Political Discourse

American political campaigners are primed to deliver talking points regardless of the question they’ve actually been asked. Two professors offer tips for more on-target debates going forward.

Researchers looking at how we fixate on threats uncover more evidence of a biological component to the red-blue divide.

Political scientists have determined that labeling supporters of stands that otherwise might be unassailable can have a sleazy efficacy, although not everyone falls for tactic.

A new documentary film, "Paul Goodman Changed My Life," tells the at-times risqué story of the seminal public intellectual of the American left whose impact evaporated after his death in 1972.

Popular movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party suggest that mass demonstrations have moved from the last resort of the powerless to the first resort of the newly empowered.

Might it be that the traits and culture of the first nonnative colonizers in North America have left an indelible mark on the local society where they settled?

A framework for what motivates rigidity among politicians helps explain the current debt ceiling debate and suggests how to resolve it.

A new measurement using Google search terms creates an “infamy index” for politicians and finds that being infamous helps in fundraising.

New research suggests e-mail is an all-too-effective way of spreading false political rumors.

Voters self-identify as conservatives for several reasons, only one of which is that it reflects their politics

An analysis of 27 presidential debates finds a decline in the amount of abstract thought present during discussions of economics.