Tolerance and Intolerance, 1976–1998

Early students of political tolerance projected a rapid rise in levels of tolerance, but subsequent research has failed to offer conclusive evidence regarding whether tolerance has, in fact, increased. The General Social Survey (GSS) included the same 15 dichotomous tolerance items in the period 1976–1998, seemingly permitting assessment of trends in tolerance through examination of a standard 0–15 scale. Unfortunately, the validity of these data is uncertain because we cannot rule out the possibility that changes in affect toward the five GSS target groups, not true changes in tolerance, drive movement in the longitudinal series. To address this problem, we reexamine the GSS data from the perspective of past discussions of the meaning of tolerance and intolerance. We argue that that the GSS scale captures two aspects of tolerance: whether respondents are tolerant or intolerant; and, among the intolerant, the breadth and depth of their intolerance. We further argue that the first of these dimensions can be measured validly using the GSS data. Our analyses reveal that, at most, tolerance has increased only marginally in the period 1976–1998.     

Imperialism and Resistance: Canadian mining companies in Latin America

David Harvey's concept of accumulation by dispossession is a useful framework for understanding the predatory activities of Canadian mining companies in Latin America. Capitalist imperialism is rooted in the logic of a socioeconomic system that is driven by the competitive pursuit of profit based on the exploitation of labour, and which is prone to over-accumulation. Capital, backed by state power, pursues a spatial fix to resolve the systematic crisis of over-accumulation. The creation of new spaces of accumulation is not an innocuous process; it inevitably involves the forceful and violent reorganisation of peoples' lives as they are subordinated to the whims of capital. Strategies of accumulation by dispossession by capital therefore commonly spawn popular resistance from the affected communities. The Canadian mining industry is the largest in the world, and much of its outward investment targets Latin America. The Canadian company share of the larger company exploration market in Latin America (and the Caribbean) has grown steadily since the early 1990s, up to 35% by 2004, the largest by far among all its competitors, with seven Canadian companies among the top 20 mineral exploration investors in the region from 1989 to 2001. This paper charts these trends of Canadian mining expansion in Latin America and then focuses on the community, environmental and worker resistance it is generating in the cases of Chile and Colombia.     

Shirking in the Contemporary Congress: A Reappraisal

Michael H. Crespin Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, 303 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824 e-mail: e-mail: crespinm{at}msu.edu Jeffery A. Jenkins Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, 601 University Place, Evanston, IL 60208 e-mail: e-mail: j-jenkins3{at}northwestern.edu Ryan J. Vander Wielen Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1027, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130 e-mail: e-mail: rjvander{at}artsci.wustl.edu This paper replicates the findings that appeared in the article"Severing the Electoral Connection: Shirking in the ContemporaryCongress," published in the American Journal of Political Science(44:316–325), in which Lawrence Rothenberg and MitchellSanders incorporated a new research design and, contrary toall previous studies, found evidence of ideological shirkingin the U.S. House of Representatives. We investigate the robustnessof their results by reestimating their model with Congress-specificfixed effects and find that their results no longer hold.     

Determinants of coattail voting

Recent studies have demonstrated the continuing importance of presidential coattails for U.S. House elections, but little is known regarding what factors increase or decrease the individual tendency toward coattail voting. Several possible determinants of coattail voting are examined in this paper. Analysis of data from the 1984 South Bend Study reveals that the magnitude of presidential coattails is affected by the strength of evaluations of the presidential candidates, the voter's sensitivity to the local political scene, and the political climate of the voter's neighborhood. Interest in the 1984 campaign was not found to influence coattail voting.     

Black soldier fly (Diptera: Stratiomyidae) colonization of pig carrion in south Georgia

The black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens (L.), is thought to colonize corpses 20-30 days postmortem. However, recent observations indicate this might not be true for all cases. Therefore, we conducted a study examining colonization by the black soldier fly and other Diptera on pig carrion in a plowed field in southern Georgia from 20 September through 21 February. Our data indicate black soldier flies could colonize a corpse within the first week after death. Knowing this information could prevent a serious mistake in estimating the time at which a corpse is colonized by this species. This study also represents the first record of Chrysomya rufifacies in Georgia.     

Asked and Answered: Knowledge Levels When We Will Not Take “Don't Know” for an Answer

A pivotal claim in research on citizen competence is that the typical citizen knows very little about politics. Public opinion surveys provide a considerable body of evidence in support of this position. However, survey protocols with respect to factual questions about politics violate established norms in psychometric research on educational testing in that don't know answers are encouraged rather than discouraged. Because encouraging don't know responses potentially confounds efforts to identify substantive understanding, this practice may lead to the systematic understatement of political knowledge. We explore this possibility with data drawn from three split-ballot tests: one conducted as part of a survey in the Tallahassee, Florida, metropolitan area, one conducted as part of the 1998 NES Pilot, and one conducted as part of the 2000 NES. Results reveal that the mean level of political knowledge increases by approximately 15% when knowledge questions are asked in accordance with accepted practices in educational testing.