bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Peasants under Siege
Authors: Kligman Gail , Verdery Katherine
Published: November 2017

In 1949, Romania's fledgling communist regime unleashed a radical and brutal campaign to collectivize agriculture in this largely agrarian country, following the Soviet model. This book provides the first comprehensive look at the far-reaching social engineering process that ensued. The book examines how collectivization assaulted the very foundations of rural life, transforming village communities that were organized around kinship and status hierarchies into segments of large bureaucratic organizations, forged by the language of “class warfare” yet saturated with vindictive personal struggles. Collectivization not only overturned property relations, the book argues, but was crucial in creating the Party-state that emerged, its mechanisms of rule, and the “new persons” that were its subjects. The book explores how ill-prepared cadres, themselves unconvinced of collectivization's promises, implemented technologies and pedagogies imported from the Soviet Union through actions that contributed to the excessive use of force, which Party leaders were often unable to control. In addition, the book shows how local responses to the Party's initiatives compelled the regime to modify its plans and negotiate outcomes. Drawing on archival documents, oral histories, and ethnographic data, the book sheds new light on collectivization in the Soviet era and on the complex tensions underlying and constraining political authority.
Orientations
Authors: Lock Margaret
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter discusses the generation and transformation of expert knowledge and practices in connection with the phenomenon of Alzheimer disease (AD) in an era of increasing uncertainties and recognition of apparently boundless complexity. Emphasis is given to the way in which debates in the Alzheimer world are played out in research and clinical settings, in medical and media publications, at major conferences, and in talks for public consumption, and with what potential effects on the millions of healthy people who will be systematically monitored if and when an era of prevention becomes routinized. Also included are excerpts from extensive interviews with individuals who have undergone testing in research settings, including genetic testing.
Alzheimer Genes: Biomarkers of Prediction and Prevention
Authors: Lock Margaret
Published: November 2017

This chapter introduces Alzheimer genetics, including an account of the genes associated with rare, familial, early-onset Alzheimer disease (AD). Discussion is included about why such patients are thought of as excellent research subjects in the search for a “cure” not only for early-onset AD but also for the much more common form of late-onset Alzheimer's. The chapter examines the recruitment of a group of Colombian research subjects who come from families with early-onset AD. It then turns to the susceptibility gene, APOE, the ε‎4 variation of which is associated with increased risk for late-onset AD. Epidemiological research makes it clear that the way in which the APOE genotype functions is elusive because its effects are modified by the presence of other genes and by environmental variables.
Limits of Convergence
Authors: Campbell John L. , Pedersen Ove K.
Published: November 2017

This chapter demonstrates that in every country, policy research organizations began to converge on similar dissemination practices, such as use of the Internet and new media, by which they channeled their analysis and recommendations to policymakers and others—practices that tended to resemble those of American advocacy organizations. Both trends were evident within and across knowledge regimes. However, convergence was extremely uneven and partial because there were significant obstacles to the wholesale diffusion of these practices across countries and organizations. As a result, although each knowledge regime underwent significant change, national differences persisted in how each one was organized and operated. In short, the chapter found patterns of only limited convergence that were at odds with what many organizational and economic sociologists and others would have expected, especially during times of great uncertainty like the end of the Golden Age and the rise of globalization.
Understanding Autism
Authors: Silverman Chloe
Published: November 2017

Autism has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, thanks to dramatically increasing rates of diagnosis, extensive organizational mobilization, journalistic coverage, biomedical research, and clinical innovation. This book takes a close look at the role of emotion—specifically, of parental love—in the intense and passionate work of biomedical communities investigating autism. The book tracks developments in autism theory and practice over the past half-century and shows how an understanding of autism has been constituted and stabilized through vital efforts of schools, gene banks, professional associations, government committees, parent networks, and treatment conferences. It examines the love and labor of parents, who play a role in developing—in conjunction with medical experts—new forms of treatment and therapy for their children. While biomedical knowledge is dispersed through an emotionally neutral, technical language that separates experts from laypeople, parental advocacy and activism call these distinctions into question. The book reveals how parental care has been a constant driver in the volatile field of autism research and treatment, and has served as an inspiration for scientific change. Recognizing the importance of parental knowledge and observations in treating autism, it reveals that effective responses to the disorder demonstrate the mutual interdependence of love and science.
Red State Religion
Authors: Wuthnow Robert
Published: November 2017

