Who Consents? Competing Pivots in Federal Judicial Selection

The salience of judicial appointments in contemporary American politics has precipitated a surge of scholarly interest in the dynamics of advice and consent in the U.S. Senate. In this article, we compare alternative pivotal politics models of the judicial nominations process, each capturing a different set of potential veto players in the Senate. We use these spatial models to guide empirical analysis of rejection patterns in confirmation contests for the lower federal courts. Using data on the outcomes of all nominations to the U.S. Courts of Appeals and the U.S. District Courts between 1975 and 2006, we show that models incorporating the preferences of the majority party median and the filibuster pivots best account for confirmation patterns we observe at the appellate and trial court levels, while advice and consent for trial courts has more recently been influenced by home-state senators.     

Understanding ‘The Panty Shanty’: off-campus house signs as cultural texts on gender and sexuality

Students at a large, prestigious, public university in the Midwestern region of the USA have a long-standing tradition of naming their rented houses off campus and communicating those names to the student body through displaying prominent and eye-catching house signs. Examples of signs names and visual characteristics are: ‘Betty Ford Clinic’ (featuring an image of a martini glass); ‘Morning Wood’ (referencing male sexual arousal and depicting a tent with a man's legs sticking out); ‘Time Well Wasted’ (written in pink over a beach scene and a martini glass); ‘Fox Den’ (images of a fox tail and a well-known sorority symbol); ‘Tequila Mockingbird’ (a play on words); and ‘Down on U’ (the sign references a sexual act for a house located on University Avenue). Through a socio-feminist and social constructionist perspective, the researchers use content analysis to explore how these house signs serve as cultural texts on gender and sexuality norms in the American undergraduate college setting. Based on our data, house signs reinforce dominant forms of gender ideologies, including hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity, both of which are associated with upholding and promoting institutionalized patriarchy (Connell, R. W., &; Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005 Connell, R. W., &; Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender &; Society, 19, 829–859. 10.1177/0891243205278639.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender &; Society, 19, 829–859). These house signs are also shown through the data to promote a campus culture of heteronormativity where partying, drinking, and casual sex are standards for social belonging, and where high rates of sexual assault persist. As opposed to viewing house signs as simply manifestations of student wit and harmless humor, the researchers critically evaluate if and how these visual displays serve as a mechanism through which gender and sexuality-related inequalities are perpetuated within a higher education institutional setting. Implications for students and their college campuses are discussed.     

Market-Oriented Reforms as a Tool of State-Building: Russian Pension Reform in 2001

Despite domestic opposition and several policy alternatives, in 2001 the Russian government adopted a pension reform that was potentially costly and had uncertain long-term benefits. Demographic and fiscal pressures created the desire to reform and a more cooperative Duma made it possible to do so. These points do not explain why Putin chose the pension privatisation option. Russia's pension reform is best understood as part of a state-building strategy to diminish the role of powerful bureaucracies. Russia's welfare state was not merely the product of a powerful and popular president, but rather a tool to create a stronger executive.     

Real and unreal masculinities: the celebrity image in anti-trafficking campaigns

Numerous scholars note the highly gendered nature of anti-trafficking responses. Much of the literature exploring anti-trafficking campaigns, however, focuses on the objectification of women and their placement as abject bodies, objects of violence, in pain and to be pitied. Nevertheless, few scholars explore how these campaigns portray men and shape masculinities. Using as example a highly publicised online anti-trafficking campaign, ‘Real Men Don't Buy Girls’, this article responds to this gap in the literature by exploring depictions of masculinities through this prominent anti-trafficking public service announcement. The article observes that this announcement serves not to reshape gender performance around trafficking, but instead further reproduces existing gender structures and power relations underpinning trafficking and child exploitation. It observes that the campaign re-instantiates hegemonic masculinities – framing men enacting this masculine form as ‘real men’ – while encouraging men to embody a virile, successful, consumerist, controlling, and patriarchal manliness. We observe that these characteristics are notably assigned to celebrity men. Meanwhile, it is noted that men who buy girls are set in binary opposition to these real men, being shaped as faceless, un-described, deviant, and ‘unreal’. The result is that the campaign not only patterns masculinities, but also objectifies the objectifier as well as women, recreating a gender ordering in which women and girls remain disempowered, and buyers of girls are ultimately denied subjecthood and thus the ability to change. This article, therefore, uses this one case study to call for anti-traffickers, researchers, and scholars to urgently consider, research, and reshape portrayals of masculinities in anti-trafficking literatures. It calls for greater diversity and fuller account for a broader spectrum of gender representations in the visual representations of those involved in, and responding to, human and child trafficking, in both our scholarly work and public action.     

