclear weapons be abolished for the sake of global relations?
• Is economic development more important than ethical issues for Caribbean politics?
• What role should neighboring nations play in preventing human rights abuse in totalitarian regimes?
• Should political decisions guide the resolution of conflicts in the South China Sea?

Political Socialization Essay Topics

Knowing how to write a political issue essay is one thing, but have you explored our list of political socialization essay topics?

• To what extent does a political party or an influential political figure shape the beliefs of young people?
• Does political influence shape attitudes toward environmental politics?
• How can individuals use their own learning process to navigate political conflicts in a polarized society?
• How do political strategies shape cultural globalization?
• Is gender bias used as a political instrument in political socialization?
• How can paying attention to rural communities improve political engagement?
• What is the role of Amnesty International in preventing the death penalty?
• What is the role of politically involved citizens in shaping minimum wage policies?
• How does a political party shape attitudes toward global warming?
• How does the federal system influence urban planning and attitudes toward urban development?
• What is the role of public opinion in shaping foreign policy, and how does it affect political decision making
• Did other countries' experiences affect policies on restricting immigration in the US?
• How can note-taking skills and practice tests improve political engagement? 
• How do the cultural values of an independent country shape the attitudes toward national security?
• Does public opinion influence international intervention in helping countries reconcile after conflicts?

Political Science Essay Topics

If you are searching for political science essay topics, check our list below and write the most compelling essay about politic:

• Is environmental education a powerful political instrument? 
• Can anarchist societies provide a viable alternative to traditional forms of governance?
• Pros and cons of deterrence theory in contemporary international relations
• Comparing the impact of the French Revolution and World War II on the political landscape of Europe
• The role of the ruling political party in shaping national policies on nuclear weapons
• Exploring the roots of where politics originate
• The impact of civil wars on the processes of democratization of the third-world countries
• The role of international organizations in promoting global health
• Does using the death penalty in the justice system affect international relations?
• Assessing the role of the World Trade Organization in shaping global trade policies
• The political and environmental implications of conventional agriculture
• The impact of the international court on political decision making
• Is philosophical anarchism relevant to contemporary political discourse?
• The emergence of global citizenship and its relationship with social movements
• The impact of other countries on international relations between the US and China

Final Words

See? Writing an essay about politic seems like a super challenging job, but in reality, all it takes is excellent guidance, a well-structured outline, and an eye for credible information.

If you are stressed out from juggling a hundred different course assignments and have no time to focus on your thesis, our dissertation writing services could relieve you! Our team of experts is ready to take over even the trickiest tasks on the tightest schedule. You just have to wish - ' write my essay ' out loud, and we will be on it!

Ready to Enrich Your Understanding of Politics?

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Annie Lambert

specializes in creating authoritative content on marketing, business, and finance, with a versatile ability to handle any essay type and dissertations. With a Master’s degree in Business Administration and a passion for social issues, her writing not only educates but also inspires action. On EssayPro blog, Annie delivers detailed guides and thought-provoking discussions on pressing economic and social topics. When not writing, she’s a guest speaker at various business seminars.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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EssayEmpire

Political change essay.

Political change often occurs as major events—such as wars, economic crises, and sudden electoral shifts—lead to punctuated turning points, which are then followed by enduring ideological, institutional, or coalitional transformations. Indeed, across international and domestic contexts, whether one addresses security crises like those that marked the commencement of the cold war or war on terror, economic crises such as the great crash of 1929 or subprime crisis of 2007 to 2009, or the critical elections that transformed U.S. party systems in 1932 or 1968, certain moments in political time stand out as having a particular impact. These events often lead to lasting changes in international relations, economic policy, or coalitional alignments. In addressing these sources of change, scholars have sought to not only identify the key mechanisms through which such events acquire a particular significance, but also highlight broader implications for agency, policy progress, and reform.

Over the past several decades, as scholars have addressed such mechanisms of change, a basic theoretical divide has given rise to a broad debate. From the former vantage, materialists highlight the exogenously given, preinterpretive sources of change, such as shifts in the distribution of power, economic recourses, or demographic trends. Where shifts in such relative power relations alter the balance of power among state and societal actors, materialists argue that they help to determine the outcomes of international or domestic struggles over “who gets what, when, and how.” In justifying this approach, materialists assume that political agents make efficient use of information in reacting to military, economic, or societal changes, and that those who do not correctly act on their real interests will be “selected out” of their competitive systems.

In contrast, from the latter vantage, constructivists highlight the social sources of change—rooted in shifts in shared ideas, economic ideologies, or cultural understandings. Constructivists assume that ideas of these sorts matter because agents are plagued by what John Maynard Keynes termed the fundamental constraint of uncertainty. With respect to a number of important potential developments (e.g., the price of oil in ten years, the likelihood of a terrorist attack) agents simply cannot form any meaningful expectations, and so must fall back on “conventional” judgments for guidance. In other words, agents must interpret crises before they react to them. Moreover, as agents interpret events as legitimating ideological changes, this can lead to transformations of their own interests—or beliefs about how to meet needs—in ways that assume lives of their own. Put differently, from the constructivist vantage, political struggles do not simply pertain to who gets what, when, and how, but also involve arguments over the meaning of events in ways that can reshape agents’ views of who they are and what they want.

