South Korean views on Japan's constitutional reform under the Abe government

In this Special Section, this article reviews South Korean views on Japan's ‘peace’ Constitution and the Abe government's attempts at constitutional reform. It identifies three different understandings among South Korean academics on why Japan is escalating attempts to revise the Constitution under the Abe government. An in-depth analysis demonstrates that all three perspectives pay specific attention to Japan's constitutional reform in relation to security policy changes. However, they differ in assessing the impact of Japan's constitutional reform on South Korea as well as how South Korea should deal with such a change. A minority opinion considers Japan's ‘remilitarisation’ through constitutional revision as conducive to South Korean security interests by increasing deterrence against North Korea, whereas the dominant opinion is that any attempt to revise the Constitution could be in and of itself a potential threat to South Korea's security due to a lack of trust attributed to unresolved historical conflicts between Korea and Japan. However, all three approaches pay hardly any attention to the positive role of Japan's peace Constitution while Japan's peace Constitution might provide a regional peace model in Northeast Asia.     

Consequences of Forced Residential Relocation: Early Impacts of Urban Renewal Strategies on Forced Relocatees’ Housing Opportunities and Socioeconomic Outcomes

Policymakers have actively pursued urban renewal and dispersal programs to deconcentrate poverty in urban neighborhoods. Relocation strategies lead to new housing opportunities and may encourage employment opportunities for relocated residents if resourceful contacts and job information become more easily available after the move. This study provides an innovative evaluation of the early impacts of involuntary relocation programs in the Netherlands on the housing careers, earnings and employment rates of forced relocatees. It establishes a quasi-experimental design by employing unique longitudinal individual-level population registry data from Statistics Netherlands: forced relocatees are tracked and matched to a control group consisting of similar residents that were not forced to move. A difference-in-difference design shows that forced relocatees are living in less deprived neighborhoods after the move. However, we find no conclusive evidence that this upgrade in housing leads to more socioeconomic opportunities for the forced relocatees.     

Consolidating ZIP Codes for Small Area Fair Market Rents: A Method for Implementing the New Rule

Fair Market Rents (FMRs), calculated for an entire metropolitan region, are used to establish payment standards for the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. In response to recent criticism that FMRs do not represent rent disparity and restrict households from moving to high-opportunity areas, a new rule introducing Small Area Fair Market Rents (SAFMRs) has been issued. SAFMRs are based on ZIP codes to reflect local market rents and increase the number of payment standards used to administer the HCV program. The purpose of this research is to determine whether the number of payment standards can be reduced by consolidating ZIP codes, while adhering to the primary objectives of the SAFMR rule. The ZIP code grouping process conducted offers one method for reducing the number of payment standards needed to implement the new rule; however, the rent analysis reveals the over- and underestimation of SAFMRs for some ZIP codes.     

How Do Developers Respond to Land Use Regulations? An Analysis of New Housing in Los Angeles

There is strong evidence that land use regulations constrain housing production. We know less about how real estate developers respond to specific zoning provisions. I compare the characteristics of new multifamily housing with baseline land use regulations in two sets of rail station areas in Los Angeles. I supplement this building-scale analysis with expert interviews. I find that developers were most sensitive to density restrictions and parking requirements. The average development in the Vermont/Western area had 112% of the maximum allowable residential density and 94% of the minimum required parking. Koreatown’s average development had 99% of the maximum density and 88% of the required parking. But, there was variation by area and whether a building was affordable or market rate, apartment or condominium, and by development size. Additionally, regulatory implementation can matter as much as the written regulations themselves. I recommend that cities take an evidence-based approach to reforming regulations and implementation processes.     

Changing knowledge and perceptions of African indigenous vegetables: the role of community-based nutritional outreach

African indigenous vegetables (AIVs) have potential to sustainably address malnutrition, a growing problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Their consumption is however, limited by poor perceptions and lack of awareness of nutritional benefits. There is limited evidence of the effectiveness of community-focused information dissemination approaches in influencing participants’ perceptions and uptake of innovations in AIVs to address malnutrition. This article aims to fill this knowledge gap, using a case study focusing on pastoral communities in Monduli district in northern Tanzania. Target communities participated in a community-based nutritional outreach facilitated by the Good Seed Initiative (GSI), held at Monduli district hospital in September 2014. The results provide evidence of the achievements of the GSI intervention, and the effectiveness of alternative information dissemination approaches.     

Reading between the lines: party cues and SNP support for Scottish independence and Brexit

Scotland’s future within the European Union (EU) played a prominent role in the 2014 independence referendum. The story goes that latent supporters of independence voted to stay within the UK to maintain EU access. Defeated, Scottish leaders declared the referendum a once-in-a-life-time event only repeated if conditions substantially changed. With the UK now facing a chaotic exit from the EU, proponents of Scottish independence have suggested that a second referendum may occur after Brexit negotiations are completed. Faced with a consensus among Scottish party leaders in supporting EU membership, those hoping for a second independence referendum, we argue, looked to alternate sources of information that saw Brexit as an opportunity to create the conditions that would spur a second referendum. Using panel data from the British Election Study, we examine whether Scottish voters voted tactically to leave the EU. We argue that Scottish National Party voters were likely to interpret statements on the conditions for a second independence referendum as an implicit signal to vote “Leave.” The results have important implications for the role of referendums in representative democracy, strategic voting, and the importance of intra-party division on individual vote choices.     

Social media echo chambers and satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections

There is widespread evidence that individuals select information that supports their convictions and worldviews. This behavior yields the formation of echo chambers – environments in which an individual’s own political beliefs are repeated and amplified and dissenting opinions are screened out. Recent research demonstrates that social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter can facilitate this selection into homogenous networks. Using data from a representative nation-wide online survey, we consider the degree to which respondents’ social media networks resemble virtual echo chambers. We then analyze the effect of these social media echo chambers on satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections. Our findings reveal that virtual echo chambers boost democratic satisfaction among Republicans but they do not have an effect on system support by self-identified Democrats. Our paper therefore adds to a growing literature linking online behaviors to mass attitudes about politics.     

Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis

In Weimar Germany, the Catholic Church vehemently warned ordinary parishioners about the dangers of extremist parties. We establish that constituencies' religious composition is a key empirical predictor of Nazi vote shares—dwarfing the explanatory power of any other demographic or socioeconomic variable. Even after carefully accounting for observational differences, Catholics were far less likely to vote for the NSDAP than their Protestant counterparts. The evidence suggests that this disparity was, in large part, due to the sway of the Catholic Church and its dignitaries. At the same time, we show that attempts to immunize Catholics against the radical left failed to achieve the desired result. To explain the puzzling asymmetry in the Church's influence at the ballot box, we develop a simple theoretical framework of elite influence in electoral politics.