Presidential Success in the Realm of Foreign Affairs: Institutional Reform and the Role of House Committees*

Objective This analysis focuses on institutional reform and the House foreign policy committees to assess the resurgent‐Congress explanation of presidential success in international affairs between 1953–1998. Method Logit models are used to determine the changing effects on presidential success resulting from the support of chairmen and the president's co‐partisans on the foreign policy committees due to the 1970s congressional reforms. Results The analysis illustrates differences in the effects of committee leaders and committee co‐partisans on roll‐call success before and after the reforms. Also, contrasts are found in the effects of the foreign policy panels that differentially influence presidential success. Conclusion The article offers evidence that the institutional reforms that changed the House policy process from one dominated by committee chairs to one responsive to political parties significantly altered presidential success. These findings emphasize the importance of the changing congressional environment in explaining presidential success in foreign policy.     

Reluctant entrepreneurs: musicians and entrepreneurship in the ‘new’ music industry

Changing labour conditions in the creative industries – with celebrations of autonomy and entrepreneurialism intertwined with increasing job insecurity, portfolio careers and short‐term, project‐based contracts – are often interpreted as heralding changes to employment relations more broadly. The position of musicians’ labour in relation to these changes is unclear, however, given that these kinds of conditions have defined musicians’ working practices over much longer periods of time (though they may have intensified due to well‐documented changes to the music industry brought about by digitization and disintermediation). Musicians may thus be something of a barometer of current trends, as implied in the way that the musically derived label ‘gig economy’ is being used to describe the spread of precarious working conditions to broader sections of the population. This article, drawing on original qualitative research that investigated the working practices of musicians, explores one specific aspect of these conditions: whether musicians are self‐consciously entrepreneurial towards their work and audience. We found that, while the musicians in our study are routinely involved in activities that could be construed as entrepreneurial, generally they were reluctant to label themselves as entrepreneurs. In part this reflected understandings of entrepreneurialism as driven by profit‐seeking but it also reflected awareness that being a popular musician has always involved business and commercial dimensions. Drawing on theoretical conceptions of entrepreneurship developed by Joseph Schumpeter we highlight how the figure of the entrepreneur and the artist/musician share much in common and reflect various aspects of romantic individualism. Despite this, there are also some notable differences and we conclude that framing musicians’ labour as entrepreneurial misrepresents their activities through an overemphasis on the economic dimensions of their work at the expense of the cultural.     

Synesthetizing Sound Studies and the Sociology of Technology

This paper examines current issues at the intersection of the Sociology of Technology and the interdisciplinary field of Sound Studies. It begins with an overview of major social constructionist, interpretive semiotic, and actor–network theoretical sociological approaches to technology as developed within the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Considering the predominance of narrative visual metaphors in these approaches' treatment of socio‐technical perception, it is argued that the “turn to sound” in social studies of technology, rather than simply furnishing established analytic approaches with a fresh set of empirical cases (i.e. “sound technologies”), presents an opportunity to better sensitize STS approaches to the contingent socio‐technical shaping and distribution of embodied perceptual modalities in general. A critical review of recent social and historical studies of sound and technology, attending especially to debates surrounding the theoretical shift from acoustemological or soundscape‐based to signal‐oriented “transductive” approaches, suggests the importance for future STS and Sound Studies work of addressing how shared modes of sensory perception are produced within particular socio‐technical frames.     

Suicide prevention and community-level indictors

This study sought to develop a set of easily obtainable, relevant measures of a community's condition that could be used to guide its suicide prevention efforts. Existing data were gathered across 159 Georgia counties for nine potential social indicators (rates of net migration, divorce, unemployment, violent crimes reported, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs [DUI] crashes, high school dropouts, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], percentage of population aged 65 or older, and percentage of population who are white males) that had been chosen by the communities. Data on the social indicators from 1995 through 1999 were averaged and analyzed to determine their correlation with aggregated 5-year county suicide rates. Results of multivariate modeling procedures showed number of DUI crashes and percentage of the population aged 65 or older to be significant correlates of the suicide rate, controlling for other potential indicators. These preliminary data may provide a useful model of a county's 5-year suicide rate among counties reporting 20 or more suicides. Research with additional indicators and in other states will help determine the generalizability of these findings to other communities.     

