Day: November 4, 2025

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Why can’t every country get along with each other? – Dale T., age 11, Helena, Montana

Countries often share similar goals, such as peace and prosperity for their citizens, so it might seem strange that they find it hard to get along. Cultural differences may sometimes cause countries such as China and the United States to compete for global influence, but even countries sharing similar values or cultures still find reasons to clash.

So why do countries compete or even go to war? As a political science scholar researching some of the most conflict-prone regions in the world, I find that the answer often comes down to three factors: scarcity, uneven distribution and perception.

Scarcity leads to hard choices

Scarcity is the reality that there are not enough resources – such as food, oil, water and land – to go around. While countries would prefer to pursue all the resources they need, they are forced to prioritize the resources that will make them most secure.

For instance, the Nile River serves as a water resource for more than 300 million people in 11 countries in Africa. However, because water is a scarce resource used for drinking, irrigation farming and hydroelectric power, countries such as Egypt and Ethiopia have often fought about using the river.

Uneven distribution means relying on others

Uneven distribution means that not everyone starts off with the same resources. Nations have different levels of power and capabilities, and this shapes how they calculate risk and opportunity when dealing with each other.

For instance, countries concerned about the United States’ dominant power joined together in a rival international organization known as BRICS+ in 2009. Its founding members include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and several other countries have joined over the years.

Perception can lead to misunderstanding

Perception is how countries view each other’s actions. A nation can build up its weapons to be safe from potential attacks, but another nation might view this move as threatening rather than defensive.

For instance, India developed nuclear capability in the 1970s to protect itself, but neighboring Pakistan perceived this as a threat and soon developed its own nuclear weapons. The two countries have since engaged in occasional conflict.

Classroom international relations

Countries have leaders with different personal experiences and backgrounds. To understand how countries interact, it is useful to draw an analogy to a classroom simulation I use in my courses.

Annabelle and Morgan are two good friends who are taking a course in international relations. For a simulation game, their teacher assigns Annabelle and Morgan to lead two different groups. Their classmates are also assigned to be leaders of a handful of other groups. Each group must decide how to spend its resources, build its industries and form partnerships.

In the game, scarcity was represented by a set number of points both groups could use to purchase resources. Since there were not enough points to provide everyone with everything they desired, each group had to prioritize needs. Should they invest more points in defense, social goods or industry?

Annabelle’s team started with 100 points and Morgan’s team started with 30. That uneven distribution mattered. Annabelle’s group could comfortably invest in industry, while Morgan’s had to focus on survival. Morgan’s group had to decide whether to trust more resource-rich groups and grow their industry points through trade, or find allies among groups with lots of military resources to prepare for potential conflict.

Perception came in when Morgan’s team was not sure how Annabelle’s team was spending its points. If they were spending many points on military, they could attack another group and steal its points. To protect her group, Morgan decided to form an alliance with two other groups. In return, Annabelle’s group perceived the alliance as a threat and started spending more points on military.

In the final round of the game, Morgan’s new alliance invaded Annabelle’s group and took most of their resource points. Annabelle felt betrayed, since she assumed her friendship with Morgan would allow their groups to work together. Morgan felt uneasy but also justified. She did not know how other members of Annabelle’s group would decide to act, so she prioritized her own group’s safety.

By the end of the game, Annabelle and Morgan were angry and frustrated with each other and their friendship was strained.

Cooperation turns into conflict

Even countries that share common goals or values sometimes compete, and the motivations are rarely simple.

Nations cooperate because it helps them grow, but they also take actions to protect themselves. When two countries compete over similar resources, and when their power balance is not clear, they can get the wrong idea about each other’s actions and engage in conflict. At the extreme, they may even go to war.

Competition and mistrust can arise even among friends who share similar goals. Similarly, while every country might want peace and stability, the forces of scarcity, uneven distribution and perception make it impossible for everyone to get along all the time.

Still, understanding these realities can help countries to build trust and work toward a shared respect that makes peace more likely.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

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Kaleb Demerew does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The ongoing government shutdown shows how hard it has become for Congress to do its most basic job: keeping the government running. Ending the stalemate will require lawmakers from both parties to strike a deal – a reminder that legislative progress depends on bipartisanship.

Politicians often call for greater cooperation across party lines, and research shows that bills rarely become law without it. Bipartisan deal-making is also popular with the public. Recent polls demonstrate that Americans are twice as likely to favor leaders who compromise to get things done over those who stick to their beliefs and accomplish less.

