Have you ever been denied insurance, a loan, or a job? Have you had your credit card number stolen? Do you have to wait too long when you call customer service? You might have the data economy to thank for all that and more.

Digital technology is stealing our personal data and with it our power to make free choices. To reclaim that power, and our democracy, we must take back control of our personal data. Surveillance is undermining equality. We are being treated differently on the basis of our data. But what can we do?

Shakespeare and the Political Way attempts to argue that the questions traditionally addressed under the heading ‘Shakespeare and politics’ – whether the plays are revolutionary or reactionary, what contemporary events the dramas allude to, and how they construct history and legitimacy – tend to overlook some deeper questions about Shakespeare’s representations of political power. Political power as such is brought into conflict, in the plots, with economic clout, the workings of violence, religious authority, magic means, and other sources of domination.

The European Public Sphere Project is a multi-annual research effort engaging top-level movers and shakers from the worlds of politics, business and media in Europe with the aim of developing actionable policy-oriented proposals to nurture the Europeanisation of national public spheres. This second public event will be held via Zoom to discuss means of operationalising European democracy. In particular, the project lead Dr.

Can exposure to counter-stereotypes about gender roles improve people's attitudes toward gender equality and LGBT rights? Previous work suggests that gender stereotypes contribute to inequitable attitudes, but there is lack of empirical evidence on whether undermining such stereotypes enhance equitability. We conducted four survey experiments to test whether counter-stereotypical information about gender roles increase equitable attitudes toward women and sexual minorities.

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

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.