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Political Reality

Political Reality

By: Political Reality
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Our daily lives seem increasingly overwhelmed by polarization, misinformation, and dubious culture wars, while we face countless serious problems that require thoughtful and evidence-based solutions. To move forward, we need a shared reality of facts and reason with an equally shared dedication to democracy and fairness. The Political Reality podcast is here to fill that void – diving into how politics and governments work, how to make them work better, how to navigate the dizzying world of political information, and how to better understand and approach the “other side”. We can find a shared political reality if we are willing.2026 Political Reality Political Science Politics & Government Social Sciences
Episodes
  • PREVIEW: WAR: why don't we stop having them? | S02E06 | Political Reality

    PREVIEW: WAR: why don't we stop having them? | S02E06 | Political Reality
    Sep 23 2026
    FULL EPISODE https://www.patreon.com/politicalreality/posts/war-why-dont-we-170386581 1. ⚔️ Sun Tzu (circa 500 BCE), The Art of Warhttps://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html 2. 🏛️ Thucydides (circa 400 BCE), History of the Peloponnesian War (brief overview here)https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7142/7142-h/7142-h.htmhttps://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/thucydides 3. 🌐 Morgenthau (1949), Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (overview here)http://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps240/04%20Conflict%20with%20States%20as%20Unitary%20Actors/Morgenthau%20-%20Politics%20among%20nations%20(selected%20chapters).pdfhttps://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/morgenthau-advances-realist-school-power-politics 4. 🎓 By the way, many of these classic texts are currently available as PDFs on Branislav Sanchez’s course page for an international relations course he teaches at UCSD. Happy reading, and thanks, Prof. Sanchez for making these available! The syllabus on this page also offers a fantastic rundown of many of the themes we covered in this episode (plus many more, and deeper divers – enjoy!).https://polisci.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/faculty-directory/currently-active-faculty/slantchev-profile.htmlhttp://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps240/ 5. 📘 Waltz (1959), Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysishttps://pages.ucsd.edu/~bslantchev/courses/ps240/02%20Levels%20of%20Analysis%20and%20Strategic%20Choice/Waltz%20-%20Man,%20The%20State,%20and%20War.pdf 6. ♟️ Schelling (1960), The Strategy of Conflicthttps://www.sackett.net/Strategy-of-Conflict.pdf 7. 💥 Blainey (1973), The Causes of Warhttps://archive.org/details/causesofwar0000blai/page/n5/mode/2up 8. 🔗 Keohane & Nye (1977), Power and Interdependencehttp://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps240/05%20Cooperation%20with%20States%20as%20Unitary%20Actors/Keohane%20&%20Nye%20-%20Power%20and%20interdependence%20%5BCh%201-3%5D.pdf 9. 🌎 Waltz (1979), Theory of International Politicshttp://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps240/03%20Anarchy,%20Hierarchy,%20and%20Sovereignty/Waltz%20-%20Theory%20of%20International%20Politics%20(Ch%205-8).pdf 10. 🤝 Keohane (1984), After Hegemonyhttp://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps240/05%20Cooperation%20with%20States%20as%20Unitary%20Actors/Keohane%20-%20After%20Hegemony%20%5BCh%204-6%5D.pdf 11. 🔄 Axelrod (1984), The Evolution of Cooperationhttps://bert.stuy.edu/pbrooks/spring2015/materials/HumanReasoning-2/Axelrod_Robert_The_Evolution_of_Cooperation.pdf 12. 🗳️ Fearon (1994), “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes”https://web.stanford.edu/group/fearon-research/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Domestic-Political-Audiences-and-the-Escalation-of-International-Disputes.pdf 13. ⚖️ Fearon (1995), “Rationalist Explanations for War”https://web.stanford.edu/group/fearon-research/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Rationalist-Explanations-for-War.pdf 14. 🕊️ B. Bueno de Mesquita et al. (1999), “An Institutional Explanation of the Democratic Peace”https://www.jstor.org/stable/2586113 15. 🌍 Mearsheimer (2001), The Tragedy of Great Power Politicshttps://wwnorton.com/books/9780393349276 16. 📜 Fortna (2003), “Scraps of Paper? Agreements and the Durability of Peace”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/scraps-of-paper-agreements-and-the-durability-of-peace/70A924CC6B4785C30BADF415244FFA1F 17. 🏢 Koremenos et al. (2003), “The Rational Design of International Institutions”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/rational-design-of-international-institutions/29B784E99033C7B3FC0564B96A64FE21 18. 🧩 Ruggie (2005), “What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge.”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/what-makes-the-world-hang-together-neoutilitarianism-and-the-social-constructivist-challenge/0160858E3E6D4D6468C926BCD6654FE9 19. 🔎 E. Bueno de Mesquita (2005), “The Quality of Terror”https://www.jstor.org/stable/3647729 20. 🧠 Wendt (2009), “Anarchy is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/anarchy-is-what-states-make-of-it-the-social-construction-of-power-politics/B03BC7C9AAC5211B6DC319C077C1A854 21. 🤝 Walter (2009), “Bargaining Failures and Civil War”https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.101405.135301 22. ❓ Ramsay (2017), “Information, Uncertainty, and War”https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051215-022729 23. 📚 Chenoweth et al. (eds.) (2019), The Oxford Handbook of Terrorismhttps://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28267 24. 🤖 Murphy, et al. (2024), “The Promise of Machine Learning in Violent Conflict Forecasting”https://...
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    10 mins
  • How climate change got politicized | S02E05 | Political Reality

