Electoral Backlash against Climate Policy: A Natural Experiment on Retrospective Voting and Local Resistance to Public Policy

Retrospective voting studies typically examine policies where the public has common interests. By contrast, climate policy has broad public support but concentrated opposition in communities where costs are imposed. This spatial distribution of weak supporters and strong local opponents mirrors opposition to other policies with diffuse public benefits and concentrated local costs. I use a natural experiment to investigate whether citizens living in proximity to wind energy projects retrospectively punished an incumbent government because of its climate policy. Using both fixed effects and instrumental variable estimators, I identify electoral losses for the incumbent party ranging from 4 to 10%, with the effect persisting 3 km from wind turbines. There is also evidence that voters are informed, only punishing the government responsible for the policy. I conclude that the spatial distribution of citizens' policy preferences can affect democratic accountability through ‘spatially distorted signalling’, which can exacerbate political barriers to addressing climate change.     

Can International Boycotts Transform Political Systems? The Cases of Cuba and South Africa

The economic embargo against Cuba has been widely promoted as a way to hasten the end of the Castro regime. Historically, however, the connection between embargoes and regime change is mediated by a complex of political, social, and economic conditions. Labormarket bottlenecks and domestic elite opposition, decisive factors in the South African case, are absent from that of Cuba. This study uses the factors derived from an analysis of South Africa to compare the Cuban case and concludes that the embargo against Cuba cannot have its intended results.     

Correlation of surnames and Y-chromosome in Central-Brazil

In patrilineal societies, surnames and Y-specific haplotypes and haplogroups are expected to be correlated. This characteristic could help defining an initial pool of suspects in forensic genetics analysis. Here we evaluated this correlation in a sample of Central-Brazilian men. Surnames and Y-SNP haplogroup and Y-STR haplotype were analyzed in 55 pairs of Central-Brazilian men sharing surnames (n = 110). Seven haplogroups and thirty-two haplotypes have been observed, none correlated solely to any of the twenty-eight surnames represented here. In this sample, two men with the same surname showed a chance of 0.41 of sharing a Y-specific haplogroup. This chance is higher for surnames of intermediate frequencies, whereas rare surnames show distinct chances as zero and one. Observed results may be over-estimated due to a predominance of a specific haplogroup (P92R7 = 49%) in the sample, what makes it possible for two men with no coancestry to share this haplogroup. Considering STR, only three pairs of men shared haplotypes. The average difference between the haplotypes in each pair was 2.45 mutational steps. This relatively low correlation is due to some historical and cultural peculiarities of the country, what makes it improper for forensic purposes in Brazil.     

Moralists, Pragmatists, and Rogues: Bureaucrats in Modern Mysteries

Many contemporary mysteries feature bureaucrats struggling with difficult ethical dilemmas. Should they lie? Disobey an order? Use physical force? Break the law in order to catch a criminal? In addition to their entertainment value, mysteries offer untapped opportunities to reflect on the moral conflicts faced by civil servants. In this article, the author analyzes the work of 12 modern mystery writers whose protagonists include police detectives, a medical examiner, a prosecutor, a park ranger, and a fire chief. Several types of bureaucrats are identified including moralists, pragmatists, and rogues. The author then links these types to broader ethical philosophies, such as actutilitarianism, rule‐utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kant's categorical imperative. He concludes that mysteries can be an effective teaching tool for courses in ethics and public administration.