The key idea behind democracy is that if politicians pass good policy, people will reward them with votes. But is that actually true? The political scientist Hunter Rendleman looked at what happened when governors extended a social-welfare benefit that has lifted millions of working-class Americans out of poverty.

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New Zealand was in a major housing crisis. But then the Pacific nation actually took ambitious steps to address it. The researcher Eleanor West recounts the policy wins and political pitfalls of what happened—and what lessons the United States and other countries could learn. 

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Four years ago, the murder of George Floyd—and the international protests that followed—amplified calls to defund or abolish the police. But what do we actually know about the relationship between policing and public safety?

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Last year, nearly half of childless adults under 50 told the Pew Research Center that they didn’t want kids. As the birth rate in the United States continues to decline, the philosopher Anastasia Berg wanted to know: Where is this ambivalence coming from?

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Was leaving behind our nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles a mistake? If so, why did so many different groups of people make the switch to farming? The researcher Andrea Matranga spent more than a decade looking at the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era and found that humanity’s decision to settle down was driven by climactic shifts and the need to insure against famines. 

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What exactly happened to the Kamala Harris campaign in this year’s presidential election? Host Jerusalem Demsas and Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist and the host of The Bulwark Podcast, tick through the competing narratives about why the Democrats lost and which ones actually hold up.

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Do higher levels of immigration lead to lower wages? The Atlantic staff writer Rogé Karma breaks down the misconception that immigration creates an economic burden—when actually the opposite is true: Immigrants are a source of economic growth.

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Grocery store prices are up. Politicians have tried to pin it on supply-chain problems, price gouging, and corporate greed—or “greedflation.” But Ernie Tedeschi, a former chief economist of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, wonders if something else is going on. And it might just have to do with store-brand mac and cheese.

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How is party ideology formed? Is it based on political strategy to garner the most votes? Or is it based on ideas and beliefs? The Georgetown professor Hans Noel traces the shift from the Civil War to the civil-rights movement to understand how Democrats and Republicans seemingly flipped sides during the 20th century—and what that says about the parties today.

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Are tariffs good? Or bad? And why do politicians love to talk about them so much? Scott Lincicome lays out the high costs of tariffs and who really bears the brunt.

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