To be sure, materialist and constructivist perspectives are not monolithic, and—given these broad assumptions—varieties of each exist. For example, from the materialist vantage, while realist approaches cast hegemonic wars as mechanisms that restore equilibrium to the balance of power, alternative Marxist frameworks highlight the role of wars and crises as sources of dialectical change from more imperialist orders to more emancipatory or socialist alternatives. Likewise, constructivist frameworks vary from those stressing the role of more elite-based, paradigmatic ideas to those stressing the preconscious, affective influences on a wider range of agents.

Nevertheless, setting aside such differences, the underlying debates over material or social forces prove quite enduring, having broad parallels in economic debates between classical and Keynesian perspectives, and psychological controversies over the importance of behavioral incentives or socialization processes. In the largest sense, these perspectives reflect different views of the human condition, as to whether agents are materially or socially constructed, whether material constraints limit possibilities for change, and whether ideas can assume evolving “lives of their own.”

International Security: From Hegemonic To Constitutive Wars

In the security realm, scholars have long noted the association between major wars and postwar settlements that reshape international orders. Perhaps most prominently, Robert Gilpin argues that hegemonic war serves as “the principal mechanism of change throughout history.” In this view, per iodic hegemonic conflicts, reinforced by postwar conferences and accords, determine which “states or states will be dominant and will govern the system.” Questions arise, however, about how a victorious hegemon might define its interests—along more conservative or liberal lines, or in more benign on more predatory fashions. Materialist approaches, at a systemic level, are likely to be underdetermining.

One materialist solution offers a supplemental stress on domestic material influences, rooted in the domestic institutional and societal characteristics of major states. For example, G. John Ikenberry concedes that “historical junctures . . . come at dramatic moments of upheaval and change within the international system, when the old order has been destroyed by war and newly powerful states try to reestablish basic organizing principles.” However, Ikenberry elaborates, “Democratic states have greater capacities to enter into binding institutions” and that hegemonic settlements established by democratic regimes can support more stable, legitimate orders. Nevertheless, despite its merits, Ikenberry’s legal shift to the domestic realm fails to offer a fundamental solution to theoretical problems of how institutional agents define their interests. Even the meaning of democracy itself is variable, and no theoretical fundamental precludes the emergence of violent differences over the meaning of democracy itself—as between the United States and Germany in World War I (1914–1918).

In a broader sense, materialist arguments remain wanting to the extent that the meaning of power and the nature of institutions are always endogenous to a social context. First, “major” asymmetries in the balance of power cannot be abstracted from the social context of, for example, friendship or enmity between states. While rivals or enemies may shift alliances to prevent any single state from attaining dominance over the system, states enjoying socially grounded ties of friendship may simply ignore the ostensible incentive structure of the distribution of power. As Alexander Wendt argues, U.S. policy makers view North Korean missiles differently than they do British missiles. Secondly, even “major” wars occur in meaningful contexts, as when Harry Truman cast the cold war as a struggle over “ways of life” or when George W. Bush emphasized the implications of the ostensible war on terror for the United States’s “deepest beliefs.” Conversely, even apparently “minor” crises can carry disproportionate lessons during periods of uncertainty, as when the post–cold war “Black Hawk down” incident in Somalia prompted an isolationist backlash. In this light, even wars that fundamentally disrupt the balance of power cannot be understood outside some social context.

To the extent that uncertainty complicates the interpretation of material incentives, constructivists have stressed the need to more directly examine the understandings that give wars and crises meaning. Providing the foundation for such an approach, John Ruggie argues that hegemonic wars might often be better seen as constitutive wars that can reshape notions of sovereignty itself. Indeed, Ruggie argues that the emergence of the sovereign state system can itself been seen as having “resulted in part from a transformation in social epistemology” following from the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) and Peace of Westphalia (1648). From this vantage, Ruggie argues that preWestphalian epistemes and “the mental equipment that people drew upon in imagining and symbolizing forms of political community underwent fundamental change.” As Ruggie puts it, “the very ontology of the units—that is to say, what kind of units they would be” provides the focus of constitutive wars. In contrast, in configurative wars, the nature of the units is accepted, though “their territorial configuration remain[s] contested.” Finally, Ruggie defines as positional wars all of “the familiar strategic and tactical wars ever since.”

However, to the sense that the Westphalian era has been characterized by continued debate over the meaning of sovereignty—whether to advance the rights of monarchs, nations, workers, or theocratic designs of varied sorts—wars might still be seen as having ongoing, constitutive significance. For example, Bruce Cronin and J. Samuel Barkin suggest that modern struggles from the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) to the cold war have played a key role in reconciling tensions between statist or nationalist views of sovereignty, which alternately locate authority in “the territories over which institutional authorities exercise legitimate control” or in varied “communities of sentiment.”

In this view, it is not shifts in power, but tensions over prevailing understandings that drive war and change in world politics. Indeed, such social understandings provide the focus of debates over the lessons of conflict, most recently in U.S. settings in cold war–era debates over the lessons of Vietnam. What Vietnam “meant” with respect to definitions of vital or peripheral interests had important implications for policy debate during the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan administrations. In more recent post–cold war debates over the meaning of the war on terror, the shift from the Bush to Obama administration can similarly be seen as accompanying a shift from a view of the September 11 attacks as highlighting the need for a more unilateral or multilateral definition of the national interest. In the absence of mechanisms for managing systemic change, wars and threats do not “speak for themselves,” but must be given meaning to advance state and societal change.

