Lost in Aggregation: Improving Event Analysis with Report‐Level Data

Most measures of social conflict processes are derived from primary and secondary source reports. In many cases, reports are used to create event‐level data sets by aggregating information from multiple, and often conflicting, reports to single event observations. We argue that this pre‐aggregation is less innocuous than it seems, costing applied researchers opportunities for improved inference. First, researchers cannot evaluate the consequences of different methods of report aggregation. Second, aggregation discards report‐level information (i.e., variation across reports) that is useful in addressing measurement error inherent in event data. Therefore, we advocate that data should be supplied and analyzed at the report level. We demonstrate the consequences of using aggregated event data as a predictor or outcome variable, and how analysis can be improved using report‐level information directly. These gains are demonstrated with simulated‐data experiments and in the analysis of real‐world data, using the newly available Mass Mobilization in Autocracies Database (MMAD).     

Roadmaps to Representation: An Experimental Study of How Voter Education Tools Affect Citizen Decision Making

Efforts to educate citizens about the candidates and issues at stake in elections are widespread. These include distributing voter guides describing candidates’ policy views and interactive tools conveying similar information. Do these voter education tools help voters identify candidates who share their policy views? We address this question by conducting survey experiments that randomly assign a nonpartisan voter guide, political party endorsements, a spatial map showing voters their own and the candidates’ ideological positions, or both a spatial map and party endorsements. We find that each type of information strengthens the relationship between voters’ policy views and those of the candidates they choose. These effects are largest for uninformed voters. When spatial maps and party endorsements send conflicting signals, many voters choose candidates with more similar policy views, against their party’s recommendation. These results contribute to debates about citizen competence and demonstrate the efficacy of practical efforts to inform electorates.

     

“Developing a community soul”: A Comparative Assessment of the Australian Assistance Plan in Three Regions, 1973–1977

The Australian Assistance Plan (AAP) was an innovative yet largely forgotten social welfare program from the 1970s. A key platform of the Whitlam Labor government, which established a series of Regional Councils for Social Development across Australia, the AAP reframed citizens’ participation in their communities, stimulated voluntary organisations and volunteering and attempted to transform engagement among all levels of governments and the voluntary sector. Through an analysis of three Regional Council case studies in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, this article focuses on the themes of regionalism and regional distinctiveness in order to assess how questions of regional difference can impact on the development of policy practices.     

The introduction of CCTV and associated changes in heroin purchase and injection settings in Footscray,Victoria, Australia

Objectives

In June 2011, closed-circuit television (CCTV) was introduced in Footscray (a suburb of Melbourne, Australia) to help deter street-based drug trading. We investigate whether there were subsequent shifts in the settings (e.g., street, house) in which heroin was purchased or injected by people who inject drugs (PWID).

Methods

Using heroin purchase data from the Melbourne Injecting Drug User Cohort Study, multinomial logistic models with fixed effects for CCTV introduction were used to estimate the percentage of: (1) heroin purchased on the street, from mobile dealers and in house settings; and (2) heroin injections occurring in street, car, public toilet, and house settings. Displacement effects were investigated with a logistic model capturing the likelihood of traveling to Footscray to purchase heroin.

Results

Following CCTV introduction, the percentage of heroin injections occurring in public toilet settings decreased by 13 % (95 % CI ?27 %, ?0 %). This was accompanied by a non-significant increase in the percentage of heroin injections in street settings of 23 % (95 % CI ?1 %, +41 %). Changes in other settings were small and non-significant. No suburb displacement effects were found.

Conclusions

The introduction of CCTV in Footscray may have displaced PWID who previously injected heroin in public toilets to street settings. Apart from this, Footscray’s street-based heroin market operates much as it did before CCTV.

     

Implications of Longevity Bias for Explaining,Evaluating, and Responding to Social Inequality

Social Justice Research - Longevity bias is the tendency to assume that longstanding states of the world are better and more right than their more recent (but otherwise identical) counterparts. In...     

Bringing Rigor to the Use of Evidence in Policy Making: Translating Early Evidence

Beyond the evidence provided by randomized controlled trials, there is a need for supplementing and contextualizing efficacy findings through early evidence. This may include evidence of program costs, quality implementation processes, and impact of programs on different groups. This article considers the Quality and Impact of Component Evidence Assessment and other exemplary efforts for translating early evidence for policy making within a common framework. This framework includes processes for strategic review, development of guiding standards on the quality of evidence, and active communication with policy makers.     

Espionage and the cold war: Oleg Penkovsky and the Cuban missile crisis

Oleg Penkovsky spied for SIS and the CIA during a crucial phase of the Cold War. Acclaimed as one of the most important spies of the century, his role in the Cuban missile crisis has been portrayed as of pre‐eminent importance to the outcome. Other historians have challenged this interpretation, while some believe that far from working for the West, Penkovsky was an instrument of Soviet strategic deception. This article draws upon CIA records and recent scholarship on the missile crisis to adjudicate on these various claims, and to show where, how and why much of the literature exaggerates and distorts Penkovsky's influence and importance. Avenues for further research are also identified.