bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Practice of Deliberative Democracy: Results from Four Large‐Scale Trials
Authors: Weeks Edward C.
Published: March 2003

The goal of deliberative democracy is to revitalize civic culture, improve the nature of public discourse, and generate the political will necessary to take effective action on pressing problems. While there exists a fairly substantial amount of literature on the desired features of a deliberative democracy, there is little empirical research on the practical feasibility of convening a large‐scale public deliberative process.

This article describes a model of deliberative democracy which offers a practical opportunity for all citizens to participate, provides citizens extensive information about the nature of the policy problem, engages citizens in the same problem‐solving context as elected officials, and uses rigorous methods. The practical feasibility of this model is assessed through four large‐scale implementations, each addressing controversial and politically charged issues in cities ranging in population from 100,000 to 400,000. The conclusion from these trials is that it is possible to convene a large‐scale public deliberative process that enables local governments to take effective action on previously intractable issues.
Reinventing the Proverbs of Government
Authors: Williams Daniel W.
Published: March 2003

The field of public administration has a long history of popular reform movements. Many of these reforms have failed to deliver the improvements promised. The current “reinventing government” reforms, which follow largely from the writings of David Osborne and his coauthors, claim to establish a new governmental paradigm based on liberating employees and citizens to do their best and using new management methods to get the most out of what government does. However, a careful analysis of Osborne's chief works, Reinventing Government and Banishing Bureaucracy, reveals that their advice cannot be applied because it is inconsistent. No new paradigm is established, and, more importantly, because of the ahistorical nature of these texts, Osborne proposes discredited ideas for administrative reform and misleads the reader concerning the significance of his observations.
Morality Politics vs. Political Economy: The Case of School‐Based Health Centers
Authors: Wald Kenneth D. , Button James W. , Rienzo Barbara A.
Published: March 2003

Objective. Scholars continue to debate whether morally charged political issues constitute a distinct type of policy question or produce essentially the same political dynamic as public controversies lacking an overt moral dimension. The debate will not be resolved until scholars test the determinants of putative morality policies with predictors drawn both from morality politics theory and from the socioeconomic factors that account for the distribution of many other public policies. This study reports such a test. Methods. We analyze data from our national survey of directors of school‐based health centers. We use ordinary least squares regression models to predict the level of reproductive health care services provided to adolescents. Results. Service levels were influenced not only by cultural considerations, as morality politics theory would anticipate, but also by the same socioeconomic forces that account for policy levels in other domains. Conclusions. Policy for morality issues appears different from that for nonmorality issues but less distinctive than commonly imagined.
The Great Migration Gets Underway: A Comparison of Black Southern Migrants and Nonmigrants in the North, 1920
Authors: Tolnay Stewart E.
Published: March 2003

Objective. This article examines the characteristics of black southern migrants in the North near the beginning of the Great Migration and compares them with northern‐born African Americans. Methods. Data from the newly available 1920 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series file are used to conduct ordinary least squares regression and binary logistic regression analyses that compare migrants and native northerners on: residential characteristics, economic activity, and family patterns. Results. On the one hand, southern migrants, males and females alike, were more likely to report gainful occupations than native northerners. On the other hand, migrants experienced denser housing conditions and held lower‐status jobs than indigenous northerners. No significant differences in home ownership or family patterns were found. Even the statistically significant differences between migrants and northern‐born blacks were quite modest. A supplemental “generational analysis” suggests that the relatively minor disadvantages experienced by migrants in 1920 were probably due to a temporary period of adaptation and dislocation resulting from their geographic mobility. Conclusions. When combined with evidence from later stages in the Great Migration, these findings indicate that black southern migrants fared quite well in the North, relative to native northerners. Thus, the generally negative descriptions of migrants by contemporary observers, and some later researchers, should be viewed skeptically.
Social Relationships and Internet Use among Adolescents in Israel
Authors: Mesch Gustavo S.
Published: March 2003

Objective. This study examined the relationship between youth leisure activities, peer relations, and prosocial attitudes and the frequency of Internet use among adolescents in Israel. Methods. Hypotheses were tested using data from a face‐to‐face survey of a representative sample of the Israeli youth population (n= 927) conducted in February 1998. Results. It was found that the lower an individual's level of attachment to close friends and the less prosocial attitudes he/she expressed, the higher was the likelihood of his/her being a frequent Internet user. However, Internet users were more likely than nonusers to participate in social activities such as parties, singers' performances, and sports activities. Conclusions. Contrary to public perceptions it appears that among the adolescent population of Israel, Internet use is not displacing other social activities. However, adolescents who are more socially isolated are more likely to be frequent Internet users. Future research should explore whether for this group, the Internet is being used to overcome individuals' barriers to the formation of social relationships.
Political Mobilization in the Pews: Religious Contacting and Electoral Turnout
Authors: Wilcox Clyde , Sigelman Lee
Published: March 2003