No state has voted Republican more consistently or widely or for longer than Kansas. To understand red state politics, Kansas is the place. It is also the place to understand red state religion. The Kansas Board of Education has repeatedly challenged the teaching of evolution, Kansas voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage, the state is a hotbed of antiabortion protest—and churches have been involved in all of these efforts. Yet in 1867 suffragist Lucy Stone could plausibly proclaim that, in the cause of universal suffrage, “Kansas leads the world!” This book tells the story of religiously motivated political activism in Kansas from territorial days to the present. It examines how faith mixed with politics as both ordinary Kansans and leaders such as John Brown, Carrie Nation, William Allen White, and Dwight Eisenhower struggled over the pivotal issues of their times, from slavery and Prohibition to Populism and anti-communism. Beyond providing surprising new explanations of why Kansas became a conservative stronghold, the book sheds new light on the role of religion in red states across the Midwest and the United States. Contrary to recent influential accounts, the book argues that Kansas conservatism is largely pragmatic, not ideological, and that religion in the state has less to do with politics and contentious moral activism than with relationships between neighbors, friends, and fellow churchgoers. This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand the role of religion in American political conservatism.
An Era of Restructuring
Authors: Wuthnow Robert
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the restructuring of Kansas religion and politics that began in the late 1960s and continued for at least two more decades. On March 18, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy traveled to Lawrence. Two days earlier, Kennedy had declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Kennedy's visit punctuated a restructuring of Kansas religion and politics. The quiet conservatism of the 1950s gave way to activism borne of concerns about the escalating war in Vietnam and the struggle for racial equality. The chapter first considers the impact of the Vietnam War on Kansas politics before discussing issues of school desegregation and black power in the state, along with Richard Nixon's law and order speech at Kansas State University in September 1970. It also explores the internal conflict in the local churches.
Statistical Methods for Diffusion Data
Authors: Hoppitt William , Laland Kevin N.
Published: November 2017

This chapter describes statistical methods for inferring and quantifying social transmission in groups of animals in the wild, or in “captive” groups of animals in naturalistic social environments. In particular, it considers techniques for analyzing time-structured data on the occurrence of a particular behavior pattern, or behavioral trait, in one or more groups. For the most part, the focus is on cases where a novel trait spreads through one or more groups. Following standard terminology in the field of social learning, the spread of a trait through a group is referred to as a diffusion, and the resulting data as diffusion data. The methods include diffusion curve analysis and network-based diffusion analysis. For the latter, inclusion of individual-level variables is taken into account, along with model selection and inference, modeling of multiple diffusions, choosing a social network, and “untransmitted” social effects. The chapter also examines the spatial spread of a behavioral trait.
Repertoire-Based Methods for Detecting and Quantifying Social Transmission
Authors: Hoppitt William , Laland Kevin N.
Published: November 2017

This chapter describes repertoire-based methods for detecting and quantifying the social transmission of behavior based on a “snapshot” of the behavioral repertoires of individuals or groups. Repertoire-based methods often take the form of a group contrast approach, where the researcher attempts to ascertain whether different groups have different behavioral repertoires, which might be caused by a higher rate of social transmission within groups than between them. The chapter first considers approaches that can be applied to determine whether group differences in behavior exist, including the group contrasts approach and the method of exclusion. In particular, it discusses methods for assessing the genetic hypothesis and the ecological hypothesis. It also presents a model-fitting approach and a causal modeling framework. Finally, it highlights the limitations of studying social learning based solely on differences in repertoires.
Social Learning Strategies
Authors: Hoppitt William , Laland Kevin N.
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on social learning strategies—functional rules specifying what, when, and who to copy. There are many plausible social learning strategies. Individuals might disproportionately copy when asocial learning would be difficult or costly, when they are uncertain of what to do, when the environment changes, when established behavior proves unproductive, and so forth. Likewise, animals might preferentially copy the dominant individual, the most successful individual, or a close relative. This chapter presents evidence for some of the better-studied learning heuristics and describes statistical procedures for identifying which social learning strategies are being deployed in a data set. It examines “who” strategies, which cover frequency-dependent biases, success biases, and kin and age biases, as well as “what” strategies, random copying, and statistical methods for detecting social learning strategies. Finally, it evaluates meta-strategies, best strategies, and hierarchical control.
Conclusions
Authors: Hoppitt William , Laland Kevin N.
Published: November 2017

