Censorship,the Media,and the Market in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Pervasive media censorship in China is often seen as a strictly political issue. Although in past years reporters have had leeway to report on economic...     

Japan,the US,and the emergence of multilateralism in Asia

APEC's founding and subsequent development has been seen as primarily driven by the ‘middle’ and smaller powers of Asia, such as Australia and the ASEAN countries, with Japan as a secondary, if supportive, and the US as a passive and reluctant, player. This article, while acknowledging Australia's essential leadership in the founding process, uses new evidence about it to revise views of Japan and the US's roles in APEC. I argue that the former played a more major role in APEC's founding and that the latter was more positive in its thinking about that forum than has been acknowledged. This should force us to rethink the politics of APEC, paying more attention to how the political economy and relationship of the two major powers in the region influence the patterns of cooperation and conflict in it. It should also lead us to reconsider the efficacy of the major theories of international relations that might be used to explain APEC's politics and development.     

Screens in the sky: SAGE,surveillance, and the automation of perceptual,mnemonic, and epistemological labor

This essay investigates the centrality of the U.S. Military in the process of automating the labor of surveillance. The creation of Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), an anti-nuclear defense system developed in the 1950s, marked the computerization of the perceptual, mnemonic, and epistemological labor that is necessary for surveillance and is emblematic of screening technologies. The essay situates SAGE in a long history of military surveillance that depended upon media technologies. Building upon the work of Michel Foucault and Freidrich Kittler, it is argued that media are essential for understanding how surveillance is problematized for security.     

Agency Problems, the 17th Amendment, and Representation in the Senate

A prominent change in American electoral institutions occurred when the 17th Amendment to the Constitution established direct election of U.S. Senators as of 1914. How did this change the political agency relationship between the mass electorate and U.S. Senators? We develop theoretical expectations about the representational effects of direct election by a relatively inexpert mass electorate and indirect election by a relatively expert political intermediary, based on principal‐agent theory. The chief predictions are that the representative will be more responsive to the mass electorate under direct election, but will also have more discretion to pursue his or her own ends. We use the 17th Amendment as a quasi‐experiment to test the predictions of the theory. Statistical models show strong support for both predictions. Moreover, the 17th Amendment is not associated with similar changes in the U.S. House of Representatives—as expected, since the amendment did not change House electoral institutions.     

Social Capital,Islam, and the Arab Spring in the Middle East

To what extent do participatory civil society dynamics, rooted in self-assertive social capital, help explain the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011? How do pro-democratic Arab attitudes matter in promoting elite-challenging collective actions? Does Islam support or hinder elite-challenging, self-assertive social capital? To answer these questions, this study systematically examines the variation in self-assertive (emancipative) social capital in Egypt and Jordan from a comparative perspective. By using emancipative social capital theory, this article embarks on an individual-level quantitative analysis derived from the World Values Survey database to explore the empirical nexus between pro-democratic attitudes, elite-challenging actions, and Islamic values in order to partly explain comparatively high-intensive and persistent uprisings in Egypt and relatively low-intensive and less persistent demonstrations in Jordan. The findings offer critical insights in understanding the social capital dimension of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 and contribute new clues about empirical interactions between Islamic resurgence and civil society dynamics in the Muslim world.     

Blame,Responsibility, and the Tea Party in the 2010 Midterm Elections

There is a general consensus both in the news media and scholarly research that 2010 was a highly nationalized election year. Reports have indicated that anti-Obama sentiment, the Democrats’ legislative agenda, the economy, and the Tea Party were all factors contributing to Democratic losses in the congressional elections. In this paper, we use data from 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to examine the individual-level dynamics that contributed to the heightened nationalization of the 2010 congressional elections. Our analysis shows that Tea Party support and the attribution of blame and responsibility by voters are essential to understanding the 2010 election outcome, beyond what we would expect from a simple referendum model of midterm elections. Not surprisingly, Tea Party supporters blamed Democrats for the state of national affairs, disapproved of the Democrats’ policy agenda, and overwhelmingly supported Republican candidates in the congressional elections. However, our analysis shows that not all voters who supported Republican candidates were driven by high levels of opposition to President Obama and the Democrats. Another key group of voters blamed both Democrats and Republicans for the nation’s problems but ultimately held Democrats responsible in the voting booth by supporting Republican congressional candidates.     