Objective. We probe the impact of voter contact by religious groups, in the form of direct attempts to encourage voters to vote in a certain way and the placement of voter guides in churches, on voter turnout among white evangelical Protestants, white mainline Protestants, white Roman Catholics, and black Protestants in 1994, 1996, and 1998. Methods. Using data from the 1994, 1996, and 1998 National Election Studies, we fit a series of logistic regression models of voter turnout that feature, as key predictors, variables indicating whether an individual was contacted by “any groups concerned with moral or religious issues that tried to encourage you to vote in a particular way” and whether “information about candidates, parties or political issues [was] made available in your place of worship before the election.”Results. These forms of contact were most commonly experienced by white evangelicals and black Protestants, and in many instances such contacts accomplished their intended purpose. Conclusions. Interest group contacts—at least contacts from the types of groups examined here—have the potential to be no more effective than contacts by political parties, perhaps because their messages can be more narrowly targeted.
The Politics of Expertise in Congress and the News Media
Authors: Rich Andrew
Published: March 2003

Objective. Experts are increasingly active in U.S. policymaking, but what accounts for their varied visibility is unclear. The agenda‐setting and media studies literature suggest that experts are generally neutral, distant actors in policymaking whose products are made visible by Congress and the news media when helpful. This study examines how and when the intentional efforts of experts can also affect their relative visibility and whether a proliferation of expert organizations, as has occurred in American policymaking in recent decades, is correctly viewed as creating conditions for more rational, thoughtful decisionmaking, as some existing scholarship might suggest. Methods. I consider the conveyance of expertise among a sample of 66 public policy think tanks in congressional testimony and three national newspapers between 1991 and 1995. In a multivariate analysis, I evaluate what accounts for the quantity of congressional and media visibility. I then use a content analysis to examine differences in the nature of visibility received by think tanks. Results. Washington‐based think tanks and think tanks of no identifiable ideology have some advantage in gaining congressional and media visibility overall. Think tanks deemed credible receive more, and more substantive, visibility than those that are ideological and marketing‐oriented. Conclusions. Cumulatively, my findings suggest that more credible, staid, not identifiably ideological expert organizations are slightly favored by congressional staff members and journalists to provide guidance on issues and news stories. More ideological and marketing‐oriented sources of expertise, by contrast, are more relied upon to build support for ideas, either in staged congressional hearings or on the editorial pages of newspapers. Expert organizations can affect their relative visibility; the evidence is mixed on whether their proliferation makes policymaking and decisionmaking better informed or more rational or thoughtful.
Winning and Giving: Football Results and Alumni Giving at Selective Private Colleges and Universities
Authors: Turner Sarah E. , Meserve Lauren A. , Bowen William G.
Published: March 2003

Objective. Our central question is how changes in an institution's football success affect giving behavior. Also, we consider whether former varsity athletes are more or less sensitive in their giving behavior than other alumni to the competitive success of their school and whether such effects differ by type of institution. Methods. Using micro data from 15 academically selective private colleges and universities, the analysis presents fixed‐effects estimates of how football winning percentages affect giving behavior. Results. General giving rates are unaffected by won‐lost records at the high‐profile Division IA schools and at the Ivy League schools. Increases in winning percentages yield modest positive increases in giving rates, particularly among former atheletes, at the lower‐profile Division III liberal arts colleges. Conclusions. While there is a modest positive effect at Division III colleges, our results do not support the notion that winning and giving go hand‐in‐hand at the selective private universities that play big‐time football.
8. Logit Models for Affiliation Networks
Authors: Skvoretz John , Faust Katherine
Published: March 2003

Once confined to networks in which dyads could be reasonably assumed to be independent, the statistical analysis of network data has blossomed in recent years. New modeling and estimation strategies have made it possible to propose and evaluate very complex structures of dependency between and among ties in social networks. These advances have focused exclusively on one-mode networks—that is, networks of direct ties between actors. We generalize these models to affiliation networks, networks in which actors are tied to each other only indirectly through belonging to some group or event. We formulate models that allow us to study the (log) odds of an actor's belonging to an event (or an event including an actor) as a function of properties of the two-mode network of actors' memberships in events. We also provide illustrative analysis of some classic data sets on affiliation networks.
Peace in the Persian Gulf: The Shi'is Dimension
Authors: Bahgat Gawdat
Published: March 2003

