What Can We Learn About the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program by Looking at the Tenants?

Abstract

Several recent studies have found that homeownership has positive effects on children's development. This article extends these studies by testing whether these effects depend on neighborhood conditions. This extension is important because many low‐income families that become homeowners under current policies promoting homeownership for the poor are likely to purchase homes in troubled or distressed neighborhoods.

Homeownership in almost any neighborhood is found to benefit children, while neighborhood effects are weak. This suggests that the children of most low‐income renters would be better served by programs that help their families become homeowners in their current neighborhoods instead of helping them move to better neighborhoods while remaining renters. However, the positive effects of homeownership on children are weakened in distressed neighborhoods, especially those that are residentially unstable and poor. Thus, helping low‐income families purchase homes in good neighborhoods is likely to have the best effects on children.     

What About Disillusionment? Exploring the Pathways to Black Nationalism

Political scientists devote little attention to the attitudinal consequences of Blacks’ disillusionment with racial progress in America. This oversight undermines our understanding of the antecedents of support for the ideology of Black nationalism. I hypothesize that disillusionment and linked fate interact to influence Black nationalism: the stronger one’s disillusionment, the greater her adherence to this ideology, and the weaker the impact of her linked fate on her expression of nationalism. Analyses of the 1993–1994 National Black Politics Study and the 2004–2005 National Politics Study corroborate these expectations, indicating that disillusionment moderates the impact of linked fate on Black nationalism.     

What Is It About Politicians?

Why do people dislike politicians and could anything be done about it? Drawing upon survey evidence, it is argued that the twin charge against politicians is that they are engaged in a kind of game and that they are a political class out of touch with real life. These charges are examined and found to have at least some merit. Remedies would involve a change in political behaviour; and measures to widen political recruitment. The consequences of not making such changes will be a further erosion of political trust. Constitutional change is less important in tackling dislike of politicians than alterations in political behaviour.     

What Is Quality of Government? A Theory of Impartial Government Institutions

The recent growth in research on “good governance” and the quality of government institutions has been propelled by empirical findings that show that such institutions may hold the key to understanding economic growth and social welfare in developing and transition countries. We argue, however, that a key issue has not been addressed, namely, what quality of government (QoG) actually means at the conceptual level. Based on analyses of political theory, we propose a more coherent and specific definition of QoG: the impartiality of institutions that exercise government authority. We relate the idea of impartiality to a series of criticisms stemming from the fields of public administration, public choice, multiculturalism, and feminism. To place the theory of impartiality in a larger context, we then contrast its scope and meaning with that of a threefold set of competing concepts of quality of government: democracy, the rule of law, and efficiency/effectiveness.     

What Did Angleton Say About Golitsyn?

In an earlier issue of this journal I examined statements attributed to James J. Angleton, then Chief of the CIA Counterintelligence Staff, that Anatoli Mikhailovich Golitsyn had worked secretly for the CIA for many years prior to defecting in Helsinki in December 1961. Further research shows that Angleton had made similar remarks on a number of occasions, but intended something other than the usual meaning of the phrase ‘worked for’.     

What is the cost of voting?

Despite a wealth of literature on the determinants of electoral turnout, little is known about the cost of voting. Some studies suggest that facilitating voting slightly increases turnout, but what ultimately matters is people's subjective perceptions of how costly voting is. This paper offers a first comprehensive analysis of the subjective cost of voting and its impact on voter turnout. We use data from an original survey conducted in Canada and data from the Making Electoral Democracy Work project which covers 23 elections among 5 different countries. We distinguish direct and information/decision voting costs. That is, the direct costs that are related to the act of voting and the costs that are related to the efforts to make (an informed) choice. We find that the cost of voting is generally perceived to be very small but that those who find voting more difficult are indeed less prone to vote, controlling for a host of other considerations. That impact, however, is relatively small, and the direct cost matters more than the information/decision cost.     

What’s So Funny About That?

This paper argues that it is impossible to know why we laugh. There are a number of theories that attempt to explain why we laugh but they all have limitations. It is possible, however, to know what makes us laugh and 45 techniques that inform humor are listed and used to analyze a number of humorous texts. These techniques can also be used to study the humor of different nations to determine which they favor and which they neglect, thus offering insights into national character.     

