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The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is the start of a new relationship between the UK and the European Union (EU). As the consequences of Brexit unfold, there will be pressure to change the TCA, either in a "softer" or "harder" direction. To determine the potential medium-term direction of the EU–UK relationship, we conducted a conjoint survey experiment with a sample of British voters, where we asked them to choose between different hypothetical package deals. When faced with such choices, British citizens overall mostly support a softer relationship in which the UK applies EU regulatory standards in return for greater access to the single market. However, Leave voters most often support a much harder trade-off of full regulatory sovereignty but continued restrictions on UK exports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The revised guidance on masks from public health officials has been one of the most significant COVID-19 policy reversals to date. Statements made at the outset of the pandemic, including those from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States Surgeon General, and the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, all actively discouraged asymptomatic members of the general public from wearing masks. However, on April 3, 2020, the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new recommendations that called for nonmedical masks, such as cloth face coverings, to be worn in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (Adams, 2020). Canadian public health officials quickly followed with their own guidance for wearing nonmedical masks or face coverings when out in public; however, they have stressed that doing so is optional for asymptomatic persons and should be seen as a complement to existing precautionary measures such as physical distancing and hand hygiene, particularly in cases where physical distancing may not be feasible (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2020). Emphasis was placed on nonmedical masks serving not to protect the wearer, but rather others who come within close proximity of the wearer. Echoing her public statements on the matter, Canada's chief public health officer Tweeted that "[w]earing a NON-MEDICAL mask in public settings has not been proven to add any protection TO the person wearing it, but it can be an additional way to prevent spread FROM an infected person to others" (Tam, 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the aggregate vote choice is responsive both to party leader television appearances and to the timing and substance of polling information. It mentions the utility of Voting Advice Applications (VAA) data in detecting campaign effects that cannot be observed using more conventional sources of public opinion data. It also mentions that VAAs allow for time‐series cross‐sectional estimates that illuminate the dynamics of public opinion that are not possible using conventional polling data, along with the information on the effect of the polls on vote share is significant and positive for the New Democratic Party (NDP).

The proliferation of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) offers voters a simplified means by which to estimate their alignment with the candidates contesting a given election. But are the outputs generated by such applications both reliable and valid? While they differ greatly in design and degree of sophistication, most VAAs share a distinctive element that serves as their defining feature: an aggregation algorithm. Aggregation algorithms are the source of a VAA's legitimacy and yet no formal framework for their evaluation has as yet been agreed upon. We posit a dimensionality reduction technique as a corrective to recognised shortcomings in the dominant approaches to VAA design. We then test our model within a proposed framework for evaluating the validity and reliability of VAA algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the significance of international law to secession. It notes the example of Quebec as a case where the legality of secession has been considered in relation to international law. It also discusses the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the secession of Kosovo.

Objective: A key issue in Britain's referendum on European Union membership was the free movement of labor into Britain, with Brexit "Leavers" having more negative attitudes toward immigrants than "Remainers." Such anti‐immigrant attitudes are driven by feelings of threat. The coronavirus pandemic presented a new threat in the context of ongoing Brexit negotiations. This paper examines how the COVID‐19 pandemic affected anti‐immigrant attitudes and how these effects differ between Leavers and Remainers. Methods: Using an online survey in Spring 2020 of 3,708 individuals residing in the UK, we experimentally test the effect of priming COVID‐19 thoughts on anti‐immigrant attitudes, and examine whether this effect varies by Brexit identity. Results: We show that COVID‐19 may exacerbate anti‐immigrant attitudes among Leavers while having little effect on Remainers. Conclusion: These findings support the idea that the coronavirus pandemic might have presented a new, viral, threat that heightened anti‐immigrant attitudes among certain political identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has been celebrated in popular and academic work for its relative immunity to nativist populism. No competitive nativist party has recently emerged in federal politics that challenges the mainstream consensus around mass immigration, unlike virtually every other postindustrial democracy. This paper argues that existing explanations for this "exceptionalism" are lacking. In particular, they fail to appreciate the importance of Quebec nationalism in contributing to this outcome. Quebec nationalism fractured the stronger anti‐immigration sentiment found in rural and smaller urban areas in both Quebec and Anglophone Canada and thereby prevented right‐wing parties from mobilising that sentiment in a way that could feasibly win elections. This forced such parties to moderate their message and court "ethnic voters" in suburban ridings around Toronto and Vancouver. We illustrate this argument using novel data which permit a comparison of the Canadian experience with nativist politics in Australia and New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has resulted in rapid, substantial, and at times contradictory policy changes as public health agencies and government officials react to new information. We examine the implications of such changes for public compliance by drawing on the case of revised guidance on mask usage by asymptomatic individuals. As official recommendations on the use of masks in Canada shift from discouraged to mandatory, we draw on findings from an ongoing public opinion study to explore contemporaneous changes in rates of mask adoption and levels of public trust in government institutions. We find that Canadians exhibit high levels of compliance with changing policies on mask usage and that trust in public health officials remains consistent despite policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel coronavirus reached the United States and Canada almost at the same time. The first reported American case was January 20, 2020, and in Canada it was January 15, 2020 (Canada, 2020; Holshue et al., 2020). Yet, the response to this crisis has been different in the two countries. In the US, President Donald Trump, prominent Republicans, and conservative media initially dismissed the dangers of COVID-19 (Stecula, 2020). The pandemic became politicized from the early days, and even though Trump and Republicans have walked back many of their initial claims, there continue to be media reports of partisan differences in public opinion shaped by that early response. At the same time, the response in Canada has been mostly characterized by across-the-board partisan consensus among political elites (Merkley et al., 2020). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]