Since the 1950s, the Persian Gulf has emerged as a major oil producer. The region's significance in satisfying the world's growing appetite for oil is increasing, due to its immense proven reserves. Thus, the stability of the Gulf states has become an important concern to all major global powers. The Gulf War resulted in the liberation of Kuwait but it has not laid down the foundations for a durable peace. A long‐term peace requires, among other things, regional co‐operation and pluralistic political regimes. This study focuses on the cleavage separating the Shi'is from the Sunnis in three Gulf states: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Iraq. Shi'ism is examined less as a religious issue than as a socio‐economic pphenomenon.
“Little Old Ladies and Dangerous Women”: Women's Peace and Social Justice Activism in Chicago, 1960–1975
Authors: Schneidhorst Amy
Published: March 2003

The predominant image of women peace activists in 1960s and 1970s peace and anti–Vietnam War historiography is maternal, in particular drawing on Amy Swerdlow's research on Women Strike for Peace (WSP). This essay analyzes the peace and social justice activism of two single‐sex organizations in Chicago: Women for Peace (the Chicago chapter of WSP) and Women Mobilized for Change. These women activists used “women as citizen” and maternal rationales as well as their gender, age, and class to legitimize their activism. Using oral history and organizational sources, this essay also investigates how women activists' tactics to recruit members and confront male authorities were shaped by pre‐feminist gender norms and violent police resistance in Vietnam‐era Chicago.
Civic Engagement, Interpersonal Trust, and Television Use: An Individual‐Level Assessment of Social Capital
Authors: Shah Dhavan V.
Published: March 2003

The mechanisms underlying the formation and sustenance of social capital on the individual level were explored with a structural model composed of the endogenous variables of civic engagement and interpersonal trust. Using the 1995 DDB Needham life style study, analysis of the model permitted an examination of the strength and direction of the causal relationships driving the “virtuous circle” of participation and trust; the demographic, situational/contextual, orientational, and attitudinal factors that are exogenous to these latent variables; and the linkage between these components of social capital and viewing preferences for specific television genres. The results indicate that (1) the direction of the linkage between civic engagement and interpersonal trust is mainly from participating to trusting; and (2) television viewing plays a conditional role in the production of social capital that is dependent on the use of particular genres.
Social Capital, Social Networks, and Political Participation
Authors: La Due Lake Ronald , Huckfeldt Robert
Published: March 2003

Social Capital is created through the patterns of interdependence andsocial interaction that occur within a population, and we attempt to understand the participatory consequences of these patterns relative to the effects of human capital and organizational involvement. The production of social capital in personal networks was examined with the use of social network and participation data from the 1992 American study of the Cross National Election Project. The results suggest that politically relevant social capital (that is, social capital that facilitates political engagement) is generated in personal networks, that it is a by‐product of the social interactions with a citizen's discussants, and that increasing levels of politically relevant social capital enhance the likelihood that a citizen will be engaged in politics. Further, the production of politically relevant social capital is a function of the political expertise within an individual's network of relations, the frequency of political interaction within the network, and the size or extensiveness of the network. These results are sustained even while taking account of a person's individual characteristics and organizational involvement. Hence, the consequences of social relations within networks are not readily explained away on the basis of either human capital effects or the effects of organizational engagement.
Civic Engagement in a Post‐Communist State
Authors: Mondak Jeffery J. , Gearing Adam F.
Published: March 2003

During the communist era, numerous social and political constraints limited civic engagement in communities throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This paper explores whether such constraints have left lasting marks, and whether such lingering effects potentially slow the process of democratization. Three specific questions were explored: (1) whether civic engagement in a post‐communist state differs from that in an established Western democracy; (2) whether the quality of social perception suffers when civic engagement is constrained; and (3) whether a link exists between civic engagement and tangible forms of political judgment. Data were analyzed from surveys conducted in Cluj‐Napoca, Romania, in 1994 and in South Bend, Indiana, in 1984. Compared with South Bend residents, the people of Cluj‐Napoca discuss politics less, engage in interactive forms of political participation at lower rates, know less about their neighbors, and fail to link the interests of people in the community to broader political judgments. Given the centrality of civic engagement to democratic legitimacy, these findings justify concern regarding the prospects for full democratization in Central and Eastern European contexts in which social interaction does not yet flourish.
Living with Contradictions: The Taken‐for‐Granted in Israeli Political Discourse
Authors: Gamson William A. , Herzog Hanna
Published: March 2003

