Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Magnus Linden, Associate Professor of Psychology, Lund University

It’s often said that Donald Trump’s power base in the Maga movement has contributed to the radicalisation of the Republican party. Political scientists worry about the implications of this for the future of American democracy itself.

One example of that radicalisation was the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021 in an attempt to overturn the result. Exacerbating that radicalisation is the movement’s hostility towards much of the mainstream media. This is something that has been amplified by the US president himself, who has famously referred to the media as “the enemy of the American people”.

But how has this radical movement movement emerged from the socially conservative Republican Party? The rise of Maga has marked an important political shift in America that has many liberal-minded people scratching their heads. Psychology studies can offer insights that can help explain the Maga movement’s motivations.

1. Fused identity

Identity is central to understanding the way Maga holds together as a group and can also explain many of its motives. Trump has been able to mobilise his base effectively by communicating that shared identity. And it’s this sense of common identity and purpose that has been so important in the development of Maga as a powerful political movement.

The almost absolute faith in Trump’s leadership has a lot to do with negative resentment of other groups that he singles out for criticism, particularly migrants, liberals and feminists. But it is actually a positive identification with white nationalism that is a stronger indicator of the sort of person who might identify with Maga.

Maga supporters unite around a shared perception of threat to their status, often related to issues of race and immigration. But it is also seen to be motivated by the desire to cultivate belonging and group pride as a way to regain lost esteem.

Some researchers also believe that even the act of wearing a Maga hat is a sign of what is known as “identity fusion” – when boundaries between the self and the group blur. When this occurs, wearing a Maga hat may be a symbol of who I am rather than just who I voted for.

This is significant since identity fusion is associated with reported willingness to undertake more extreme actions such as hurting people and damaging property to uphold the Trump community and to achieve his aims.

2. Moral self-righteousness

Maga members also tend to adhere to the idea that one’s own ethnic group is more morally pure than others. Maga ideology tends to divide America into “good” and “evil” groups, with themselves as good and out-groups, such as the ones mentioned above, cast as evil. This positions “true Americans”, the people who built the nation, patriots who have “had enough”, as part of the former.

Since it frames politics as a struggle over “right values and lifestyles”, such rhetoric heightens the risk of malignant moral superiority. When communicated by a leader, it creates in followers the sense that they have an obligation to act against these “evil” forces which threaten their group.

When this sense of superiority is threatened, it can lead to aggression, such as the assault on the US Capitol .

3. The right to dominate other groups

Aggressiveness in political groups such as Maga is also connected to what is known as “social dominance orientation”. This relates to belief in a hierarchy – the idea that one social group has the right to dominate other groups.

Research shows people who believe in hierarchy are more likely to disregard basic democratic principles. They see society as a “competitive jungle” where groups struggle for power and dominance.

As a result, they view groups that differ from them as inferior. This justifies any actions that maintain their in-group status.

This holds true even if – as in the case of Maga-followers – it means a belief in violence in response to unwelcome social and cultural changes. Polling has found that Maga supporters are also far more likely to believe that there will be a civil war in the US and that violence in order to advance the movement’s political objectives would be justified.

4. Aggressive followership

There’s a scientific debate about what draws people to authoritarian leaders. Some scholars emphasise the tendency to want to submit to authority, high levels of aggression when sanctioned and adherence to conventional values such as traditional views on religion and sexuality. Others focus more on a preference for conformity over personal autonomy.

But they agree on one point: authoritarian followers submit to leaders who stress the superiority of their social group and who they consider to be capable of handling the threats they see as coming from other groups.

Research on the Maga movement from 2016 shows that Trump supporters were more likely than other supporters of other Republican party candidates to score high on one facet of authoritarianism: the willingness to resort to aggression towards people seen to go against social norms if encouraged by someone they’ve accepted as an authority figure. But they don’t appear to score as highly on two other facets: submission to established authorities and an adherence to conventional values.

This suggests that authoritarianism among the Maga movement has evolved into a more distinct profile, characterised primarily by a prejudiced aggressiveness towards other social groups.

History tells us that radical political movements tend to pop up when the societal context is perceived as threatening. In this process, some people have personal dispositions that make them more prone to follow authoritarian leaders. So it’s important to take both personality and context into account when trying to understand movements such as Maga.

Claire Campbell works for Ulster University. She receives receives funding from PEACE PLUS for research on peace building.

Fredrik Björklund and Magnus Linden do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Maga explained: how personality and context shape radical movements – https://theconversation.com/maga-explained-how-personality-and-context-shape-radical-movements-270191

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Tara Lai Quinlan, Associate Professor in Law and Criminal Justice, University of Birmingham

The right to trial by jury dates back to at least the 12th century. The government’s proposals to limit it in England and Wales, many argue, run counter to the UK’s core democratic principles. And as others have pointed out, scrapping jury trials for some crimes is unlikely to solve the massive backlog in the crown courts.

