Technocratic cabinets and expert, non-political ministers appointed in otherwise partisan cabinets have become a common reality in recent decades in both young and older democracies, but we know little about how citizens see this change and what values, perceptions and experiences drive their attitudes towards technocratic government. The article explores the latter topic by drawing on recent comparative survey data from 9 countries, both young and consolidated democracies from Europe and Latin America.

The webinar will discuss the implications of the US-China conflict for the global trading system. We will discuss the factors that explain the current US-China conflicts and ask whether this is best understood as a geopolitical conflict carried out through geoeconomic instruments or a trade conflict aiming at establishing a level playing field. Other questions to be discussed: What is the significance of the Phase One US-China and what can be the next steps in US-China trade relations? How should the EU position itself in the US-China Trade conflict?

The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays via Zoom. For more information on how to sign up and attend the seminar, please visit our website https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/calendar.
Convenor: Meera Selva

In the age of social media, the questions of what is allowed to say and how hate speech should be regulated are ever more contested. We hypothesize that content- and context-specific factors influence citizens’ perceptions of the offensiveness of online content, and also shape preferences for action that should be taken. This has implications for the legitimacy of hate speech regulation. We present a pre-registered study to analyze citizens’ preferences for online hate speech regulation. The study is embedded in nationally representative online panels in the US and Germany.

Who governs? This is one of the most fundamental questions in political science. Despite its importance, there is currently no global dataset on governing elites over a long period. This article presents a novel dataset, WhoGov, which contains yearly data on members of cabinets in 177 countries during the period 1966-2016, making it the largest of its kind. We first present how the dataset was created and validate it by matching this data against existing data.

The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays via Zoom. For more information on how to sign up and attend the seminar, please visit our website https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/calendar.
Convenor: Meera Selva

We use administrative electoral data at the polling station level from the 2018 general election in Pakistan to study the impact of separate gender polling stations on voter turnout. We find that being assigned to a separate gender polling station reduces turnout of both men and women, compared to their counterparts in mixed-gender polling stations. The absolute magnitude of the impact is higher for women.

Transitional Leadership Insights from The United Nations: Youssef Mahmoud,

The following seminars will be given at 2pm on Wednesdays via Zoom. For more information on how to sign up and attend the seminar, please visit our website https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/calendar.
Convenor: Meera Selva

Terrorism is increasingly a problem across Africa, but as yet little work has sought to investigate its political effects. Studies in Europe and the US suggest that terrorist attacks can increase social and political trust, improve satisfaction with government, and may raise turnout. But it is unclear whether we should expect these findings to hold in a context where political institutions are often fragile, and where political violence is frequent. We investigate this question in Nigeria, where terrorism has been widespread and increasing over the past decade.