International Political Economy: The Meaning Of Crises

Paralleling these views of wars as revealing shifts in the distribution of power or in prevailing ideas, scholars of the international political economy have engaged in an ongoing debate over views of crises as disrupting the economic distribution of power or prevailing ideological frameworks. From the materialist vantage, hegemonic stability theorists like Gilpin cast the rise and fall of great powers as the most important factor in explaining stability. However, as in the security realm, other materialist scholars have recognized the indeterminacy of systemic incentives and argued for a greater stress on domestic incentives. Indeed, Gilpin himself concedes the role of ideology and stresses the need for a “dominant liberal power” to enable economic cooperation. From this vantage, in the nineteenth century, British hegemony might be seen as having supported the classical gold standard, until interwar British collapse undermined the classical order. Likewise, in the twentieth century, the post–Great Depression rise and (as some argue) decline of U.S. hegemony might explain international monetary change, from the Keynesian Bretton Woods fixed-exchange rate system to the current order.

More explicitly highlighting the material sources of domestic preferences, Peter Gourevitch stresses the effects of economic crises—defined as “major” economic downturns and shifts in the “geographic distribution of production”—on domestic preferences and transnational support for international regimes. Given some fluctuation in relative factor endowments, political agents will apply their reallocated resources to successfully (or unsuccessfully) defend their policy preferences. Gourevitch argues that material shocks alter the bases of domestic coalitions, as “social actors, affected by their situation, evaluate alternative policies in reaction to the likely benefits or costs.” Thus, to explain post–Great Depression Keynesian cooperation, Gourevitch stresses the effects of the crises of the 1930s on the relative position of capital and labor, arguing that labor-led coalitions advocated the adoption of Keynesian policies as alternatives to austerity.

Offering a somewhat greater stress on the autonomy ideas from a comparative vantage, scholars like Elinor Ostrom and Douglass North provide a more nuanced view of the interplay of power and ideas. They cast competitive pressures as often mediated and constrained by formal institutions (e.g., constitutions, rules, and laws) and informal structures (e.g., conventions, norms, and standards of behavior). To be sure, such institutions, even if they can exert a path dependent effect on behavior, still leave the fundamental material impediments to collective action in place.

In this light, despite their merits, these international and comparative analyses ultimately remain wanting for the same reason as basic materialist theories of hegemonic war. First, the effects of the distribution of capabilities in abstraction from the social context are indeterminate. Where states share a sense of the common interest, no hegemonic capabilities may be needed to maintain stability. Conversely, where such positive identification is lacking, no level of capabilities may be sufficient to guarantee stability. Second, the shift to a focus on domestic interests and practices does not resolve the problem of the indeterminacy of incentives, since domestic incentives are often equally unclear. For example, neither firms, nor unions, nor representatives of civil society can identify their “true” interests in abstraction from some intersubjective setting. Through much the era following the depression, for example, representatives of business and capital came to recognize the existence of shared interests in rising wages as a means to bolster demand. Finally, concerns for “major” crises run aground on the inability to precisely define what counts as a “major” change. Even exogenous shocks must be interpreted in a larger context, requiring a more explicit stress on paradigmatic debate over varied Classical or Keynesian economic theories.

In light of these objections, constructivists have stressed the importance of the social context to stability and change. Ruggie has once again played a key role in developing such arguments, reflected in his stress on not only “power” but also “purpose” in explaining the rise of the Bretton Woods system after the depression, in which the state assumed an active role in advancing shared corporate and labor interests in rising employment, demand, and output. Mark Blyth builds upon Ruggie’s insights, introducing a dynamic stress on the construction of crises to explain “great transformations” in economic arrangements in international and comparative settings. Blyth rejects frameworks that treat international political development as progressing through a series of self-apparent exogenous shocks. He instead defines crises in terms of their intersubjective impact, arguing that they occur during periods of uncertainty, when agents “are unsure as to what their interests actually are, let alone how to realize them.” Blyth argues that, given uncertainty, state and societal interests can only be defined in terms of the ideas agents themselves have about the causes of uncertainty.

Drawing on the insights of Keynes, constructivists thereby cast uncertainty as a condition under which there is no scientific basis to form any calculable probability. In this light, economic crises matter as they reshape the terms of policy debate. In other words, as Keynes once put it, “the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.” Indeed, reactions to the subprime crisis of 2007 to 2009—as it drove the Bush and Obama administrations alike to engage in Keynesian “lender of last resort assistance”—cannot be understood outside an understanding of Keynes’s own ideas. The subprime crisis did not “speak for itself ” in compelling such policies, but rather spurred debate over the role of the state in society and has legitimated a renewed acceptance of deficit spending and the need for financial reform.

Conclusions

Scholarly debates over the sources of political-scale change broadly concern the importance of material or social forces. From materialist perspectives, while agents might adapt with greater or lesser degrees of skill to exogenous shifts, they cannot fundamentally evade the exogenous constraints of the balance of military or economic power. In contrast, constructivist perspectives highlight the influence of the shared ideas that shape interpretations of material incentives. Perhaps more important, these frameworks have important implications for the scope of agency, progress, and reform. Materialist approaches arguably obscure the full scope of agency, limiting it to mere adaptation. These approaches suggest that agents can only respond to material shifts with differing degrees of skill, and that efforts at transforming international or domestic systems in fundamental ways are likely to be frustrated as proponents are selected out of the system. In contrast, constructivists highlight the role of agents in giving meaning to material changes, in ways that can reshape shared understandings, state and societal interests, and institutional possibilities. In this sense, the materialist-constructivist debate is rooted in enduring controversies over not simply the nature of structural constraints, but broader questions of agency, progress, and change.