Our research suggests that there is another reason why it is a bad idea to scrap jury trials. They can play a vital role in reducing racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

The proposals laid out by justice secretary David Lammy would have a disproportionately negative impact on people of colour – both defendants and victims – for whom jury trials give a glimmer of hope in a criminal justice system where “ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) appear to be over-represented”.

Government data repeatedly shows black, Asian and minority ethnic defendants are less likely to plead guilty than white defendants, and more likely to take their cases to trial. Lammy’s own 2017 review of racial inequality in the justice system suggests this is driven by a perception that the plea-bargaining process is unfair to defendants of colour, and that only a jury of peers will give them a fair trial.

Once black defendants choose a jury trial, research shows they are “more likely … to obtain acquittals or reductions in charges as a result”, compared to black defendants who plead guilty without opting for a trial.

A jury of 12 people brings a broader array of diverse perspectives and opinions which enhance the quality of discussions in deliberations, particularly in cases involving an ethnic minority defendant. Defendants should have their fate decided by people who might better understand their experiences, backgrounds and motivations.

Lammy’s 2017 review emphasised the importance of juries in making the criminal justice system more legitimate, particularly for people of colour: “Juries deliberate as a group through open discussion. This both deters and exposes prejudice or unintended bias: judgements must be justified to others.”

Sentencing is also disproportionate for defendants of colour when compared to white defendants, following both jury trials and plea agreements. Research has found that explicit or implicit judicial biases – whether judges stereotype the defendant, how they interpret sentencing recommendations from prosecutors and defence counsel, or how they apply aggravating and mitigating factors – may all contribute to these disparities.

Empirical evidence from other jurisdictions shows that more diverse juries are fairer to black defendants. Indeed, studies repeatedly show that all-white juries much more readily convict black defendants. Juries with even one black member are less likely to do so.

The UK’s Contempt of Court Act limits this type of research with live juries. But there is enough evidence from other jurisdictions to suggest that retaining juries, and ensuring those juries are diverse, is essential for protecting the fair trial rights of people of colour generally, and black people in particular.

Justice for victims

Jury trials are also essential for black victims and their families. Since 2022, we have worked with the family and friends of Dea-John Reid, a 14-year-old black boy who was racially abused and chased through the streets of Birmingham by a group of white boys and men who fatally stabbed him in broad daylight.

In their 2022 trial, the perpetrators were acquitted of racially aggravated murder, with only the principal offender found guilty of manslaughter by a jury of one Asian and 11 white members. Dea-John’s family felt that the lack of diversity on the jury, which did not have a single black member, could have meant they were less likely to see Dea-John as a worthy victim. Research shows that black men and boys are stereotyped as suspects – even when they are victims of crime.

Since 2022, we have worked with the family’s campaign, which supports retaining jury trials, but wants them to be more ethnically diverse, particularly in cases involving black victims. Our research has documented the campaign and is addressing critical gaps in UK research on jury diversity.

Diversity in the judiciary

Lammy’s proposals for reform include expanding the use of bench trials. This means that more cases would be heard by a single judge alone.

The judiciary in England and Wales is neither sufficiently diverse nor representative of the population. While black, Asian or minority ethnic people make up around 22% of the population, as of 2025, they make up only 11% of all court judges.

Lammy’s proposal also goes against what the public wants. In 2024, we surveyed 1,000 members of the public, 75% of whom stated explicitly that they believed the UK should have jury trials.

While most of our respondents believed that jury trials were fair (51%) and trustworthy (60%), they also felt strongly that more diverse juries were fairer (61%). Around half of people (51%) believed juries should look like the communities they serve. We found that for people of colour, taking part in jury service was viewed as even more important than for white respondents.

When it comes to perceptions of fairness and trust in the courts, we found important racial differences. Our research found that people of colour trust judges and the courts at lower rates than white people. People of colour in our survey were also more likely than white people to believe that judges treat them more unfairly compared to white people. And most of our respondents believed that more diversity in the judiciary is needed.

If Lammy remains committed to reducing inequality in the criminal justice system for people of colour, rather than reducing jury trials, he should be increasing them, and the diversity on them, to ensure justice for all.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Limiting jury trials will harm minority ethnic victims and defendants, research shows – https://theconversation.com/limiting-jury-trials-will-harm-minority-ethnic-victims-and-defendants-research-shows-270869

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Hillary Burlock, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History, University of Liverpool

The ballrooms of Jane Austen’s Britain have been hailed in literature and period dramas as a marriage market where young men and women could meet and mingle. The ballroom set the scene for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy’s first encounter at Meryton’s assembly rooms in Pride and Prejudice (1813), and where Catherine Moreland and Henry Tilney bantered in Bath in Northanger Abbey (1817).

