politics

Group portrait featuring (left to right): Julia Schaletzky, Smriti Mehta and Will Fithian, against the carved-stone backdrop of an elegant old campus building.

Campus & community

With right and left deeply divided, emerging UC Berkeley groups embrace the ‘vital center’

According to a popular, if inaccurate, caricature, Berkeley is an ideological monoculture. Now three growing campus organizations are working to expand the space for diverse political perspectives.

Heather Cox Richardson and Dylan Penningroth speak on stage

Events at Berkeley

Berkeley Talks: Heather Cox Richardson on the evolution of the Republican Party and what gives her hope for America

An illustration shows a man being manipulated like a string puppet by a disembodied hand.

Campus news

Why conspiracies are so popular — and what we can do to stop them

line drawing of a woman with eerie-looking ghosts coming out the back of her partially missing head

Mind & body

Berkeley Voices: We learn what to fear. Can we unlearn it?

A triptych showing, left to right, Donald Trump at his 2025 inauguration; Giorgia Meloni; and Viktor Orban.

There’s a term for Trump’s political style: authoritarian populism

UC Berkeley research scientist breaks down the TikTok ban

The U.S. Capitol dome against a backdrop of clouds and blue sky

Expect the worst? Political scientists have a pessimism bias, study finds

From left: Marty Baron and Dean Baquet speak to an audience

Berkeley Talks: Veteran news editors on how the media covered the election

In a black and white photograph, a group of people, including children, stand in front of the White House holding signs that say

How World War I helps explain what gave rise to Trump’s second term

a student sits at a voter registration table and smiles as another student approaches

Library’s trove of voter data is ‘a window into how our democracy functions’

four headshots of Robert Reich, Maria Echaveste, Janet Napolitano and Angela Glover Blackwell

Berkeley Talks: The future of American democracy

Condoleezza Rice speaking into a microphone while looking into the audience

How the Berkeley Liberty Initiative champions free speech in divided times

A crowd of supporters holding signs and wearing Trump-branded shirts cheer as Donald Trump, blurred in the foreground, walks onto a stage.

Sociologist examines Appalachian voters’ rightward shift, with Trump as their ‘shame shield’

Kamala Harris speaking at a campaign rally in Atlanta, Georgia, with a crowd of people cheering behind her.

A UC Berkeley linguist explores what Kamala Harris’ voice and speech reveal about her identity

A front-facing view of the U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court has ‘greenlighted the criminalization of homelessness,’ Berkeley experts say

All politics