Many politicians have survived sex scandals and still held onto their jobs. But news about John Tory’s affair has brought an end to his career as Toronto mayor. Here’s what’s unique about Tory’s case.
Why are we so utterly in thrall to upper-crust tales of privilege, riches and scandal? Because it’s a great story of wealth, heritage and survival in the modern world.
The response to the sex scandal that led to Jerry Falwell Jr. resigning as president of Liberty University falls into a gendered pattern often seen among evangelicals.
Scandals are violent shocks to social systems, yet not all questionable behaviour produces scandal. How can we explain that some figures escape the consequences of their own behavior while others don’t?
W.T. Stead’s 1885 account of the process by which wealthy Londoners procured teenagers for sex became a global news story, but the police refused to investigate.
Former Conservative MP Tony Clement, dropped from caucus over a public sexting scandal raises questions for all of us about what is too much in our ‘casual’ daily online exchanges.
Richard Flory, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Americans are increasingly choosing not to identify with any religious tradition. But this group of irreligious people is a complex one – with different relationships to religion.
In a scoop worthy of its deceased predecessor, the News of the World, the Sun on Sunday ran a five-page exclusive at the weekend alleging that Lord Sewel, deputy speaker of the House of Lords, had been…
Chief Research Specialist in Democracy and Citizenship at the Human Science Research Council and a Research Fellow Centre for African Studies, University of the Free State