Decentralization,Fiscal Independence,and Poverty in the Philippines

Decentralization is a common public sector reform in developing countries. Its basic rationale is that local governments have an informational advantage regarding the needs and preferences of consumers. However, decentralization also has drawbacks. Foremost is the efficiency advantage of the central government in providing public services because of economies of scale and better access to resources. This study looked at the relationship between decentralization and poverty using data from Philippine cities and municipalities. Results suggest that decentralization, as represented by fiscal independence and measured by the share of locally sourced revenues to total local government revenues, is indeed associated with lower poverty. However, this effect is not linear—the marginal effect of decentralization on poverty diminishes as decentralization increases. Moreover, decentralization moderates the positive effect of good governance on poverty reduction and the magnitude of the relationship between poverty and decentralization is stronger in poorer municipalities than in richer ones.     

The case of the camera in the kitchen: Surveillance,privacy, sanctions,and governance

In the summer of 2007, a member of the Rationality Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem took it upon himself to install a closed‐circuit TV camera in the Center’s kitchen. An email explained that the camera was installed in an effort to solve the problem of cleanness in the kitchen. The camera was removed a week later: within this week, the members of the Center exchanged close to 120 emails among themselves, expressing their opinions for and against the camera, and discussing related issues. Taking off from this exchange, this article explores some of the surprisingly rich set of normative concerns touched upon by the kitchen camera incident. Among them: public surveillance and people’s polarised attitudes to it, the invasive gaze and the argument that “if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about,” the efficacy of disciplining behavior through sanctions along with the problem of shaming sanctions, the notion of privacy and its arguable relevance to the kitchen case, and more. In an epilogue, I offer some reflections in the wake of the incident, connecting it to the incipient literature on regulation through observation. I find that it is precisely the smallness, concreteness, and seeming triviality of this incident that helps bring a large set of interconnected, vexing normative concerns into sharp relief.     

The agency role of the physician in Ireland,Britain, and the USA

The USA and Britain have medical care delivery and financing systems which are polar opposites. The Irish system incorporates important features of both. Using original household survey data of medical care utilization in Ireland, and published data and studies of the USA and Britain, the effect of the incentive structures in the three systems on physician behavior, especially on the so-called agency role, is examined. We conclude that the incentive structure is of the utmost importance to policy makers concerned with health costs and economic rationality of medical care systems.     

Child Poverty,the Great Recession,and the Social Safety Net in the United States

In this paper, we comprehensively examine the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty, with particular attention to the role of the social safety net in mitigating the adverse effects of shocks to earnings and income. Using a state panel data model and data for 2000 to 2014, we estimate the relationship between the business cycle and child poverty, and we examine how and to what extent the safety net is providing protection to at‐risk children. We find compelling evidence that the safety net provides protection; that is, the cyclicality of after‐tax‐and‐transfer child poverty is significantly attenuated relative to the cyclicality of private income poverty. We also find that the protective effect of the safety net is not similar across demographic groups, and that children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, such as those living with Hispanic or single heads, or particularly those living with immigrant household heads—or immigrant spouses—experience larger poverty cyclicality than those living with non‐Hispanic white or married heads, or those living with native household heads with native spouses. Our findings hold across a host of choices for how to define poverty. These include measures based on absolute thresholds or more relative thresholds. They also hold for measures of resources that include not only cash and near‐cash transfers net of taxes but also several measures of the value of public medical benefits.     

