SSI eligibility and participation among the oldest old: evidence from the AHEAD

The proportion of elderly SSI recipients aged 70 or older has been growing in recent years, perhaps because of rising life expectancies overall and a higher incidence of poverty among the oldest old. In 1999, 84 percent of all elderly SSI recipients were 70 or older. This article examines Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility and participation among the oldest old. The analysis was based on 1993 data from the Study of Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old that were used to build a detailed SSI eligibility model to identify individuals who meet the federal criteria for SSI income and resource eligibility. The participation rate among those eligible for federal SSI benefits is 53.9 percent, which is generally consistent with the findings of other studies. Furthermore, eligible participants would receive a significantly higher federal SSI benefit than eligible nonparticipants. Correspondingly, eligible participants have significantly lower incomes and assets than eligible nonparticipants. An econometric model is used to estimate the influence of various demographic, financial, and health care use characteristics on the probability of SSI participation among eligible individuals and couples. The model corrects for measurement error in calculated benefits and for misclassifying someone as ineligible. The empirical results show that the effect of higher SSI benefits on the probability of participation is substantial--a $100 increase in benefits would increase the probability of participating for an average eligible unit by 15 percentage points. Many of the demographic, financial, and health care use variables also are important predictors of SSI participation among the oldest old. The eligibility and participation models are also used to simulate the effect of increasing the SSI unearned income disregard from $20 to $125. Those made eligible by this policy change would receive a very low federal SSI benefit on average, suggesting that they are on the margin of eligibility under the original program rules. The simulated participation rate is 48.8 percent--5 percentage points lower than under the original program rules--reflecting the low benefit that new eligibles would receive. Only 36 percent of those made eligible by the new program rules are predicted to participate. These SSI eligibility and participation models are potentially useful tools for policy analysis. It is fairly straightforward to use these models to change a feature of SSI eligibility, reestimate the group of eligible individuals and couples, and predict participation among those who are eligible under the simulated program rules. New eligibles can be compared with those eligible under original program rules. New participants can be compared with old participants. Although these models focus only on individuals aged 70 or older, this type of analysis can be helpful in estimating the potential distributional effects of proposed SSI policy changes.     

Reinventing cyberfeminism: cyberfeminism and the new biology

This article argues for the reinvention of cyberfeminism in the context of the convergence between biology and computer science. Initially a response to cyberpunk and the colonization of the new final frontier by cyberspace cowboys, cyberfeminism was always already more than the essentialist and apocalyptic versions which gained popular appeal during the 1990s. Donna Haraway’s more strategic cyberfeminism is articulated in relation to biotechnology and her conviction that biology – in its symbiotic relation with information systems – is an increasingly hegemonic discourse. The new biology extends its influence from health and food industries to environmentalism, management and intellectual property law and it is subsuming theories of life, mind and culture such as artificial life and evolutionary psychology. Through an analysis of these neo-biological discourses, I argue for a renewed cyberfeminist engagement with biology which does not rehearse familiar oppositional arguments but which recognizes that biology itself is a complex and by no means unified field.     

新时期:高职院校办公室工作新特点与新思路

近年来,中国高等职业教育实现了跨越式发展和历史性变革,高等职业院校所处社会经济条件和学校内部管理体制也发生了剧烈变化,科学构建适应高等职业院校办公室工作的现代管理理念、现代管理队伍和现代管理方式,才能实现高等职业院校办公室工作从传统的执行型、操作型、事务型向研究型、参谋型、开拓型转变。     

Fusing drug enforcement: a study of the El Paso Intelligence Center

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), a key intelligence component of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to shed light on fusion efforts in drug enforcement. Since 1974, EPIC has strived to fuse the resources and capabilities of multiple government agencies to counter drug trafficking and related threats along the Southwest US border. While undergoing a steady growth, the Center has confronted a host of challenges that illuminate the uses and limits of multi-agency endeavors in drug enforcement. An evaluative study of the Center shows that it is well aligned with the federal government priorities in the realm of drug enforcement; however the extent to which the Center’s activities support the government’s efforts in this domain is not so clear. The Center needs to improve the way it reviews its own performance to better adapt and serve its customers.     

Re-reading the new regionalism: A sympathetic critique

This paper provides a sympathetic critique of the new regionalism—currently one of the leading debates taking place in English-speaking human geography. By unpacking the new regionalism from its dual origins in economic geography and political science, the paper engages with some of its inherent lines of weakness by: developing a critique arguing that it is inappropriate on the part of the new regionalism to neglect the role of the state in the resurgence of regions in the reconstituted capitalist space economy; exploring the accusation that the new regionalism has become enmeshed in multifaceted scalar politics and associated tangled policy hierarchies; and, arguing that, through policy-transfer programmes, path- dependency, social capital and soft institutionalism, the new regionalism has been constructed on inadequate foundations. Finally, in developing this sympathetic theoretical and methodological critique towards the new regionalism, this paper speculates on how new regionalists should actually go about ‘doing’ regional regulation.     

