Ethnic Context and Immigration Policy Preferences Among Latinos and Anglos*

Objective. We examine how the immigration policy preferences of Anglos and Latinos vary according to ethnic context. Specifically, we hypothesize that immigration policy attitudes are a product of both Latino immigrant and Latino native born group size. In contrast to previous work, which found that Latinos and Anglos react to contextual forces in an identical manner, we argue that Latino group size produces opposite reactions for Anglos and Latinos. Methods. These hypotheses are tested using an original state‐wide survey of Anglos and Latinos in Texas conducted during 2006, which is supplemented with data from the 2000 Census. Results. Our findings show that residing in a heavily Latino area produces more liberal immigration attitudes among Latinos and more conservative attitudes among Anglos. However, this result is driven not by the size of the foreign‐born Latino population, but by the size of the native‐born Latino population. Conclusion. Anti‐immigrant sentiments among Anglos appear to result, at least in part, from ethnic concerns.     

Psychosemantics of “One-China” Conception: Fourth-Dimensional Resolution of Taiwan-Mainland Political Deadlock1

The political conflicts between Taiwan and the Mainland have progressed, for over 50 years, from the historical “hot civil war” for the “exclusive ownership” of one China’s territorial sovereignty to the contemporary “cold rhetoric circularity” around the “geopolitical symbolism” of the one-Chinaprinciple. In the process, the United States has been intimately entangled in the disputes in terms of 3 alignment stages-from an “unambiguous pro-Taiwan” before the 1970s, the “ambiguous neutrality” in the early 1970s, to the contemporary “pro-Mainland China.” Despite the fact that during the past 3 decades the United States honored the arms sales and the Taiwan Relations Act commitments in Taiwan’s favor, and simultaneously conferred the “3 Nos” and 3 communiques in Mainland China’s favor, the cross-Strait tensions have persisted without the prospect of a definitive foreseeable resolution. Further, because of the lack of explicit conception of “one China,” the United States has to constantly resist the opposing persuasions of the 2 sides, and therefore must continue to rely on the “ambiguous dual deterrence strategy” for maintaining the “dynamics balance” over the Taiwan Strait. For such endeavors, the Clinton “4 frameworks” and the Bush “5 Taiwan policies” have proven to be very effective, but mostly to the extent of assuming a “passive” role in preventing military confrontations.     

The Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability (HIFA) Demonstration program. A new initiative to cover the uninsured.

Seeking to keep his promise to give states more flexibility while expanding health insurance coverage to low-income people, President George W. Bush released a proposal to reform Medicaid and The Children's Health Insurance Program. This initiative, the Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability Act (HIFA), represents a significant change in Medicaid policy. Whether states will find this proposal a useful tool to expand coverage remains to be seen.     

Maternal Relationships and Nonresidential Father Visitation of Children Born Outside of Marriage

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 781), I examined how father visitation for children born outside of marriage is affected by subsequent maternal relationship formation, focusing on the timing, type, and stability of maternal relationships. Results showed that fathers were most likely to have not seen their child at all when mothers formed a new relationship early in the child's life, especially if the new relationship was coresidential and the partner engaged in activities with the child. Fathers who initially visited their child were more likely to stop visiting their child if an initially unpartnered mother became partnered. Frequency of visitation was not as strongly affected as whether visitation occurred at all.     

Public Policies and Suicide Rates in the American States

We are interested in the relationship between public policies and outcomes measuring quality of life. There is no outcome more final than the ending of one’s own life. Accordingly, we test the relationship between public policy regimes and suicide rates in the American states. Controlling for other relevant factors (most notably a state’s stock of social capital), we find that states with higher per capita public assistance expenditures tend to have lower suicide rates. This relationship is of significant magnitude when translated into potential lives saved each year. We also find that general state policy liberalism and the governing ideologies of state governments are linked to suicide rates. In response to a growing literature on the importance of non-political factors such as social connectedness in determining quality of life, these findings demonstrate that government policies remain important determinates as well.