Austen herself frequented balls in Basingstoke and Southampton. The ballroom was the place to see and be seen, the focal point for socialising during “the season”. The season took place during the winter months and involved a concentrated period of public entertainments like balls, concerts and card assemblies (in which guests met to play card games).

Ball-goers needed months to prepare for these events. This included ordering gloves and shoes, and buying new gowns or dressing up old ones. Austen deliberately kept her china crepe dress from being seen before the next ball, observing that the ballroom “was a place where you would be judged”.

Read more:
Jane Austen perfected the love story – but kept her own independence

Ladies and gentlemen also needed to polish their dance steps. From an early age, they were instructed in how to dance, bow and curtsy, walk and greet people of differing ranks. Mastering these basics of deportment was essential, as they would be scrutinised in the ballroom.

While in Bath in 1740, Elizabeth Robinson (future leader of the 18th-century English women’s intellectual circle the Bluestockings) observed that the education of another woman was lacking, writing: “[as] for her Curtsey where she got that I cannot guess, but I will venture to say, not from the Dancing School”.

This article is part of a series commemorating the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. Despite having published only six books, she is one of the best-known authors in history. These articles explore the legacy and life of this incredible writer.

In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Moreland’s first ball at the Upper Rooms in Bath is filled with anxiety, as: “The season was full, the room crowded, and the two ladies squeezed in as well as they could. As for Mr Allen, he repaired directly to the card-room, and left them to enjoy a mob by themselves.”

To quell the “mob”, the ballroom was managed by a master of ceremonies, who had the role of facilitating introductions, enforcing the rules and mediating disputes.

Balls opened with the minuet (a French social dance) performed by one couple at a time. A well-danced minuet was a source of pride for genteel society, as some revelled in exhibiting their accomplishments. But it was also a source of anxiety.

When a young woman named Eliza Smith married the Austens’ wealthy neighbour William Chute in 1793, she was so nervous about dancing that her mother wrote: “I am glad for your Sake there are no Minuets at Basingstoke, I know the terror you have in dancing not that you have any occasion for such fears.”

Assessing dance skill was central to the experience of the ballroom, making it even more important for dancers to try to put their best foot forward. Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Canning (cousin of the prime minister George Canning) wrote to her mother from Bath in December 1792 that: “I was very much entertained with the bad minuet-dancers, especially with a Mr Badcock who was obliged to stand up with seven, or eight Ladies successively, to the great diversion of the Spectators.”

After the minuets, country dances filled the evening, with a column of men standing opposite their female partners. Relieved the minuets were over, Miss Canning wrote: “At last the Country dances began, there was great humming, & hawing whether or no I should dance … & I declared … that I should like to dance if I could get some mighty smart partner.”

Young ladies recorded triumphant lists of dance partners, and, indeed, Austen recalled dancing with Stephen Terry, T. Chute, James Digweed and Catherine Bigg one evening, observing: “There was a scarcity of men in general, and a still greater scarcity of any that were good for much … There was commonly a couple of ladies standing up together, but not often any so amiable as ourselves.”

For the most part, men were expected to ask women to dance with them. According to dance manuals by Thomas Wilson and G.M.S. Chivers, the ballroom occasionally saw two women or two men dancing together.

While it is assumed that it was the lady’s prerogative to accept or decline invitations to dance, she could not afford to refuse an offer unless she had no intention to dance at all “and consequently may be considered no lady”. In Pride and Prejudice, though Elizabeth Bennet would prefer not to dance with Mr Collins at the Netherfield Ball, refusing him would mean losing the opportunity to dance altogether.

However, Austen herself found a way of skirting around these rules at the Kempshott ball. Writing to her sister Cassandra in 1798 she explained that: “One of my gayest actions was sitting down two dances in preference to having Lord Bolton’s eldest son for my partner, who danced too ill to be endured.” Austen was an excellent dancer herself, proudly proclaiming that she could dance 20 dances in an evening “without any fatigue”.

Balls at the assembly rooms lasted for about five hours until precisely 11 or 12am, when, upon a signal from the master of ceremonies, the dancing concluded, even in the middle of a dance. Grudgingly, the dancers changed their dance pumps for sturdier shoes and donned their cloaks, with sedan chairs and carriages ready to whisk them home to their lodgings by the light of the moon.

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This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Hillary Burlock receives funding from the British Academy as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

– ref. Inside the Regency ballroom: what you’d experience on a night out with Jane Austen – https://theconversation.com/inside-the-regency-ballroom-what-youd-experience-on-a-night-out-with-jane-austen-270628

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Emma Humphries, Research Fellow, School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen’s University Belfast

“Pink goes good with green.” This is a lesson we learned from Glinda (Ariana Grande) in Wicked part one. But do you remember the line that comes after that?
“Goes well with green.”