Two apparently contradictory ideas are closely linked in Israeli political discourse: Israel is powerful and independent and Israel is vulnerable and dependent. This study used content analysis and focus groups, as well as existing survey data analyzed by others, to explore how this paradox has been reflected in newspapers and conversations during six different time periods from 1948 to 1996. The goal was not to explain the paradox but to examine its consequences for Israeli perceptions of U.S. policy in the Middle East—and, in the process, to explore Israeli self‐images. The nature of U.S. strategic interests was originally treated as problematic and in need of political discussion, but in the past 25 years these interests have become taken for granted. Surprisingly, even after the end of the Cold War, a critical discourse moment in which a reexamination of U.S. interests in the Middle East would seem inevitable, the U.S. role remains taken for granted and largely unexamined. The strong/vulnerable paradox explains this absence of discussion: Examining U.S. interests too closely upsets the delicate balance that keeps the sense of vulnerability in check.
Young Israelis' Reactions to National Trauma: The Rabin Assassination andTerror Attacks
Authors: Raviv Amiram , Sadeh Avi , Raviv Alona , Silberstein Ora , Diver Orna
Published: March 2003

This study examined the cognitive and emotional reactions of 477 Israeli high school students to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (immediately after the event as well as 5 months later) and to a series of terror attacks. The respondents' reactions to the two events were compared as a function of gender and political orientation. About 50% of the respondents who changed their political views immediately after the assassination reverted to pre‐event attitudes 5 months later. Emotional reactions to the assassination showed substantial fading after 5 months, with extent of fading unaffected by gender or political orientation. The intensity of emotional reactions was affected by political orientation: Although Rabin's supporters and his opponents reacted with equal intensity to the terror attacks, supporters reacted with the same intensity to Rabin's assassination, whereas opponents' reactions to the assassination were less intense.
Rights and Morals, Issues, and Candidate Integrity: Insights into the Role of the News Media
Authors: Domke David , Shah Dhavon V. , Wackman Daniel B.
Published: March 2003

In recent American political discourse, elections and debates tend to be presented by the news media as collisions of basic principles, with opposing parties advancing beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. When news coverage of an election campaign focuses on issues that emphasize rights and morals, voting behavior may be affected in two ways: Citizens become likely to form and make use of evaluations of the integrity of the candidates, and citizens become motivated to seek an issue‐position “match” with candidates on those issues for which discourse is ethically charged (particularly when they hold a similar interpretation of the issue). These ideas were tested in an experiment in which labor union members and undergraduate students were presented with news stories about the contrasting positions of fictional candidates for elective office. Across three political environments, all information was held constant except for systematic alteration of a different issue in each environment. These three issues (abortion, gun control, and health care) vary in the types of value conflicts emphasized in news coverage. The results shed light on how individuals process, interpret, and use issue coverage in choosing among candidates.
The Development of Charismatic Leaders
Authors: Popper Micha
Published: March 2003

This paper explores the origins of leadership potential and motivation for leadership, primarily with regard to two types of leaders: personalized and socialized charismatic leaders. Bowlby's attachment theory (1969, 1973) provides a theoretical basis for determining an individual's potential to be in leadership positions. The “internal working model,” formed (according to Bowlby) in the course of attachment processes in infancy, has a considerable impact on self‐perception, which may later affect the development of “ego resources” required for leadership. The motivation to be a leader is analyzed with the help of various psychodynamic concepts and models.
The Authoritarian Personality, 50 Years Later: What Questions Are There for Political Psychology?
Authors: Martin John Levi
Published: March 2003

Adorno, Frenkel‐Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford's The Authoritarian Personality is probably the most deeply flawed work of prominence in political psychology. The methodological, procedural, and substantive errors of this study are well known, but they are frequently simply attributed to poor methodological judgments, issues of scaling (such as response set), or Freudian theories that legitimated circular interpretations. But a more fundamental bias arose from the attempt to empirically verify the existence of a “type” of person whom the researchers thought dangerous and with whom they did not empathize. This attempt involved two dangerous procedures: (1) the fusion of nominalist research procedures (in which empirical results were used to type respondents) with a realist interpretation of types (in which some people “just were” authoritarians and others not), and (2) a theoretically rich critique of the authoritarians and a lack of interest in the psychodynamics of liberals. This combination led to an intrinsically biased interpretive project that could not help but accumulate damning evidence about authoritarians. These subtler problems have haunted contemporary work in political psychology that avoids the methodological problems of Adorno et al.; Altemeyer's work on authoritarianism, which not only is free from the defects of the Adorno et al. study but also involves some methodologically exemplary experiments, is similarly distorted by asymmetries. The same fundamental problems seem to be at the heart of the weaknesses of the theory of symbolic racism to which critics have pointed. Political psychologists should regard The Authoritarian Personality as a cautionary example of bias arising from the choice of methodological assumptions.
Cognitive Dissonance and Post‐Decision Attitude Change in Six Presidential Elections
Authors: Beasley Ryan K. , Joslyn Mark R.
Published: March 2003