This concluding chapter summarizes the different social learning concepts and methods explored in the book, beginning with definitions of some key terms such as social learning, social transmission, imitation, and innovation. The book has discussed the history of social learning research, methods for studying social learning in the laboratory, social learning mechanisms, statistical methods for diffusion data, repertoire-based data, and developmental approaches. It has also examined social learning strategies and some of the mathematical models that can be applied to investigate social learning, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution. A key emphasis throughout the book has been that mathematical and statistical modeling is at its most powerful when tightly integrated with empirical research.
Without Restraint: Scandal and Politics in America
Authors: Zelizer Julian E.
Published: November 2017

This chapter explores the relationship between politics and scandal throughout American history. Scandals had been part of American politics since the revolution, but they had never so pervasive as in the last three decades of the twentieth century. They had become integral to partisan strategy, political reform, and the public perception of government. The chapter first considers the role of scandal in national politics in the early postwar era, 1945–1964, before discussing the efforts of public interest groups in collaboration with liberal Democrats to put corruption on the national agenda. It then examines the politics of reform between 1972 and 1978, along with the change in political style that gradually encouraged the latent tendency of democratic politics to veer into scandal during the period 1978–1992. It also looks at television coverage of scandals and the impeachment of Bill Clinton and concludes with some reflections on the future of scandal politics.
How Conservatives Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Presidential Power
Authors: Zelizer Julian E.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines how conservatives have come to embrace presidential power after an initial wariness. Before the 1970s, there were some conservative activists skeptical of—if not downright hostile toward—presidential power. A key turning point was the 1970s, when many conservatives believed that the congressional reforms that were passed in the aftermath of Watergate weakened the power of the executive branch and were a symbol of what went wrong as a result of the 1960s. The chapter first considers how the conservatives began to accept presidential power during the presidency of Richard Nixon between 1969 and 1974 before discussing congressional reforms in the area of national security. It also discusses the use of executive power under Ronald Reagan, who strengthened the marriage between American conservatism and presidential power; Bill Clinton; and George W. Bush, who expanded presidential power in his war on terrorism.
On Classification Systems
Authors: Lena Jennifer C.
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses classification systems that exist within music and its peer culture-producing fields. It emphasizes the role of power in setting boundaries around categories and defining these categories as legitimate. It considers the application of this model of classification to the sociological study of science and collective memory. Finally, it addresses the future of music, and closes with a consideration of the link between music categories and taste. It argues that our tastes are instruments of power and that there are three important components to this instrument. First, tastes encode the power of your origins. When it comes to taste, the socialization process—specifically, the process of acquiring a “habitus”—plays a central role in shaping our desires, aspirations, and choices. Second, this socialization process teaches us not only what tastes are appropriate to our life circumstances, but also how to make meaning from the consumption process. Third, taste is used to exert and reveal power in subtle ways.
After Modernization Theory
Authors: Joas Hans , Knöbl Wolfgang
Published: November 2017

This chapter explores the connections between war and modernity as well as developments in Anglo-American historical sociology and its emphasis on war. Within American sociology, the turn to “war” was directly connected with the debate on modernization theory. This paradigm had not only forecast that the “underdeveloped countries” would come to resemble the United States and Western Europe both structurally and culturally: that they would become Westernized. Outside of Britain and the United States, historical sociology never managed to play much of a role. As far as Germany and France (as well as other European countries) are concerned, sociologists there either never really took a historical approach (Germany) or adopted a historical perspective molded by the dominant figure of Michel Foucault. This was evident in the debate on the “democratic peace” that took off in the 1980s and early 1990s, a debate of great relevance to social theory.
After the East-West Conflict
Authors: Joas Hans , Knöbl Wolfgang
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines democratization, “failed states,” and empire building after the East–West conflict. The debate over “democratic peace” focused on democratization and was being underpinned by the vision of peace developed by Immanuel Kant in 1795. Since the end of the nineteenth century, there had been no serious discussion of Kant's ideas on how to achieve peace. Power–political realism, liberalism, and modernization theory, which were based on assumptions quite different from those of Kant, were far more prominent. It was only in the early 1980s that this changed, with global political developments and new political circumstances playing a crucial role in the resumption of the debate on Kant's ideas. The immediate trigger for this debate, at least the academic variant, was the two-part essay by Michael Doyle from 1983 entitled “Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs.” The chapter also considers the relationship between international relations and sociology.
The Puzzle of Geographical Disconnectedness
Authors: Phillips Damon J.
Published: November 2017