Bibliography:

• Barkin, J. Samuel, and Bruce Cronin. “The State and the Nation: Changing Norms and the Rules of Sovereignty in International Relations. International Organization 48, no. 1 (1994): 107–130.
• Blyth, Mark. Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Gilpin, Robert. The Political Economy of International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.
• War and Change in World Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• Gourevitch, Peter A. Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
• Ikenberry, G. John. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
• Keynes, John Maynard. “The General Theory of Employment.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 51, no. 2 (1937): 209–223.
• The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1936.
• North, Douglass. Structure and Change in Economic History. New York:W.W. Norton, 1981.
• Oren, Ido. “The Subjectivity of the ‘Democratic’ Peace: Changing U.S. Perceptions of Imperial Germany.” International Security 20, no. 2 (1995): 147–184.
• Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
• Ruggie, John Gerard. “International Regimes, Transactions, and Change.” In International Regimes, edited by Stephen Krasner, 195–232. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982.
• “Territoriality and Beyond: Problematizing Modernity in International Relations.” International Organization 47, no. 1 (1993): 139–174.
• Wendt, Alexander. “Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics.” International Organization 46, no. 2 (1992): 391–425.
• Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
• Widmaier,Wesley, Mark Blyth, and Leonard Seabrooke. “Exogenous Shocks or Endogenous Constructions? The Meanings of Wars and Crises.” International Studies Quarterly 51, no. 4 (2007): 747–759.

This example  is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.

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Essays on the Politics and Political Effects of Climate Change

• Obradovich, Nicholas Anthony
• Advisor(s): Fowler, James H ;
• Gibson, Clark C

This dissertation focuses on the politics and potential effects of climate change on political systems. I examine aspects of three broad questions. First, how might future climatic stressors alter the stability of political systems? Numerous studies investigate this question through the lens of conflict. Yet most political change does not arise through violent upheaval. In democratic nations at least, most political change arises through regular elections. In my first chapter, I examine the potential for climate change to disrupt the functioning of political systems through alterations in political behaviors at the ballot box. I find that -- if historical relationships persist -- the climatic distributions projected for the latter part of this century may increase rates of democratic turnover, especially in poorer nations with already weaker democratic institutions. My second question relates to the political feasibility of policies designed to address climatic changes in lower income democracies. In my second chapter, I investigate the willingness of voters and politicians in Sub-Saharan Africa to lend political support to climate change policies. Evidence from these studies suggests that voters are reticent to support climate policies and that politicians are reluctant to pursue climate policies. My third question focuses on the behavioral motivations for taking individual political action to address climate change. Organizations looking to motivate action on climate change often make appeals that emphasize an individual's personal responsibility for the problem, with the notion that emphasizing diffuse collective responsibility may diminish individual action. In my third chapter, I conduct a series of survey experiments with members from the National Audubon Society and from the general public and find that -- contrary to expectations -- emphasizing personal responsibility produces no significant increase in climate change action whereas emphasizing collective responsibility amplifies climate action. These three chapters represent a foray into vital areas of my future research program: the potential effects of climate change on political systems, the political feasibility of climate policies, and the underpinnings of political behaviors related to climate change.

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Our political debates may not be as antagonistic as we think, study shows

Spend any time scrolling through social media or news sites and it feels like America is a nation in constant argument. Off-hand remarks often spark fierce screaming matches. Partisanship is up, Gallup tells us , while trust in institutions is down .

However, a new study co-authored by Berkeley Haas Assistant Professor Erica R. Bailey suggests this perception may not accurately reflect the nature and frequency of political debates among everyday Americans. In three studies involving nearly 3,000 participants, researchers found most debates occur not with strangers on social media but rather among family and friends. Moreover, participants often felt positive after such discussions

“We have these misperceptions because of algorithmic amplification of negative media and negative interactions on social media coupled with the fact that we tend to really remember negative information,” says Bailey. “It creates this perception that we’re all just out there fighting with strangers.”

In fact, one study with a representative sample of nearly 2,000 Americans showed that people overestimate how frequently others engage in debates—and this misperception is especially pronounced for debates with strangers online. This false perception has psychological costs, the researchers say, fueling increased feelings of hopelessness about the future of America.

“Our findings suggest that Americans may experience a false reality about the landscape of debate which can unnecessarily undermine their hope about the future,” the researchers wrote in the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports and co-authored by Michael W. White , Sheena S. Iyengar , and Modupe Akinola of Columbia Business School.

Difficult and nuanced conversations

Bailey says the genesis of the project was reflecting on her own experience. “When I think about who I talk about hot-button issues with, it’s my colleagues and friends,” she says. “Engaging online feels like a waste of time. Why would I have a difficult and nuanced conversation with someone I don’t know or trust?”

Bailey, who studies authenticity, says online debates often feel artificial, with people less willing to openly share their personal experiences and more often just trying to make a point. But while we have a daily ringside seat to the most heated online debates, we lack line-of-sight into people’s private kitchen-table conversations—and these are harder for researchers to observe, recreate, and measure.

