Suchergebnisse

Is the Left reemerging as a political force? If we are indeed seeing a new phase of American radicalism, it would not be the first time. Based on insights from the online Mapping American Social Movements Project, this essay reframes the history of American radicalism by paying close attention to the singular fact that for the last century the Left has consisted solely of shifting constellations of social movements without the anchoring presence of a competitive left-wing electoral party. As a result, the American Left has been uniquely unstable. Its organizations come and go, flourishing for a time then withering, only to be replaced at some later point by a new Left based in different organizations, often with different demography, geography, and ideological agendas. This article maps five distinct left constellations over the past century and explores the question of how American radicalism has repeatedly reconstituted itself absent the supportive institutional apparatus of an electoral party.

Is support for democracy in the United States robust enough to deter undemocratic behavior by elected politicians? We develop a model of the public as a democratic check and evaluate it using two empirical strategies: an original, nationally representative candidate-choice experiment in which some politicians take positions that violate key democratic principles, and a natural experiment that occurred during Montana's 2017 special election for the U.S. House. Our research design allows us to infer Americans' willingness to trade-off democratic principles for other valid but potentially conflicting considerations such as political ideology, partisan loyalty, and policy preferences. We find the U.S. public's viability as a democratic check to be strikingly limited: only a small fraction of Americans prioritize democratic principles in their electoral choices, and their tendency to do so is decreasing in several measures of polarization, including the strength of partisanship, policy extremism, and candidate platform divergence. Our findings echo classic arguments about the importance of political moderation and cross-cutting cleavages for democratic stability and highlight the dangers that polarization represents for democracy.

AbstractThe American Dream is central to the national ethos, reflecting people's optimism that all who are willing to work hard can achieve a better life than their parents. Separate from the support for the idea of the American Dream itself is whether the public believes it is attainable. We consider the origins and dynamics of the public's belief in the achievability of the American Dream. Is the American Dream a symbolic vision, rooted in political socialization rather than contemporary politics? Or does optimism about the American Dream follow from the viability of the dream, rising with economic prosperity and falling with declining opportunity? We develop a new macrolevel measure of belief in the American Dream from 1973 to 2018. We show that it moves over time, responsive to changes in social mobility, income inequality, and economic perceptions. As inequality increases, belief in the attainability of the American Dream declines.

AbstractThis Article analyzes the rise of international transformative constitutionalism in Latin America and responds to some of the challenges to its legitimacy and effectiveness. It focuses on the practice of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR), the decisions and procedures of which constitute a small, but vibrant and essential, part of a wider Latin American community of human rights—a diverse group of actors who confront violence, social exclusion, and weak institutions through legal means.

The U.S. led the world in environmental policy in the 1970s, but now lags behind comparable nations and resists joining others in tackling climate change. Two embedded, entwined, and exceptional American institutions—broad private property rights and competitive federalism—are necessary for explaining this shift. These two institutions shaped the exceptional stringency of 1970s American environmental laws and the powerful backlash against these laws that continues today. American colonies ensured broad private rights to use land and natural resources for profit. The colonies and the independent state governments that followed wielded expansive authority to govern this commodified environment. In the 1780s, Congress underwrote state governance of the privatized environment by directing the parceling and transfer of federal land to private parties and of environmental governance to future states. The 1787 Constitution cemented these relationships and exposed states to interstate economic competition. Environmental laws of the 1970s imposed unprecedented challenges to the environmental prerogatives long protected by these institutions, and the beneficiaries responded with a wide-ranging counterattack. Federalism enabled this opposition to build powerful regional alliances to stymie action on climate change. These overlooked institutional factors are necessary to explain why Canadian and American environmental policies have diverged.