This chapter explains why it matters that jazz was produced in sixty-seven cities worldwide. That is, jazz up to 1933 was primarily recorded in a small set of cities, including Chicago, London, and New York. Focusing on the mobility networks of musicians across these cities, the chapter examines how disconnectedness can have a unique role in social systems, particularly in innovation-based social systems familiar to scholars of organizations and markets (e.g., cultural markets, technological systems). Using an empirical approach to the rise of jazz during the period 1897–1933, it explores the impact of structurally disconnected cities and the emergence of jazz standards through the discographical canon. The chapter argues that it is important to pay attention to jazz recordings from more disconnected cities such as Minneapolis (Minnesota), Hilversum (Holland), Sydney (Australia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and Calcutta (India).
The Sociological Congruence of Identity Sequences and Adoption Narratives1
Authors: Phillips Damon J.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the sociological congruence of identity sequences and adoption narratives of cultural products, with a particular focus on the identities of the individual jazz recordings and groups in concert with the identities of record companies and labels. It first considers the role of adoption narratives in understanding long-term appeal before discussing jazz as an adoption narrative, along with patterns of adoption and authenticity in cultural markets. It then explains which recordings were more likely to enter the discographical canon by analyzing the longer-run implications of the actions of Victorian-era firms. Finally, it asks whether a recording by black musicians or by jazz orchestras was received diffrently when we know that it was originally produced by a Victorian-era firm. The chapter shows that jazz was shaped by differences not only in what firms produced but also in how that production informed a “primitive-to-refined” narrative.
Accelerating AI
Authors: McGinnis John O.
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on artificial intelligence (AI). The development of machine intelligence can directly improve governance, because progress in AI can help in assessing policy consequences. More substantial machine intelligence can process data, generate hypotheses about the effects of past policy, and simulate the world to predict the effects of future policy. Thus, it is more important to formulate a correct policy toward AI than toward any other rapidly advancing technology, because that policy will help advance beneficial policies in all other areas. The holy grail of AI is so-called strong AI, defined as a general purpose intelligence that approximates that of humans. The correct policy for AI—substantial government support for Friendly AI—both promotes AI as an instrument of collective decision making and helps prevent the risk of machine takeover.
Disentangling Law and Policy Preferences
Authors: Bailey Michael A. , Maltzman Forrest
Published: November 2017

This chapter provides a theoretical framework for disentangling the political and legal perspectives on Court behavior. It shows that, indeed, the problem is knotty and how it is impossible to fully separate legal from policy-motivated behavior using only Supreme Court voting data. The knottiness of the problem is exacerbated by the fact that legal factors can exert a decisive effect on a Supreme Court case even when the voting breaks down along ideological lines. This is an incredibly important point. The relentless flow of cases in which justices break down in ideologically sensible ways should not be taken as evidence that justices' decisions are dominated by ideological policy orientations. Instead, the model makes it clear that law can be decisive even when we observe ideological patterns in Court voting. This is especially true when the justices share a consensus about the legal values in question.
Facing the Challenge of Democracy
Authors: Sniderman Paul M. , Highton Benjamin
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter is about citizen competence in political participation. In politics, the prevailing opinion is that citizens fail minimally challenging tests of knowledge of public affairs and institutions. And in the face of such skepticism are counterarguments opposing this judgment of the average citizen's capacity for political participation. The chapter argues that such differences both amount to the same thing—the capacity of citizens to make politically coherent choices. To gain a better perspective on the situation, the chapter argues, one must first attempt to understand as deeply as possible the properties of political preferences of ordinary citizens. In this vein, the chapter tackles a number of issues related to this topic, and provides an overview of the following chapters.
Running to the Right
Authors: Mutz Diana , Dilliplane Susanna
Published: November 2017