Data from the National Election Studies were examined in an effort to isolate cognitive dissonance of two kinds: dissonance arising from a behavioral commitment in the form of voting, and dissonance arising from inconsistencies associated with having supported the losing candidate. Feeling thermometer ratings of the two principal presidential candidates obtained before and immediately after six elections (1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996) were analyzed. Regression estimates supported a dissonance reduction explanation of observed attitude changes. Voters, as compared to nonvoters, tended to increase the evaluative distance between candidates after an election, whereas supporters of the losing candidate were more likely than supporters of the winning candidate to decrease such evaluative distances. An additional examination of voters yielded results consistent with dissonance theory: After the election, respondents reporting favorable evaluations of both candidates (a difficult choice) tended to spread comparative candidate evaluations compared to respondents who were favorable toward only one candidate (an easy choice). The results both support and cast doubt on prior studies.
The Impact of Election Outcome on the Display of Political Posters: A Field Study During Communal Elections in Flanders
Authors: Boen Filip , Vanbeselaere Norbert
Published: March 2003

The present field study was designed to test the relationship between the election outcomes of political parties and the post‐election display of posters in favor of those parties. Two days before the Flemish communal elections on 8 October 2000, addresses of private houses in the community of Zele were registered that displayed at least one poster in support of a political party (N = 388). On the day after the elections, two observers checked whether the registered houses still displayed their poster(s). A strongly and positively linear relation was found between the proportional win/loss of each political party (compared with the previous elections) and the percentage of houses that continued to exhibit poster(s) in support of that party: The better the election result, the higher the proportion of houses that still displayed their poster(s).
A Defining Presidential Moment: 9/11 and the Rally Effect
Authors: Schubert James N. , Stewart Patrick A. , Curran Margaret Ann
Published: March 2003

Public approval ratings of George W. Bush surged after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. This study used a quasi–experimental, within–respondents design to investigate the relative contribution of five factors to this classic rally effect: the stimulus event itself, Bush’s speech that evening, media exposure, partisan support, and gender effects. Respondents were pretested on the morning of the attacks; one group was posttested immediately after the speech, another group 41 hours later. Stability of effects was examined through an additional study of Bush’s 20 September 2001 speech to a joint session of Congress. The findings indicate that Bush’s 11 September speech was the critical factor in this rally effect; none of the other factors contributed significantly.
Intelligence Failure and Need for Cognitive Closure: On the Psychology of the Yom Kippur Surprise
Authors: Bar–Joseph Uri , Kruglanski Arie W.
Published: March 2003

This paper uses newly available evidence to shed light on the circumstances and causes of the 6 October 1973 Yom Kippur surprise attack of Egyptian and Syrian forces on Israeli positions at the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights. The evidence suggests that an important circumstance that accounts for the surprise effect these actions managed to produce, despite ample warning signs, is traceable to a high need for cognitive closure among major figures in the Israeli intelligence establishment. Such a need may have prompted leading intelligence analysts to “freeze” on the conventional wisdom that an attack was unlikely and to become impervious to information suggesting that it was imminent. The discussion considers the psychological forces affecting intelligence operations in predicting the initiation of hostile enemy activities, and it describes possible avenues of dealing with the psychological impediments to open–mindedness that may pervasively characterize such circumstances.
Freedom and Borderline Experience
Authors: Alford C. Fred
Published: March 2003

In–depth interviews with 52 diverse informants about their experience of freedom reveal a devaluation of freedom relative to money and power. The way in which many of these informants conceptualize freedom has a borderline quality to it—a term that refers to borderline personality disorder, but which is conceptualized here as a cultural construct similar to that of the culture of narcissism, as Christopher Lasch called it. The conclusion speculates about why informants see the world in this way.
Risk Perception in the U.K. Oil and Gas Production Industry: Are Expert Loss‐Prevention Managers' Perceptions Different From Those of Members of the Public?
Authors: Wright George , Pearman Alan , Yardley Keith
Published: March 2003

This article investigates potential differences in risk perception between experts (loss‐prevention managers in the U.K. oil and gas production industry) and nonexperts (managers and students). Extant research on expert versus nonexpert perceptions of risk is reviewed, followed by the present study concerning risk perceptions of seven pen‐picture scenarios involving the occurrence of hazardous events in the U.K. oil and gas production industry. In contrast to many of the earlier studies of expert versus nonexpert perceptions of risk, the present analysis concludes that experts did not judge the overall riskiness of the portrayed hazardous events as less risky than the nonexperts. Nevertheless, the experts believe more strongly than our nonexperts that the risks portrayed in the scenarios pose little threat to future generations, are more precisely known, and are relatively controllable. Use of multiple regression analysis to help uncover the basis of overall riskiness assessments for expert and lay respondents was inconclusive, however. Finally, little evidence was found that nonexperts were any more heterogeneous in their risk perceptions than experts. It may be that the nature of the risks assessed in the present study may account for the general lack of clear expert versus nonexpert differences in overall perceptions of the riskiness of hazardous events in the North Sea. Earlier findings of strong expert versus nonexpert differences in risk perception assessed hazards of major public concern. It is inferred that using such extreme hazards may have resulted in an exaggerated view of differences in expert versus public (nonexpert) perception of risk.
Can We Use Human Judgments to Determine the Discount Rate?
Authors: Baron Jonathan
Published: March 2003

