Solace for the Frustrations of Silent Citizenship: the Case of Epicureanism

Insofar as no democratic society can fully realize norms of free and equal citizenship, citizens in such regimes are likely to experience some degree of discontent with their political lives. This raises a second purpose for democratic theory beyond the usual focus on improving democratic institutions: the psychological issue of how ordinary citizens might find solace in the face of disappointment. Democratic theory is capable of providing solace because egalitarian commitments – equality, free speech, solidarity, and self-sufficiency – have a double potential: they not only ground efforts to democratize institutions, but when sublimated in apolitical form also have the capacity to generate a transcendence of the political form itself. In this essay, I pursue both ideas – the need for solace and egalitarianism's ability to provide it – through analysis of the way Epicureanism may have functioned for the ordinary, plebeian citizens in late Republican Rome.     

Do the Joneses Help You Keep Up? A Natural Experiment in Exposure to Nonpoor Neighbors

This study capitalizes on a natural experiment in Montgomery County, Maryland, where low-income applicant families are randomly assigned to public housing that is either (a) clustered within seven public housing developments or (b) scattered into market-rate subdivisions via the county's inclusionary zoning policy. Through a survey of 453 public housing residents, we find that adults who lived in scattered public housing reported a lower proportion of low-socioeconomic status (SES) social ties generally and a lower proportion of low-SES neighbors specifically in their social networks. They also counted more high-SES individuals in their social networks, and this effect was related to the amount of time they lived in the neighborhood. Living in scattered public housing had no adverse effect on feelings of neighborhood belonging or satisfaction. The socioeconomic composition of respondents' social networks was associated with two health outcomes for respondents (smoking and depression) and modestly associated with respondents' household income.     

Intimate Partner Violence Screening in a Women Veterans’ Health Clinic: Assessing Feasibility

Women presenting for care within a suburban Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital (VA) were screened for intimate partner violence (IPV). This study aimed to explore the feasibility of screening for IPV within a VA women’s health clinic, assess how well the screening measure captured women veterans’ experiences of IPV, and compare clinical correlates of IPV in women veterans who have and have not experienced IPV. Of 96 eligible women, 93 (97 %) answered a self-report question regarding experience of lifetime IPV and 72 (75 %) participated in a standardized screening. Among participants, 42 (47 %) reported experiencing past or current IPV, and of those, 11 (25 %) reported that they were currently experiencing IPV, and 31 (70 %) reported that they had experienced IPV in their past. Screening for IPV among women veterans in a women’s health clinic is feasible and identifies women who experience IPV, offering opportunities for referral and intervention.     

Is Voting Habit Forming? New Evidence from Experiments and Regression Discontinuities

Field experiments and regression discontinuity designs test whether voting is habit forming by examining whether a random shock to turnout in one election affects participation in subsequent elections. We contribute to this literature by offering a vast amount of new statistical evidence on the long‐term consequences of random and quasi‐random inducements to vote. The behavior of millions of voters confirms the persistence of voter turnout and calls attention to theoretically meaningful nuances in the development and expression of voting habits. We suggest that individuals become habituated to voting in particular types of elections. The degree of persistence appears to vary by electoral context and by the attributes of those who comply with an initial inducement to vote.     

Evaluating the News: (Mis)Perceptions of Objectivity and Credibility

Political Behavior - The introduction and popularity of politically biased news sources represents a significant historical shift in the media environment, with important unexplored consequences....     

Pandemics,economic freedom,and institutional trade-offs

European Journal of Law and Economics - We argue that institutions are bundles that involve trade-offs in the government’s ability to provide public goods that affect public health. We...     

Traversing the Fantasy: Why Leftist Academics Must Abandon the Myth of Organic Resistance and Think Again About the Problems We Face

Critical Criminology - The concept of organic resistance has stood as a cornerstone of critical social science for decades. Countless authors have claimed that minor acts of...     

The WTO, Science, and the Environment: Moving Towards Consistency

Governments are increasingly using taxes to address a varietyof environmental concerns. World Trade Organization (WTO) rulesrecognize that, like regulatory instruments, governments mayuse taxes for protectionist purposes. The rules are designedto prevent protectionist behaviour while allowing use of suchinstruments for genuine purposes such as environmental protection.Interestingly, however, there are some notable anomalies inthe rules arising from differential evidentiary requirementsin different situations. First, the rules are different dependingupon whether a country's measure aims to protect on one handhuman, animal, or plant health; or on the other, the environment.Second, the rules are stricter where a country's measure takesthe form of a regulation than where it takes the form of a tax.The article argues that there is no principled rationale forthe differential evidentiary requirements by instrument (regulationversus taxes) or area (health versus environment) but findsthat there may be both a historical and political economy explanation.It also discusses the desirability for consistency in WTO lawacross instruments and risk-related policy areas.     

Schizophrenia, AIDS and the decision to prescribe HAART: results of a national survey of HIV clinicians

Individuals with schizophrenia are at risk of developing HIV and are known to experience barriers to optimal medical care. Our goal was to determine, among a cohort of HIV clinicians, whether or not the diagnosis of schizophrenia affected the clinical decision to offer highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to AIDS patients. This is a cross-sectional study of a random, national sample of HIV experts drawn from the membership of the American Academy of HIV Medicine. Participants were mailed a self-administered questionnaire with a case vignette of a new onset AIDS patient and were specifically asked whether or not they would recommend HAART treatment. Vignettes were randomly assigned to include a diagnosis of schizophrenia or not. We located 649 clinicians (93%); 347 responded (53.4%). Responders and non-responders did not differ in demographics or work characteristics. Recommendation of antiretroviral treatment did not differ between those who received a case vignette with schizophrenia versus those who did not(95.8% vs. 96.6%, p=0.69). Compared to those who received a case vignette without schizophrenia, those who received vignettes with schizophrenia were more likely to avoid prescribing efavirenz, a medication with known neuropsychiatric side effects(17.7% vs. 45.5%, p < 0.01), more likely to agree to be helped by a specialist(34.5% vs. 12.9%, p < 0.01), and more likely to recommend directly observed therapy (20% vs.10%, p = 0.01). HIV clinicians recognize the importance of recommending HAART treatment to individuals with schizophrenia and AIDS and avoid using antiretroviral medication with known neuropsychiatric side effects.