Beyond Performance: Racial Prejudice and Whites’ Mistrust of Government

Political Behavior - Scholars have argued that racial policy beliefs contributed to a decline in public trust among white-Americans, but this effect waned over time as racial policies left the...     

Categorically wrong? Nominal versus graded measures of ethnic identity

Ethnic identity is a fundamental concept for understanding the dynamics of contemporary political change, but there has been very little exploration of how to measure ethnic identity and even less discussion of the implications of these measurements for understanding ethnic conflict. Through an analysis of Estonians and Slavs (Russians, Byelorussians, and Ukranians) in Estonia, we show that the ethnic identity of different groups is “salient” to different degrees and that this has significant implications for within-group agreement about political issues and for between-group differences. We show that nominal ethnic identity fully predicts political attitudes when ethnicity is highly salient because a highly salient ethnic identity sets in motion forces that cause individuals within a group to form similar attitudes based upon their ethnic identity. These forces were fully active for Estonians in Estonia in the early 1990s. In this case, nominal ethnic identity was sufficient to explain the attitudes of Estonians. But ethnicity must be treated as graded when it is not highly salient, as with Slavs in Estonia, because only degrees of ethnicity can explain the within-group differences in political attitudes that arise because of a lack of salient identity. Researchers, therefore, should typically treat ethnicity as if it were graded, and they should devise graded measures of it. Although nominal measures are sometimes appropriate (i.e., when ethnicity is highly salient), they will cause the researcher to miss something important in other situations. For example, our work suggests that if events discrupt the social processes that maintain a group’s sense of itself, then a graded measure of ethnicity is useful for predicting attitudes concerning ethnic identity and survival. In short, it is not categorically wrong to treat ethnicity as nominal, but it is best to begin by treating it as graded. Henry E. Brady, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is co-author ofVoice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics andLetting the People Decide: The Dynamics of a Canadian Election. He has also written on elections, referendums, polotical behavior, and political methodology. Cynthia S. Kaplan, an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and has conducted extensive research in Russia, Estonia, and Tatarstan. She is the author ofThe Party and Agricultural Crisis Management in the USSR and numerous articles on comparative ethnicity, social movements, and political culture in the former Soviet Union.     

The benefits and costs of the Section 8 housing subsidy program: A framework and estimates of first‐year effects

This paper provides estimates for a comprehensive set of social benefits and costs associated with the federal Housing Choice Voucher ( Section 8 ) program. The impact categories for which we provide empirical estimates include the value of the voucher to recipients; additional services and public benefits induced by voucher receipt; improvements in children's health, education, and criminal behaviors; the costs of voucher provision; the labor supply impacts on voucher recipients; and community effects. These estimates rest largely on empirical analyses of the effect of voucher receipt on several recipient and taxpayer behaviors and outcomes that occur in the first year of voucher receipt. The analysis distinguishes benefits and costs accruing to program participants, nonparticipants—including taxpayers and property owners—and society as a whole. Our analysis suggests that the program is likely to meet the efficiency standard of positive net social benefits. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Women’s Acceptance of Spousal Abuse in Iraq: Prevalence Rates and the Role of Female Empowerment Characteristics

This study examines the acceptance of spousal abuse among women living in Iraq and tests whether attitudes condoning abuse are associated with low female empowerment. Of 15,875 married women surveyed, 63?% agreed that a husband is justified in beating his wife. Women lacking education were 2.3 times more likely to justify this violence than those with secondary education. Women outside the labor force were 1.4 times more likely than working women to condone this abuse. Attitudes on spousal violence varied by region and rural/urban status. Female empowerment efforts may help combat spousal violence and change social norms condoning this behavior.     

Literature in the Dock: The Trials of Oscar Wilde

This essay uses the recently published expanded record of the Queensberry libel trial to revisit the relationship between the 'literary' and 'sexual' dimensions of the Wilde scandal. The defence was guided by an integrated conception of the links between the two that shaped both the public responses and the legal proceedings, including the criminal prosecution. The conflict between moral literalism and aesthetic indeterminacy not only informed the legal determination of sexual guilt but also was inflected by social class in ways that contributed to the construction of male homosexuality and of the 'literary'.