Yet partisan gridlock continues to stall policymaking.

The public’s growing frustration with “politics as usual” has led more political newcomers to run for and win office since 2016.

These “amateur” politicians, with no prior experience in elected office, present themselves as problem-solvers rather than politicians. Many come from outside government entirely – including business owners, military veterans and schoolteachers. Amateurs’ real-world backgrounds are often seen as assets by voters, donors and even politicians themselves – qualities thought to make them more effective in Congress.

As scholars of legislative politics, we wanted to interrogate that claim. And our new study reaches a different conclusion: Electing amateurs reduces bipartisan cooperation in Congress.

We find that, once in office, political newcomers are less likely than career politicians to work across the aisle. The very outsiders many voters hope will “fix” Congress contribute to the partisan divisions that keep it from functioning.

Amateurs are more likely to view bipartisanship as a concession rather than a tool for advancing policy.

What the data shows

We analyzed over 2.2 million policymaking actions from 1980 to 2022 to assess how often members of the U.S. House of Representatives worked across the aisle to co-author bills. Legislation developed through bipartisan collaboration is much more likely to become law. We then compared the collaboration patterns of first-term amateurs – legislators who have never held office and were just elected to Congress – against the collaboration patterns of established incumbents.

The difference was clear. Over the past four decades, amateur lawmakers worked across party lines far less often than incumbent lawmakers, both when developing their own legislation and when lending support to other legislators’ proposals.

This finding is not simply a “freshman effect,” observed among all new members of Congress who are still learning its norms and procedures.

First-term representatives who entered Congress with prior elected experience in state or local office engaged in bipartisan cooperation about as frequently as longer-serving incumbents. This suggests that what matters for bipartisan engagement is prior experience in elected office, not a lack of experience in Congress itself.

The impact on democracy

Amateur lawmakers are about 10–20 percentage points less likely to engage in bipartisanship during their first term than experienced officeholders.

To put it in perspective, the size of the amateur effect is roughly on par with the collapse in bipartisan relationships that followed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. After some Republican members refused to certify the 2020 presidential election results, Democrats largely stopped working with them in that Congress – a decline in collaboration comparable in scale to what we observe among amateurs.

These effects are likely to continue, with amateurs making up nearly half of all first-term lawmakers in recent years compared to decades past. Notable amateurs elected to Congress include Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor-Greene. As new cohorts of amateurs enter office each election cycle, this bipartisanship problem will persist.

Learning to value bipartisanship

Our findings show that amateur lawmakers’ approach to bipartisanship evolves as they gain office-holding experience. By their third term in Congress – about six years after first taking office – the gap in bipartisan behavior between amateurs and experienced legislators largely disappears.

Amateur lawmakers often bring impressive credentials to office – many are skilled professionals, public figures or highly educated.

However, we show that these backgrounds do not necessarily prepare amateurs for the demands of governing. Experience holding state or local office exposes politicians to the practical realities of policymaking. Lacking that experience, amateurs are more likely to view bipartisanship as giving up on their principles rather than a method for serving the public interest. We find that this tendency diminishes only as newcomers gain firsthand experience in the legislative process.

A global trend with familiar consequences

The U.S. is not alone in this trend toward amateurism. Around the world, political newcomers have surged to power amid frustration with traditional elites.

In Europe, Italy’s Five Star Movement in 2013 and France’s En Marche! movement in 2017 were led by and composed of amateur politicians who framed themselves as anti-establishment outsiders.

In each case, widespread outsider success in the legislature delivered disruption – but not necessarily effective governance. These groups often start with promises of pragmatic reform but struggle once in office.

Looking toward the midterms

Heading into 2026, many Americans continue to express deep dissatisfaction with their party’s establishment. Public approval of Congress is near historic lows, and polling shows that many voters believe professional politicians are self-interested and out of touch.

Amateur politicians are once again emerging in response to this discontent, positioning themselves as outsiders who can bring change to Washington. Yet, as our research shows, these newcomers will undervalue the bipartisan relationships needed to govern effectively.

As voters look for change, the challenge will be to balance the desire for fresh perspectives with the experience required to sustain cooperation – and to keep Congress, and democracy, working.

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

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump addressed hundreds of military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia in late September 2025.

Before the meeting, journalists speculated about which urgent issues might require such a costly and unusual gathering, to which the assembled military leaders had been summoned from across the globe.

