Social Sciences (Faculty & Staff)

With Election Day less than a week away, California’s elections have already attracted controversy. They’ve drawn scrutiny from the federal government over slow ballot counts, mail-in voting and more.

The Department of Justice sued California earlier this month over what it says could be as many as 20,000 people committing voter fraud, and it charged 28 people in California with illegally registering or voting in federal elections.

This has led to mistrust in election systems. A UC Berkeley Institute of...

Artificial intelligence has been woven into the everyday lives of Americans. As voters head to the polls on November 3 for a consequential midterm election, will AI change the way they get their information and ultimately influence how they vote?

Since the 2024 presidential election, AI use has grown significantly, according to a Pew Research Center poll, which found that half of U.S. adults use AI, with a quarter of them using it daily. Two years ago, only one-third of adults had used AI platforms.

Public...

Economics Professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman were featured in an article in The New York Times titled, "How California’s Ultrarich Are Trying to Stop the World’s First Billionaire Tax."

Control of Congress is the biggest issue at stake in November’s elections. A close second might be the fight over a ballot initiative in California, Proposition 40, that seeks to impose a wealth tax on the state’s roughly 250 billionaires. If approved, it will be the world’s first billionaire tax.

At a town hall in August, one of its chief proponents, Representative Ro Khanna...

The 136 conversations took place in roughly the same way: Pleasantries would be exchanged, a recorder started, then UC Berkeley researchers asked middle-class Californians to dig deep. Who deserves government assistance? What values do you hope to instill in your children? What do you think about undocumented immigration? What is the American dream, exactly?

Those wide-ranging interviews form the basis of aself-scrutinizing new book from Berkeley professors G. Cristina Mora and...