Donors,Primary Elections,and Polarization in the United States

I examine the influence of partisan donors on the district-level ideological polarization of congressional candidates in the United States. I use data from 2002–10 U.S. House elections, which provide for the placement of major party primary winners on the same ideological dimension as their primary, general election, and partisan donor constituencies. Using this unique data set, I find strong evidence that the influence of donors in nominating contests is a source of polarization in the United States. House nominees are more responsive to their donor constituencies than either their primary or general electorates. I also find some evidence that the lack of general election competition affects nominee extremity. In safer districts, Democratic incumbents appear more responsive to donors. However, Republican donors seem to demand proximity regardless of district competitiveness. Overall, the polarizing effects of donor constituencies dominate any moderating effects, resulting in ideologically extreme nominees and, ultimately, members of Congress.     

Immigration, National Identity, and Conservatism in the United States

American conservatives are divided about the future of legal immigration. Whereas some assert that the US should remain a 'nation of immigrants', others insist that immigration levels should be reduced to a bare minimum. The divisions owe much to ddifferent conceptions of American national identity. Whereas some represent the US as a 'universal nation' open to all those who subscribe to particular political and philosophical principles, growing numbers within the conservative movement put forward visions of an American nation structured around a distinct ethno-culture. The rifts are deeply rooted, and have consequences for the future of both American conservatism and the Republican Party.     

Work,fertility, and the status of women in Mexico

Among the major transformations affecting Mexican women in recent decades were their growing participation in the labor market and the fertility decline that began in the 1970s with widespread access to contraception. Data from 3 major Mexican fertility surveys, employment surveys, and censuses are used to analyze changes in female employment and their determinants during the years of economic recession in the 1980s. The main characteristics of the Mexican fertility decline are described, and the relationship between fertility and female employment before and during the economic recession is scrutinized for different social sectors. Suggestions for research on the affects of these changes on the social condition of Mexican women are then presented. The proportions of Mexican women over 12 years old who declared themselves economically active increased from 16% in 1970 to 21% in 1979 and 32% in 1987. Until the 1970s the majority of employed women were young and single or childless. But a clear increase occurred between 1976-87 in the economic participation of older women in union. Economic participation of low income and less educated women increased as they sought work or created their own in response to deteriorating living conditions during the recession. Young women with intermediate or higher educational levels did not increase their relative presence in the labor market in the same period. The marked increase in economic participation of less educated women in union with small children was accompanied by a significant increase in manual occupations. Between 1982-87, the proportion of women aged 20-49 in nonsalaried manual occupations rose from 7.6% to 18.5%. Mexico's fertility decline has been well documented. The total fertility rate declined from 6.3 in 1973 to 3.8 in 1986, while the percentage of women in union using a contraceptive method increased from 30.2 in 1976 to 52.7 in 1987. Fertility differentials have been declining but are still considerable. The inhibitory influence of children on female labor force participation in Mexico is clear, but in the years of economic recession the most notable increase in female workers was in women with 3 or more children of whom the youngest was under 3. It appears that the influence of children on women's employment depends on the socioeconomic status of the woman as well as on the dynamism or sluggishness of the labor market. Research is needed on the significance of changes in fertility and female employment for women's status in Mexico. Several recent works have presented results of microsocial analyses of the ways in which women experience changes in their lives resulting from fertility and employment decisions. A methodological strategy for studying these changes and their influence on women's status should focus on comparisons between different generations and birth cohorts, different types of employment, and different socioeconomic statuses. Both macrosocial and microsocial forms of analysis are needed to provide a full picture.     

Representation, Voluntary Retirement, and Shirking in the Last Term

There is disagreement over whether or not representatives shirk.Previous studies, however, have used raw interest group scores thatdo not allow for accurate comparisons over time. I take advantageof recently published indexed ADA scores by Groseclose, Levitt, andSnyder (1999) that adjust for temporal differences to test forshirking. I compare results from adjusted ADA scores to Poole andRosenthal's Nominate scores. With a simple, straightforward test ofdyadic representation, I provide additional evidence that shirkingexists among voluntarily retiring members of Congress.