Rather than a major shift in national security strategy, a loyalty oath or mass firing, Hegseth and Trump railed against what they see as the military’s primary enemy: diversity.

Hegseth claimed the Department of Defense became “the woke department” infected by “toxic political garbage” and the “insane fallacy that ‘our diversity is our strength.’”

Trump argued that the military “went, in a way, woke” and called for armed forces that would “not be politically correct.” Hegseth similarly called for a shift in military thinking about diversity saying, “No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. … As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that shit.”

Having spent years studying the U.S. military and writing a book on diversity and military recruiting, the speeches made clear to me that Hegseth and Trump fundamentally misunderstand military diversity. Both men see it as a symptom of “woke” culture rather than as a long-standing practice driven by the very nature and history of the all-volunteer force.

Embracing diversity

During times of war and between 1948 and 1973, the U.S. military drafted enlistees to fill the ranks. After years of debate, the draft was ended and the U.S. established an all-volunteer force in 1973.

The demographic makeup of the military quickly changed as more Black Americans and women chose to join the military. In a 2007 study of representation in the military, scholars found that Black Americans had been overrepresented in the military for much of the span of the all-volunteer force. And the percentage of Latino service members more than doubled from the late 1980s to the 2000s.

Additionally, Latino service members made up 25% of new enlistees in 2022.

While women remain underrepresented in the military compared with the U.S. population, the shift to the all-volunteer force led to a steady increase in women’s military participation. Women made up 3% of military personnel in 1973 and 17% in 2022.

The military would not have been able to meet personnel needs and recruitment goals without the disproportionate representation of women, Black Americans, and Latino service members during this post-draft period.

The U.S. military embraced this diversity long before the influence of “woke” politics and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives that Hegseth and Trump claim have undermined the institution.

That embracement has helped the military enlist between 128,000 and 190,000 new service members annually since the 1990s, even though some armed forces, especially the Army, have struggled to meet their recruiting goals in the past few years.

Expanding the scope

To fully understand how the military became one of the most diverse American institutions, you need to go back to the foundations of the all-volunteer force.

The primary challenge the military faced in the implementation of the all-volunteer force was how to persuade young Americans to enlist. Large budgets were set aside for advertising, and military branches worked with advertisers to reach potential recruits.

One of the first steps advertisers took in the mid-1970s was to identify “vulnerable target groups.” These groups were targeted based on propensity – the likelihood that an individual would serve regardless of their desire to do so.

The likelihood of service increased when people felt they had little opportunity outside of the military – whether that meant financial struggles or an inability to afford higher education.

Based on ideas of recruit quality and the traits the military sees as best suited to success in the ranks, the military has mostly desired to recruit straight and white young men. But these people were more likely to have opportunities outside of the military. So, military leaders had to expand the scope of potential recruits to reach out to groups previously excluded – namely, Black Americans, other people of color and women.

When Hegseth talks about “fixing decades of decay” in a department gone “woke,” and when Trump argues that the military will now be “all based on merit,” they both fail to understand military diversity.

The military didn’t become diverse because it went “woke” or abandoned a merit-based system of promotions.

Military diversity resulted from the exploitative nature of military recruiting. In the all-volunteer force, the most easily persuaded recruits are those in most need of opportunities they can’t find in the civilian world. The very logic behind an all-volunteer force means that the military can’t fill their ranks with white men alone.

Central casting

Hegseth and Trump, additionally, have framed their criticism of the military with an obsessive focus on looks.

Hegseth criticized the “bad look” of the current military, saying “it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formations, and see fat troops.” He also railed against “an era of unprofessional appearance” indicated by “beards, long hair and superficial individual expression.”

Trump has consistently talked about wanting military leaders to look like they are out of “central casting”, a phrase he uses almost exclusively to talk about white men.

The firings of Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General CQ Brown Jr., the second Black Chair of the Joint Chiefs, appear to reflect this vision of the military in practice.

When Trump and Hegseth attack military diversity, they harm individuals who made the choice to serve. They also perpetuate the myth that military diversity was enforced from outside the military by liberal “woke” politics rather than born of necessity for the military’s very survival.

Jeremiah Favara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

On Nov. 5, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear one of the most consequential trade cases in decades. The justices will decide whether a president can rely on a Cold War–era emergency law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose sweeping import duties on a vast share of what the United States buys from abroad.