    How climate change got politicized | S02E05 | Political Reality
    Sep 16 2026
    1 hr
  • PREVIEW: Who has more diversity of thought: Democrats or Republicans? (Sorry Independents) | S02E04 | Political Reality

    PREVIEW: Who has more diversity of thought: Democrats or Republicans? (Sorry Independents) | S02E04 | Political Reality
    Sep 10 2026
    FULL EPISODE 1. 🧠 Dias et al. (2025), “American partisans vastly under-estimate the diversity of other partisans’ policy attitudes.”https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-science-research-and-methods/article/american-partisans-vastly-underestimate-the-diversity-of-other-partisans-policy-attitudes/CD71B9D75D10CFA0A9A07501E1CCD81A#article 2. 👥 A few corporate-focused diversity of thought resources (Scott E. Page was my Ph.D. advisor so bias alert):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_E._Page 📘 1. Page (2007; 2025 second edition), The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies 📗 2. Page (2019), The diversity bonus: How great teams pay off in the knowledge economy 📄 3. Page & Hong (2004), “Groups of diverse problem solvers can outperform groups of high-ability problem solvers” https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0403723101 3. 📊 Democrats tend to be more diverse along many (not all) standard demographic/identity dimensions: Pew researchhttps://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/the-changing-demographic-composition-of-voters-and-party-coalitions/ 4. 🎓 Republicans tend to be more diverse along education (depending on how you measure it!): More Pewhttps://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/partisanship-by-race-ethnicity-and-education/ 5. 📰 Older work on diversity of Democrat vs. Republican news consumption: Pew again!https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2014/10/21/section-1-media-sources-distinct-favorites-emerge-on-the-left-and-right/ 6. 📱 More recent shifts in news consumption: rise of online, proliferation on the right 🌐 Rise of online: https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/23818/2025-10-28/shifts-political-news-consumption.html ➡️ Proliferation on the right: https://www.mediamatters.org/google/right-dominates-online-media-ecosystem-seeping-sports-comedy-and-other-supposedly 7. 📲 Chang et al. (2025), “Liberals and conservatives share information differently on social media”https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40697192/ 8. 🕸️ Lüders et al. (2023), “Attitude networks as intergroup realities: Using network-modeling to research attitude-identity relationships in polarized political contexts.”https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12665 9. 📊 American National Election Studies (ANES) data on: ⚕️ 1. Abortion https://electionstudies.org/data-tools/anes-guide/anes-guide.html?chart=abortion_by_law 🌎 2. Immigration https://electionstudies.org/data-tools/anes-guide/anes-guide.html?chart=immigrants_should_be_decreased_increased 🔎 3. Guns https://electionstudies.org/data-tools/anes-guide/anes-guide.html?chart=gun_purchase_control 10. 🤔 Other background on ways we misunderstand each other: 📄 1. Ahler (2014), “Self-fulfilling misperceptions of polarization” https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1017/S0022381614000085 📄 2. Enders & Armaly (2018), “The differential effects of actual and perceived polarization.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-018-9476-2 📄 3. Ahler & Sood (2018), “The parties in our heads: Misperceptions about party composition and their consequences.” https://repository.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:605549/datastream/PDF/view 📝 4. Garton et al. (working paper; not peer-reviewed yet, but just to explore some of the latest/current/ongoing research), “Partisans overestimate their side’s intolerance.” https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7579935/v1
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    10 mins
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