Suchergebnisse

Partisan polarization is a central feature of American political life, and a robust literature has shown that citizens engage in partisan motivated reasoning when processing political information. At the same time, however, recent events have highlighted a rising tide of antigovernment sentiment among Democrats and Republicans alike. Using an original set of survey experiments, we find that citizens engage in confirmation bias when they encounter new information, and this is driven not only by party and ideology but also by beliefs about the quality and efficiency of government. Taken together, our findings suggest important limitations to citizens' capacity to learn about public administration, and expand our understanding of what drives confirmation bias with respect to public and private service provision.

The early twentieth-century witnessed numerous efforts to reform state government institutions, resulting in the widespread adoption of such reforms as the direct primary and citizen initiative. By contrast, efforts to establish unicameral state legislatures experienced success in just one state: Nebraska. In this article, I examine why movements to adopt one-house legislatures in other states failed in the wake of the Nebraska breakthrough of 1934. Using a most-similar case study research design, I compare the successful Nebraska effort to unsuccessful subsequent efforts in Ohio and Missouri, and I point to rural opposition as being the decisive factor explaining divergent outcomes across the three states. In Nebraska, the lack of malapportionment in the bicameral legislature meant that rural communities did not fear that unicameralism would lead to their diminished influence in state government, but in Ohio and Missouri (where malapportionment was high) rural communities used their structural advantages in state politics to shut down unicameralism efforts. The article's findings suggest that the bicameral state legislature is an important institutional legacy of the bygone era of rural dominance in American politics.

AbstractBased largely on research completed in the North American context, scholars of prisons detail the multiple ways in which carceral practices extend beyond prison walls to transform a wide variety of spaces, ultimately assessing how carceral imaginaries inhabit the most intimate aspects of everyday life. In Latin America, this division between the inside and the outside of prison breaks down even further when read from the perspective of survival. Drawing on ethnographic research across Guatemala's penitentiary system, this article explores how the deep interdependencies that develop between male prisoners and female visitors sustain not just these prisoners and their visitors but also the prison system itself.

ABSTRACTA large body of scholarship examines how Pentecostal and evangelical churches alter gender relations in Latin America. Some argue that these churches reform even the most liberation‐resistant social structures—the domestic sphere—by fundamentally reordering the relative participation of women and men in this realm. What has received less attention are the sexual responsibilities assigned to women that are a recommended part of Pentecostal gender reforms. In a longitudinal ethnographic study examining Pentecostal healing in Oaxaca, the authors observed companionate marital training where women are warned not to put their children before their husbands, as women's conjugal relationships are portrayed to be more central to their gender identity than motherhood. We examine the history of companionate marriage in Mexico and discover parallel commitments of various state institutions and religious actors to reform key aspects of gender in Mexico. We employ the theory of reproductive governance to understand how moral regimes directed toward reproductive behaviors and practices are fully entangled with political, economic, and modernizing projects. By examining the history of this particular modernity project, we hope to contribute to ongoing debates about women's participation in evangelical Christianity in Latin America. [gender, sexuality, Pentecostalism, Mexico]

AbstractThis chapter attempts to deepen the understanding of small sellers of evaluation services through a survey of the American Evaluation Association's Independent Consulting Topical Interest Group members, delving into the inner workings of their organizations. The chapter examines where boutique evaluators in the United States generate their revenues, how some have survived as independent evaluators for 10 or more years, how they differentiate themselves from their competition, whether they do subcontract work with large sellers, and how they deliver high‐quality evaluation services. A case example of one small seller, SPEC Associates, is used to elucidate the survey findings.

During the late 2000s, Early Child Education and Care (ECEC) became a policy priority for several Latin American countries. Coherent with international ideas yet against the legacy of deep‐seated segmentation, the new programs embraced universalist aims. Are countries able to achieve universalism? Why are some countries advancing more than others? This article addresses this question, exploring changes in the policy architectures and policy processes behind ECEC in Costa Rica and Uruguay—two regional leaders in these efforts. Based on document analysis and interviews with policymakers, we show that Uruguay advanced more decisively towards unification and explore why.

Social scientists have shown how easily individuals are moved to exclude outgroup members. Can we foster inclusion instead? This study leverages one of the most significant humanitarian crises of our time to test whether, and under what conditions, American citizens adopt more inclusionary behavior toward Syrian refugees. We conduct a nationally representative survey of over 5,000 American citizens in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election and experimentally test whether a perspective-taking exercise increases inclusionary behavior in the form of an anonymous letter supportive of refugees to be sent to the 45th President of the United States. Our results indicate that the perspective-taking message increases the likelihood of writing such a positive letter by two to five percentage points. By contrast, an informational message had no significant effect on letter writing. The effect of the perspective-taking exercise occurs in the short run only, manifests as a behavioral rather than an attitudinal response, and is strongest among Democrats. However, this effect also appears in the subset of Republican respondents, suggesting that efforts to promote perspective taking may move to action a wide cross-section of individuals.

In 2005, noted historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker advanced the thesis that President Richard M. Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger viewed Taiwan as an expendable asset in their rush to promote Sino-American normalization, resulting in the administration conceding more than necessary in disregard for Taiwan's future or status. This article examines documents declassified since Tucker's study to argue that this interpretation is no longer tenable. Nixon and Kissinger applied to their Taiwan policy a set of principles remarkably consistent with their broader views on foreign policy, namely an emphasis on peoples directly involved in conflicts undertaking gradual, peaceful changes, while maintaining in the interim some form of security arrangement to maintain peace. Moreover, both Nixon and Kissinger understood the myriad benefits of the u.s. relationship with the Republic of China in advancing American interests and maintaining credibility in a volatile world, and, in fact, did consider the future status of Taiwan and its government. This culminated in the Kissinger-Zhou Enlai discussions in 1971 where the former deftly defended, to the extent possible, a principled commitment to Taiwan. Ultimately, the administration's insistence on establishing rapprochement with Beijing did not mean that Washington simply would cave to every Chinese demand. Taiwan was not expendable.

