Toward a Viable Progressive Third Party in 2020 and Beyond1

Creating a strong, influential third party has been an abiding aspiration on the American left, and were this goal to be achieved, it could be a great boon to subordinate groups in the United States. Yet widespread doubts persist, even among progressives that this is desirable, and especially that it is possible. Here, I briefly review compelling reasons for thinking otherwise; I then consider in some depth the potential for starting to build a viable left third party leading up to and after the pivotal 2020 election. In doing so, I go beyond the existing literature on third parties, which has yet to reflect systematically on progressive third party prospects in this period. Specifically, I assess how the emerging political environment may shape left third-party building, and I evaluate ongoing and developing attempts by key groups engaged in that effort. I find a distinct tension between conditions encouraging progressives to reform versus abandon the Democratic Party, and I identify one alternative party-building tendency that seems most able to exploit the latter impulse due to its already established electoral viability. Last, I highlight relevant questions that remain for activists hoping to create an effective national left third party.     

Integrating commercial and residential pickup and delivery networks: A case study

This paper presents a strategic analysis of the network design problem faced by pickup and delivery companies operating in metropolitan areas and serving two or more classes of customers. The focus is on a division that treats commercial and residential customers separately, a situation motivated by their respective geographic densities and the size and frequency of their demand. In constructing driver work areas, it is necessary to take into account expected demand, vehicle capacity, time on the road, and the aspect ratio of the individual territories. This leads to a capacitated clustering problem with side constraints that has been the subject of intense research over the last decade.     

Uncertainty and Variability in Health-Related Damages from Coal-Fired Power Plants in the United States

The health‐related damages associated with emissions from coal‐fired power plants can vary greatly across facilities as a function of plant, site, and population characteristics, but the degree of variability and the contributing factors have not been formally evaluated. In this study, we modeled the monetized damages associated with 407 coal‐fired power plants in the United States, focusing on premature mortality from fine particulate matter (PM_2.5). We applied a reduced‐form chemistry‐transport model accounting for primary PM_2.5 emissions and the influence of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxide (NO_x) emissions on secondary particulate formation. Outputs were linked with a concentration‐response function for PM_2.5‐related mortality that incorporated nonlinearities and model uncertainty. We valued mortality with a value of statistical life approach, characterizing and propagating uncertainties in all model elements. At the median of the plant‐specific uncertainty distributions, damages across plants ranged from $30,000 to $500,000 per ton of PM_2.5, $6,000 to $50,000 per ton of SO₂, $500 to $15,000 per ton of NO_x, and $0.02 to $1.57 per kilowatt‐hour of electricity generated. Variability in damages per ton of emissions was almost entirely explained by population exposure per unit emissions (intake fraction), which itself was related to atmospheric conditions and the population size at various distances from the power plant. Variability in damages per kilowatt‐hour was highly correlated with SO₂ emissions, related to fuel and control technology characteristics, but was also correlated with atmospheric conditions and population size at various distances. Our findings emphasize that control strategies that consider variability in damages across facilities would yield more efficient outcomes.     

MANAGED COMPETITION IN HEALTH INSURANCE

Rising healthcare costs have sparked debate about the best way to provide high‐quality affordable health insurance. We discuss the potential for regulated insurance markets to outperform single‐payer public insurance. We use as an example the private Medicare plans that now provide insurance to almost a third of seniors in the United States. The evidence suggests that private plans can limit costs and potentially appeal to enrollees, and that well‐designed risk adjustment can mitigate market failures due to adverse selection. However, fostering competition between insurers, especially in smaller markets, is difficult. We discuss how future research might illuminate the relative advantages of public and private health insurance.     

Self,Emotions, and Extreme Violence: Extending Symbolic Interactionist Theorizing

Extreme violence revolves around actions of individuals who are emotionally aroused and willing to kill themselves, if need be, to inflict harm on enemies. Terrorism, gangbanging, and genocide are conspicuous examples of extreme violence. This violence is ultimately driven by repressed negative emotions about self that are transmuted into variants of anger and combinations of anger with satisfaction‐happiness to produce emotions such as hatred, righteous anger, and vengeance. This theory combines symbolic interactionism's emphasis on identity and self with key ideas from gestalt theories, psychoanalytic theories, and interaction ritual theory as well as data from primatology, evolutionary biology, and neurology. I explain extreme violence as the outcome of several converging forces: the neurological capacity for humans as evolved apes to experience and express a large palate of high‐intensity emotions, the experience of shame in key institutional spheres, the repression of shame (and, at times, guilt and alienation as well as other highly charged negative emotions), the intensification and transmutation of these repressed emotions into variants and elaborations of anger, the making of external attributions blaming external targets for negative experiences, the portrayal of these targets in highly negative terms, and the charging up of positive emotions in interaction rituals directed at inflicting harm on external enemies.     

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Exposure,Industry Sector,and Child Health

Population Research and Policy Review - The historic 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DHOS) led to public distress regarding potential impacts on children in nearby Gulf Coast communities....