Foreign Policy Views and U.S. Standing in the World

What do Americans think about the US role in world affairs and why do they think the way they do? Americans typically do not think about foreign policy most of the time, and, as a consequence, know relatively little about it (Almond 1950, Lippmann 1955, Converse 1964, Erskine 1963, Edwards 1983, Sobel 1993, Holsti 2004, Canes-Wrone 2006, Page and Bouton 2006, Berinsky 2007). While foreign policy issues can become salient when major international events (like 9/11 and the Iraq War) arise or when political candidates focus on foreign policy (Aldrich, Sullivan and Borgida 1989), ceteris paribus, Americans know and care more about domestic politics (Delli-Carpini and Keeter 1996, Holsti 1994, Canes-Wrone 2006, Converse 1964). Consequently, typical Americans are broadly aware of foreign policy, and have some available attitudes about it (Page and Bouton 2006, Aldrich et al. 1989). However, except in the face of political priming by elites or exogenous shocks, such attitudes may not be broadly accessible when making political decisions, like voting.

Health equity and sustainability: extending the work of the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health

The final report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health presents opportunities to promote synergies between health equity and action on sustainability, including reducing global warming. The report makes important recommendations for political and economic reform, but stops short of calling for major change to the conventional neo-liberal model of economic development and growth. Yet the challenge of global warming appears to make growth according to this model unfeasible. In this paper we explore opportunities in the work of the Commission for combining goals of health equity and sustainability, and discuss ideas for economic reforms which further challenge the dominant model, and seek to accommodate the imperatives of reversing climate change

Are the National Preventive Health initiatives likely to reduce health inequities?

This paper examines commitments to address health inequities within current (2008–11) Australian government initiatives on health promotion and chronic disease prevention. