The cognitive and affective components of political attitudes: Measuring the determinants of candidate evaluations

Past research suggests that beliefs and emotions operate as partially distinct determinants of political attitudes. In addition, while positive and negative beliefs about a political object are bipolar in structure, positive and negative emotions have been demonstrated to be relatively independent. In this past research, beliefs and emotions have been assessed with different measures. Yet current models of survey responding suggest that responses to survey items are often influenced by the manner in which the researcher poses the questions. As such, it is not clear whether the uniqueness of these belief and emotion measures reflects a bona fide difference between two underlying constructs, or merely an artifactual difference induced by differing methods of measurement. In this study, beliefs and emotions are shown to operate as partially unique predictors of candidate evaluation even when employing corresponding methods of measurement. The independence of positive and negative emotion, however, only arises when employing a dichotomous measure. When employing ordinal measures, positive and negative emotions contain a substantial component of bipolarity. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Silences: Irish women and abortion.

Notably absent from the public debate on abortion in Ireland have been the voices of women who have experienced induced abortion. Interviews with six acquaintances of the author who underwent abortion identified four themes underlying women's post-abortion silence. First, women fear public condemnation and personal rejection. Second, women are concerned that any emotional ambivalence they express about the abortion experience will be misconstrued as anti-abortion sentiment. Third, women worry that speaking out about their experience would be upsetting to friends and family. Fourth, women report frustration about the lack of a suitable public forum for voicing the complexities inherent in the abortion issue. The women's perception that their experience did not fit neatly with the rhetoric of either pro- or anti-abortion groups caused them to feel alienated from a political discourse that tends to depersonalize abortion. Although none of the women regretted the abortion decision, they continued to struggle with unresolved conflicts over taking responsibility for ending some form of life. A cycle has been created in which women do not feel safe to discuss their personal experiences until a more favorable political climate exists, yet the public perception of abortion is unlikely to change until more women's voices are heard. Feminist leaders are urged to address this dilemma.     

Rent-seeking,political influence and inequality: A simple analytical example

A simple model allowing an analysis of the interaction between economic policy decisions and rent-seeking by private agents competing for political influence, is developed. Rent-seeking may be of the directly unproductive type, requiring resources that are withdrawn from productive activities, or it may manifest itself as income transfers (corruption) to political decisionmakers. In the political-economic equilibrium of the model the extent of rent-seeking, economic policy decisions, income inequality, etc. are endogenously determined.     

Heterogenous demand for public goods: Behavior in the voluntary contributions mechanism

Numerous laboratory experiments have investigated the performance of several processes for providing public goods through voluntary contributions. This research has been able to identify features of the institution or environment which are reliably likely to produce outcomes “close” to the free riding outcome or “substantially” greater than the pessimistic prediction of standard models. One such feature is the “marginal per-capita return” (MPCR) from the public good. Various authors have altered MPCR between groups or for an entire group at the same time. The experiments reported here address a different question, “What would happen if, within a group, some persons faced a ‘high’ MPCR while others faced a ‘low’ MPCR?”     

THE WELFARE COSTS OF SUPPLY RESTRICTIONS IN THE GENERAL PRACTICE LABOUR MARKET

Abstract: This paper examines policy arguments for further restricting supply to the Australian General Practice profession by immigration and medical school policies. It uses economic analysis to assess the costs and benefits of supply restrictions. The effects of Medicare and GP income-targeting on policy design are analysed. Restrictions are shown to impose net costs on the community as a whole and on government. Even with Medicare subsidies, the inefficiency costs of the current health system are minimised with liberal policies for accepting foreign- trained GPs.