Perceptions of ‘typical’ debates

In their first study, the researchers asked 282 participants to freely recall a recent debate they had witnessed or participated in. About half of the participants described debates they observed online, and recounted that these interactions skewed more negative than positive. Interestingly, the respondents believed these instances were representative of typical debates, highlighting a perception that debates—particularly online—are generally seen as negative.

Personal experiences with debate

The second phase included two studies delving into personal debate experiences. The first involved 215 people in a behavioral science research lab, while the second included 526 individuals recruited online. Participants in both groups were asked about the topics they debated over the past year, who they debated with, and how they felt afterward. They were also asked to choose from a list of twenty common topics—including climate change, gun control, gender identity issues, and reparations for slavery—which ones they had debated.

The results revealed that reproductive rights and vaccines were the most common topics, while other contentious issues, such as policing and immigration, were debated less frequently. Most of the topics were debated by less than half of participants. Contrary to the popular belief of hostile online interactions, participants said the majority of their debates occurred with family, friends, and other close contacts.

In terms of emotional impact, online participants reported that their average post-debate feeling was positive, suggesting that discussions, even on divisive topics, often ended on a constructive note. The lab participants’ feelings were neutral, neither overwhelmingly positive nor negative.

“That was surprising to me, since I was not expecting for people to report feeling positive after a debate,” Bailey says. “That suggests that at least on some topics, people are better at finding a compromise or at least ending on a positive note.”

Measuring misperceptions and their impact

The third study was an investigation into how Americans perceive debates compared to their actual experiences. About 2,000 Americans in a nationally representative sample were randomly assigned to either self-report their own debate experiences or to predict how often others engage in debates.

The results were striking. Across almost all categories, people significantly overestimated the frequency of debates, especially online debates involving strangers (the exception was in-person debates with family members). In addition, this overestimation was strongly linked to a sense of hopelessness about the future of America.

Implications

The research highlights a critical gap between perception and reality. “Taken together, these findings suggest that the ‘typical’ debate seems substantively different than two strangers typing at one another from behind their computer screens,” the researchers write. This misperception could be due to the visibility and virality of negative content on social media platforms, where extreme views often get amplified over moderate or conciliatory tones.

Second, the findings suggest that these misperceptions could be contributing to broader societal despair regarding the political climate and the future of democracy in America. By assuming that debates are overwhelmingly negative and frequent, people may feel a sense of futility about political engagement and discourse. (The researchers cautioned that this connection was largely correlational.)

Lastly, the research points to the need for interventions that not only make debates more productive but also adjust public perceptions about political debate. Educating the public about the actual dynamics of debates could help mitigate feelings of hopelessness and encourage more constructive and hopeful engagement with political processes.

Read the paper:

Americans misperceive the frequency and format of political debate By Erica Bailey, Michael W. White, Sheena S. Iyengar, and Modupe Akinola Scientific Reports , March 2024

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Social and Political Changes Essay

Martin Luther was a German priest and a person who initiated the Protestant Reformation. Though he was also known for his antisemitic claims which turned out to be controversial for his reputation, Martin Luther contributed greatly to the political and social changes that began in Germany and spread all over the world. The first change that can be seen as the first step to liberation of people from the power of Pope and the Roman church is the translation of the Bible into German.

The thing is that the Bible was read and understood only by people that knew the Latin language whereas the interpretation of it was in accordance with the principles, goals, and intentions of the church and the Pope. In other words, social movement that began after translation and spread of the German variant of the Bible can be seen as the positive change that made people aware of what they can do according to the words of God reported in the Bible.

It also notable that no one actually questioned whether the variant suggested by Martin Luther was authentic and adequate in terms of the equivalents in Latin and competence of this priest to interpret the Bible while being completely involved into the dispute between him and the clerical powers of Rome and Germany.

So, it is questionable whether he translated the Bible into German so that people could interpret it in their own way or he translated the Bible using his own subjective understanding of the Holy Writ making people take it for granted.

The second contribution by Martin Luther into the political and social changes was his initiation of the Protestant Reformation. Liberty of people was first reached through the translation of the Bible to make the universal truth more available for ordinary people rather than limited for the rich men only.

As reported by Mullet (2004), “…the Reformation was coming to be seen as a beginning and specifically as an overture to broadening human liberty” (p. 258). In other words, liberation of people and their empowerment in terms of knowledge was the main change achieved by this German priest though he was antisemitic and had no right to spread his ideas in the framework of a conflict.

In other words, he had to introduce his position in a way that does not raise any controversies whereas he and his views were full of controversies and questionable ideas. Finally, his actions led to political and social changes in Germany and Europe though this was also a matter of long struggle against the church.

The United States leaders can be seen as a group of people who knew what they wanted and considered it possible to achieve because the laws were new for this country and it was easier to alter them.

However, it took many years for Martin Luther King, Jr. to achieve positive changes in the perception of black people by whites and vice versa as discrimination was mutual in that case. In other words, it is necessary to evaluate the activity of Martin Luther King, Jr. in terms of the political and social changes that could be traced in the United States.

The first action or, it is better to refer to it as, a chain of actions is the activity of Martin Luther King, Jr. against racial discrimination and segregation towards black population of the United States of America. One of the notable cases of segregation on the buses and struggle against it was the “Claudette Colvin case [that] had come to sparking a challenge to segregation on the buses, since she was the only person to be charged under the city segregation ordinance and… to plead ‘not guilty’ in court” (Kirk, 2005, p. 13).

Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most active supporters of non-segregation policy and he contributed greatly to release of Claudette Colvin. In other words, the activity of this Baptist priest was aimed at having an active position of a citizen who strives for changing the situation in a peaceful way making it possible for many people to change their lives and social status without being harmed in a conflict.

Another social change was the aggressive attitude of the black people against the whites and vice versa. Special rise of such attitude was given by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. who tried to achieve non-segregation and non-discrimination in a peaceful way.

As suggested by Elbaum (2002), many black people wanted to join a rather radical movement of Black Panthers after assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. because they saw that a peaceful way of making deals does not lead to any positive changes. As such, aggressive attitude of black people is the result of actions by Martin Luther King, Jr. or, to tell it clearly, the result of his failure in achieving the goal.

Elbaum, M. (2002). What Legacy from the Radical Internationalism of 1968? History Is a Weapon . Web.

Kirk, J. A. (2005). Martin Luther King Jr . Harlow: Pearson Education.

Mullett, M. A. (2004). Martin Luther . New York, NY: Routledge.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, March 26). Social and Political Changes. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-and-political-changes/

"Social and Political Changes." IvyPanda , 26 Mar. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/social-and-political-changes/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Social and Political Changes'. 26 March.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Social and Political Changes." March 26, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-and-political-changes/.

1. IvyPanda . "Social and Political Changes." March 26, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-and-political-changes/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Social and Political Changes." March 26, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/social-and-political-changes/.

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Essay on Politics for Students and Children

500+ words essay on politics.

When we hear the term politics, we usually think of the government, politicians and political parties. For a country to have an organized government and work as per specific guidelines, we require a certain organization. This is where politics comes in, as it essentially forms the government. Every country, group and organization use politics to instrument various ways to organize their events, prospects and more.

Politics does not limit to those in power in the government. It is also about the ones who are in the run to achieve the same power. The candidates of the opposition party question the party on power during political debates . They intend to inform people and make them aware of their agenda and what the present government is doing. All this is done with the help of politics only.

Dirty Politics

Dirty politics refers to the kind of politics in which moves are made for the personal interest of a person or party. It ignores the overall development of a nation and hurts the essence of the country. If we look at it closely, there are various constituents of dirty politics.

The ministers of various political parties, in order to defame the opposition, spread fake news and give provocative speeches against them. This hampers with the harmony of the country and also degrades the essence of politics . They pass sexist remarks and instill hate in the hearts of people to watch their party win with a majority of seats.

Read 500 Words Essay on Corruption Here

Furthermore, the majority of politicians are corrupt. They abuse their power to advance their personal interests rather than that of the country. We see the news flooded with articles like ministers and their families involving in scams and illegal practices. The power they have makes them feel invincible which is why they get away with any crime.

Before coming into power, the government makes numerous promises to the public. They influence and manipulate them into thinking all their promises will be fulfilled. However, as soon as they gain power, they turn their back on the public. They work for their selfish motives and keep fooling people in every election. Out of all this, only the common suffers at the hands of lying and corrupt politicians.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Lack of Educated Ministers

If we look at the scenario of Indian elections, any random person with enough power and money can contest the elections. They just need to be a citizen of the country and be at least 25 years old. There are a few clauses too which are very easy.

The strangest thing is that contesting for elections does not require any minimum education qualification. Thus, we see how so many uneducated and non-deserving candidates get into power and then misuse it endlessly. A country with uneducated ministers cannot develop or even be on the right path.

We need educated ministers badly in the government. They are the ones who can make the country progress as they will handle things better than the illiterate ones. The candidates must be well-qualified in order to take on a big responsibility as running an entire nation. In short, we need to save our country from corrupt and uneducated politicians who are no less than parasites eating away the development growth of the country and its resources. All of us must unite to break the wheel and work for the prosperous future of our country.

FAQs on Politics

Q.1 Why is the political system corrupt?

A.1 Political system is corrupt because the ministers in power exercise their authority to get away with all their crimes. They bribe everyone into working for their selfish motives making the whole system corrupt.

Q.2 Why does India need educated ministers?

A.2 India does not have a minimum educational qualification requirement for ministers. This is why the uneducated lot is corrupting the system and pushing the country to doom. We need educated ministers so they can help the country develop with their progressive thinking.

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May 13, 2024

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

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Psychological research offers strategies for healthy political discussions among people with opposing views

by American Psychological Association

Civilized political debates may seem increasingly out of reach as democracies across the world face rising polarization, but people still want to discuss issues with people they disagree with—especially those who present themselves as balanced and willing to seek solutions that work for everyone or open to learning new information, according to two studies published by the American Psychological Association.

One study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General , examines how U.S. politicians and ordinary Americans with opposing political beliefs could share their ideas on divisive issues in a way that improved respect regardless of political party.

While reviewing a video series featuring real-world politicians solving political dilemmas designed to help voters evaluate the thoughtfulness of political candidates, researchers realized that the videos made viewers from the opposing party more open to learning about the politicians' platform. They found this was because the videos made the politicians look balanced and pragmatic, two key characteristics of wise decision-makers.

