To Tell the Truth: Ad Watch Coverage,Ad Tone,and the Accuracy of Political Advertising

This study examined the relationships among newspaper ad watch coverage, ad tone, and the accuracy of political advertising. A sample of political advertisements (N = 160) was drawn from the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) database and other sources for eight U.S. Senate races. Two experts on each race evaluated the ads’ accuracy and their ideological portrayals of candidates, while trained coders analyzed other aspects of the ads. Ad watch coverage from these races (ad watch N = 109) also was content-analyzed. The number of ad watches overall in a race and the number that explicitly criticized ads were positively related with the level of accuracy of political ads and with a tendency to portray their favored candidates closer to their actual ideological position—but the overall number of ad watches also was positively related with a tendency for ads to portray opponents as more extreme than their positions warranted. Ad watches usually tend to scrutinize negative ads more, but ad watch coverage in this study was unrelated with ad tone and with the number of negative ads in a race. Positive ads were rated as more accurate but also more prone to exaggerate the supported candidates’ centrism compared to other ads. Normative and practical implications are discussed.

We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.

— Neil Newhouse, pollster for the Mitt Romney 2012 campaign     

Rethinking development and peacebuilding in non-secular contexts: a postsecular alternative in Mindanao

This paper aims to positively engage with the religious character of many development contexts through an exploration of my own fieldwork in Mindanao. Through problematising a secular development industry and building on the momentum of the religious turn some scholars have identified, I share my initial explorations of how a postsecular framing might offer an alternative approach to development and peacebuilding. Through a deconstructive framing of the religious-secular binary I analyse the practices of one small non-governmental organisation (NGO) and suggest that a practice of ‘journeying with’ – Muslims and Christians on the shared philosophical/theological project to nourish each other’s faiths – can contribute to material and spiritual benefit, and the conditions to enable this.     

Developing Vulnerability: A Situational Response to the Abuse of Women with Mental Disabilities

In this paper I present a critical analysis of the English law relating to the safeguarding of vulnerable adults, in particular how the law impacts on the sexual lives of adult women with mental disabilities. I consider the discourses of vulnerability that surround the different legal regimes and whether the emerging theoretical vulnerability literature can assist in developing more nuanced legal responses. I argue that the inherent jurisdiction and Care Act 2014 provide an opportunity to move away from the focus on inherent features of vulnerability such as mental disability towards a more nuanced, situational and embodied account of what it means to safeguard ‘vulnerable adults’. This has the potential to be developed in England through the new legal framework of the Care Act and can be achieved through targeting interventions against the situational causes of vulnerability, for example the perpetrators of sexual violence.     

Gender and vote revelation strategy in the United States Congress

Legislators approach each election as if they might lose. Electoral insecurity coupled with gender stereotypes held by voters and lawmakers alike may lead female legislators to communicate more voting decisions to voters as a signal of their policy-driven efforts. Using an original data-set of over 40,000 official e-newsletters and Real Simple Syndication feeds sent by members of Congress, I show that women reveal more roll call votes to constituents than their male counterparts. Significant differences exist between male and female incumbents in the frequency of vote revelation despite the fact that male and female legislators use these communication techniques to reach constituents at the same rates and call attention to similar bills. These differences persist after accounting for the effects of party, seniority, district fit, and other potential confounds. Women highlight their ability to fulfill the roles expected of lawmakers by explicitly signaling involvement in lawmaking activities more frequently than men. In a second test, I analyze the types of bills legislators reveal votes on and find no differences between men and women.     

The Effect of Body Mass on Outdoor Adult Human Decomposition

Forensic taphonomy explores factors impacting human decomposition. This study investigated the effect of body mass on the rate and pattern of adult human decomposition. Nine males and three females aged 49–95 years ranging in mass from 73 to 159 kg who were donated to the Complex for Forensic Anthropology Research between December 2012 and September 2015 were included in this study. Kelvin accumulated degree days (KADD) were used to assess the thermal energy required for subjects to reach several total body score (TBS) thresholds: early decomposition (TBS ≥6.0), TBS ≥12.5, advanced decomposition (TBS ≥19.0), TBS ≥23.0, and skeletonization (TBS ≥27.0). Results indicate no significant correlation between body mass and KADD at any TBS threshold. Body mass accounted for up to 24.0% of variation in decomposition rate depending on stage, and minor differences in decomposition pattern were observed. Body mass likely has a minimal impact on postmortem interval estimation.     

HMOs for Medicaid: the road to financial independence is often poorly paved.

During the 1980s both the federal government and the private sector articulated policies to encourage the development and participation of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in the Medicaid program. However, the policies, intended to save costs, limited the ability of new HMOs to achieve financial independence. New plans that emphasize Medicaid participation have few, if any, options on benefit design or in setting capitation rates. Relative to fee-for-service Medicaid programs, their costs to provide services may be quite high, as they have neither the buying power not the ability to impose discounts. As a consequence, plans must focus their financial planning efforts on targeting and attaining a stable enrollment base and on controlling the amount of services provided, tasks that are difficult for all HMOs. Achieving a stable enrollment base is particularly hard because Medicaid eligibles have few incentives to enroll and once enrolled often lose their Medicaid eligibility. Traditional HMOs control the amount of services provided through physician selection, financial incentives on physicians, and monitoring and utilization review. Lack of information and the difficulty inherent in attracting sufficient provider participation limit the first two strategies, so new plans often adopt organization structures that rely heavily on monitoring activities. Unfortunately, management information systems for HMOs are often the weakest link. We discuss the tasks and present data on financial planning, on putting financial plans into operation, and on monitoring progress toward financial independence for a set of ten demonstration projects sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.