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We explore how the reception of remittances affects perceptions of the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States. Scholars have claimed that the economic benefits of the relationship with the US prevail over imperialistic concerns as a result of the asymmetry of power between the two countries. Empirical research shows that Latin American public opinion is indeed more supportive of the US than theory indicates. However, we identify two gaps in this literature. First, scholars have explored the determinants of generic expressions of sentiment toward the US, overlooking more concrete instances of cooperation between the two countries. Second, scholars have focused on trade and investment and have ignored how the material gains of emigration shape attitudes toward the US. The present paper fills these two gaps by using novel survey data on the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the US. On one hand, we find that while the reception of remittances correlates positively with good sentiments toward the US, the recipients of remittances are consistently more opposed to cooperation with the US in the fight against drug trafficking. We argue that this finding can be explained by the different nature of the migratory phenomenon, and the connection between anti-drug trafficking policies and the close scrutiny of illegal flows of money and people.

In the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the 2009 Constitution articulates a multidimensional conception of democracy, reflecting a legacy of social movement mobilizations that demanded political inclusion and propelled to power a president who self-identifies as Indigenous. Many anticipated that Bolivia could present a propitious environment for an invigorated and post-liberal democracy. This article evaluates the three dimensions of democracy enshrined in the Constitution – representative, participatory, and communitarian – with the aim of understanding the relationship among them. I focus on two important sites of democratic practice: the process of drafting and approving the Constitution, and the construction of "Indigenous autonomies"; that is, institutions of Indigenous self-government based on communitarian democracy. While Bolivian democracy is more stable and inclusive under the current government than under previous ones, this study finds that the expansion of sanctioned participatory and communitarian democratic processes has been limited vis-à-vis the hegemonic system of representation.

Significance Criminal justice policy is susceptible to controversy. Crime and policies to prevent it are inextricably tied to divergent beliefs among citizens about right and wrong, the protection of person and property, and the legacy of ill treatment of racial minorities by agents of the criminal justice system. This paper studies a model that helps to address one aspect of crime prevention policy, the use of confrontational proactive policing methods. These methods may have social benefits in crime reduction but costs in intrusion on the rights and privacy of innocent persons. The paper provides a structure for weighing these benefits and costs dispassionately, aiming to honor and achieve the sometime conflicting objectives of crime control policy in a democratic society.

Eyewitness identifications play an important role in the investigation and prosecution of crimes, but it is well known that eyewitnesses make mistakes, often with serious consequences. In light of these concerns, the National Academy of Sciences recently convened a panel of experts to undertake a comprehensive study of current practice and use of eyewitness testimony, with an eye toward understanding why identification errors occur and what can be done to prevent them. The work of this committee led to key findings and recommendations for reform, detailed in a consensus report entitled Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification . In this review, I focus on the scientific issues that emerged from this study, along with brief discussions of how these issues led to specific recommendations for additional research, best practices for law enforcement, and use of eyewitness evidence by the courts.

In 2015, 193 nations came together to define 17 sustainable development goals. However, the large number of specific development targets renders prioritizing the use of development resources a challenging endeavor. Demographer Wolfgang Lutz, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, Austria, and a recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, writes in his Inaugural Article (1) that the concept of sola schola et sanitate (only education and health) should serve as the guiding principle for development efforts, echoing Martin Luther’s principles of sola scriptura , sola fide , and sola gratia (only scripture, only faith, and only grace) that guided the Reformation 500 years ago. Lutz recently spoke to PNAS about his work on education and health.



Wolfgang Lutz. Image courtesy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.



> PNAS:What is the focus of the discipline of demography?

> Lutz:Demography deals with the changing size and composition of human populations. When people talk about demographic change, what most people mean is the changing age composition. But this definition goes beyond the age composition; it can include many other characteristics whose changing distributions are relevant for social and economic change.
>
> Over the last 20 years, we have analyzed populations by age, sex, and educational attainment. It also lends itself to forecasting: Once you know how many 20-year-old women have completed high school, this is a very …

Significance Twitter and other social media platforms are believed to have altered the course of numerous historical events, from the Arab Spring to the US presidential election. Online social networks have become a ubiquitous medium for discussing moral and political ideas. Nevertheless, the field of moral psychology has yet to investigate why some moral and political ideas spread more widely than others. Using a large sample of social media communications concerning polarizing issues in public policy debates (gun control, same-sex marriage, climate change), we found that the presence of moral-emotional language in political messages substantially increases their diffusion within (and less so between) ideological group boundaries. These findings offer insights into how moral ideas spread within networks during real political discussion.

Significance In 2015, all countries of the world agreed to an ambitious set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, including 169 specific targets. Whether these goals will be achieved and lead to the desired sustainability transition will depend on the degree to which they can energize and mobilize policy makers, donors, nongovernmental organizations, private industry, and the public. There is a fear that this rather technocratic set of 169 overlapping and partly contradictory targets lacks the sense of clear priority that is needed. This paper proposes a clear priority focus on human capital (education and health) as a root cause of development that, together with maintaining natural capital, is prerequisite for all other Sustainable Development Goals, offering a vision for an achievable and sustainable future.