This chapter focuses on the occasion of Republican John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential running mate because this event signaled to many voters an abrupt change in McCain's ideological position. In other words, Palin served as an exogenous shock, with the potential to “send a message” to the public about McCain's ideological stance. Using panel data from the 2008 National Annenberg Election Study (NAES), this chapter analyzes the extent to which Palin's selection altered perceptions of McCain's ideology; the extent to which the perceived ideological shift to the right benefited several election-related outcomes such as favorability toward McCain, vote preference, and turnout; and the extent to which the net impact of the shift helped or harmed his candidacy.
Partisan Differences in Job Approval Ratings of George W. Bush and U.S. Senators in the States
Authors: Jacobson Gary C.
Published: November 2017

This chapter addresses issues related to partisan differences in political opinions by examining a unique set of state-level public opinion surveys. It compares the state-level determinants of the job approval ratings of the president and the senators and finds that they have almost nothing in common. The chapter then compares the sources of partisan differences in states' ratings of the president and senators and again finds that they have almost nothing in common. Next, it explores in greater detail the sources of variation in the degree of polarization inspired by senators' ratings, finding that these differ somewhat between Republican and Democratic senators but remain to an important degree under a senator's control. The chapter then shows how senators have adapted their roll-call behavior to the political leanings of their states, before drawing some conclusions.
The Origins, Functions, and Institutions of the Gulag
Authors: Barnes Steven A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter offers a general reconsideration of the Gulag's origins and the role it played in Stalin's Soviet Union, and an extended look at the variety of institutions that made up this penal universe. The Gulag was simultaneously, and for Soviet authorities unproblematically, a site of both violence and reform—death and redemption. From a prisoner's first day in the Gulag, they were confronted by a social space permeated by Soviet-style socialism. Bands played; posters announced the duty to remake oneself; collective life dominated both barracks and labor; and people died in unspeakably brutal conditions—all in the name of engineering a total human transformation. In some measure, the authorities succeeded. Prisoners learned to negotiate that social space, and in so doing learned to live on Soviet terms.
Reclaiming the Margins and the Marginal: Gulag Practices in Karaganda, 1930s
Authors: Barnes Steven A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter looks at the Gulag and the Karaganda camps in the foundational era—the 1930s—and the practices of the camp system as they were shaped in that important decade. The Gulag's practices had largely been established by the end of the 1930s. Practices had been set up and even codified in a detailed set of regulations in 1939 for constructing and running Gulag institutions. They defined the line between survival and death in the Gulag system, tying prisoner survival to measures of reeducation. A prisoner culture and society also emerged as each prisoner sought to negotiate these practices in an effort to survive.
Categorizing Prisoners: The Identities of the Gulag
Authors: Barnes Steven A.
Published: November 2017

This chapter offers a conceptualization of the identities of Gulag inmates as foisted on them by Soviet authorities and as understood by the prisoners themselves. Identity in the Gulag operated primarily along two axes: who the prisoner was prior to their arrival in the Gulag, and who the prisoner had become while in the Gulag. When a prisoner arrived in the Gulag, they stepped right into a matrix of identity in which they held a specific place defined by the type of crime committed, or their gender, class, or national identity. Nonetheless, the prisoner was not completely precluded from improving their position in the eyes of Soviet authorities.
The Priority of Democracy
Authors: Knight Jack , Johnson James
Published: November 2017

Pragmatism and its consequences are central issues in American politics today, yet scholars rarely examine in detail the relationship between pragmatism and politics. This book systematically explores the subject and makes a strong case for adopting a pragmatist approach to democratic politics—and for giving priority to democracy in the process of selecting and reforming political institutions. What is the primary value of democracy? When should we make decisions democratically and when should we rely on markets? And when should we accept the decisions of unelected officials, such as judges or bureaucrats? This book explores how a commitment to pragmatism should affect our answers to such important questions. It concludes that democracy is a good way of determining how these kinds of decisions should be made—even if what the democratic process determines is that not all decisions should be made democratically. So, for example, the democratically elected U.S. Congress may legitimately remove monetary policy from democratic decision-making by putting it under the control of the Federal Reserve. This book argues that pragmatism offers an original and compelling justification of democracy in terms of the unique contributions democratic institutions can make to processes of institutional choice. This focus highlights the important role that democracy plays, not in achieving consensus or commonality, but rather in addressing conflicts. Indeed, the book suggest that democratic politics is perhaps best seen less as a way of reaching consensus or agreement than as a way of structuring the terms of persistent disagreement.
Preliminaries
Authors: Knight Jack , Johnson James
Published: November 2017

