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Is American democracy at a breaking point?
Statue of Liberty in shadow in New York Harbor as the sun sets behind

Can American democracy withstand the strains of the pandemic, the summer’s protests and the current election cycle?

  • Q&A

    • Is American democracy at a breaking point?

    Amidst a backdrop of protests, the pandemic, and presidential politics, historian Anne Berg shares her thoughts on whether American democracy is at risk, historical parallels to the current situation, and what ordinary people can do.

    Kristen de Groot

    Mail-in ballots, foreign interference, and the 2020 election
    Person sitting at a large desk that includes a phone and some other items. Picture frames line a desk in the background.

    Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and program director of the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands.

  • Q&A

    • Mail-in ballots, foreign interference, and the 2020 election

    In a Q&A, Kathleen Hall Jamieson discusses what we learned from the election four years ago plus how journalists can responsibly share hacked content and what role the public at large can play.

    Michele W. Berger

    Presidential health and contested elections
    White House seen with stormy clouds overhead.

    The president's recent coronavirus diagnosis has prompted questions about the 25th Amendment.

  • Q&A

    • Presidential health and contested elections

    Political scientist Rogers Smith gives some background on why the 25th Amendment was established, who can invoke it, and what happens if an election’s results are contested by a sitting president.

    Kristen de Groot

    Trump’s 2016 rhetoric and Latino immigrant civic behavior
    Book cover shows three people, one on the left holding a flag, one in the middle wearing glasses and one on the right wearing U.S. military fatigues.

    "Holding Fast: Resilience and Civic Engagement Among Latino Immigrants" sheds light on immigrants’ attitudes before, during and after Trump’s election.

  • Q&A

    • Trump’s 2016 rhetoric and Latino immigrant civic behavior

    A new book by political scientist Michael Jones-Correa sheds light on immigrants’ attitudes before, during, and after Trump’s election.

    Kristen de Groot

    ‘India front and center’
    Man walks up stairs. Posters in Hindi hang on the walls.

    Thachil visits a municipal office in India to collect data on annual city budgets. (Image: Adam Auerbach)

  • Q&A

    • ‘India front and center’

    Tariq Thachil talks with Penn Today about his current work on migration and urbanization in south Asia, the balance between research and teaching, and his new role as the director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI). 

    Kristina García

    COVID, politics, and voting by mail
    Two U.S. postal service mail boxes sit side by side on a sidewalk with trees behind them and a the first few floors of a red brick building on the left in the background

    Voting by mail has become a hot topic this election cycle, and a team of researchers at Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES) looked at how partisanship is affecting perceptions of it.

  • Q&A

    • COVID, politics, and voting by mail

    New research conducted by the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES) looks at how much support for vote by mail was impacted by the pandemic and efforts by partisan elites to politicize the discussion.

    Kristen de Groot

    An expert take on the Israel-UAE accord
    Two flags of Israel flying alongside one flag of the United Arab Emirates.
  • Q&A

    • An expert take on the Israel-UAE accord

    Ian Lustick, political science professor who specializes in Middle East politics, gives his take on the significance of the U.S.-brokered agreement and what it could mean for the region.

    Kristen de Groot

    Southeast Asian megadrought dating back 5,000 years discovered in Laos cave
    A group of archaeologists and excavators standing and sitting at the entrance of a cave.

    Penn archaeologist Joyce White (center) has been working in Laos since 2001 with teams like the one shown here. Discovering evidence of a 1,000-year drought in a Laos cave was unexpected, she says, but does answer some questions about the Middle Holocene, a period she’d previously described as the “missing millennia.” (Pre-pandemic image: Courtesy of Joyce White)

  • Q&A

    • Southeast Asian megadrought dating back 5,000 years discovered in Laos cave

    In a Q&A, Penn archaeologist Joyce White discusses the partnership with paleoclimatologists that led to the finding, plus possible implications of such a dramatic climate change for societies at that time.

    Michele W. Berger