Multipartnered fertility among American men

Using the 2002 (Cycle 6) National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), which was the first NSFG to interview men, we document the prevalence and correlates of sequential parenthood with different partners (multipartnered fertility) among a representative sample of American men. Nearly 8% of American men aged 15-44 report having had children with more than one partner, with sharp differences by age, race/ethnicity, and income-over one-third of poor black men aged 35-44 report having had children with two or more mothers, and 16% report children with three or more mothers. Fathers of two or more children by multiple partners appear to be more disadvantaged than fathers with two or more children by the same partner. Multipartnered fertility is strongly related to prior birth characteristics; men not in a coresidential union at the preceding birth are more likely to have their next birth with a new partner and controlling for prior-birth characteristics accounts for the elevated risk of Hispanics and blacks in baseline models. Results also suggest that multipartnered fertility is becoming more prevalent as younger cohorts transition to a new-partner birth more quickly and at a higher rate than older cohorts.     

‘No Nation of Experts’: Kustom Tattooing and the Middle-Class Body in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia

Tattooing among young middle-class people in Indonesia has increased noticeably since the late 2000s. I draw on ethnographic research in tattoo studios alongside interviews and magazine sources to locate the style known as kustom within its social and cultural context. I describe how kustom tattooing is the product of patterns of consumption centred on the body, drawing resources from a globalised, mass media-saturated environment. Indeed, consumers describe it as an important avenue for self-expression. By contrast, tattooists and those inside the scene describe kustom as a way of transcending geographical markers of identity: to be ‘anything and everything’. This article explores this tension between self-expression and the political aims of kustom. Kustom tattooing is also novel by virtue of its absolute emphasis on ‘no expertise’. It thus exposes a space where the stress on expertise and self-improvement, which characterises middle-class cultures in post-authoritarian Indonesia, gives way to creative and hybrid articulations of identity.     

Of Disasters and Dragon Kings: A Statistical Analysis of Nuclear Power Incidents and Accidents

We perform a statistical study of risk in nuclear energy systems. This study provides and analyzes a data set that is twice the size of the previous best data set on nuclear incidents and accidents, comparing three measures of severity: the industry standard International Nuclear Event Scale, the Nuclear Accident Magnitude Scale of radiation release, and cost in U.S. dollars. The rate of nuclear accidents with cost above 20 MM 2013 USD, per reactor per year, has decreased from the 1970s until the present time. Along the way, the rate dropped significantly after Chernobyl (April 1986) and is expected to be roughly stable around a level of 0.003, suggesting an average of just over one event per year across the current global fleet. The distribution of costs appears to have changed following the Three Mile Island major accident (March 1979). The median cost became approximately 3.5 times smaller, but an extremely heavy tail emerged, being well described by a Pareto distribution with parameter α = 0.5–0.6. For instance, the cost of the two largest events, Chernobyl and Fukushima (March 2011), is equal to nearly five times the sum of the 173 other events. We also document a significant runaway disaster regime in both radiation release and cost data, which we associate with the “dragon‐king” phenomenon. Since the major accident at Fukushima (March 2011) occurred recently, we are unable to quantify an impact of the industry response to this disaster. Excluding such improvements, in terms of costs, our range of models suggests that there is presently a 50% chance that (i) a Fukushima event (or larger) occurs every 60–150 years, and (ii) that a Three Mile Island event (or larger) occurs every 10–20 years. Further—even assuming that it is no longer possible to suffer an event more costly than Chernobyl or Fukushima—the expected annual cost and its standard error bracket the cost of a new plant. This highlights the importance of improvements not only immediately following Fukushima, but also deeper improvements to effectively exclude the possibility of “dragon‐king” disasters. Finally, we find that the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) is inconsistent in terms of both cost and radiation released. To be consistent with cost data, the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters would need to have between an INES level of 10 and 11, rather than the maximum of 7.