"It's easy for us to think about members of both parties as being completely biased in favor of their side. But what happens so much of the time is that people talk past each other or show more interest in pointing out the ridiculous things the other side is doing rather than actually finding solutions," said co-author Curtis Puryear, Ph.D., a post-doctoral researcher in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

"Our findings suggest that if you show you care about understanding the other side's concerns, it goes a long way towards fostering respect."

Puryear and co-author Kurt Gray, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conducted eight experiments with more than 3,500 participants to test the effectiveness of political messages that relied on balanced pragmatism, an approach to conflict that focuses on showing concern for both sides' interests while prioritizing practical solutions.

In one experiment, 505 Americans from different political parties evaluated a series of posts on the social media platform X by members of the U.S. House of Representatives. From a sample of more than 50,000 posts made by the representatives' official accounts, the researchers selected 120 posts that discussed political issues without criticizing the opposing party and varied in how balanced and pragmatic each post was.

Each participant evaluated 30 posts, rating them based on how balanced and pragmatic each post seemed, the post's overall tone, how divisive the post seemed, how much they respected the politician and how interested they would be in hearing more about the politician's point of view.

The researchers found that posts that combined balance with pragmatism were the most likely to increase participants' respect for a politician and their willingness to engage with them. Posts in which a politician mainly expressed a desire to find effective solutions improved participants' respect regardless of party, but this was not as effective at garnering respect compared with politicians who also presented a balanced view of an issue.

The benefits of balanced pragmatism for fostering respect were even more pronounced for posts discussing highly divisive issues, like immigration and abortion.

"Logical analyses and strong arguments can make us see someone as competent, which is a trait we value in leaders and friends," said Puryear. "But people also want leaders who understand their constituents, who care about their concerns, and have the practical knowledge to find solutions. These are the qualities of balanced and pragmatic leaders."

In another experiment, researchers focused on whether ordinary Americans could also use balanced pragmatism to improve their political conversations. They recruited 211 Democrats in favor of decreasing deportations of undocumented immigrants and 85 Republicans in favor of increasing deportations. The participants were shown four comments written by participants in a previous experiment who argued their position on deportation using either balanced pragmatism or logical reasoning.

Overall, people were just as likely to say they wanted to have a conversation with someone who disagreed with their views on immigration when that person appeared balanced and pragmatic as they were to say they wanted to talk with someone from their own political party.

While it can be difficult for people to present their views on a divisive issue in a way that respects an opposing viewpoint and looks for a common solution, it could help solve the rising political animosity that we are facing, Puryear said.

"Being balanced and pragmatic takes effort," he said. "But it is like building any other habit: Changing how we approach politics takes commitment and practice. We can each take it upon ourselves to do that."

Another study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , found that people could be willing to discuss controversial topics, such as gender-neutral language, with people who had opposing views when both express intellectual humility.

Intellectual humility is the recognition that your knowledge has limits and your beliefs could be wrong. It does not mean that someone who is intellectually humble is insecure or that they don't have informed opinions, only that they are willing to acknowledge that they do not know everything.

"Intellectual humility could be an important aspect when trying to understand how to help people engage in these discussions on divisive issues," said the study's lead author, Larissa Knöchelmann, MSc, a research fellow and advanced Ph.D. student at Philipps-Universität Marburg. "Political discussions are important for a democratic society. When people have conversations, they can learn about new perspectives, reduce misunderstandings and work together."

The researchers conducted four experiments with more than 1,600 participants. In one experiment, they asked 451 Germans about their beliefs regarding the COVID-19 vaccine and whether it should be mandatory, a highly polarized debate in Germany when the experiment was conducted.

They were then asked to imagine an online meeting with a new neighbor whose views on vaccination were either the same as or contrary to theirs. They also saw a statement from their neighbor that indicated whether controversial discussions were "boring" because the neighbor felt they knew enough about the topic already or "exciting" because it was an opportunity to learn more.

The researchers found that intellectually humble participants had warmer feelings and more positive evaluations toward groups of people with different political opinions.

Additionally, intellectual humility shaped whether participants were willing to interact with others or not. While non-humble participants would rather talk with someone who shared their opinion, intellectually humble participants did not discriminate between those having the same or a contrary opinion.

Overall, intellectually humble conversation partners were approached more and avoided less because participants perceived them as more likable and the respective conversation as more calm, comfortable and open.

"Many German citizens have the impression that open political debates and an exchange of opinions are not possible anymore. This is especially the case when it comes to emotionally charged political topics," said Knöchelmann. "Our research now shows that intellectual humility can help to make people more willing to engage with others."

Curtis Puryear et al, Using "Balanced Pragmatism" in Political Discussions Increases Cross-Partisan Respect, PsyArXiv (2021). DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/yhpdt

Journal information: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Provided by American Psychological Association

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What Does the European Court of Human Rights’ First Climate Change Decision Mean for Climate Policy?

On 9 April the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued its first ever comprehensive  decision  in a climate litigation case. The judges of the Court’s Grand Chamber found that Switzerland was in breach of its positive obligations to protect the health, well-being and quality of life of Swiss citizens from the impacts of climate change. This violation was attributed to the Swiss government’s failure to implement the robust regulatory framework necessary for fulfilling its commitment to reduce emissions as set out in the Paris Agreement.

As the dust begins to settle on this case, the critical question in the minds of many is what implication the judgment will have for how Switzerland and the  45 other signatories  of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) now address climate change.

