TAXES AND SOCIAL SPENDING: THE SHIFTING DEMANDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC

This paper uses data from the Australian Election Studies (1987–2001) to investigate the preference for lower taxes or higher social spending among Australian voters. We offer some explanations for the increased support for higher social spending, especially after the election of the Howard Government in 1996. Regression models allow us to distinguish various factors that predict support for higher social spending. The main conclusions of the paper are that support for social spending is higher among voters with ‘social‐democratic’ attitudes and voting preferences but significantly, is also higher among voters who think health and Medicare services have declined since 1998. These findings are discussed in the context of various possible explanations for declining support for tax cuts.     

Understanding selection bias,time-lags and measurement bias in secondary data sources: Putting the Encyclopedia of Associations database in broader context

Secondary data gathered for purposes other than research play an important role in the social sciences. A recent data release has made an important source of publicly available data on associational interests, the Encyclopedia of Associations (EA), readily accessible to scholars (www.policyagendas.org). In this paper we introduce these new data and systematically investigate issues of lag between events and subsequent reporting in the EA, as these have important but under-appreciated effects on time-series statistical models. We further analyze the accuracy and coverage of the database in numerous ways. Our study serves as a guide to potential users of this database, but we also reflect upon a number of issues that should concern all researchers who use secondary data such as newspaper records, IRS reports and FBI Uniform Crime Reports.     

Volunteering Hierarchies in the Global South: Remuneration and Livelihoods

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This paper explores volunteering and inequality in the global South through an analysis of volunteering remuneration. We...     

Science as Snake Oil: Rural Development,Discourse, and the Broken Promise of Tech Jobs in Vermont

This paper examines the public conversation surrounding two failed technology businesses in rural Vermont communities, documenting a particular techno-development discourse. Engaging with the literatures of rural development and science and technology studies (STS), the paper frames this discourse as a mechanism of power exercised by private capital. It analyzes how perspectives shared in news and social media functioned to attribute financial, technological, and moral authority to developers while dividing communities and scapegoating the state. Our work highlights the need for scholars to be conscious of techno-development discourses that prioritize capital interests over community interests. Rather than using hegemonic conceptualizations of technology, we advocate for development that advances more flexible, local understandings of technology. And rather than centering high-tech development as a vehicle for extending prosperity across space, we propose that greater attention be paid to extending high wages across industrial sectors.     

Dose Response for Infectivity of Several Strains of Campylobacter jejuni in Chickens

Although some major risk studies have been done for Campylobacter jejuni, its dose response is not well characterized. Only a single human study is available, providing dose-response information for only a single isolate. As substantial heterogeneity in infectivity has been acknowledged for other pathogens, it remains unknown how well this single study represents the dose-response relation for this pathogen. As future human challenge studies with Campylobacter are unlikely, we have to find other means of studying its infectivity. Several dose-response studies have been done using chickens as host organisms. These studies may be used to obtain quantitative information on the variation in infectivity among different isolates of this pathogen. A hierarchical Bayesian model is well suited to describe heterogeneity, and we demonstrate how the beta-Poisson model of microbial infection may be adapted to allow for within- and between-isolate variation. Isolates tested in chickens can be categorized into two distinct groups: lab-adapted and fresh isolates, and we show how the hierarchical dose-response model can be used to quantitatively describe their differences. Fresh isolates show higher colonization potential and less within-isolate variation than lab isolates. The results indicate that Campylobacter jejuni is highly infectious in chickens. Different isolates show great variation in infectivity, especially between lab and fresh isolates, indicating that human clinical (volunteer) studies on infectivity must be interpreted cautiously.     

After New Labour: political and policy consequences of welfare state reforms in the United Kingdom and Australia

ABSTRACT

Growing global integration, combined with the collapse of Soviet Communism, created major challenges for centre-left politics in the democratic world. This article considers two transformative Labour Party-led experiments that refurbished the welfare states of Australia and the United Kingdom, respectively. In Australia, this includes the Hawke–Keating (1983–1996) and Rudd–Gillard (2007–2013) Governments, and in the United Kingdom, the ‘New Labour’ Blair–Brown Governments (1997–2010). We present a comparative political economy of these welfare reforms, one that draws on both the policy transfer and policy diffusion literatures. By the 1980s, both parties faced three problems related to national economic decline, the ideological challenge to Keynesianism, and the decline of the traditional working-class electorate. We argue both parties developed common electoral and governing strategies aimed at winning support for a market-driven social-democratic program. Policy simultaneously compensated voters for market inequalities and deepened market relations. Focusing on how labour governments managed post-industrial change, responded to inequalities, advanced quasi-markets, and negotiated with union partners, we argue these experiments produced increasingly contradictory results that left both parties electorally and ideologically depleted. Despite important similarities, we note differences – starting points, discrete events and institutional variations have mattered to reform paths and their consequences.     

How Portable Is Level‐0 Behavior? A Test of Level‐k Theory in Games With Non‐Neutral Frames

We test the portability of level‐0 assumptions in level‐k theory in an experimental investigation of behavior in Coordination, Discoordination, and Hide and Seek games with common, non‐neutral frames. Assuming that level‐0 behavior depends only on the frame, we derive hypotheses that are independent of prior assumptions about salience. Those hypotheses are not confirmed. Our findings contrast with previous research which has fitted parameterized level‐k models to Hide and Seek data. We show that, as a criterion of successful explanation, the existence of a plausible model that replicates the main patterns in these data has a high probability of false positives.