Propaganda is widely believed to be a force multiplier for rebel groups, but the unwieldiness of audiovisual data has made it difficult to examine in replicable ways. In this working paper, I try to specify the quantity and quality of imagery use in radical Islamist propaganda by deploying layout parsing and image classification tools on a near-complete collection of jihadi magazines from 1984 to the present day (~2000 issues).

We are delighted to invite you to our eighth and final event of Michaelmas 2022, which will take place on Tuesday, November 29, in the Old Library at All Souls College at 8:30pm. As always, there will be a wine reception prior to the event, starting at 8pm. The speaker will be Richard Connolly, who will be speaking to us on 'Russia's Defence Industry Under Sanctions'.

Historians and social scientists have long emphasized how the narratives of past wars can reactivate wounds or, conversely, heal minds and foster reconciliation. They consider that the framing of memories and the selective recall of facts about the causes of conflicts, the deployment of violence, and the resolution of disputes can profoundly influence beliefs and representations. These narratives can take many different forms, from founding myths to divisive expressions of hatred.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) dismantled the institutional barriers that had suppressed political participation of African Americans in the U.S. South since the end of Reconstruction. Did it also win hearts and minds in the racially conservative South? In this paper, we study this question using newly collected data on county-level voter registration rates by race. Exploiting variation induced by a special provision of the VRA (“coverage”), we find that covered counties with higher shares of African Americans experienced a larger increase in Black and white registration rates.

Democracies have historically restrained against the tyranny of the majority by developing norms of international human rights, cultural minority rights, and ideas of multiculturalism.

Why are elite Republicans—those who burnish longstanding establishment credentials—finding it so difficult to keep control of their party?

Houssam is chief of the Private Sector Partnerships MENA unit of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He started the unit in the United Arab Emirates and is now covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) with a regional team that focuses on providing diversified funds for the regional and global needs of refugees. In his talk, Houssam will take you through the journey of where and how he started and what are the challenges and opportunities in a fundraiser’s career.