Could this ruling catalyse the rapid cross-cutting action that is urgently needed to combat climate change?

Firstly, this is a question of  compliance : will Switzerland and the other ECHR signatories find the judgment a compelling reason to amend their climate laws in line with the guidance given by the court? Most commentators have focused on this element. While there appears to be a general consensus that the ruling will be “ transformative ”, some have treated it  more cautiously . In particular, while the case is expected to have “ knock-on ” effects on law and policymaking at the domestic and international levels, the extent of these impacts will take time to crystallise. Some researchers argue that, with its ruling, the ECtHR has merely set a “ minimum standard ” and thus they  question  whether it will lead to ECHR signatories significantly tightening their climate laws.

But importantly, this is also about  effectiveness : can the type of regulatory framework envisioned by the ECtHR drive countries to meet their legislative climate commitments? We focus our analysis below on this aspect, seeking to assess how effective the type of regulatory framework envisioned by the Court can be in accelerating credible climate action.

A domestic regulatory framework aligned with human rights obligations

In its judgment, the ECtHR set out a series of minimum requirements that a domestic climate change regulatory framework must meet to align with human rights obligations. These are firmly grounded in the architecture of the Paris Agreement, reflecting global practices in climate governance and  strong scientific foundations .

Climate framework laws  have emerged as a prominent tool to drive domestic climate action, including establishing regulatory frameworks. To date,  59 countries , including 25 ECHR signatories, have enacted climate framework laws. These laws set the  strategic direction for national climate policies,  and also often include long-term climate objectives: for example,  17 countries’ laws  contain net zero or climate neutrality targets.

The  scope  of climate framework laws varies significantly, however. Some countries, like  Nigeria , set up inter-ministerial coordination bodies to prepare national climate action plans designed to meet targets, whereas others like  Canada  mandate interim targets or carbon budgets based on the advice of independent expert advisory bodies. In some cases, like  Japan , legislation separately addresses mitigation and adaptation efforts. At times, countries also establish domestic governance processes across multiple laws, executive policies or through informal processes.

Unfortunately, when it comes to understanding the impact of such climate framework laws, empirical evidence remains limited, particularly regarding how impacts might vary across different socioeconomic and political contexts. However, research conducted by the Grantham Research Institute into the impacts of climate framework laws in the  UK , and most recently in  Germany, Ireland and New Zealand , has uncovered varied impacts across five key areas (see Figure 1). These findings indicate that the most significant impacts of climate framework laws are observed in the areas of governance and political debate.

Figure 1. Impacts of climate framework laws

Source:  Averchenkova et al. (2024 )

Mapping the Court’s minimum requirements against the building blocks of effective climate laws

The ECtHR’s specified set of minimum requirements for a State’s regulatory framework on climate change (paragraph 550 of the judgment) align closely with what  our research identifies  as the core building blocks of effective climate framework laws – see Table 1 below. Not only do these elements of climate laws have the most direct influence, they also lead to the most significant impacts. Our research shows that these building blocks directly contribute to the robustness of regulatory frameworks, ensuring that climate action is both ambitious and grounded in scientific evidence.

Table 1. The ECtHR’s minimum requirements mapped against our identified building blocks for effective climate framework laws

The similarities between the ECtHR’s stipulated requirements for climate regulatory frameworks and the building blocks that make climate framework laws most effective suggest that the approach required by the Court could have significant positive impacts.

However, while the identified components are crucial, they may not be sufficient on their own to catalyse rapid and enduring change. For example, although many climate framework laws mandate public consultation, the specifics of these processes are often imprecisely defined, leaving uncertainty about how public participation, stakeholder engagement and deliberative processes are to be continuously or formally integrated into an institutional framework. This integration is vital for ensuring public acceptance of climate policies.

The ECtHR addressed this need in paragraph 554 of its judgment, underscoring the importance of public participation and access to information in developing climate policies. The extent to which this aspect of the judgment will influence future legislative practices and improve the inclusivity and effectiveness of climate governance remains an open question.

Helpful guidance from the Court – but ultimately it comes down to political will

Our research also highlights that there are significant challenges to implementing climate framework laws: in particular, without sustained political will, enforcement becomes very difficult. Another recurring issue is the absence of stringent penalties for non-compliance, which undermines the credibility of these laws and poses risks to democratic accountability. Litigation, while a last resort, can strengthen both administrative and political accountability for fulfilling climate commitments. The  KlimaSeniorinnen  ruling highlighted significant gaps in Switzerland’s regulatory framework and its failure to meet previous emissions targets, underscoring the judiciary’s role in holding states accountable for their climate obligations.

The ECtHR has set out clear directions for member states to follow to align their climate policies with human rights obligations. Domestic legislators across Europe must give these requirements serious consideration to ensure their climate laws not only meet these minimum standards but also effectively contribute to global climate goals. This is imperative for both environmental sustainability and the protection of fundamental human rights that climate change is affecting.

Isabela Keuschnigg

Isabela Keuschnigg is a Legal Officer at Opportunity Green and a Research Assistant at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Catherine Higham

Catherine Higham is a Policy Fellow and Coordinator of the Climate Change Laws of the World project at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Joana Setzer

Joana Setzer is an Associate Professor at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

Tiffanie Chan

Tiffanie Chan is a Policy Analyst at the LSE Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

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