It has been suggested that the long‐term discount rate for environmental goods should decrease at longer delays. One justification for this suggestion is that human judgments support it. This article presents an experiment showing that judgments concerning discount rates are internally inconsistent. These results point to potential problems with the use of judgments referenda for determining discount rates in cost‐benefit analyses.
Risk Perception and Experience: Hazard Personality Profiles and Individual Differences
Authors: Barnett Julie , Breakwell Glynis M.
Published: March 2003

The dominance of the “psychometric” paradigm and the consequent emphasis on personality profiles of hazards has resulted in little attention being given to individual variability in risk judgments. This study examines how far differences in experience of risk activities can explain individual variability in risk assessments. A questionnaire study (n= 172) was used to explore the relationships between experience and risk perceptions in relation to 16 risk activities. It was expected that these relationships would differ for voluntary and involuntary activities. Measures of experience included assessments of “impact” and “outcome” valence as well as “frequency.” These three aspects of experience each related to risk assessment but their relationship depended on whether the risk experiences were voluntary or not. The results indicate the importance of developing more fine‐grained ways of indexing risk experience.
Scenario‐Based Risk Assessment of Multi‐Use Chemicals: Application to Solvents
Authors: Scheringer Martin , Vögl Thomas , Von Grote Julia , Capaul Béatrice , Schubert Renate , Hungerbühler Konrad
Published: March 2003

The risk through chemical exposure is commonly characterized by ratios of exposure concentrations and effect levels (risk quotients). For chemicals with many different applications such as solvents, however, in addition to the risk quotients of different exposure situations it is useful to determine the corresponding numbers of exposed individuals, that is, not only the magnitude but also the extent of the risk. To this end, the Scenario‐Based Risk Assessment (SceBRA) method has been developed that makes use of a large set of scenarios, each of which describes a typical situation regarding handling a solvent or solvent‐containing product. The scenarios cover the life‐cycle steps of production, distribution, and use of solvents. For each scenario, SceBRA provides the risk quotient, r, and the number of exposed individuals, N. This study investigated seven solvents that are used in large amounts in Switzerland. For each solvent, characteristic distributions of r and N values were calculated, making it possible to compare different solvents with respect to their risk profile. Graphical representations of the r, N data provide an informative way for analyzing and communicating the results of SceBRA.
Short‐Term Dermal Absorption and Penetration of Chemicals from Aqueous Solutions: Theory and Experiment
Authors: McDougal James N. , Jurgens‐Whitehead Julia L.
Published: March 2003

Dermal penetration of organic chemical‐contaminated water from showering and bathing scenarios is a concern of regulatory agencies that have been tasked with determining safe exposure levels. During household showering and bathing, nearly the entire surface area of the body is exposed for short periods of time (5 – 15 minutes). The primary means of predicting body burden during brief exposures is to estimate total chemical penetrated from the steady‐state penetration rate using a skin permeability coefficient. A variety of approaches has been recommended to estimate “body burden.” The purpose of this investigation was to collect experimental data from short‐term exposures to an organic chemical (dibromomethane [DBM]) in aqueous solution so that methods for estimating body burden could be compared. Rat skins were exposed in vitro to saturated aqueous solutions of DBM for 20 minutes and the amount of chemical in the receptor solution and the skin was analyzed. The total DBM mass in the receptor solution and the skin was taken to represent an in vivo body burden. These results were compared with the estimates of penetration from steady‐state calculations, square root of time calculations, and a biologically based mathematical model. Results indicated that the amount of chemical in the skin and its fate during short exposures is important. The square root of time approach predicted total amount of chemical absorbed and penetrated better than did the steady‐state approach. The biologically based mathematical model accurately predicted total body burden and could be used to distinguish between the amount of chemical in the skin and the amount of chemical that penetrated through the skin, which would be useful for understanding local toxicity.
Evaluating Public Commentary and Scientific Evidence Submitted in the Development of a Risk Assessment
Authors: Schotland Marieka S. , Bero Lisa A.
Published: March 2003

