Global dissatisfaction with democracy at a record high
29 January 2020A new report, the first from the University's new Centre for the Future of Democracy, finds that 2019 had the "the highest level of democratic discontent" since 1995.
‘Mental rigidity’ at the root of intense political partisanship on both left and right – study
29 August 2019Latest research shows that reduced cognitive flexibility is associated with more 'extreme' beliefs and identities at both ends of the political spectrum. Researchers say that “heightening our cognitive flexibility might help build more tolerant societies”.
State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent After Stalin
25 April 2019Towards the end of the 1960s, rumours began to spread that nonconformist citizens of the USSR were being diagnosed with mental illnesses and confined to psychiatric hospitals.
1989: The year Margaret Thatcher’s apparent mastery slipped away
09 March 2019Forty thousand pages of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s personal and political papers from 1989 are being opened to the public at the Churchill Archives Centre and online at the website of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
Brexit and Trump voters more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, survey study shows
23 November 2018Latest research reveals the extent to which conspiracy theories have become “mainstream rather than marginal beliefs” across much of Europe and the US.
Spitting Image archive comes to Cambridge University Library
14 November 2018A Margaret Thatcher puppet and the unbroadcast script and video tape for the pilot episode of Spitting Image have taken their place alongside the works of Newton, Darwin and other treasures at Cambridge University Library.
Thatcher papers for 1988 reveal her 'deep enthusiasm' for the single market
21 July 2018Margaret Thatcher’s infamous Bruges speech – which helped to coin the phrase ‘Euroscepticism’ – was never intended to be an anti-European diatribe, according to newly-released archive material by the Churchill Archives Centre and the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
‘Cognitive flexibility’ associated with voting attitudes in EU Referendum, study finds
16 April 2018Latest research combining social and political surveys with objective cognitive testing suggests that “cognitive flexibility” contributes to formation of ideology. The study finds correlations between cognitive thinking styles and support for Brexit.
New Cambridge institute to tackle policy challenges in our age of disruption
16 April 2018The Bennett Institute for Public Policy will address emerging global patterns of inequality and social unrest by offering a unique combination of deep research, high-level training and effective policy engagement.
Fake news ‘vaccine’: online game may ‘inoculate’ by simulating propaganda tactics
20 February 2018A new experiment, launching today online, aims to help ‘inoculate’ against disinformation by providing a small dose of perspective from a “fake news tycoon”. A pilot study has shown some early success in building resistance to fake news among teenagers.