What drives the diffusion of inclusionary zoning?

Social scientists offer competing theories on what explains the policymaking process. These typically include economic rationalism, political competition or power struggles, and policy imitation of the kind that diffuses across spatially proximate neighbors. In this paper, we examine the factors that have influenced a recent local policy trend in California: inclusionary zoning (IZ). IZ programs require developers to make a certain percentage of the units within their market‐rate residential developments affordable to low‐ or moderate‐income households. By 2007, 68 percent of jurisdictions in the San Francisco Bay Area had adopted some type of IZ policy. We test the relative importance of economic, political, and spatial factors in explaining the rapid diffusion of IZ, across 100 cities and towns in the Bay Area. Consistent with an economic efficiency argument, results of hazard models provide some evidence that IZ is adopted in places with less affordable housing. However, political factors, such as partisan affiliation and the strength of affordable housing nonprofits, are even more robust predictors of whether or not a local government adopts IZ. There is no evidence of spatial diffusion in the case of IZ adoption; jurisdictions are not, on average, responding to the behavior of their neighbors. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

What is the matter of feminist criticism?

This paper is situated in the context of feminist debates around nature, culture, the body and essentialism, and focuses specifically on matter and materiality. In part, it is a response to recent developments in the natural sciences which suggest that strictly social constructionist and/or epistemological approaches to matter may be inadequate to the task of analysis and critique. It begins by considering some of the specific conditions under which the sex/gender model emerged, and its implications, before addressing the work of three contemporary theorists who are engaged with differing conceptions of matter, ontology and substance. I suggest that, while not necessarily providing ‘solutions’, these projects raise the kinds of questions that promise torevivify the flesh and blood of feminist critique.     

What Motivates Reasoning? A Theory of Goal‐Dependent Political Evaluation

Rather than exhibiting bias or open‐minded reasoning at baseline, we argue that information processing is motivated by whatever goals a context makes salient. Thus, if politics feels like debate, people will be motivated to argue for their side. If politics feels like deliberation, they will be motivated to seek consensus through open‐minded processing. Results from three experiments demonstrate: (1) Politics evokes thoughts similar to conflictual contexts and dissimilar from deliberative contexts. (2) Consequently, information labeled “political” primes the motivation to counterargue, leading to opinion polarization. Absent such labeling, no such motivation is evident, explaining why bias is common but not inherent to politics. (3) Despite this capacity for bias, people can be motivated to actively process and accept counterattitudinal information by simply making the value of open‐mindedness salient. This suggests open‐minded discourse is possible even absent motivation to evaluate information accurately. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research for political discourse.     

What does it take for a roving bandit settle down? Theory and an illustrative history of the Visigoths

A roving bandit provides exclusive (rivalrous) collective goods to members of its in-group. A stationary bandit further provides inclusive (non-rivalrous; public) collective goods to the out-group. The inclusive goods are an input to the production of the exclusive goods enjoyed by the in-group. As such, the transition from roving to stationary bandit is likely to involve the redefinition of the in-group, its collective interest, and the type of goods that it provides. To illustrate these points, I employ a case study of the roving Visigothic confederacy as it evolved during the fourth and fifth centuries towards the stationary Visigothic Kingdom. The illustration provides insights into why competition amongst roving bandits does not always (or often) lead to the emergence of a non-predatory state.     

What the House of Lords is Really for?

The Lords beats the Commons hands-down in scrutinising legislation, but it is also a repository of informed opinion to serve the nation. It is, that is, so long as it remains appointed not elected.     

What Stops the Torture?

States whose agents engage in torture in a given year have a 93% chance of continuing to torture in the following year. What leads governments to stop the use of torture? We focus on the principal–agent relationship between the executive and the individuals responsible for supervising and interrogating state prisoners. We argue that some liberal democratic institutions change the probability that leaders support the creation of institutions that discourage jailers and interrogators from engaging in torture, thus increasing the probability of a state terminating its use of torture. These relationships are strongly conditioned by the presence of violent dissent; states rarely terminate the use of torture when they face a threat. Once campaigns of violent dissent stop, however, states with popular suffrage and a free press are considerably more likely to terminate their use of torture. Also given the end of violent dissent, the greater the number of veto points in government, the lower the likelihood that a state terminates its use of torture.