Human Capital and Administrative Burden: The Role of Cognitive Resources in Citizen-State Interactions

One means by which the state reinforces inequality is by imposing administrative burdens that loom larger for citizens with lower levels of human capital. Integrating insights from various disciplines, this article focuses on one aspect of human capital: cognitive resources. The authors outline a model that explains how burdens and cognitive resources, especially executive functioning, interrelate. The article then presents illustrative examples, highlighting three common life factors—scarcity, health problems, and age-related cognitive decline. These factors create a human capital catch-22, increasing people's likelihood of needing state assistance while simultaneously undermining the cognitive resources required to negotiate the burdens they encounter while seeking such assistance. The result is to reduce access to state benefits and increase inequality. The article concludes by calling for scholars of behavioral public administration and public administration more generally to incorporate more attention to human capital into their research.     

States Divided: The Implications of American Federalism for COVID-19

The explosion of the coronavirus onto the global stage has posed unprecedented challenges for governance. In the United States, the question of how best to respond to these challenges has fractured along intergovernmental lines. The federal government left most of the decisions to the states, and the states went in very different directions. Some of those decisions naturally flowed from the disease's emerging patterns. But to a surprising degree, there were systematic variations in the governors’ decisions, and these variations were embedded in a subtle but growing pattern of differences among the states in a host of policy areas, ranging from decisions about embracing the Affordable Care Act to improving their infrastructure. These patterns raise fundamental questions about the role of the federal government's leadership in an issue that was truly national in scope, and whether such varied state reactions were in the public interest. The debate reinforces the emerging reality of an increasingly divided states of America.     

Gender differences associated with young people's emotional reactions to sexual intercourse

The differences between male and female adolescents' emotional reactions to their most recent occasion of sexual intercourse were examined. The sample included 932 sexually active Australian secondary school students who completed a self-report questionnaire concerning their sexual behavior. The majority of young people reported that they felt happy or good following their most recent occasion of sex. Females were more likely than males to report negative emotions such as feeling bad and used, but there was no difference between the percentage of males and the percentage of females who reported feeling guilty. Girls were more likely to feel bad, used, or guilty last time if they were drunk/high or had sex with someone who was not a steady partner. Boys who had sex with someone other than a steady partner last time were more likely to feel guilty. Peer and parental influences were also associated with feelings of guilt. Girls who were more confident that they could talk to one of their parents/guardians about sex, and boys who believed that most of their peers were sexually active, were less likely to have felt guilty.Received B.A. (Hons) from University of Queensland. Research interests include adolescents mental and sexual health.Received B.A.(Hons) from University of Queensland. Interested in the areas of sex roles and sexual behavior among adolescents.Received Ph.D. from Murdoch University. Research interests include population studies of sexual behavior and mental health.Received M.B.B.S., M.D. from University of Sydney. Research interests include adolescent health, psychological response in disasters, coping with grief and loss and living with HIV/AIDS.     

The Articles of Confederation as the Background to the Federal Republic

The Articles of Confederation, usually neglected by those studyingthe American founding, formed an important part of the backgroundto the 1787 Constitution. The Articles functioned as the firstnational constitution of the United States and, as such, reflectedAmerican political theory as it emerged during the Revolution.Equally important, a textual analysis reveals the extent towhich the 1787 Constitution was a logical extension of the Articlesof Confederation. Most of the Articles were incorporated inthe U.S. Constitution, and several key changes found in thelater document were present in embryo in the Articles of Confederation.     

The Downstream Benefits of Experimentation

The debate about the cost-effectiveness of randomized fieldexperimentation ignores one of the most important potentialuses of experimental data. This article defines and illustrates"downstream" experimental analysis—that is, analysis ofthe indirect effects of experimental interventions. We arguethat downstream analysis may be as valuable as conventionalanalysis, perhaps even more so in the case of laboratory experimentation.     

Implausible hypotheses in the directional theory of issue voting

Two implausible hypotheses implied by the directional theory of issue voting were tested using six Swedish national election studies, 1979–1994. The hypotheses that (a) centrists are indifferent toward parties, and that (b) people leaning slightly in one direction prefer an extremely intense party on the same side were not supported. However, alternative hypotheses from proximity theory were also not supported consistently. Self–placement on the left–right dimension and liking for a party form a logistic function. Party set and latitudes of acceptance, rejection, and noncommitment are concepts that may prove useful in understanding this relationship.     

Continuities in Providing for Old Age: Cross-national and Cross-cultural Comparisons

Drawing on a purposive sample of 25 interviews supplemented by secondary source material, this comparative study explores the options available to elderly immigrants in two quite similar countries to achieve social security in their old age. The focus is the culturally determined perspectives and practices of aging Italian-born and Indian-born immigrants in the context of public and private sector social welfare policies and provisions in Australia and Canada. Government transfers, occupational superannuation, tax-deductible personal savings, housing, and formal and informal supports are discussed. What is important to the sense of social security of the older people and how well-off or disadvantaged they seem to be are among the questions raised. The design affords an opportunity to test the complex combination of cross-national and cross-cultural comparison. In the certainty that the income deficiencies of today's elderly immigrants cannot be remedied easily or quickly enough to benefit those affected, intervention strategies can be aimed at expanding ethno-specific community supports and quality residential care; such a direction is supported by assessment of service availability in relation to estimates of aging among particular foreign-born immigrant groups. Suggestions are made for future research at the levels of theory and application.     

Book Review: Facing the Decisions One Should Make and the Decisions One Wants to Make

Authors of two recent books, Smart Choices and The Win-Win-Solution, offer negotiation practitioners some new twists on how they can improve their decision-making processes. In the first book, Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa present a five-part PrOACT system, which features: an assessment of the problem; determination of objectives; exploration of alternatives; comprehension of the consequences; and dealing with tradeoffs. The second book, by Brams and Taylor, outlines four settlement options that are available to decision makers, but advocates an adjusted winner approach. The authors have devised a system in which individuals' subjective assessments of particular items in dispute receive point totals, which can then be divided in an equitable manner. In effect, the authors show readers how to deal with the decisions they should make, and those they want to make.     

An analysis of the usefulness of specific stages in the pathologic investigation of sudden infant death

Retrospective analysis of autopsy findings in 60 infants who had been found unexpectedly dead in their cribs or beds in South Australia from 1994 to 1998 was undertaken to determine the diagnostic usefulness of individual stages in the postmortem investigation. Positive findings occurred in 2 of 43 scene examinations (3%), 2 of 60 external examinations (3%), 2 of 11 radiologic examinations (18%), 8 of 60 internal examinations (13%), 7 of 60 histologic examinations (12%), and 3 of 58 microbiologic examinations (5%). No positive findings were detected on toxicologic screening. Not every case underwent each diagnostic step. This gave alternative diagnoses to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in 15 cases (25%). This study demonstrates an increase in the percentage of cases of unexpected infant death due to causes other than SIDS; it also shows the diagnostic yield of individual stages in the postmortem evaluation of such cases. Negative findings were important in giving validity to the diagnosis in the 45 cases that were ultimately designated as SIDS.