Missing pieces in each other's puzzles: Integrating the new public management and the new political economy

Although New Political Economy ideas have sometimes accompanied New Public Management ideas in programs of bureaucratic reform (especially outside the United States), the two schools of thought have remained separate. I argue that the problems of bureaucracy are largely political problems. Therefore, bureaucratic reform must be viewed in tandem with political reform. New Public Management can learn from New Political Economy's emphasis on the incentives of self-interested politicians, and New Political Economy can learn from New Public Management's normative approach and focus on citizens. I use an “exit and voice” framework to discuss and evaluate alternative approaches to reform.     

The collective Jew: Israel and the new antisemitism

For Theodor Herzl, Zionism, in the sense of a political movement to establish a sovereign Jewish state, offered the only workable solution to the problem of antisemitism. Some commentators today speak of a 'new anti-Semitism'. They claim, first, that there is a new wave or outbreak of hostility towards Jews that began with the start of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000 and is continuing at the present time. Second, and more fundamentally, the 'new anti-Semitism' is said to involve a new form or type of hostility towards Jews: hostility towards Israel. This is the claim under discussion in Klug's paper. The claim implies an equivalence between (a) the individual Jew in the old or classical version of antisemitism and (b) the state of Israel in the new or modern variety. Klug argues that this concept is confused and that the use to which it is put gives a distorted picture of the facts. He begins by recalling classical antisemitism, the kind that led to the persecution of European Jewry to which Herzl's Zionism was a reaction. On this basis, he briefly reformulates the question of whether and when hostility towards Israel is antisemitic. He then discusses the so-called new form of antisemitism, especially the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. He concludes by revisiting Herzl's vision in light of the situation today.     

Mediated political masculinities: the commander-in-chief vs. the new man

The media play a very influential role in our perceptions of our political leaders, irrespective of where in the world they appear. Since the latter part of the twentieth century, our leaders’ personalities came to play an increasing role in their appeal, in particularly their gendered performances. As Barack Obama's presidency draws to the end of its second term, this paper will examine the representation of his persona in the context of the election in 2008 when he became the first Black US president. Much has been written of him being the first Black president of the USA, however, if we explore his campaign through a gendered lens, we can see that he is equally revolutionary. This contrasts with the gendered construction of male political leaders in other parts of the world, particularly that of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Building on work carried out in relation to the mediatisation and personalisation of politics in the last 50 years, this article shows how gendered performances can be seen to mirror changes in society.     

Symposium comment: On the new politics of public policy

The process is not the problem, the problem is the problem. Rudolph Penner (1984). …We argue the superiority of the outcome from the process, not of the process from the outcome. The constancy of the economist's objection to this conclusion when applied to governmental rather than market decisions simply often reflects the fact that, while some economists are not disturbed that consumer preferences lead to allocation policies other than best respond to their own tastes, when political preferences lead to governmental policies not consistent with his informed and considered preferences, they are tempted to attribute irrationality to government.     

Russian revisionism: Holocaust denial and the new nationalist historiography

Holocaust denial has appeared in Russia only recently and has attracted almost no attention in the academic sphere, and relatively little from monitoring organizations. The research for this article - examining the place of Holocaust denial in contemporary Russia - was conducted over three months in Russia and on the Internet. The results indicate that the phenomenon remains of marginal significance and that the majority of material is of western origin. While there are several factors that make the development of Holocaust denial probable - the comparatively high level of antisemitism in Russia, post-Soviet suspicion of historiography and lack of education about the Holocaust - the Soviet war experience and associated anti-Nazi feeling arguably act as restraints on those who would propagate it. Rock concludes that Holocaust-denial material is of less importance than other antisemitic revisions of Russian history that have entered the mainstream of contemporary Russian society.     

Contested governance: The new repertoire of the Eurozone crisis

The austerity policies that EU policymakers adopted in response to the Eurozone crisis are often criticized as the product of institutionalized neoliberal ideas. This critique has merits, but tends to overlook institutional changes that do not neatly conform to well demarcated neoliberal ideas considered as “switchmen,” “paradigms,” or “blueprints.” This article offers an alternative reading of the Eurozone's institutional evolution that bridges pragmatist scholarship with cognitive and social psychology. The Eurozone crisis saw the emergence of a new and contested repertoire of governance. Policymakers agreed that “stronger governance” was necessary, but they struggled over how to perform that repertoire. This contest ultimately produced institutional changes that typically mixed austerity and unconventional policies. The advantage of thinking about ideas in terms of repertoires that actors perform is to afford a more granular view of institutions as sites of individual cognition, collective innovation, and political contestation.