Sex and marriage in utopia

where he has also taught history since 1964. He is author of Sex and Marriage in Utopian Communitiesand A Frontier Town Grows Up in America.     

What is Crime?

Since its emergence in the 19th century, orthodox criminology has suffered from the contradiction of claiming, on the one hand, to be a value-neutral, intellectual discipline, and on the other, operating as part of the ideological apparatus of the political state by taking state definitions of what is crime and who are its criminals as the starting points for criminological inquiry. This essay examines the ways in which criminology has suffered from this internal contradiction, with particular attention to how it has been constrained by political, economic, and professional forces to focus primarily on crimes whose collective harm to society falls well below the harms caused by the wrongful, but often legal acts of economic and political elites. It concludes with the recognition that the kind of critical inquiry emblematic of the work of Bill Chambliss is essential if criminology hopes to remain relevant to the challenges of the future.     

Authoritarian backsliding and the concentration of political power

This article introduces the concept of authoritarian backsliding as a class of strategies for the concentration of incumbent political power in hybrid regimes. Such actions include manipulating elections, violating civil liberties, creating an extremely uneven playing field for the opposition, and reducing the institutional constraints on executive power. While often falling short of a full regime change, backsliding can significantly alter the level of political competition in a country and reduce the quality of its political life. This article develops a theoretically-grounded strategy to identify and measure backsliding events since 1989, showing that they have been much more common than is typically appreciated. The article also shows the utility of the concept of backsliding for better understanding regime stability. Using cross-national analysis of backsliding events from 1989–2004, we find that threats such as opposition electoral gains or economic crises in resource-dependent regimes create incentives for authoritarian backsliding.     

Identifying Urban Flashpoints: A Delphi-Derived Model for Scoring Cities’ Vulnerability to Large-Scale Unrest

Although great strides have been made toward forecasting state-level instability, little progress has been made toward the prediction of outbreaks of urban unrest. This article presents a method for the assessment of cities’ vulnerability to large-scale urban unrest. Forty-five factors correlated with urban unrest are identified and weighted by an expert panel. Based on expert elicitation through an iterative Delphi exercise, the explicitly methodological discussion describes both the process and the resulting assessment framework. Results include a tool that will allow users to rank cities on their vulnerability to large-scale urban unrest.     

How to get the snowball rolling and extend the franchise: voting on the Great Reform Act of 1832

This paper suggests a new approach to analyzing the causes of franchise extension. Based on a new dataset, it provides a detailed econometric study of the Great Reform Act of 1832 in the United Kingdom. The analysis yields four main results. First, modernization theory receives limited support. Second, the reform enjoyed some measure of popular support. Third, the threat of revolution had an asymmetric impact on the voting behavior of the pro-reform Whigs and the anti-reform Tories. While the threat might have convinced reluctant reformers among the Whig politicians—and among their patrons—to support the bill, it seems to have hardened the resistance to reform among the Tories. Fourth, ideology played a critical role. Nevertheless, it also appears that self-interest and political expedience explained the votes of many Members of Parliament.     

Preservation policies in perspective

Abstract

This paper looks at the housing stock serving low‐income households and provides recommendations for future analysis and action. It concludes that too little attention is being paid to preserving the stock of unassisted units affordable by very low‐income families. This stock has shrunk in recent years, while the number of poverty‐level families has increased. Several recommendations for action by local governments are enumerated. Moreover, while much attention is focused on preserving projects developed under early federal assistance programs, policies for preserving units developed under the Section 8 program are needed to preserve owners’ incentives for maintaining these projects. Additionally, preservation issues must be considered in designing any new production programs. The paper outlines one option for a new program with a radically simplified financing structure.     

Media Framing and Public Attitudes Toward Biofuels

This study investigates the relationship between media framing and public opinion on the issue of biofuels—transportation fuels made from plants, animal products, or organic waste. First, the paper investigates how media framing of biofuels has changed since the issue regained national prominence in the early 2000s. Through a detailed content analysis of newspaper coverage, the paper documents an increase in negative frames between 1999 and 2008, especially frames focusing on the negative economic effects of biofuels on consumers. Second, using data from a 2010 Internet survey of a random sample of the U.S. public, the paper analyzes the relative influence of these new media frames on public attitudes toward biofuels compared with other common predictors of public opinion, such as party ID, regional economic interests, and personal identity as an environmentalist. In general, the results confirm that public attitudes toward biofuels appear to be shaped by these new media frames, especially among those who indicate a high degree of attention to the media, suggesting the relative importance of framing effects on policy attitudes for environmental and energy policies in general.