A Comparison of Coronary Artery Stenosis Estimates Made by Forensic Pathologists and Medical Students

Previous studies suggest cardiovascular pathologists are less accurate than noncardiovascular pathologists (e.g., clinical pathologists) in estimating the degree of coronary artery stenosis. To further investigate the effect of training on accurate estimation of coronary artery stenosis, we designed a study to compare the accuracy of estimates made by forensic pathologists versus medical students. Six forensic pathologists and twelve medical students each independently examined 24 images of coronary artery cross sections and gave an estimate of the degree of stenosis. When comparing all 24 images, the forensic pathologists had a median difference between the estimated percentage of stenosis and actual percentage of stenosis of −12.380 and the medical students had a median difference of −16.50 (p-value of 0.08542). In estimating the percentage of stenosis, training in forensic pathology does not guarantee significantly improved accuracy compared with medical students. Our study showed no consistent statistically significant difference between estimates given by forensic pathologists and by medical students.     

The Protective Role of Parental Media Monitoring Style from Early to Late Adolescence

The goal of the current study was to examine the protective role that maternal media monitoring might have for adolescents. This was done by considering whether styles of media monitoring either directly reduced media use, or whether they buffered the associations between aggressive media use and adolescents’ prosocial behavior, aggression, and delinquency. Participants were 681 adolescents from two cities in the United States (51% female; 73% white), and their mothers, who provided data at two different time points, 2 years apart (when adolescents were roughly ages 13 and 15). Mixture modeling results revealed that mothers used four different styles of media monitoring made up of combinations of active and restrictive monitoring as well as forms of co-use. Styles that included active monitoring and connective co-use (i.e., engaging in media with the intent to connect with children) were directly associated with less media use, and moderated links between adolescents’ media use and behavioral outcomes concurrently but not longitudinally. The discussion was focused on the strength of considering multiple strategies of media monitoring together, and how this approach can inform future research in the area of parental media monitoring.     

Revisiting Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress, 1947-2007

Philip Habel Department of Political Science, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Mailcode 4501, Carbondale, IL 62901 This paper replicates and extends Groseclose, Levitt, and Snyder,"Comparing Interest Group Scores Across Time and Chambers: AdjustedADA Scores for the U.S. Congress," which appeared in the AmericanPolitical Science Review (1999/93:33–50). We replicatethe most recent unpublished extension by Dr. Groseclose andresearch assistants for years 1947–1999, and then we extendthe analysis to include years 2000 through 2007. We make availableinflation-adjusted ADA scores from 1947 through 2007, allowingscholars to incorporate the most recent interest group scoresinto their analyses. Author's Note: Authors are listed alphabetically. The authorswish to thank Tim Groseclose for making available both the nominalADA scores from 1947 to 1999 and the Matlab program files usedin this analysis. SA gratefully acknowledges the support ofthe Hoover Institution during her time there as the 2006–07W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellowand the Robert Eckles Swain National Fellow. PH wishes to thankboth the Dirksen Congressional Center and the National ScienceFoundation, doctoral dissertation improvement division grant493469, for their generous support. He also wishes to acknowledgethe valuable research assistance of James Lewis, Joshua Mitchell,and Matt Bergbower. Special thanks to J. Tobin Grant, ScottMcClurg, and Wendy Tam Cho for their helpful feedback and assistance.All errors are the responsibility of the authors. Replicationmaterials and programs are available on the Political AnalysisWeb site.