Mortal Beings: How Evolution Helps Us Understand Illness and Aging

In these two books, biological anthropologist Richard Bribiescas and developmental psychologist David Geary address sex differences in health and aging from the perspectives of evolutionary biology and psychology. Bribiescas explores the aging process in men and describes why and how men age differently from women, with earlier mortality and greater susceptibility to the diseases of aging. Geary provides a comprehensive survey of the animal and human literature on sex differences in vulnerabilities to the effects of stress on psychological and physical traits. Both authors focus on the role of Darwinian sexual selection as the source of different health outcomes for men and women. These works make valuable contributions to our understanding of why humans get sick and age and argue convincingly for approaching medical research with a greater sensitivity to the role played by biological sex in poor health.     

Disloyal Brokers and Weak Parties

This article shows that the disloyalty of political brokers causes party fragility. Lacking distinctive brands, organization, and activists to mobilize individuals, parties “hire” local notables to broker votes among a local, nonpartisan constituency. However, brokers may be unreliable agents, regularly changing political allegiances in search of better returns for their brokerage among the module of voters they control. This free agency from brokers hinders durable party–voter linkages and results in electorally vulnerable parties. Measuring how brokers influence parties is empirically complex, but taking advantage of the fact that in Brazil these agents are also local candidates, this article demonstrates the negative electoral consequences of brokers' free agency on party performance. Natural experiments and an unexpected, temporary institutional reform that discouraged disloyalty for brokers demonstrate this relationship.     

The Effect of the Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansion on Migration

The expansion of Medicaid to low‐income nondisabled adults is a key component of the Affordable Care Act's strategy to increase health insurance coverage, but many states have chosen not to take up the expansion. As a result, for many low‐income adults, there has been stark variation across states in access to Medicaid since the expansions took effect in 2014. This study investigates whether individuals migrate in order to gain access to these benefits. Using an empirical model in the spirit of a difference‐in‐differences, this study finds that migration from non‐expansion states to expansion states did not increase in 2014 relative to migration in the reverse direction. The estimates are sufficiently precise to rule out a migration effect that would meaningfully affect the number of enrollees in expansion states, which suggests that Medicaid expansion decisions do not impose a meaningful fiscal externality on other states.     

Interpretation,judgement and dialogue: a hermeneutical recollection of causal analysis in critical terrorism studies

ABSTRACT

This article problematises Critical Terrorism Studies’s (CTS) seeming reluctance to engage in causal explanation. An analysis of the meta-theoretical assumptions on causation in both orthodox and critical terrorism studies reveals that the latter’s refusal to incorporate causal analysis in its broader research agenda reproduces – despite its commitment to epistemological pluralism – the former’s understanding of causation as the only sustainable one. Elemental to this understanding is the idea that causation refers to the regular observation of constant conjunction. Due to the positivist leanings of such a conception, CTS is quick to dismiss it as consolidating Orthodox Terrorism Studies’s lack of critical self-reflexivity, responsibility of the researcher, and dedication towards informing state-led policies of counterterrorism. Drawing on recent work in the philosophy of science and International Relations, this article advances an alternative understanding of causation that emphasises its interpretative, normative and dialogical fabric. It is therefore argued that CTS should reclaim causal analysis as an essential element of its research agenda. This not only facilitates a more robust challenge against Orthodox Terrorism Studies’ conventional understanding of causation but also consolidates CTS’s endeavour of deepening and broadening our understanding that (re)embeds terrorist violence in its historical and social context.     

Not just any toilet – women’s solutions to sanitation in informal settlements in Nairobi

Evidence suggests sanitation development is more effective when women are involved. The purpose of this study was to provide women with an opportunity to share their perspectives and solutions to sanitation in informal settlements. Data were collected through 55 in-depth interviews with women in Mathare Valley informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. The most common solution was to build more toilets, but women had a variety of suggestions – including gender-specific solutions. Findings from this study suggest that it is imperative to start addressing women-specific burdens associated with sanitation in informal settlements.     

Transitional Journeys Into and Out of Extremism. A Biographical Approach

This article describes an empirical study into processes of homegrown radicalization and de-radicalization of young people. Researchers in Denmark and the Netherlands set out to answer the question regarding what pathways in and out of extremism (mainly far-right or Islamist) look like “from the inside.” The analysis is informed by grounded theory, based on interviews (N = 34) with “formers” and their family members on their life courses. The study shows that radicalization often concurs with distinct social–emotional developmental challenges that young people face in the transition between youth and adulthood. A practical implication of the marked transitional sequences in these processes is that each type of radical journey may call for a different type of (re)action.     

The Language of Security: Reassessing Australia's Policies of Free Trade and Offshore Detention

Offshore detention and bilateral free trade constitute hallmarks of Australia's international policy. This paper explores how these policy directions were originally justified in the Pacific Solution and the Australia‐US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA). In the literature both policies are theorised as security offerings but whilst the Pacific Solution is obviously exclusionary, AUSFTA aimed at including Australia in the US's orbit. This suggests that security as a justification for policy is flexible, complex, and warrants closer observation of its practical articulations. Reviewing the speeches with which the relevant Ministers introduced their legislation, I argue that offshore detention and bilateral free trade derive from a specific language of security in which policy‐makers view individual actors as the basis of national threats. The language of security invokes a threatening international environment by focussing on the selfish and amoral components of human behaviour whilst diminishing social institutions and collective structures. Vague anarchy and simplified individualism position the state as a righteous protector rather than a rational policy‐maker. I conclude by questioning whether this is a sound basis for policy and canvass options for escaping the language of security.