UChicago CPOST

News

Pape in NYT: What the Glorification of Luigi Mangione Reveals About America

Thu., Dec. 12, 2024

CPOST Director Rober Pape appeared on the New York Times podcase "The Opinion," on December 12, 2024, drawing on his research on political violence to contextalize the danger posed by the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO BrianThompson. Pape argued the shooting was "a threshold-breaking attack, setting a precedent." The broad outpooring of support for the shooter and expressions of anger combine to increase the risk of similar attacks in the future. "There’s no doubt: There is anger at our health care system. There’s anger at our corporations. The question is, what is the right way to express that anger? Is it through violence, or is it through politics? I would say we should be directing that political anger away from political violence and redirect it toward politics and voting. The ballot box, not guns, is the right way to settle disputes in America." Read podcast transcript here.

Robert Pape in Foreign Affairs: The American Style of Political Violence

Mon., Sep. 23, 2024

CPOST Director Robert Pape explains why the upcoming election is not only the most consequential in our lifetimes, but also the most dangerous, in his latest article published in Foreign Affairs.

"But all this commentary overlooks the predominant structural dynamic driving the new era of violence....The principal danger to the United States is not any out-of-control technology or fringe militia group. It is not economic grievances run amok. It is not even Trump, who is as much a symptom of what ails the United States as he is a cause. Instead, the greatest source of danger comes from a cultural clash over the nature of the United States’ identity—one with profound implications for who gets to be a citizen. Its key actors are not isolated radicals but large numbers of ordinary Americans."

Read the article here.

CPOST Survey Data Cited in WSJ

Fri., Sep. 20, 2024

CPOST's June 2024 survey on support for political violence in America cited in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, September 20, 2024.

From the article: "As politically motivated attacks have proliferated, Americans have become more inured—and more open—to violence as a means to a political end, said Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. Pape conducted a nationwide poll on the topic this June in which 10% of those surveyed said the use of force would be justified to prevent Trump from returning to the White House, while 7% said violence would be acceptable to restore him to power. “These two radical minorities can spiral,” Pape said. “They can feed off of each other, and the numbers can grow.”

Read the entire article here.

The University of Chicago UChicago CPOST

Watch the recorded Live Stream, now on YouTube!

Report: Campus Fears after Oct 7 and How to Reduce Them

New Op-Ed: What to do About Political Violence

People

Publications

Militant Group Propaganda Monitoring and Analysis

American Political Violence

News

Pape in NYT: What the Glorification of Luigi Mangione Reveals About America

Robert Pape in Foreign Affairs: The American Style of Political Violence

CPOST Survey Data Cited in WSJ

Upcoming Events