After 1950, the "Old pumc [Peking Union Medical College]" represented for many "the greatest bulwark for the American cultural aggression," a label deeply rooted in China's ideology of "anti-Americanism" during the Cold War. The Chinese Communist Party (ccp) advocated the carrying forward of the Yan'an spirit of populism and was determined to make the "People's New pumc" better than the "Old pumc" before 1949, when the ccp took control of Mainland China. However, to upgrade medical care standards and promote advanced scientific research, pragmatic ccp leaders had to rely on intellectuals who received training at the "Old pumc" and retained most of its old traditions. Therefore, the persistence of the "Old pumc" mirrored the struggle between East and West, China and the United States, politics and academics, elites and masses, and urban and rural during the critical period of the Mao Zedong era. More important, this paper will demonstrate how regardless of extraordinary personal and political pressure, a small cohort of the Chinese scholars held fast to the dignity of a truth-seeking spirit, resisting the ideology of "anti-Americanism" that prevailed in the People's Republic of China during this era.

This research aims to bring reflections on the topic of violence against the elderly, with an emphasis on the female gender, in the Latin American and Caribbean scenario. It is known that there are countries in the region among the most violent in the world, especially against women, hence the option of studying this region. Through narrative review, some considerations about the victim profile, the profile of the violence perpetrator, the scenario where the abuses occur, the types of aggressions most commonly reported, are analyzed. While the elderly are subjected to intradomicile violence, it must be highlighted that the also suffer cultural and structural violence. It is emphasized how understudied this particular subject is.

AbstractWhat makes some lawmakers more effective than others is a central question in American politics. Recent research has emphasized the role of informal, persuasive leadership, but this research has focused almost exclusively on Congress, so it is unclear whether this approach to lawmaking is generally effective. Analysis of state legislatures is hampered by the lack of a theoretically sound and practically feasible measure of legislative effectiveness. I offer a solution to the primary problem with traditional hit rates. I apply this approach to North Carolina legislators and show my effectiveness estimates correspond with expert evaluations. I then examine recent terms of the Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina legislatures to evaluate the relative importance of formal and informal powers at the state level. I hypothesize and find that informal, persuasive leadership is not effective in state legislatures where lawmaking is better explained by formal, hierarchical authority.

With the historical televised first presidential debates of John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, television made its national debut as a political influence. Television became a third player in the debates in the way it filmed the candidates. Kennedy and Nixon respectively served as models of effective and ineffective presentations of oneself on the electronic screen. Because of this event, "The Image" emerged as part of the sensibility for any public figure as well as an intrinsic part of the political lexicon. Kennedy, as President, also developed a model of his frequent usage of television as an outreach connection to the public. A few years later television became the dominant media when it presented the Vietnam War to the viewers' living rooms. This sparked a series of protests not only anti-draft but from other movements: civil rights, black protest, student rights, women's rights in a society that was becoming part of an unprecedented information age. Television not only reported these events, it repeated its visual imagery which helped to reinforce changing norms in our society. Fifty-five years later, Donald Trump, known for his television celebrity as well as his reputation as a successful businessman, became an unusual marker of reality about public tolerance and acceptance, largely helped by cable television and its effect after fifty-five years of viewers and the additional factor of hundreds of cable channels. Kennedy, Nixon and Trump serve as bookends for television's prominent and definitely mediated influence on American history.

The political, technical, social, and economic challenges related to climate change are well documented. As policy makers are increasingly experiencing the reality of rising sea levels, they are also confronting a fragmented and sometimes fractured intergovernmental system. State and local governments face a delicate balancing act, especially, when it comes to infrastructure and climate change. They must respond to citizens, avoid losing their autonomy, maintain fiscal stability and health, provide a high quality of life, and ensure public safety. The reality of anthropogenic climate change has compounded many of these difficulties, perhaps, most acutely in America's coastal states and communities. Recognizing these challenges, this article examines the challenges facing coastal communities as they seek to adapt to and build more resilient infrastructure that can mitigate the impacts of rising sea levels.

Gender bias in elections is both a source of debate in the political science literature and a prominent topic in U.S. political discourse. As a result, Americans are exposed to differing messages about the extent to which women face disadvantages in their campaigns for office. We argue that such messages can have differing effects—some of which benefit female candidates, but others that may perpetuate the gender gap in political ambition. Using a survey experiment administered on samples of the U.S. public, campaign donors, and college students, we show that messages portraying women as facing gender bias boosts female candidates' support and young people's willingness to engage in campaign activism on their behalf. Simultaneously, it does not affect female candidates' fundraising ability. But paradoxically, such messages also reduce young women's confidence in their own ability to run a political campaign. These results suggest important implications for women's underrepresentation.

Are there mechanisms by which the advantaged can see the perspectives of the disadvantaged? If advantaged individuals have prolonged engagement with disadvantaged populations and confront issues of inequality through national service, do they see the world more through the lens of the poor? We explore this question by examining Teach For America (TFA), as TFA is a prominent national service program that integrates top college graduates into low-income communities for two years and employs a selection model that allows for causal inference. A regression discontinuity approach, utilizing an original survey of over 32,000 TFA applicants and TFA's selection data for the 2007–2015 application cycles, reveals that extended intergroup contact in a service context causes advantaged Americans to adopt beliefs that are closer to those of disadvantaged Americans. These findings have broad implications for our understanding of the impact of intergroup contact on perceptions of social justice and prejudice reduction.