Public Health, Racial Tensions, and Body Politic: Mass Ringworm Irradiation in Israel, 1949–1960

In this essay, we analyze the case study of mass ringworm irradiation conducted in Israel during its first years of existence and its consequences. We analyzed the case study of ringworm irradiation in the framework of racial construction of illness and its treatment, showing the elasticity of race and ethnicity as medical and social categories.     

Preferences for International Redistribution: The Divide over the Eurozone Bailouts

Why do voters agree to bear the costs of bailing out other countries? Despite the prominence of public opinion in the ongoing debate over the eurozone bailouts, voters' preferences on the topic are poorly understood. We conduct the first systematic analysis of this issue using observational and experimental survey data from Germany, the country shouldering the largest share of the EU's financial rescue fund. Testing a range of theoretical explanations, we find that individuals' own economic standing has limited explanatory power in accounting for their position on the bailouts. In contrast, social dispositions such as altruism and cosmopolitanism robustly correlate with support for the bailouts. The results indicate that the divide in public opinion over the bailouts does not reflect distributive lines separating domestic winners and losers. Instead, the bailout debate is better understood as a foreign policy issue that pits economic nationalist sentiments versus greater cosmopolitan affinity and other‐regarding concerns.     

Informed Preferences? The Impact of Unions on Workers' Policy Views

Despite declining memberships, labor unions still represent large shares of electorates worldwide. Yet their political clout remains contested. To what extent, and in what way, do unions shape workers' political preferences? We address these questions by combining unique survey data of American workers and a set of inferential strategies that exploit two sources of variation: the legal choice that workers face in joining or opting out of unions and the over‐time reversal of a union's policy position. Focusing on the issue of trade, we offer evidence that unions influence their members' policy preferences in a significant and theoretically predictable manner. In contrast, we find that self‐selection into membership accounts at most for a quarter of the observed “union effect.” The study illuminates the impact of unions in cohering workers' voice and provides insight on the role of information provision in shaping how citizens form policy preferences.     

Social control theory and the connection with ideological offenders among Israeli youth during the Gaza disengagement period

The present study examined whether social control theory is capable of explaining youth's law violations in instances of conflict between the ideological religious worldview and the laws of the country in which they reside. Differences in the control factors (commitment, belief, attachment, and involvement) were examined among Israeli adolescents who took part in legal activity (n=163) and illegal activity (n=99) during the resistance to the Gaza evacuation. The findings indicate that the model provides a partial explanation for ideological delinquency. It was found that involvement with friends and the absence of belief in the formal legal system were associated with illegal ideology activity. Attachment to friends and parents and involvement with parents had no effect on youth's participation in illegal ideological activities.     

Examining Callous‐unemotional Traits and Anxiety in a Sample of Incarcerated Adolescent Females

Callous‐unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of guilt and empathy) are a risk factor associated with antisocial behavior. Youth with CU traits can be differentiated by varying levels of co‐occurring anxiety. In this study, we examined CU variants in incarcerated adolescent females (n = 109) and their associations with emotional and behavioral problems and history of maltreatment. Semi‐structured interviews were also conducted with a subsample of the participants (n = 13). Participants with CU traits and anxiety had similar levels of conduct problems compared to individuals with high CU traits without anxiety, but they reported more childhood maltreatment (especially sexual abuse).     

My Life for A Voice: The Influence of Voice on Health-Care Decisions

Are people willing to give up affordable healthcare and future years of their lives in exchange for having a voice in healthcare decision-making? Drawing upon research on the psychology of justice, we claim that the fairness of healthcare decision-making procedures, expressed by the availability of voice, can be more important than critical health-related outcomes. We examined this proposition using a forced-choice paradigm that required participants to choose between voice and better healthcare outcomes (affordable healthcare and greater life expectancy). Findings from three studies revealed that people maintain a strong preference for voice even at the expense of tangible healthcare outcomes. In study 1, participants preferred a healthcare plan that offered them a voice when it was $3,000–$12,000 more costly than a plan that did not offer such voice privileges. In study 2, participants preferred a voice plan to a no-voice plan when the no-voice plan was 5–20 years greater in its average life expectancy compared with the voice plan. In study 3, which used a more demographically diverse, non-student sample, the preference for the voice plan persisted across all conditions, even when the no-voice plan was 25 years greater in its life expectancy, and even when participants’ expected to personally live longer under the no-voice plan. These results are explained by participants’ expectation to enjoy better personal healthcare outcomes and greater autonomy when afforded voice. These findings demonstrate the importance of voice in hypothetical decision-making relevant to policy-making.     

Economic Explanations for Opposition to Immigration: Distinguishing between Prevalence and Conditional Impact

What explains variation in individuals’ opposition to immigration? While scholars have consistently shown cultural concerns to be strong predictors of opposition, findings regarding the labor‐market competition hypothesis are highly contested. To help understand these divergent results, we distinguish between the prevalence and conditional impact of determinants of immigration attitudes. Leveraging a targeted sampling strategy of high‐technology counties, we conduct a study of Americans’ attitudes toward H‐1B visas. The plurality of these visas are occupied by Indian immigrants, who are skilled but ethnically distinct, enabling us to measure a specific skill set (high technology) that is threatened by a particular type of immigrant (H‐1B visa holders). Unlike recent aggregate studies, our targeted approach reveals that the conditional impact of the relationship in the high‐technology sector between economic threat and immigration attitudes is sizable. However, labor‐market competition is not a prevalent source of threat and therefore is generally not detected in aggregate analyses.     

On Forcing Individuals to be Free: T.H. Green's Liberal Theory of Positive Freedom

Berlin argues that Green's positive freedom, at odds with his liberalism, justifies an oppressive society. Berlin's argument proceeds in three steps. The first embraces a shift from negative freedom to rational self-mastery, which is underpinned by a metaphysics of a split self. Then it is claimed that positive freedom is realizable only in a certain kind of society which, thirdly, it is argued, is oppressive. Green takes the first two steps but they do not commit him to the totalitarian conclusion, not least because he grounds positive freedom in a view of a unitary self and his society does not leave empty the institutional framework which makes possible the realization of freedom. Green's society is not oppressive in the name of freedom, but rather enabling in the name of freedom.