State-Sponsored Social Control of Illegitimate Social Movements: Strategies Used to Financially Damage Radical Islamic,Terrorist-Labeled Organizations

This article documents strategies and tactics of social control used by the U.S. government to detect and deter financing of radical Islamic, terrorist-labeled organizations. Through grounded theory, social control strategies were identified based on data from congressional committee hearings from 1999 to 2011. Findings revealed the presence of nine such strategies: (1) discover sources of funding, (2) deny or restrict access to money, (3) establish information networks and communication norms, (4) create derogatory labels, (5) influence the media, (6) impose legal sanctions, (7) offer financial incentives, (8) construct a shared collective identity, and (9) force terrorist-labeled organizations on the defensive.     

Opinion Formation in Social Media: The Influence of Online News Dissemination on Facebook Posts

ABSTRACT

This study aims to explore the influence of online news dissemination on public opinion in social media and examine what factors determine the influence. Online news stories (N=51) from 37 sources and Facebook posts (N=317) on the construction of Africa’s first modern international railway line, the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway line, were retrieved between June and November 2017 for the period April 11, 2012 to November 30, 2017. Comparative content analysis of online news and Facebook posts revealed that there was positive correlation between frame repetition by news media and prevalence of the frame in social media opinion. The results showed that there were statistically significant associations in the presence of positive as well as negative frame tones between news articles and Facebook posts. However, the relationship in the use of neutral frame tone between news and opinion was not significant. Regarding composition, short news stories exert more influence on social media opinion than longer news articles, as indicated by negative correlation between news article length and its influence on opinion. Overall, the results suggest that online news dissemination strongly influences opinion formation in social media.     

What do ESDP actors want? An exploratory analysis

Abstract

This paper analyzes the preferences of European defense actors vis-à-vis the European security and defense policy (ESDP) with a view to identifying the main ideational points of convergence and fault lines that structure this policy domain. In an exploratory analysis that relies on an original data-set compiled from systematic interviews conducted with 73 ESDP actors in France, the UK, Germany, and Brussels, we address two research questions. First, what do ESDP actors think about ESDP? Second, can we classify their preferences according to sociological factors that underpin the ESDP domain? To conceptualize the belief system of ESDP actors, we propose a typology that distinguishes (1) the social context in which ESDP actors are embedded and (2) the specific ESDP aspects about which preferences are shaped. Our results suggest that both national and occupational variables play an important role in explaining the preferences of ESDP actors.     

The accuracy of crime statistics: assessing the impact of police data bias on geographic crime analysis

Journal of Experimental Criminology - Police-recorded crimes are used by police forces to document community differences in crime and design spatially targeted strategies. Nevertheless, crimes...     

Radicalization in Adolescence: the Identification of Vulnerable Groups

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research - Given that the normative search for identity and belonging, as well as political socialization, plays an important role during adolescence, this...     

Race-Based Judgments, Race-Neutral Justifications: Experimental Examination of Peremptory Use and the Batson Challenge Procedure

Practically speaking, the peremptory challenge remained an inviolate jury selection tool in the United States until the Supreme Court's decision in Batson v. Kentucky. 476 U.S. 79 (1986). Batson's prohibition against race-based peremptories was based on two assumptions: (1) a prospective juror's race can bias jury selection judgments; (2) requiring attorneys to justify suspicious peremptories enables judges to determine whether a challenge is, indeed, race-neutral. The present investigation examines these assumptions through an experimental design using three participant populations: college students, advanced law students, and practicing attorneys. Results demonstrate that race does influence peremptory use, but these judgments are typically justified in race-neutral terms that effectively mask the biasing effects of race. The psychological processes underlying these tendencies are discussed, as are practical implications for the legal system.     

Insurance Subsidies,the Affordable Care Act,and Financial Stability

This paper measures the effects of subsidies in the Affordable Care Act on adverse financial outcomes using administrative tax data and credit data on financial outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences design with propensity score reweighting, I find that at $100 per capita, ACA premium tax credits and cost-sharing reduction subsidies reduced consumer bankruptcies and severe auto delinquency by 8 percent and 7 percent, respectively, and substantially reduced right-tail delinquent debt and third-party collections. The value of recipients’ risk protection against medical debt payments amounts to approximately 16 to 21 percent of the cash costs of the subsidies, while the subsidies provided substantial indirect transfers to external parties.     

偏好与理性选择：保守主义人士也能接受的规制——行为经济学与“非对称父爱主义”的案例

非对称父爱主义的规制目的是帮助那些有限理性的人们避免犯成本过高的错误,同时仅对理性的人们加以很小的成本甚至不加以成本。结合了认知心理学与经济学的行为经济学表明,有时候即便有健康心智的人们在某些特定的、可预见的情形下也可能不会为他们长远的自身利益行事,很多非对称父爱主义的规制就是基于这种考虑而产生的。这些规制体现在缺省规则、对信息的提供或重组、冷却期、对消费者选择的限制等方面。非对称父爱主义并不必定是严厉的,它可能会引导产生比现有政策更温和的规则。而且新技术为将这种规制作为一种新的对规制选择的成本收益评估标准提供了新的可能性,因而值得被认真对待。     

Welfare Reform: Revolution or Retrenchment?

This article introduces the two main themes of this specialissue of Publius: The Journal of Federalism, workfare and federalism.At this early stage in the history of the 1996 Welfare ReformAct, these themes must be stated as questions rather than answers,as hypotheses not conclusions. What does the new welfare policyseek to accomplish? What are the effects—intended andunintended—of its limited devolution of power to the states?