At the Nexus of Observational and Experimental Research: Theory,Specification, and Analysis of Experiments with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

Experimentalists are increasingly examining heterogeneous treatment effects, in which observed individual-level characteristics are hypothesized to moderate an experimental treatment effect. Such work places researchers at the nexus of experimental and observational approaches. In this paper, we discuss the theoretical and statistical issues that can arise in testing such hypotheses. We note that inclusion of an observed (as opposed to randomly-assigned) moderator introduces the possibility of confounds that are commonplace in observational data analysis but too-easily ignored in experimental data analysis. We simulate several different data generating processes that include heterogeneous treatment effects, and we discuss the implications of various statistical models. We aim to provide researchers who examine heterogeneous treatment effects with background and advice that enable them to identify where common issues may arise and to develop research designs and implement statistical tests that will mitigate them.     

Ideology,socialism and the everyday: forgotten lessons from the inter-war years?

Abstract

One of the great contributions of the Journal of Political Ideologies to the study of politics has been the emphasis it has given to recovering lost ideological traditions or subtraditions. With regard to the recent history of the United Kingdom, contributions to the Journal have long argued that there is far greater ideological complexity in British politics than is usually credited and that analysis of this complexity might throw up powerful arguments for contemporary political argument. In this essay, I take inspiration from that notion in order to establish whether a lost tradition of twentieth century British socialist thinking – that associated with a series of inter-war and mid-century thinkers who were sceptical of both modernism and the state – might throw new light on the failings of recent British Labour ideology, especially that associated with Ed Miliband’s failed attempt to secure victory in the 2015 general election. The essay contends that the arguments of these earlier thinkers – and especially their obsession with crafting a ‘socialism of the everyday’ – could have provided a vital warning to Miliband’s Labour, had it chosen to heed it.     

The European Union’s trade and investment policy in Asia: new challenges and opportunities in a changing global environment – or: following individual roadmaps

Asia is Europe’s largest trading partner and EU-Asia trade relations have undergone a rapid change since the global financial crisis. On a global scale, the new multilateral trade agreements such as the now stalled Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) involving European Unions’ (EU) major trading partners such as Japan, Singapore and Vietnam also have the potential to change the trade equations. In this paper, we evaluate the new EU trade policy which has been designed to ensure that the EU benefits from the changing global trade scenario and also look at the steps which have been taken by the EU to promote trade relations with its major trading partners in Asia in the predicted ‘Asian century’. We look into the Free Trade Agreements, which are being negotiated with its Asian partners and seek to understand the reasons which have resulted in delays in their signing and negotiations. We evaluate new policies pushed forward by its Asian partners such as the One Belt One Road policy by China and Japan’s policy of securing a large number of trading agreements in the America. Moving ahead, we also shed light on the indirect factors that may influence the success of EU trade negotiations in Asia such as the EU policy on granting China market economy status and the commencement of the ‘Brexit’ process. Lastly, we try to present a list of immediate priorities for EU in Asia, which will ensure that it secures a toehold in trade with the region. All in all, it is shown that the EU has not one and the same approach for all Asian countries but it negotiates flexibly and individually country by country. Because of this “country by country approach” the EU is also not ready to enter into general EU-ASEAN trade negotiations again.     

Power and property: commercialization,enclosures, and the transformation of agrarian relations in Ethiopia

The transnational agrarian social movement Vía Campesina is campaigning to have the United Nations negotiate and implement a Declaration, and eventually an International Convention, on Peasants' Rights. This article analyzes the origins and demands of the campaign and the place of the claimed rights in international law. Peasant organizations hope to follow in the footsteps of indigenous peoples' movements that participated in the negotiations preceding the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The peasants' rights campaign has succeeded in linking its demands to discussions of the right to food in the United Nations, where concern is growing over the approach of the 2015 target for realizing the Millennium Development Goals, in particular the halving of the numbers of people suffering from hunger. The campaign is likely to face stiff resistance from powerful UN member states, but could achieve substantial advances even if the path to a convention is difficult or never completed.     

