Detection of Mitragynine in Mitragyna Speciosa (Kratom) Using Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy with Handheld Devices

A simple, quick, selective, sensitive, and effective field-friendly method capable of being used by nonexperts has been developed for detecting mitragynine in Mitragyna speciosa (kratom) using surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Over 100 samples and blanks (known to be either positive or negative for the presence of mitragynine) were examined in duplicate using five identical handheld Raman spectrometers, which provided a data set of over 1,000 examinations. Based on the results of these analyses, the method yielded a true-positive rate of 99.3%, a true-negative rate of 97.9%, a false-positive rate of 2.1%, and a false-negative rate of 0.7%. The average minimum detectable concentration (C_m) of mitragynine that reproducibly yielded a match for one of the library spectra on all five instruments was determined to be 342 ng/mL (ppb). This C_m value is a conservative estimate considering that the extraction process was not fully optimized by this study, which was not necessary since the C_m value achieved was well below typical mitragynine concentrations in kratom (1.3–2.3%). The method is ideal (i) for prioritizing samples for additional testing using other more time-consuming laboratory-based techniques needed to detect and quantify mitragynine and (ii) for field use at international mail facility (IMF) satellite laboratories to help interdict kratom and prevent this dangerous product from reaching the U.S. supply chain.     

Antifa,Street Gangs,and the Importance of Group Processes

This essay reviews David Pyrooz and James Densley’s “On Public Protest, Violence, and Street Gangs” and raises new questions about the ways in which Antifa is similar to and different from social movements; the processes by which “factions within Antifa” become gangs; and the dynamic nature of relationships and interactions between and among violent and non-violent segments. It concludes with a note about the everchanging nature of social life and importance of flexibility in the design and execution of research in capturing this reality.     

State,Society, and Informality in Cities of the Global South

Contemporary urbanization in the Global South merits greater attention from scholars of comparative politics. Governance, associational life, and political behavior take distinctive forms in the social and institutional environments created by rapid urbanization, particularly within informal settlements and labor markets. In this special issue, we examine forms of collective action and claims-making in these spaces. We also consider how the state assesses, maps, and responds to the demands of informal sector actors. Tackling questions of citizen and state behavior in these informal urban contexts requires innovative research strategies due to data scarcity and social and institutional complexity. Contributors to this symposium offer novel strategies for addressing these challenges, including the use of informal archives, worksite-based sampling, ethnographic survey design, enforcement process-tracing, and crowd-sourced data.     

Rule growth and government effectiveness: why it takes the capacity to learn and coordinate to constrain rule growth

This paper asks whether strong bureaucracies can effectively constrain the continuously growing stock of rules in modern democracies through organizational coordination and learning. To answer this question, the paper analyzes the growth of rule stocks in the areas of environmental policy and social policy in 23 OECD countries over the period between 1976 and 2005. To do so, it develops a new measure of rule growth based on the content of laws and regulations rather than their length. The analysis highlights that effective bureaucracies are indeed better able to contain rule growth in these areas than weak bureaucracies. Since rules have to be implemented, countries suffering from bureaucratic capacity and quality constraints thus appear to be stuck in an implementation deficit trap. Appropriate implementation is not only inherently more challenging for countries with weak public administrations, but the body of rules to be implemented also tends to grow quicker in these countries.     

Public Services after Austerity: Zombies,Suez or Collaboration?

Public services—in the UK and elsewhere—are under considerable pressure, not just from austerity, but also from a variety of social, demographic and technological changes (in effect ‘austerity plus’). In this context, three broad options are open to policy‐makers: continue with tried‐and‐tested approaches while spending less money, which in the UK means a reliance on ‘New Public Management’ (NPM); withdraw completely from certain public services; or develop new approaches to public administration. We argue that all of these approaches have been attempted in recent years, but it is the final option that is most interesting and potentially the most beneficial. In this article, we examine experiments with these new approaches in responding to ‘austerity plus’. In particular, we examine various attempts at ‘collaboration’ in public services and discuss the risks associated with them. We conclude by setting out the extent to which policy‐makers have moved beyond NPM and suggesting some of the benefits that this could bring.     

College Socialization and the Economic Views of Affluent Americans

Affluent Americans support more conservative economic policies than the nonaffluent, and government responds disproportionately to these views. Yet little is known about the emergence of these consequential views. We develop, test, and find support for a theory of class cultural norms: These preferences are partly traceable to socialization that occurs on predominantly affluent college campuses, especially those with norms of financial gain, and especially among socially embedded students. The economic views of the student's cohort also matter, in part independently of affluence. We use a large panel data set with a high response rate and more rigorous causal inference strategies than previous socialization studies. The affluent campus effect holds with matching, among students with limited school choice, and in a natural experiment; and it passes placebo tests. College socialization partly explains why affluent Americans support economically conservative policies.     

Ideology,Learning, and Policy Diffusion: Experimental Evidence

We introduce experimental research design to the study of policy diffusion in order to better understand how political ideology affects policymakers’ willingness to learn from one another's experiences. Our two experiments–embedded in national surveys of U.S. municipal officials–expose local policymakers to vignettes describing the zoning and home foreclosure policies of other cities, offering opportunities to learn more. We find that: (1) policymakers who are ideologically predisposed against the described policy are relatively unwilling to learn from others, but (2) such ideological biases can be overcome with an emphasis on the policy's success or on its adoption by co‐partisans in other communities. We also find a similar partisan‐based bias among traditional ideological supporters, who are less willing to learn from those in the opposing party. The experimental approach offered here provides numerous new opportunities for scholars of policy diffusion.     

Front‐Door Difference‐in‐Differences Estimators

We develop front‐door difference‐in‐differences estimators as an extension of front‐door estimators. Under one‐sided noncompliance, an exclusion restriction, and assumptions analogous to parallel trends assumptions, this extension allows identification when the front‐door criterion does not hold. Even if the assumptions are relaxed, we show that the front‐door and front‐door difference‐in‐differences estimators may be combined to form bounds. Finally, we show that under one‐sided noncompliance, these techniques do not require the use of control units. We illustrate these points with an application to a job training study and with an application to Florida's early in‐person voting program. For the job training study, we show that these techniques can recover an experimental benchmark. For the Florida program, we find some evidence that early in‐person voting had small positive effects on turnout in 2008. This provides a counterpoint to recent claims that early voting had a negative effect on turnout in 2008.     

Why do Legislators Skip Votes? Position Taking Versus Policy Influence

A legislator’s duty is to vote on legislation, yet legislators routinely miss votes. Existing studies of absenteeism have focused on the US Congress, producing useful but partial explanations. We provide added insight by examining absenteeism in American state legislatures. Our data include 2,916,471 individual votes cast by 4392 legislators from 64 legislative chambers. This rich, multistate dataset produces insights that build on and sometimes conflict with Congressional research. We use a multilevel logistic model with nested and crossed random effects to estimate the influence of variables at five different levels. In particular, we investigate whether state legislators miss unimportant votes or important votes. Contrary to what Congressional studies have found, we find that state legislators avoid participating in close or major votes, favoring reelection concerns over policy influence. We also find that state-to-state variations in legislative professionalism—in particular, the length of the session—affect absenteeism, with shorter sessions leading to higher absenteeism.