The COVID-19 pandemic compounds stressors of daily life among American Indian/Alaska Natives. This study investigated the impact of COVID-19 among American Indian/Alaska Natives and non-Hispanic whites by examining depressive symptoms, overall stress, resilience, and coping, utilizing the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping. Of the 207 individuals participating in this study, 109 identified as American Indian/Alaska Native and 98 as non-Hispanic white. Despite demographic similarities, American Indian/Alaska Natives exhibited more stressors related to COVID-19 as well as higher depressive symptom scores compared to non-Hispanic whites. Furthermore, COVID-19 stressors were more positively correlated with depressive symptoms for American Indian/Alaska Natives than non-Hispanic whites. For American Indian/Alaska Natives, the predominant coping processes identified were planful problem solving, escape-avoidance, and self-controlling. This study provides data to support programs and policies centered on improving the psychosocial health for American Indians/Alaska Natives and decreasing COVID-19-related health disparities.

This study examined the experience of caregiving during a pandemic by asking five questions about how COVID-19 was impacting twenty American Indian caregivers providing care to a family member who was disabled, elderly, or had a chronic health condition. Interviews were conducted via Zoom. Themes identified were concern about the care recipient contracting COVID-19, increased caregiving intensity, increased Medical care issues, changes to caregiver health and health behaviors, and support received and increased need for support during the pandemic (material and emotional). Responses indicate that tribes and American Indian health organizations should initiate services that can support caregivers during the pandemic or make changes to their caregiver programs.

I am very pleased to participate in this dialogue on the effect of collective protest on social spending in Latin America, which initiated when the editors of LAPS invited me to review the research note titled "Organized Labor Strikes and Social Spending in Latin America: The Synchronizing Effect of Mass Protest." Dongkyu Kim, Mi-son Kim, and Cesar Villegas engage with my paper, published in Comparative Political Studies (Zarate-Tenorio 2014), which analyzes the effects of organized labor strikes and mass protests on social security and welfare, health and education spending in Latin America, 1970–2007.

ABSTRACTThe theories and evidence about relationships between democracy and social spending in Latin America are highly contested. A recent study shows that collective protest by organized labor effectively increases social security and welfare spending, whereas mass protest does not have comparable effects on human capital spending in Latin American democracies. This article reexamines the analysis and demonstrates that organized labor alone cannot sway democratic governments. Labor strikes require the synchronizing effect of mass protest to obtain government concessions. Only through concurrent episodes of mass protest can organized labor overcome the numerical disadvantage of pressing democratic government for social welfare spending. In understanding the relationship between labor protests and social welfare spending through the lens of insider-outsider dichotomy, it is critical to consider the synchronizing effect of mass protests. The findings remain robust with alternative measures of democracy and various model specifications.

AbstractScholars and pundits have long noted the dominance of the American two‐party system, but we know relatively little about new, endogenous institutions that have emerged within the two major parties. I argue that ideological factions provide party sub‐brands, which allow legislators to more precisely define their partisan type and capture faction‐specific resources. To support this claim, I analyze new data on nine ideological factions in the House of Representatives (1995–2018). I find that (1) faction voting is distinct, suggesting a product ripe for party sub‐branding, and (2) joining a faction changes the ideological composition of a candidate's donor base—conditional on the strength of the faction's institutions. Party sub‐branding is effective only when factions possess organizational features that induce coordinated and disciplined position taking (e.g., whips, PACs, membership restrictions). These results suggest that, even within highly polarized parties, American political ideology is more than a dichotomous choice, and factions target niche markets of political donors as a means of blunting financial instruments of party power.

American Indians and Alaska Natives suffer disproportionately from poverty and other inequities and are vulnerable to adverse health and socioeconomic effects of COVID-19. Using surveys and interviews (May–July 2020), we examined urban American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents' (N=50) health and behaviors, family dynamics, community cohesion, and traditional practice participation during COVID-19. About 20% of teens reported clinically significant anxiety and depression, 25% reported food insecurity, and 40% reported poor sleep. Teens also reported high family and community cohesion, and many engaged in traditional practices during this time. Although many teens reported problems, they also emphasized resilience strategies.