Sexual Attraction, Sexual Identity, and Psychosocial Wellbeing in a National Sample of Young Women During Emerging Adulthood

Identity-based conceptualizations of sexual orientation may not account adequately for variation in young women’s sexuality. Sexual minorities fare worse in psychosocial markers of wellbeing (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety, self esteem, social support) than heterosexual youth; however, it remains unclear whether these health disparities exclusively affect individuals who adopt a sexual minority identity or if they also may be present among heterosexually-identified youth who report same-sex attractions. We examined the relationship between sexual attraction, sexual identity, and psychosocial wellbeing in the female only subsample (weighted, n = 391) of a national sample of emerging adults (age 18–24). Women in this study rated on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely) their degree of sexual attraction to males and females, respectively. From these scores, women were divided into 4 groups (low female/low male attraction, low female/high male attraction, high female/low male attraction, or high female/high male attraction). We explored the relationship between experiences of attraction, reported sexual identity, and psychosocial outcomes using ordinary least squares regression. The results indicated sexual attraction to be predictive of women’s psychosocial wellbeing as much as or more than sexual identity measures. We discuss these findings in terms of the diversity found in young women’s sexuality, and how sexual minority status may be experienced by this group.     

Parliamentary immunity in imperial Russia 1906–1917

SUMMARY

In this article Valeria Ferrari analyses the conflict between the executive and the parliamentary majority during the nine-month period referred to as the nonimestre costituzionale (1820–21), in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in terms of the future institutional organization of the periphery. Indeed, the deputies who were militant members of the Carbonari movement intended to subject this issue to radical revision because of their refusal of the centralist model, introduced into the Kingdom by the French sovereigns Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat, and maintained by the restored Bourbon dynasty. This explains the provincial Carbonari members' preference for the Spanish Constitution of 1812 which, in contrast with the centralized model of Napoleonic origin, called for a significant margin of autonomy for local administrations. Based on this Constitution, a decree of July 1820 abolished the Provincial and District Councils and established the Deputations—collegial bodies elected directly by citizens without property-related limits—which had broad and important functions. An entirely different configuration emerged unequivocally quite rapidly between the parliamentary majority and the executive as regards the actual role to be attributed to the provincial Deputations. Indeed, while these local institutions were to represent for most of the deputies adhering to the Carbonari movement the first important step towards a complete form of administrative decentralization, from the point of view of the majority of the government, these new peripheral institutions would instead have to coexist with the administrative system already in place.     

Federal‐provincial overlap and civil servants: The case of occupational training in Quebec and Ontario

Abstract: Over the years, many analysts concerned with how federations work have presented the reduction of federal‐provincial overlap and duplication as a way of decreasing intergovernmental tensions. While some have presented such overlap and duplication as inevitable or even beneficial, few have tried to establish how overlap really works and whether it is a real problem or one created mostly by the provincial governments who wish to take issue with problems of federal funding, joint management and accountability. Despite the fact that, ultimately, public officials are in the best position to determine whether federal‐provincial overlap is causing inefficiencies, even fewer studies have focused on how they manage their relationship in areas where two orders of government are involved. Thus, the best possible source of information on how overlapping sectors are managed has been left out. This article examines how federal and provincial officials in Quebec and Ontario have managed their relationships in a particularly contentious sector: occupational training. Sommaire: Plusieurs auteurs intéressés au fonctionnement des fédérations ont, au fil des années, eu tendance à présenter la réduction des empiètements et recoupements fédéraux‐provinciaux comme une façon de décroître les tensions intergouvememen‐tales. Certains auteurs ont présenté de tels chevauchements et dédoublements comme inévitables, voire bénéfiques, mais peu d'entre eux se sont penchés sur le véritable fonctionnement de ces empiètements et s'ils sont un problème réel ou principalement créé par les gouvernements provinciaux désireux d'engager une contro‐verse sur des questions de financement, de gestion commune et d'imputabilité. Bien que les fonctionnaires soient, ultimement, les mieux placés pour évaluer si les recoupements fédéraux‐provinciaux constituent des sources d'inéfficience, peu d'écrits font état de la façon dont les fonctionnaires gèrent leurs relations lorsque les deux ordres de gouvernement sont impliqués. Ainsi, la meilleure source d'information sur la gestion de ce type de recoupements nous manque. Dans cet article, nous examinons comment des fonctionnaires fédéraux et provinciaux au Québec et c'n Ontario ont géré leurs relations dans un domaine particulièrement conflictuel: la formation de la main‐d'æeuvre.