Risk assessments form the methodological basis for many public policies. A key component of the risk assessment process is the public commentary period. We conducted a case study of the California environmental tobacco smoke risk assessment to describe the contribution of the commentary to the risk assessment process. We used content analysis to examine the sources, quantity, and quality of public commentary, as well as the agency's response to the commentary. We examined the type and quality of publications cited in the commentary. Most of the comments were from critics of the risk assessment (36/44, 80%), especially tobacco industry affiliates (30/36, 83%). Critics were more likely to evoke the science evaluation criteria of study quality, reliability, and validity than were supporters. More than half the critics argued that appropriate procedures were not followed (13/23, 57%). Of the 29 commentaries on the respiratory, carcinogenic, and cardiovascular chapters, four resulted in changes to the risk assessment, such as the addition of new references or reanalysis of data. Journal articles were the most frequently cited type of reference, cited by critics (1,022/1,526 of references, 67%) and supporters (39/60, 65%). However, journal articles submitted by critics had lower impact factors than those cited by supporters (2.6 vs. 3.6, p=0.03). Participation in the public input process was not balanced among all interested parties, although this may reflect different opportunities for stakeholders to participate in stages of the process. Critics and supporters of the risk assessment used different criteria to evaluate the scientific evidence, suggesting that they were socially constructing the evidence to support their positions.
How Capital Budgeting Helped a Sick City: Thirty Years of Capital Improvement Planning in Cleveland
Authors: Hoffmann Susan , Krumholz Norman , O’Brien Kevin
Published: March 2003

During the 1970s, Cleveland’s capital improvement plan (CIP) was scorned as a bad joke, and the city’s roads, bridges, and public buildings fell into disrepair. The city’s default on its fiscal obligation in 1978 seemed to cap the city’s infrastructure problem; there was no comprehensive strategy for capital spending and in a bankrupt city, no money to spend in any event. Yet, during the 1980s, with support from the administration, the business community, and the innovations of a small group of dedicated urban planners, the CIP was restructured and hundreds of millions were systematically invested in public infrastructure. By the 1990s, most of the innovative changes of the 1980s seemed to be institutionalized, but there were ominous clouds on the horizon.
Does the Local‐Option Sales Tax Provide Property Tax Relief? The Georgia Case
Authors: Jung Changhoon
Published: March 2003

This study examines the effect of a one percent local‐option sales tax (LOST) on property tax level, millage rate, and total spending level in Georgia counties. The study covers a 13‐year period for 136 Georgia counties. The findings suggest that the law, which requires rollback of property taxes when the LOST is used, led to actual property tax relief as well as millage rate reduction. Regression results show that counties collecting the LOST tend to have per capita property taxes that are an average of $12 or 1.8 mills lower than counties that do not collect the tax. Whereas an extra dollar of LOST revenue provides about 28 cents in property tax relief, it leads to an increase in total spending of about 48 cents. In sum, the LOST has achieved the objectives of property tax relief, but on balance it is more an augmentation of than an effective substitute for property taxes in Georgia counties.
The Rise of Sympathy and the Question of Divine Suffering
Authors: Herdt Jennifer A.
Published: March 2003

Seventeenth‐century Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth, writing just at the time when the concept of sympathy was moving from the realm of magic to that of ethics, argued that God must be understood as having a vital sympathy with suffering human beings. Yet while Cudworth invoked sympathy in an attempt to capture God’s intimate relation with creation, in fact, it served as a principle of mediation that tended either to collapse God into the world or to distance God from the world. The broader implications of this problematic conception of divine transcendence can be seen in the secularizing tendencies within sentimentalist ethics and in the work of the late nineteenth‐century and early twentieth‐century Anglican theologians, who were the first to affirm divine passibility.
Inference to the Best Explanation
Authors: Clayton Philip
Published: March 2003

The common role of research programs in science and religion is now widely accepted. The next step in the methodology debate is to specify more concretely the shared standards for adequate explanations. The article presents a detailed account of the method of inference to the best explanation and gives examples of how the method can structure the philosophical and theological interaction with science. The resulting approach dispenses with deductive and inductive proofs of religious propositions and limits itself to initially plausible hypotheses that are to be assessed according to their explanatory power. Only when a domain of data and a particular explanatory task have been specified can any serious claim be made that religious theories are equal or superior to their naturalistic alternatives.
Fowler's Stages of Faith Development in an Honors Science‐and‐Religion Seminar
Authors: Gathman Allen C. , Nessan Craig L.
Published: March 2003