The state courts of last resort are vital components of American judicial system, disposing of many important legal matters. The chief justices of these courts serve consequential roles in these institutions. Although scholars have examined the selection and duties of states' chief justices, their interactions with the elected branches are understudied. We focus on how chief justices on state high courts use their roles to encourage judicial reform. Specifically, we examine the determinants of chief justices' successes or failures as advocates for their justice systems. To analyze why chief justices succeed or fail as reform advocates, we analyze the fate of reform proposals offered in state of the judiciary addresses. Our results indicate that greater ideological similarity between the state legislature and chief justice or state supreme court median increases the odds of an agenda item being enacted. We also find that the scope of a policy request influences the likelihood it will be granted.

Purpose: To provide a nationally representative description on the prevalences of policies, practices, programs, and supports relating to worksite wellness in US hospitals. Design: Cross-sectional, self-report of hospitals participating in Workplace Health in America (WHA) survey from November 2016 through September 2017. Setting: Hospitals across the United States. Participants: Random sample of 338 eligible hospitals participating in the WHA survey. Measures: We used previous items from the 2004 National Worksite Health Promotion survey. Key measures included presence of Worksite Health Promotion programs, evidence-based strategies, health screenings, disease management programs, incentives, work-life policies, barriers to health promotion program implementation, and occupational safety and health. Analysis: Independent variables included hospital characteristics (eg, size). Dependent characteristics included worksite health promotion components. Descriptive statistics and χ2 analyses were used. Results: Eighty-two percent of hospitals offered a wellness programs during the previous year with larger hospitals more likely than smaller hospitals to offer programs ( P < .01). Among hospitals with wellness programs, 69% offered nutrition programs, 74% offered physical activity (PA) programs, and 84% had a policy to restrict all tobacco use. Among those with cafeterias or vending machines, 40% had a policy for healthier foods. Only 47% and 25% of hospitals offered lactation support or healthy sleep programs, respectively. Conclusion: Most hospitals offer wellness programs. However, there remain hospitals that do not offer wellness programs. Among those that have wellness programs, most offer supports for nutrition, PA, and tobacco control. Few hospitals offered programs on healthy sleep or lactation support.

Affluent Americans have disproportionate influence over policymaking and often use their power to advance conservative economic policies that increase inequality. I show that this behavior is partially driven by affluent Americans' desire for social status. First, I use a new survey scale to show that affluent Americans' desire for social status strongly predicts their level of economic conservatism. Second, I test my theory experimentally in the context of social media. On sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, affluent Americans compete for social status by sharing curated versions of their lives that highlight their upper-class lifestyle. When I randomly assign affluent Americans to experience this status competition, it causes them to become more economically conservative. The results help us understand the social and psychological origins of economic conservatism among affluent Americans, and provide the first evidence that social media encourages political behaviors that are conducive to inequality.

Recent work has called for sociologists to incorporate postcolonial theory into their toolkits to better understand the mechanics of race in the United States. The authors answer this call by showing how postcolonial and field theories can be bridged to explain how movements of the 1970s developed distinct visions of panethnicity. Drawing on published case studies, as well as a unique data set of pioneering "Asian American" and "Hispanic" movement magazines from the 1970s, the authors systematically compare how community leaders framed panethnic identities before they became widely institutionalized. The authors show that although Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans could have developed a panethnic narrative centered on American imperialism, it was Asian Americans who constructed a postcolonial panethnic politics. In contrast, "Hispanic" stakeholders of the 1970s framed panethnicity more conservatively and at times patriotically. The authors contend that the different visions of panethnicity reflect the distinct colonial and imperial history of Asians and Hispanics in the United States as well as the position of Asian American and Hispanic panethnic leaders within and across the racial fields of the 1970s. This study suggests that panethnicity as a mobilizing identity narrative is politically flexible and amenable to different visions of racial equality. Moreover, the authors show how postcolonialism and field theory can be further synthesized to advance the study of panethnicity.