This introductory chapter presents the book's argument about the normative significance of democracy. Democracy is a set of institutions. It has an important priority among the available institutional alternatives. The priority of democracy derives from its fundamental features. Three such features include voting, argument, and reflexivity—each of which relates to the positive effects of democratic processes on collective decision making. These effects distinguish democracy from other ways of coordinating ongoing social interaction. These qualities lend democratic arrangements presumptive priority of a particular sort. In any effort to negotiate unavoidable social disagreement over institutional arrangements, democracy enjoys a second-order priority precisely because it operates in ways that potentially meet a heavy burden of justification.
The Priority of Democracy and the Burden of Justification
Authors: Knight Jack , Johnson James
Published: November 2017

This chapter addresses the challenges that social choice theory brings to normative claims about democracy. Social choice theorists commonly critique democratic decision making on the grounds that voting is susceptible to unavoidable pathologies and that insofar as voting is essential to democracy, those pathologies subvert the normative legitimacy of democratic outcomes. Because voting is an essential component of any democratic institutional arrangement in any large, heterogeneous, complex society, the systematic instability and ambiguity that social choice theorists establish raises serious, unavoidable difficulties for some interpretations of democracy. Yet populism and liberalism hardly exhaust the theoretical vantage points from which such findings might be interpreted. Indeed, the chapter offers a reading of social choice theory that suggests an obvious, justifiable response to the putative dilemma fabricated by theorists who insist that the only available options are an impossible populism or an unpalatable liberalism.
A Cooperative Species
Authors: Bowles Samuel , Gintis Herbert
Published: November 2017

Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin. This book shows that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers. The book describes how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment. Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, the book provides a compelling and novel account of human cooperation.
The Future in Thought and Talk
Authors: Gibson David R.
Published: November 2017

This chapter develops the book's theoretical perspective. It begins with some foundational ideas about how we think about the future, particularly in connection with making choices. It then builds from solitary thought to the level of group interaction by asking what new properties are introduced when, to quiet reflection, we add linguistic expression, then a second person with whom to converse, then a third person, and finally more people still. The second half of the chapter asks, How do people collaboratively tell stories, and particularly stories about the future? It draws on existing research on collaborative storytelling about the past, but also introduces important extensions as needed to incorporate multiple and sometimes competing predictions about events that have not yet occurred. Central to this discussion is the notion of narrative relevance, which specifies what sorts of contributions can be economically and intelligibly made at any point in an episode of collaborative narration. Once we have a framework for saying what can be relevantly said, we are also in a position to judge when something is relevant but not said. The final part of the chapter considers what suppression means theoretically and how we are to recognize its occurrence empirically.
Florentine: Unrepentant Political Nazi
Authors: Monroe Kristen Renwick
Published: November 2017

This chapter tells the story of Florentine, widow of Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, one of the two top Dutch Nazis during the Hitler period. Florentine's husband served as the Dutch plenipotentiary to the League of Nations during the 1930s and as head of the Dutch National Bank during World War II. Offered the chance to be secreted to South America after the war by the Nazi leadership, Florentine and her husband elected to stay in Holland to “tell people the truth” about the war. Florentine remained an unrepentant Nazi until her death in 2007, traveling as much as her health permitted to speak in favor of the Nazi cause. She was extremely proud of her job as former leader of the Dutch Nazi Youth Movement for Women and was devoted to the memory of her husband.
Basic Personal Values and Political Orientations
Authors: Schwartz Shalom H.
Published: November 2017

This chapter explains how values structure political attitudes and behavior, by laying out the theoretical framework and arguing for the relevance of these personal values to politics. It defines ten broad values according to the motivation that underlies each of them. These ten values may encompass the full range of motivationally distinct values recognized across cultures. They are likely to be universal because they are grounded in one or more of three universal requirements of human existence, with which they help people cope: needs of people as biological organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and welfare needs of groups. The chapter's analyses indicate that some of the personal values—in particular, tradition, conformity, hedonism, and universalism—have both direct and indirect effects on voting behavior and political attitudes.
Faith and Sustenance without Contingency
Authors: Martin Adrienne M.
Published: November 2017