At stake is more than the scope of presidential power. The case highlights a deeper question of accountability: Who should decide what Americans pay for imported goods – the president acting alone, unelected judges reading emergency laws broadly, or the elected representatives who must face voters when prices rise?

When tariffs end up in court, it’s usually because Congress has failed to act. Over the past few decades, lawmakers have ceded much of their trade authority to presidents eager to move quickly – and the courts have been left to clean up the mess. Each new lawsuit makes it seem as though judges are running the economy when, in fact, they’re being pulled into policy questions they’re neither trained nor elected to answer.

As an economist, not a lawyer, I view this as more than a constitutional curiosity. It’s about how the world’s largest economy makes decisions that ripple through global markets, factory floors and family budgets. A duty on steel may help a mill in Ohio while raising bridge-construction and car-buying costs everywhere else. A tariff on electronics might nudge assembly onshore yet squeeze hospital and school budgets that depend on those devices.

These are choices about distribution – who gains, who pays, and for how long – that demand analysis, transparency and, above all, democratic ownership.

How did the US get here?

Congress didn’t exactly lose its tariff power; it gave it away.

The Constitution assigns “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” to Congress, not the White House. Historically, Congress set tariff lines in law – consider the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. The pivot began with the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934, which let presidents adjust rates within limits via executive agreements. In the 1960s and ’70s, Congress passed laws expanding the president’s authority over trade, granting new powers to restrict or adjust imports without a separate congressional vote if certain conditions are met.

In my view, two key incentives drove the drift: blame avoidance and gridlock. Tariffs are redistributive by design: They benefit some sectors and regions while imposing costs on others. Casting a vote that helps steelworkers in one state but raises prices for builders in another is politically risky. Delegating to the White House allowed lawmakers to sidestep the fallout when prices rise or when jobs shift.

And as polarization intensified, the bargaining that once produced workable compromises became increasingly complex. Broad emergency statutes and open-ended delegations became the path of least resistance – fast, unilateral and insulated from negotiation. Over time, exceptions became the norm, and courts were tasked with resolving the gray areas.

That’s a poor way to run economic policy.

Judges interpret statutes and precedent; they don’t run general equilibrium models, forecast inflation paths or map supply chain rerouting. Evidence in court is confined to a single case file. Remedies are blunt: They are either to uphold, strike down or send back. Tariff design, by contrast, is about calibration: how high, how long, which sectors, which exclusions, what off-ramps, what triggers for renewal or repeal.

When lawsuits substitute for legislation, countries drift into policy by injunction. Companies see rules whipsaw; projects are delayed or shelved; households experience price swings that feel arbitrary; trading partners retaliate against policies they see as improvisational.

A matter of accountability

Accountability sits at the center of the problem. Most judges aren’t elected; lawmakers are. Lifetime tenure protects judicial independence – good for rights, bad for setting taxes. No one can vote out a court when tariffs push up the price of a school Chromebook or a contractor’s rebar.

Members of Congress, by contrast, must explain themselves. They can hold hearings, commission impact analyses, hear from unions and small businesses, and then defend the trade-offs. If tariffs save jobs in one town but raise prices nationwide, voters know exactly whom to reward or punish. That democratic link is why the Constitution places “Duties and Imposts” in the hands of Congress.

None of this means paralysis when it comes to trade policy. The United States has done this before – via trade-promotion and fast-track authorities that set clear goals and required renewal votes – while the EU and Japan have paired swift action with built-in legislative oversight.

Congress can be nimble without being reckless. Best practices for tariffs include setting clear targets using accessible language, having independent analysts conduct reviews before and after a tariff is put in place, and having diplomacy baked into a broader trade-security strategy that reports retaliation risks.

The challenge facing the court

In my view, the Supreme Court’s role here is both modest and vital: to enforce the statute and the constitutional line.

If a general emergency law doesn’t clearly authorize sweeping, long-duration tariffs, it’s not activism to say so plainly. It’s boundary-keeping that returns the pen to Congress. What I think the court should avoid is appearing to write the tariff code from the bench. That swaps democratic ownership for judicial improvisation and guarantees more litigation as a strategy.

In theory, a more public, accountable system would also free everyone to focus on what they do best. That means economists measuring who gains and who pays, lawmakers weighing trade-offs and answering to voters, and courts enforcing the rules – not designing the policy.

Bedassa Tadesse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation