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Academic Insights for the Thinking World

  • Social Sciences

How to write an interdisciplinary abstract

The purpose of any abstract is to summarise your article’s content in a way that will help potential readers decide if they want to read your work. An abstract usually runs between 150 and 300 words and will likely be your readers’ first interaction with your research article, so you must write it with that in mind.

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How do you write a comparative politics textbook for changing times?

When I studied comparative politics as an undergraduate in the 1990s, I was introduced to the field through static comparisons between national political systems. Each chapter in the textbook we read described a different country, and we learned about constitutions, legislatures, and parties as if they were fixed features of political life.

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Meet the editors: what we do at conferences

For academics, stepping into the world of scholarly conferences for the first time can feel like crossing the Rubicon. After months (or sometimes years) of what is often a solitary research journey, scholars enter a dynamic ecosystem where subfields collide and converge, and colleagues at every career stage rub shoulders in line for coffee and conversation.

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The bordered logic behind the headlines

‘Where do you want to go today?’ served as the tagline for software giant Microsoft’s global marketing campaign running through the mid-1990s. The accompanying advertisements were replete with flashy images of people around the world of all ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds engaging in a diverse range of activities.

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Knowledge and teaching in the age of information

The advent of the World Wide Web in the turn of the last century completely transformed the way most people find and absorb information. Rather than a world in which information is stored in books or housed in libraries, we have a world where all of the information in the world is accessible to everyone.

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Why economists should learn machine learning

Economists analyze data. Machine learning (ML) offers a powerful set of tools for doing just that. But while econometrics and ML share a foundation in statistics, their aims and philosophies often diverge.

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Journey into Darkness: The 2025 Eurovision Song Contest Basel, Switzerland

How very different the bridges of the first- and second-place songs, JJ’s “Wasted Love” for Austria and Yuval Raphael’s “New Day Will Rise” for Israel, were at Eurovision 2025. And how uncannily the same. Does love survive when tested by the seas and floods threatening to inundate it? The survival of love is both denied and affirmed, threatened but still buoyed by the precarity of hope.

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Pride isn’t arrogance; it’s love

Shae Washington, a Black queer Christian woman, struggled to reconcile her sexuality and her spirituality. Her church had always taught that you cannot be both Christian and queer.

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Does the media we consume impact our emotions?

There’s a saying in Western philosophy, echoed in some other philosophical traditions globally: “the end of labor is to gain leisure.” It’s a reminder that for all of the toil and turmoil that we engage in our daily lives, the fruits of such labor come in securing a means to pursue our own self interests.

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Gen Z and the future of audit

As Gen Z enters the audit profession, both educators and employers need to take note of their changing expectations around careers and adapt as needed. By aligning academic preparation with the expectations of employers, educators play a critical role in shaping future auditors who are engaged, resilient, and ready to lead.

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Spain 50 years after General Franco

Few countries in the world have changed as dramatically as Spain has since the death of General Franco 50 years ago. Following his victory in a three-year civil war, Franco ruled as dictator for nearly four decades. His successor, King Juan Carlos, whose appointment by Franco in 1969 restored the Bourbon monarchy, abolished in 1931when […]

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