Government Performance and Life Satisfaction in Contemporary Britain

This paper investigates relationships between public policy outcomes and life satisfaction in contemporary Britain. Monthly national surveys gathered between April 2004 and December 2008 are used to analyze the impact of policy delivery both at the micro and macro levels, the former relating to citizens personal experiences, and the latter to cognitive evaluations of and affective reactions to the effectiveness of policies across the country as a whole. The impact of salient political events and changes in economic context involving the onset of a major financial crisis also are considered. Analyses reveal that policy outcomes, especially microlevel ones, significantly influence life satisfaction. The effects of both micro- and macrolevel outcomes involve both affective reactions to policy delivery and cognitive judgments about government performance. Controlling for these and other factors, the broader economic context in which policy judgments are made also influences life satisfaction. © 2010 Southern Political Science Association

Representative samples are an issue for the pollsters – but so are respondents who lie

The British Polling Council recently published their report about what went wrong with the polls in the 2015 general election. The report dismissed problems associated with voter registration, question wording, postal voting and mode of interviewing and opted for unrepresentative samples as the key factor in explaining what happened. Here, Paul Whiteley and Harold Clarke make the case for examining another factor: respondents who don’t tell the truth

Scenarios for the Origin of the Orbits of the Trans-Neptunian Objects 2000 CR105 and 2003 VB12

Explaining the origin of the orbit of 2000 CR105 (a ~ 230AU, q ~ 45AU) is a major test for our understanding of the primordial evolution of the outer Solar System. Gladman et al. (2001) showed that this objects could not have been a normal member of the scattered disk that had its perihelion distance increased by chaotic diffusion. In this paper we explore four seemingly promising mechanisms for explaining the origin of the orbit of this peculiar object: (i) the passage of Neptune through a high-eccentricity phase, (ii) the past existence of massive planetary embryos in the Kuiper belt or the scattered disk, (iii) the presence of a massive trans-Neptunian disk at early epochs which exerted tides on scattered disk objects, and (iv) encounters with other stars. Of all these mechanisms, the only one giving satisfactory results is the passage of a star. Indeed, our simulations show that the passage of a solar mass star at about 800 AU only perturbs objects with semi-major axes larger than roughly 200 AU to large perihelion distances. This is in good agreement with the fact that 2000 CR105 has a semi-major axis of 230AU and no other bodies with similar perihelion distances but smaller semi-major axes have yet been discovered. The discovery of 2003 VB12, (a=450AU, q=75AU) announced a few days before the submission of this paper, strengthen our conclusions.Comment: AJ submitted. 27 pages, 6 figure

Economic inequality can help predict Covid-19 deaths in the US

COVID-19 has not affected everywhere in the US equally, there are significant disparities in Covid-related illnesses between the states. In new research which analyses the relationship between COVID-19 and economic, social and demographic factors, Harold Clarke and Paul Whiteley find that those states with greater income inequality are more likely to see coronavirus cases and related deaths

Harold Clarke Johnson Papers - Accession 575

The Harold Clarke Johnson Papers mainly pertains to York County history and includes deeds, titles, bonds, county expenses, tax, and treasurer reports, and annual reports of the treasurer of York County to the state Superintendent of Education, and of the York County Treasurer. These records relate to the financial affairs of York County between 1889 and 1910 and offers a great insight into the finances of the county during that timeframe. The material was collected by the York (South Carolina) Historical American Bicentennial. Of special interest, is a brief history of an 1820 map of York County, written by Harold Clarke, Sr. (1913-1993), member of York (South Carolina) Bicentennial Committee, and a historical sketch of York County (1976) prepared by the York County Historical Commission.https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/manuscriptcollection_findingaids/1689/thumbnail.jp

How do the Scots achieve independence given the volatility in voters’ attitudes?

Paul Whiteley and Harold Clarke explain recent changes in the patterns of support for Scottish independence. On the one hand, the financial and mental health implications of the pandemic have increased support for independence, as people want things to change. On the other hand, a number of recent developments have led to an upsurge in Britons thinking that the UK was right to leave the EU, which in turn helps to explain the loss of support for independence

Vulnerable Americans rally around a president in a crisis. but polarization means this hasn’t happened during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Historically in times of crisis, presidents experience a polling boost as Americans ‘rally around the flag’, but this has not been the case during President Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In new analysis, Harold Clarke, Marianne Stewart and Paul Whiteley find that the massive partisan and ideological differences in the electorate meant that the expected spike in Trump’s support did not occur – especially among the most vulnerable, who would ordinarily be more likely to rally around the president

Given its likely adverse political effects, the problem of social care funding is unlikely to be solved any time soon

Paul Whiteley, Harold Clarke, and Marianne Stewart write that a large increase in funding for social care would mean a significant hike in taxation, largely paid for by the young and the middle-aged with the elderly being the beneficiaries. This would create political problems for all parties

Leave was always in the lead: why the polls got the referendum result wrong

By analysing 121 opinion polls, Harold D. Clarke, Matthew Goodwin, and Paul Whiteley outline what happened with the EU referendum survey results. They explain why internet surveys performed substantially better than telephone ones – contrary to the post-2015 General Election ‘wisdom’ that telephone surveys should be preferred. Underlying trends showed that once methodological artefacts are controlled, Leave was almost certainly ahead of Remain over the entire last month of the campaign – and possibly throughout 2016