Significance We examine why dominant/authoritarian leaders attract support despite the presence of other admired/respected candidates. Although evolutionary psychology supports both dominance and prestige as viable routes for attaining influential leadership positions, extant research lacks theoretical clarity explaining when and why dominant leaders are preferred. Across three large-scale studies we provide robust evidence showing how economic uncertainty affects individuals' psychological feelings of lack of personal control, resulting in a greater preference for dominant leaders. This research offers important theoretical explanations for why, around the globe from the United States and Indian elections to the Brexit campaign, constituents continue to choose authoritarian leaders over other admired/respected leaders.

Significance Individuals differ in the degree to which they endorse group-based hierarchies in which some social groups dominate others. Much research demonstrates that among individuals this preference robustly predicts ideologies and behaviors enhancing and sustaining social hierarchies (e.g., racism, sexism, and prejudice). Combining aggregate archival data from 27 countries ( n = 41,824) and multilevel data from 30 US states ( n = 4,613) with macro-level indicators, we demonstrate that the degree of structural inequality, social instability, and violence in different countries and US states is reflected in their populations' minds in the form of support of group-based hegemony. This support, in turn, increases individual endorsement of ideologies and behaviors that ultimately sustain group-based inequality, such as the ethnic persecution of immigrants.

Between 2005 and 2015, organized criminal groups murdered 209 politicians in Mexico. This paper explains why. It argues that the two interwoven trends of political and criminal pluralization in Mexico fostered the conditions for a new type of criminal violence against politicians. Mexican politicians are now targeted for accepting illicit money as well as for standing up to criminals. Moreover, this violence is evidence of an alarming and persistent pattern in Mexico of politicians enlisting criminal organizations to eliminate their political competition. Using a zero-inflated negative binomial model, this paper shows there is a strong statistical relationship between the increase in assassinations and the increases in political pluralization and criminal fragmentation. The article concludes that the failure to protect local public officials creates greater opportunities for the emergence of subnational authoritarian enclaves and threatens democratic consolidation.

Much has been made of the aims of the upcoming March for Science, which is scheduled to take place on April 22 in Washington, DC. Some have argued it's a terrible idea (1). But the march could serve an important purpose—if organizers and participants succeed in sending the right message and reaching the right audiences, namely a public that's sometimes wary or suspicious of science and public officials who are trying to further specific interests.



A march for science, done right, will underscore the critical importance of science literacy among the general public. Image courtesy of Dave Cutler (artist).



If the March for Science were meant as a partisan enterprise or an objection to President Trump's policies in general, scientists would have reason to be reluctant to participate. In their statement of purpose, the organizers issue a "call to support and safeguard the scientific community" (https://www.marchforscience.com), a somewhat nebulous phrase that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. The statement goes on to lament the "mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue, which has given policymakers permission to reject overwhelming evidence" (https://www.marchforscience.com). In other words, the event is meant to underscore that scientific findings should not be ignored by policy makers, not to favor one political party or another.

Scientists' findings deserve respect specifically because they emanate from procedures that ensure neutrality. Even if researchers would prefer a specific outcome, those adhering to the scientific method do not alter the results to fit their preferences. Their ethical commitments, rigorous training, and professional standards all suggest they have well-earned credibility in their chosen field.

Neither partisanship, political predilections, or even religious beliefs affect the procedures followed by well-trained, ethical scientists. They may be Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or have no affiliation with a political party, but the scientific method, properly applied, …

[↵][1]1Email: rudder{at}gmu.edu.

[1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

In most parliamentary democracies, proportional representation electoral rules mean that no single party controls a majority of seats in the legislature. This in turn means that the formation of majority legislative coalitions in such settings is of critical political importance. Conventional approaches to modeling the formation of such legislative coalitions typically make the "common knowledge" assumption that the preferences of all politicians are public information. In this paper, we develop a theoretical framework to investigate which legislative coalitions form when politicians' policy preferences are private information, not known with certainty by the other politicians with whom they are negotiating over what policies to implement. The model we develop has distinctive implications. It suggests that legislative coalitions should typically be either of the center left or the center right. In other words our model, distinctively, predicts only center-left or center-right policy coalitions, not coalitions comprising the median party plus parties both to its left and to its right.

Significance We cannot assume that the statistics of mass human crises will capture our attention or move us to take action, no matter how large the numbers. The data that we present show that the world was basically asleep as the body count in the Syrian war rose steadily into the hundreds of thousands. The iconic image of a young Syrian child, lying face-down on a beach, woke the world for a brief time, bringing much-needed attention to the war and the plight of its many victims. But this empathic response was short-lived. We outline the need for better laws, institutions, and decision-making procedures to channel empathy into appropriate and effective humanitarian actions by individuals and their governments.

The environmental fragility of cities under advanced urbanization has motivated extensive efforts to promote the sustainability of urban ecosystems and physical infrastructures. Less attention has been devoted to neighborhood inequalities and fissures in the civic infrastructure that potentially challenge social sustainability and the capacity of cities to collectively address environmental challenges. This article draws on a program of research in three American cities—Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles—to develop hypotheses and methodological strategies for assessing how the multidimensional and multilevel inequalities that characterize contemporary cities bear on sustainability. In addition to standard concerns with relative inequality in income, the article reviews evidence on compounded deprivation, racial cleavages, civic engagement, institutional cynicism, and segregated patterns of urban mobility and organizational ties that differentially connect neighborhood resources. Harnessing "ecometric" measurement tools and emerging sources of urban data with a theoretically guided framework on neighborhood inequality can enhance the pursuit of sustainable cities, both in the United States and globally.