Tackling HIV and AIDS with faith-based communities: learning from attitudes on gender relations and sexual rights within local evangelical churches in Burkina Faso,Zimbabwe, and South Africa

The AIDS pandemic in Africa is devastating the continent. The institution of marriage does not appear to be protecting women – in some countries rates of infection among married women are higher than those among unmarried, sexually active women. Recognising that unequal gender relations are a driving force behind the AIDS pandemic, this article explores the position of local evangelical churches in Africa with respect to gender relations and sex, and the implications for HIV and AIDS. Based on desk and field research carried out by the UK-based NGO Tearfund, the findings indicate that these churches were largely silent on the issue of gender and sex, or were reinforcing traditional values which contribute to HIV infection. In a number of countries, the church seems to have failed to provide leadership to young people, especially young women, facing huge pressure to be sexually active. Strategies for responding are outlined.

In some heavily affected countries, married women have higher rates of HIV infection than their unmarried, sexually active peers. Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, World AIDS Day 2004.

Adhering to the teachings of the Church, we determined to engage more deeply in challenging cultures and traditions which stifle the humanity of women and deprive them of equal rights. We agreed that our greatest challenge is to nurture and equip our children to protect themselves from HIV, so that we can fulfil the vision of building a generation without AIDS. Pastoral Letter from the Primates of the Anglican Communion, 27 May 2003.

All the pastors’ wives had never seen a condom as it is seen as a tool for unfaithful wives. NGO worker, Burkina Faso.     

Estimating detailed distributions from grouped sociodemographic data: ‘get me started in’ curve fitting using nonlinear models

In much demographic analysis, it is important to know how occurrence-exposure rates or transition probabilities vary continuously by age or by time. Often we have coarse or fluctuating data so there can be a need for estimation and smoothing. Since the distributions of rates or counts across age or another variable are often curved, a nonlinear model is likely to be appropriate. The main focus of this paper is on the estimation of detailed information from grouped data such as age and income bands; however, the methods we outline could also be applied to other settings such as smoothing rates where the original data are ragged. The ability to carry out curve fitting is a very useful skill for population geographers and demographers. Curve fitting is not well covered in statistics textbooks, and whilst there is a large literature in journals thoroughly discussing the detail of functions which define curves, these texts are likely to be inaccessible to researchers who are not specialists in mathematics. We aim here to make nonlinear modelling as accessible as possible. We demonstrate how to carry out nonlinear regression using SPSS, giving stepped-through hypothetical and research examples. We note other software in which nonlinear regression can be carried out, and outline alternative methods of curve fitting.     

Seeking safer sexual spaces: queer and trans young people labeled with intellectual disabilities and the paradoxical risks of restriction

Young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people labeled with intellectual disabilities have unique sexual health needs that are not being met. Denial by others of their right to pleasure and the exercise of heightened external control over their sexuality are commonplace. Current research indicates that these youth are at heightened risk for compromised sexual health. This study aimed to explore the ways in which social and environmental conditions influence vulnerability to adverse sexual health outcomes for this population. We used a community-based research approach to conduct qualitative interviews and focus groups with 10 young LGBT people (aged 17-26) labeled with intellectual disabilities. Participants reported multiple limitations on their autonomy that resulted in having sex in places where they did not feel comfortable and were unlikely to practice safer sex. Attempts by authority figures to protect youth through limits on their autonomy may be unintentionally leading to negative sexual health outcomes.     

Health care rationing affecting older persons: rejected in principle but implemented in fact

Health care resources are finite and, therefore, need to be rationed among potential users. Over the past decade and a half in the United States, a variety of explicit, official rationing schemes have been proposed, including some in which chronological age would play a significant role. For ethical and political reasons, it is very unlikely that any age-based rationing schemes will be adopted explicitly and officially. However, various de facto forms of health care rationing are occurring at present. This article outlines the implications of payer behavior, physician practice patterns, the development of evidence-based clinical practice parameters or guidelines, and reliance on consumer choice of health plans as unofficial and generally unacknowledged mechanisms of health care rationing that may exert an important impact on the accessibility of health services for older persons.