This chapter argues that there is a specification of hope that is both structured to close off suicide (literal or figurative) as an attractive option and immune to disappointment. This specification of hope is directed at an “unimaginable” outcome, or an outcome that outstrips our available concepts and has the marks of the attitude we often call “faith.” One might wonder if this means the loss of a crucial survival tool for atheists. However, the chapter contends that there is such a thing as secular faith, an attitude that has the sustaining power and immunity to disappointment of religious faith, but that does not presuppose any religious commitments. There is, then, a form of hope that is a unique bulwark against despair and capable of sustaining us through trials, no matter what comes.
Why Worry about Incentives?
Authors: Grant Ruth W.
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers the ethics of incentives. In the modern world, incentives are becoming the tool we reach for when we wish to bring about change. In government, in education, in health care, in private life, and between and within institutions of all sorts, incentives are offered to steer people's choices in certain directions and to bring about desired policy outcomes. So what? you might well ask. Where is the ethical issue here? From a certain point of view, there is none. Incentives could be viewed as a form of trade. A person is offered something of value to him or her in exchange for doing something valued by the person making the offer. However, not all incentives and disincentives are alike. For instance, we recognize bribery and blackmail as wrong even though both can be described in neutral terms as situations in which a simple trade takes place. The discussion then turns to incentives as a form of power. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Incentives Then and Now
Authors: Grant Ruth W.
Published: November 2017

This chapter presents a historical account of the use of the term “incentives” and of the introduction of incentives in scientific management and behavioral psychology. “Incentives” came into the language in the early part of the twentieth century in America. During this period, the language of social control and of social engineering was quite prevalent, and incentives were understood to be one tool in the social engineers' toolbox—an instrument of power. Not coincidentally, incentives were also extremely controversial at this time and were criticized from several quarters as dehumanizing, manipulative, heartless, and exploitative. When incentives are viewed as instruments of power, the controversial ethical aspects of their use come readily to the fore.
Committee Motivations for Oversight
Authors: Fowler Linda L.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines the conditions that motivate legislators to ask questions regarding the country's foreign policy. The Vietnam War represents the nadir of congressional influence over foreign policy in the eyes of many political observers. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee became the locus of congressional pressure for winding down the war, while the Senate Armed Services Committee provided a platform for hawks seeking to ramp up the use of force. The chapter develops theoretical expectations, which address three different committee phenomena relevant to oversight of national security: sources of change in the total frequency of public hearings, biases within committees regarding the frequency and venues of oversight hearings as a result of external stimuli, and influences on the content of routine and event-driven review.
Return to the Rule of Law in International Affairs
Authors: Fowler Linda L.
Published: November 2017

This chapter examines normative political issues regarding the importance of legislative oversight in fostering the rule of law and public deliberation about foreign policy. Some observers of U.S. foreign policy argue that lawmakers ask too many questions and damage the nation's interests abroad with untimely inquiries. The performance of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees thus raises broader issues about whether public accountability in international affairs is desirable or even possible in the twenty-first century. The chapter first provides an overview of the paradox of public opinion and oversight of national security before suggesting that a major barrier to a more constructive role for lawmakers in international affairs is not the Constitution, but the large number serving today who have very limited legislative experience. It also discusses the risks to the presidency that result from asserting executive supremacy over national security.
The Hunt for Bipedal Cattle
Authors: Chamayou Grégoire , Rendall Steven
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses Greek conceptions of manhunts. For the Greeks, the manhunt is not only a metaphor of the play of seduction, hunting for lovers, or sophistical traps, it is also a very literal practice connected with the institution of slavery. The economic life of the city-state is dependent on slave labor, and hence its prior acquisition. Greek philosophers also conceive manhunting as an “art” or technology of power. The main characteristic of the manhunt as a technology of power is its nonproductivity: it does not make its object but obtains it by taking it from some external source. According to the classical dichotomy, it is a technology not of production but of acquisition.
The Hunting Pack and Lynching
Authors: Chamayou Grégoire , Rendall Steven
Published: November 2017

