Is Putin’s popularity real?

Vladimir Putin has managed to achieve strikingly high public approval ratings throughout his time as president and prime minister of Russia. But is his popularity real, or are respondents lying to pollsters? We conducted a series of list experiments in early 2015 to estimate support for Putin while allowing respondents to maintain ambiguity about whether they personally do so. Our estimates suggest support for Putin of approximately 80%, which is within 10 percentage points of that implied by direct questioning. We find little evidence that these estimates are positively biased due to the presence of floor effects. In contrast, our analysis of placebo experiments suggests that there may be a small negative bias due to artificial deflation. We conclude that Putin’s approval ratings largely reflect the attitudes of Russian citizens.     

Implications of Longevity Bias for Explaining,Evaluating, and Responding to Social Inequality

Social Justice Research - Longevity bias is the tendency to assume that longstanding states of the world are better and more right than their more recent (but otherwise identical) counterparts. In...     

Ameron International: Expanding Insurance Recovery for Administrative Environmental Proceedings

In Ameron Int'l Corp. v. Ins. Co. of Pennsylvania, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited reconsideration of Foster-Gardner v. National Union Fire Ins. Co. which adopted the minority position that administrative notice letters are not “suits” that trigger a CGL insurer's duty to defend. In an important development for insurers and policyholders alike, Ameron limited Foster-Gardner, holding that an administrative process that resembles a court proceeding is a “suit” insurers must defend. This article surveys the majority rule, Ameron, and Ameron's possible impact in minority rule jurisdictions with Foster-Gardner-like precedent.     

How an Elite-Engineered Moral Panic Led to the U.S. War on Iraq

Critics argue that the G.W. Bush administration deliberately misled the U.S. public about an Iraqi threat after 9/11 but empirical evidence that presidential deception influenced public support for war has been lacking. An examination of presidential rhetoric concerning Iraq in the U.S. media revealed that it changed in tone after 9/11, consistent with moral panic processes. Logistic regression analysis of public opinion leading up to the war revealed that shifts in support for invasion directly mirrored presidential rhetoric. The findings of this study suggest that the Bush administration engineered a moral panic over Iraq with the support of the media.     

A Multi-Level Examination of the Association Between Older Social Models in the School Environment and Overweight and Obesity Among Younger Students

Few studies have examined how school characteristics are associated with obesity. The purpose of this study was to examine the student- and school-level characteristics associated with being overweight and obese among 12,049 students in grades 9 and 10 (junior students) attending 76 secondary schools in Ontario, Canada. The sample was 49.2% female and the average age was 14.7 years. Overall, 15.0% of the sample was considered overweight and 6.3% of the sample was considered obese. Multi-level regression analysis revealed significant between-school random variation for the likelihood of a junior student (grade 9 or 10) being overweight or obese. For each 1% increase in the prevalence of obese senior students (grade 11 and 12) at a school, the odds of a junior student at that school being overweight or obese increased significantly. Important student-level characteristics included physical activity, screen time sedentary behaviour (e.g., watching television), participation in varsity sports and gender. Future research should evaluate if the optimal population level impact for school-based obesity prevention programming might be achieved by targeting the schools that are putting students at the greatest risk.