According to Paul Tillich's understanding of religion as “ultimate concern,” a religious dimension is implicit in all university curricula. A science‐and‐religion course, such as one taught at Southeast Missouri State University, can offer students the opportunity to integrate their worldview, taking seriously both religious ideas and scientific information. Assignments based on A. E. Lawson's model of a learning cycle provide a vehicle for evaluating significant student learning leading toward fuller integration. The stages of faith developed by James W. Fowler serve as a fruitfull framework for interpreting changes in student viewpoints. Fowler's six stages of faith are characterized. Examples from student writing assignments demonstrate shifts in the cognitive understanding of faith that coincide with Fowler's stages.
Storytellers and Scenario Spinners: Some Reflections on Religion and Science in Light of a Pragmatic, Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge
Authors: Peters Karl E.
Published: March 2003

Asserting that both scientists and religious thinkers are involved in telling stories about the past and spinning scenarios about the future, I first compare and contrast the purposes of scientific and religious storytelling. Then, in light of some recent work on brain and language evolution, I offer a possible story about how humans might have become storytellers. Finally, I discuss how religious stories might be evaluated pragmatically and even scientifically by developing Lakatosian‐type research programs.
Naturalisms and Religion
Authors: Drees Willem B.
Published: March 2003

Such terms as materialism, naturalism, and near synonyms evoke strong negative reactions among many believers. However, the notion of naturalism has various meanings; implications for religion differ for the several varieties of naturalism. In this paper I analyze epistemological and ontological variants of naturalism and explore the perspectives for religion within a nonreductive ontological naturalism.
A Richer or a Poorer Naturalism?
Authors: Griffin David Ray
Published: March 2003

Willem Drees endorses not only minimal naturalism, understood as the rejection of supernatural interruptions of the world's normal causal processes, but also maximal naturalism, with its reductionistic materialism. Besides arguing that this reductionistic naturalism provides the best framework for interpreting science, he believes that it is compatible with religion (albeit of a minimalist sort). The “richer” naturalism advocated by Whiteheadians is, accordingly, unnecessary. Drees's position, however, cannot do justice to a number of “hard‐core commonsense notions,” which we inevitably presuppose in practice and thereby in science as well as religion. His naturalism is too poor, in particular, to account for subjectivity, freedom, and mathematical, religious, and moral experience.
Sociobiology and Human Nature: A Perspective from Catholic Theology
Authors: Pope Stephen J.
Published: March 2003

This paper addresses a nonspecialist audience on how sociobiological accounts of human nature might be relevant to Christian theology. I begin with some confessional remarks to clarify what I mean by Christian theology and how I understand it to be related to science. I indicate briefly why sociobiology might be of interest to theology and then move on to sketch some ways in which sociobiology might relate to theological ethics. My basic point is that sociobiology is directly relevant to theological ethics in its understanding of evolved human emotional predispositions but not in its normative reflection proper.
The Open‐Ended Legacy of Ralph Wendell Burhoe
Authors: Peters Karl E.
Published: March 2003

Through cultivating my thinking, along with that of many others, Ralph Burhoe taught me to understand myself in relational terms. He helped me to appreciate religious traditions on scientific grounds and to see how religion adapts to changing conditions even as it continues to provide meaning and guidance to the wider culture. He restored my belief in an ever‐present sovereign God when God is understood in terms of function and system.
The Idea of Creation and the Theory of Autopoietic Processes
Authors: Gregersen Niels Henrik
Published: March 2003

Systems theory is proposed as a major resource for reconceptualizing a Christian theology of creation. Section I outlines the principles of the theory of autopoietic systems and discusses in particular Manfred Eigen's and Stuart Kauffman's differing views of the emergence of life. Section II shows how biblical texts conceive of God's “blessing” as a divine installment and reshaping of spatio‐temporal fields for creaturely self‐productivity. On this double basis, Section III undertakes a constructive attempt to formulate a theology of self‐productivity within a Trinitarian framework. The unity of divine self‐consistency and capacity for self‐relativization is seen as the clue for understanding how God not only sustains the world in general but also influences particular processes by changing the overall probability pattern of evolving systems.
Toward a New Understanding of Nature, Reality, and the Sacred: A Syllabus
Authors: Yerkes James
Published: March 2003

Adjustments in the understanding of the relation of religion and science since the Enlightenment require new considerations in epistemology and metaphysics. Constructionist theories of knowledge and process theories of metaphysics better provide the new paradigms needed both to preserve and to limit the significance of each field of human understanding. In a course taught at Moravian College, this perspective is applied to the concepts of nature, reality, and the sacred, with a view to showing how we might develop one such paradigm. Key resources for this task are to be found in the work of artist René Magritte; theologians Langdon Gilkey, Arthur Peacocke, and John Haught; philosophers and historians of science Alfred North Whitehead, Timothy Ferris, Ernan Mc Mullin, and Ian Barbour; philosopher of religion Paul Ricoeur; and historians of religion Rudolph Otto and Mircea Eliade. Such a new paradigm calls for an ecologically sensitive religious awareness which is both sacramental and holistic.