This chapter considers situations in which, independent of the impetus provided by a central power, a pack sometimes assembles in spite of itself, sometimes even against itself, for a manhunt. For there to be a pack, individuals have to gather together. A pack is a collective being that draws its strength from numbers. Once caught, the prey will succumb to a multitude of blows or bites: all the pack's members will have killed the prey, but none of them will be the killer. The pack deindividualizes its members. Its unity is merely temporary, however. Once the hunt is over, it disperses. The question of manhunts as forms of collective mobilization is thus constantly raised in terms of the enigmatic resurgence or mysterious relapse into a primitive barbarity. So the riddle can be formulated this way: how can archaic violence reemerge at the very heart of civilization? A case in point is the event of lynching. Feminists have proposed a theory of the continuum of sexist violence. The thesis holds equally well for racist violence.
Hunting Foreigners
Authors: Chamayou Grégoire , Rendall Steven
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses the hunting of foreigners. It argues that the hunt for foreigners is a hunt for foreign workers. Xenophobic hunts arise from competition for wages. Their logic involves interpredation: the exploited against the exploited, the poor against the poor, workers against workers. Although capitalism did not invent xenophobic violence, it has channeled it toward the powerful interpredatory dynamics that characterizes it. In so doing, it has also endowed it with a redoubtable social power. Certain political movements soon understood this. Over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century, the conservative and nationalist right sought to extend protectionism from products to workers to transform popular xenophobia into a political program.
Fast Computation on Massive Data Sets
Authors: Ivezi Željko , Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander , Ivezi Željko , Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander
Published: November 2017

This chapter describes basic concepts and tools for tractably performing the computations described in the rest of this book. The need for fast algorithms for such analysis subroutines is becoming increasingly important as modern data sets are approaching billions of objects. With such data sets, even analysis operations whose computational cost is linearly proportional to the size of the data set present challenges, particularly since statistical analyses are inherently interactive processes, requiring that computations complete within some reasonable human attention span. For more sophisticated machine learning algorithms, the often worse-than-linear runtimes of straightforward implementations become quickly unbearable. The chapter looks at some techniques that can reduce such runtimes in a rigorous manner that does not sacrifice the accuracy of the analysis through unprincipled approximations. This is far more important than simply speeding up calculations: in practice, computational performance and statistical performance can be intimately linked. The ability of a researcher, within his or her effective time budget, to try more powerful models or to search parameter settings for each model in question, leads directly to better fits and predictions.
Searching for Structure in Point Data
Authors: Ivezi Željko , Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander , Ivezi Željko , Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander
Published: November 2017

Inferring the probability density function (pdf) from a sample of data is known as density estimation. The same methodology is often called data smoothing. Density estimation in the one-dimensional case has been discussed in the previous chapters. This chapter extends it to multidimensional cases. Density estimation is one of the most critical components of extracting knowledge from data. For example, given a pdf estimated from point data, we can generate simulated distributions of data and compare them against observations. If we can identify regions of low probability within the pdf, we have a mechanism for the detection of unusual or anomalous sources. If our point data can be separated into subsamples using provided class labels, we can estimate the pdf for each subsample and use the resulting set of pdfs to classify new points: the probability that a new point belongs to each subsample/class is proportional to the pdf of each class evaluated at the position of the point.
Regression and Model Fitting
Authors: Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander , Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander
Published: November 2017

Regression is a special case of the general model fitting and selection procedures discussed in chapters 4 and 5. It can be defined as the relation between a dependent variable, y, and a set of independent variables, x, that describes the expectation value of y given x: E [y¦x]. The purpose of obtaining a “best-fit” model ranges from scientific interest in the values of model parameters (e.g., the properties of dark energy, or of a newly discovered planet) to the predictive power of the resulting model (e.g., predicting solar activity). This chapter starts with a general formulation for regression, list various simplified cases, and then discusses methods that can be used to address them, such as regression for linear models, kernel regression, robust regression and nonlinear regression.
Time Series Analysis
Authors: Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander , Connolly Andrew J. , VanderPlas Jacob T. , Gray Alexander
Published: November 2017

This chapter summarizes the fundamental concepts and tools for analyzing time series data. Time series analysis is a branch of applied mathematics developed mostly in the fields of signal processing and statistics. Contributions to this field, from an astronomical perspective, have predominantly focused on unevenly sampled data, low signal-to-noise data, and heteroscedastic errors. The chapter starts with a brief introduction to the main concepts in time series analysis. It then discusses the main tools from the modeling toolkit for time series analysis. Despite being set in the context of time series, many tools and results are readily applicable in other domains, and for this reason the examples presented will not be strictly limited to time-domain data. Armed with the modeling toolkit, the chapter goes on to discuss the analysis of periodic time series, search for temporally localized signals, and concludes with a brief discussion of stochastic processes.