The polarization of social media discussion by online propaganda (including misinformation and disinformation from human trolls and bots) is the subject of growing public concern, particularly because of its possible disruptive effects on Western elections. This seminar will present a method of polarization analysis based on interactions among Twitter users in the context of Brexit. The speakers will also consider the need to clarify what we mean by polarization as a process and an outcome. Can we accurately identify social media actors?

"Realism" in international relations is constructed from past experience of what is likely and what is possible in the world. AIs may change this sense of the possible tremendously - shifting both the ways that countries can compete and undermine each other, and the deals that might become possible. On top of that, AI itself will become a strategic asset - and target - of great value.
This talk will argue for why AI could become so powerful, sketch the dangers intrinsic to AI and to misuse of AI by bad actors, and talk about how the world could be transformed by these technologies.

Recent studies on voters' preference in competitive clientelistic settings rely on the crucial assumption that, in the absence of monitoring mechanisms, clients will choose to support candidates that they believe will be the best patrons. Based on ethnographic research in rural Brazil, this paper argues that voters leave their preferred choices aside to support likely winners even when they judge these as corrupt and unreliable patrons.

In this term’s inaugural session of the Global Thinkers of the International Discussion Series, Professor Leslie Bethell, a leading expert on 19th and 20th century Latin America, Emeritus Fellow of St Anthony's College and founder of the Centre for Brazilian Studies, Oxford, will trace the life and internationalist thought of Brazil’s Joaquim Nabuco (1849–1910).

A panel discussion to mark the publication of Richard Caplan's new book, Measuring Peace: Principles, Practices, and Politics (OUP).