Nate Silver is a statistician, writer, and the founder and editor-in-chief of the well-known blog FiveThirtyEight, who rose to fame in the political area through his incredibly accurate data-driven predictions of U.S. Presidential election results. Before the 2012 U.S. Presidential election Mr. Silver correctly predicted the outcomes in all 50 ...
Read More »Globalisation reduces electoral turnout
Between 1970 and 2007, the average industrialized democracy experienced a decline in electoral turnout of almost 9 percentage points. To the extent that politicians pander to the demands of those who actually turn out, this trend risks redefining the relationship (or lack of it) between citizens and government.
Read More »Political Secularism, Religion and the State
Religion is intertwined with politics in every country in the world, though how this manifests is unique in each country. For example, in Germany – a state that still levies a religious tax for members of recognized religions – recent court cases addressed whether the government could regulate the ritual of circumcision for Jews and Muslims and whether it could ban the religious headwear of Muslim women. Much of the Muslim world is in a state of civil war over the role religion should play in government and which interpretation of Islam should be dominant.
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