A small, easily missed comment from the green-skinned outsider Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), but one that reveals something important about language and common usage. Hierarchies of “correct” and “incorrect” language are not just found in grammar books and classrooms, but in popular culture too.

From “holding space” to “sex cardigans”, Wicked continues to dominate popular culture, but one thing that has been overlooked is Elphaba’s insistence on correct language.

In the first film, we see Elphaba ostracised and eventually positioned as public enemy number one by the Oz propaganda machine. From the film’s very opening, a flashforward to citizens celebrating Elphaba’s death, her unpopularity is made clear in the song No One Mourns The Wicked.

One way in which the filmmakers signal Elphaba’s unlikeability is through her often awkward, borderline rude social encounters, including when she first meets her frenemy, Glinda. It’s safe to say that the two characters don’t hit it off and Elphaba’s correction seems to upset Glinda.

Glinda: I could care less what others think.

Elphaba: Couldn’t.

Glinda: What?

Elphaba: You couldn’t care less what other people think. Though, I … I doubt that.

In the land of Oz, where people “pronuncify” and “rejocify”, are “disgusticified” and “moodified”, Elphaba’s comments demonstrate the idea that there is only one correct way to use language and that incorrect language should be corrected.

From stage to cinema

Elphaba’s corrections are not in the original stage musical. They were added to the film. The adaptation of a stage show for film offers an opportunity to modernise and change parts of the story that have been controversial or become outdated.

One excellent example of this in Wicked is its improvement of the stage show’s depiction of disability. The addition of language policing, however, is more disappointing. Because when we correct someone’s language, it’s about much more than the words themselves.

Correcting language is not neutral. When we place value on using language correctly, those who fall short often find themselves judged and discriminated against.

The policing of correct language can be seen as a gatekeeping tool, deciding who belongs and who is excluded. This has inevitable consequences for diversity. The way we speak, write and sign can reflect many aspects of our identities: where and how we grew up, our gender, age and race.

Rules and rebellion

With the run time of the films almost doubling that of the stage show, there is much more time devoted to character development in the films. Elphaba’s language pedantry has been added to demonstrate how she can rub people up the wrong way. However, it also suggests an adherence to authority and to socially constructed rules that stands in contrast to her character more broadly.

Elphaba is an outsider who starts the film wanting to be “degreenified”, but by the end of Wicked part one and as a main storyline in Wicked: For Good, she is willing to sacrifice her safety and reputation to do what is morally right, rather than what is socially acceptable.

Adherence to the strict rules of correct language suggests the opposite: a tendency to want to be accepted and to uphold the societal status quo. Elphaba resists social norms in every other respect, yet the film makes her a standard grammar enforcer.

Given that this trait is absent from part two, rather than undermining her personality as a resister, perhaps this further signals Elphaba’s journey from wishing to fit in to fully embracing her outsider status. Indeed, Elphaba’s insistence on correctness speaks to a broader challenge facing anyone positioned as an outsider: having to work that much harder to be accepted.

Glinda’s (famous) need to be popular and her interests in social climbing align with traits of a language enforcer, yet her behaviour tells a different story. She corrects language only once and it concerns her original name, Galinda. When Dr Dillamond, a professor at Shiz University – who also happens to be a goat – struggles to pronounce the “gah” in Galinda, Glinda corrects his pronunciation and berates him.

This moment, present in both the stage musical and the film, does not reflect a desire to uphold the prescriptive rules of the language, but rather a personal motivation. Glinda’s name is central to her self-image and public persona, and protecting that matters to her.

Beyond Oz

In an era when equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives are being rolled back, and languages other than English face renewed marginalisation, Wicked offers a case study in how linguistic hierarchies operate under the radar of popular culture. But there are plenty other examples. Think about Ross in Friends, Ted in How I Met Your Mother and Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory – all notorious language correctors.

Elphaba’s corrections are more than just a shorthand to signal an abrasive character. They reflect the linguistic hierarchies and gatekeeping that exist beyond Oz. Using language “correctly” is a marker of belonging and shows adherence to societal norms.

Across the two films, Elphaba moves from wanting to conform and erase a stigmatised part of her identity, her skin colour, towards rebellion against convention. It’s clear she questions blind adherence to political power, but perhaps this extends further to questioning the rules we construct around language.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Emma Humphries receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust and is currently employed by Queen’s University Belfast.

– ref. Wicked: what lies beneath correcting the way people speak? – https://theconversation.com/wicked-what-lies-beneath-correcting-the-way-people-speak-270639