Against Ideology: Multi-Text Based Discourse as a Tool for Subverting Dogmatic Thinking.

We will explore the role of text-based dialogue in challenging rigid belief systems and encouraging critical inquiry. The session will be led by Micki Weinberg, founder of SHIUR, a Berlin-based platform that integrates the ancient tradition of text-based learning into contemporary spaces, including art, diplomacy, and culture.

Political economy models often assume that voter beliefs are consistent with available information. Recent work emphasizes instead the role played by narratives, subjective causal models that may be incorrectly specified. In this paper, we study the role of political narratives in the context of climate policy. We develop a theory of narrative entanglement, where policy dimensions—initially distinct—become strategically intertwined through narratives created by politicians to sway support. Shocks in one dimension can thus influence unrelated policy areas.

Professor Antulio J. Echevarria II had a distinguished career in the US Army and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the US Army War College Press, which includes Parameters. He is a graduate of the US Military Academy, the US Army Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College.

Description: AI systems are being rapidly deployed across industries to drive economic growth but they remain vulnerable to exploitation by a wide range of malicious actors, including Terrorist and Extremist Entities, Hostile Foreign States, and Organized Crime. While these misuse cases remain a critical challenge for both frontier models and downstream AI applications, machine learning tools can also help us detect and prevent malicious actors from producing high-severity harms at scale.

Climate change and the erosion of democratic norms are two of the most pressing global challenges. This paper establishes a link between individuals’ support for democracy and extreme weather events, such as droughts, in the context of sub-Saharan Africa—a region highly vulnerable to climate change and where democratic norms are fragile. I analyze this relationship using Afrobarometer data on support for democracy from 2002 to 2015, covering 129,002 individuals across 16 countries, combined with granular weather data from 1960 to 2015 at a 27km × 27km grid cell resolution.

Book Launch and Panel Event

To discuss and celebrate the publication of Social Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press) by Alexander Betts, a book launch and panel discussion will take place on 6th March at 4-6pm (BST) in-person at Pembroke College and in hybrid form on Zoom. The event is being organised in collaboration with the Social Sciences Division, the ESRC Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership, and the Oxford SDG Impact Lab.

'The Future of Social Science'