Judging the “Vapid and Hollow Charade”: Citizen Evaluations and the Candor of U.S. Supreme Court Nominees

Supreme Court confirmation hearings have been famously called a “vapid and hollow charade” by Elena Kagan. Indeed, perceptions of nominees’ refusal to answer questions about pending cases, prominent political issues, or give any hint of their ideological leanings have become a cornerstone of the modern confirmation process. We investigate the extent to which this reticence to speak of their ideological views, or candor, influences how individuals evaluate the nominee. To this end, we present the results of a survey experiment which examines how support for a hypothetical Supreme Court nominee is affected by information, especially when a nominee is presented to be very forthright or very reticent in answering ideological questions during the confirmation hearings. We find that while partisan compatibility with the president is the main determinant of support for a nominee, nominees who refuse to answer ideological questions can bolster support from respondents who would not support them on partisan grounds. We supplement these findings with observational state-level support data from real nominees over the last 40 years.     

The Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement—economic potentials and policy perspectives

After more than 4 years of negotiations, Japan and the EU have reached an agreement for bilateral free trade. The intended liberalization of trade in goods, agriculture, and services would create the world’s largest free trade area. Japan and Europe are sending a strong signal against protectionism and in favor of free trade and modernizing global trade rules. While free trade in the transatlantic and the transpacific context will remain an illusion for some time to come, the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (JEEPA) is a realistic option for trade partners at the western and eastern side of the Eurasian continent. The expected overall positive effects of JEEPA should not obscure the limitations and risks of the intended trade integration. There will be economic losers of the agreement both in Europe and in Japan. There is plenty of fuel for political and social conflict. And in light of the many informal barriers, market access to Japan will remain extremely difficult for European companies. Beyond trade policy, JEEPA has a political dimension, too. It shows the political will to counteract economic disintegration and the loss of political substance in the bilateral relationship. The aim is to intensify cooperation, which would benefit both sides economically and politically.     

Neoliberalism,Nationalism and the Decline of Political Traditions

The three great Western political traditions (conservatism, liberalism, social democracy) incorporate three of the four possible combinations of the core political axes: traditional, unchanging authority versus the challenge of change, and egalitarianism versus inegalitarianism. The fourth possibility—egalitarian conservatism—has appeared in various guises, but has usually become submerged within the right, including its most authoritarian forms. Current xenophobic movements claiming to represent those suffering from excessive change—for example, those involved in the UK 's EU referendum and Donald Trump's victory in the USA —are seeing an apparent resurgence of this neglected tradition. What are its implications for politics in general?     

Scraping by: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits

Many Unemployment Insurance (UI) recipients do not find new jobs before exhausting their benefits, even when benefits are extended during recessions. Using Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) panel data covering the 2001 and 2007 to 2009 recessions and their aftermaths, we identify individuals whose jobless spells outlasted their UI benefits (exhaustees) and examine household income, program participation, and health‐related outcomes during the six months following UI exhaustion. For the average exhaustee, the loss of UI benefits is only slightly offset by increased participation in other safety net programs (e.g., food stamps), and family poverty rates rise substantially. Self‐reported disability also rises following UI exhaustion. These patterns do not vary dramatically across household demographic groups, broad income level prior to job loss, or the two business cycles. The results highlight the unique, important role of UI in the U.S. social safety net.     

Missing revolution: the American intelligence failure in Iraq, 1958

Why were American officials caught by surprise with the military coup and later revolution in Iraq on 14 July 1958? Drawing on American intelligence and diplomatic records as well as multilingual sources, this article argues that the US intelligence failure is the product of two factors: the collection of information from too few and too similar human sources of intelligence in Iraq’s ruling regime, and the unreceptivity of US officials to assessing new information and their unwillingness to update assessments of local Iraqi developments. It revisits America’s intelligence failure in Iraq and suggests important lessons for the study of intelligence.     

Shaping the Evolution of the Information Flow: The Centralizing Mechanisms in the Evolution of the North American Tobacco Quitline Consortium

The research reported here is an analysis of the evolution of the relationships that comprise a single public health network, focusing especially on the position of the network administrative organization (Provan and Kenis 2008 Provan, K. G. and P. Kenis. 2008. “Modes of Network Governance: Structure, Management, and Effectiveness.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18(2): 229–252.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in the flow of knowledge among a large number of organizations providing similar services. Our study examines the North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC), a multi-sector network that spans the US and Canada and whose members provide telephone-based tobacco cessation services to anyone interested in quitting smoking. Data were collected using web-based surveys at three different points of time. Implications are discussed for network organizing, for both theory and practice, focusing especially on the importance of the network administrative organization in shaping the evolution of the whole network information flow.     

Trends in firearm background check applications and denials

There is little previous research on firearm background check applications and denials despite the potential for such research to significantly benefit policy and practice. The U.S. firearm background check system is complex with federal, state, and local laws creating a patchwork system intended to increase public safety and reduce mortality. State characteristics may play an important role in changes in application and denial rates. We examined the relationship between application and denial rates and state characteristics such as poverty, race, gender, existing firearm ownership, and population density. Multi‐level longitudinal modeling was used in an ecological study design with the state as the unit of analysis spanning a time period between 2005 and 2010, inclusive. Results indicated that application and denial rates significantly increased over time. Population density and poverty level were negatively related to application and denial rates. Firearm ownership, male population size, and percent of residents that were white were positively related to application and denial rates. Percent of African–American residents was negatively related to application rate. The importance of understanding the factors that predict firearm prevalence and the need for additional research on the denial of firearms is discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cultural Penetration and Punctuated Policy Change: Explaining the Evolution of U.S. Energy Policy

Punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) suggests that the policy process is characterized by long periods of incremental change and short periods of punctuated change. The impetus for the latter is usually a focusing event that breaks open policy monopolies, allowing for major changes in legislative decision making. While a burgeoning body of literature, a shortcoming in the PET literature is that it has yet to explain why focusing events and subsequent breakdowns in policy monopolies sometimes fail to result in punctuated policy. We integrate theories on cultural change with punctuated equilibrium to explain why focusing events do not always result in the dramatic policy changes that we might expect. Specifically, we use the context of national energy policy and the lexical database, Google Ngram Viewer, to trace punctuating energy‐related events and the occurrence or lack thereof subsequent policy change from 1952 to 2000.     

Whole-person health and development: two South Indian initiatives

ABSTRACT

In responding to the 2016 reformulation of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, the development community’s efforts are focused on a sweep of initiatives aiming to promote whole-society, sustainable development. The ambition of the SDGs is inspiring, but also daunting, and does not always sit easily within national models of economic development. This viewpoint profiles two organisations in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, that have decades of experience in whole-person development among scheduled tribes and disability communities. Both organisations serve as timely examples of ongoing holistic, whole-person health and development in the context of new ideals and economic realities.