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I found out about Sanne Van Oosten’s work on X when she shared her experience of being shunned by media outlets indifferent to her research findings that voters don’t discriminate on the basis of gender and ethnicity.
A social scientist at Oxford University specialising in meta-analysis and intergroup conflict, Sanne is uniquely positioned to comment on Kamala Harris’s prospects in the US presidential election, as well as the social status factors that may drive some of Donald Trump’s supporters.
Sanne’s meta-analysis of 43 studies spanning 10 years and involving over 305,000 respondents shows that voters are overwhelmingly interested in policy, not identity, and that the presumption of voter bias by political apparatchiks is out of step with a public that actually favours female and minority candidates.
Our conversation gets into the detail of her work, taking in the ways that academia as well as media have played a narrative-shaping role not entirely aligned with the reassuring reality that, as a voting public, we are not as divided and prejudiced as some might claim.
You can find Sanne on X and BlueSky as @SBVanOosten.
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Episode 121: Sanne Van Oosten on the Surprising Lack of Racist and Sexist Voters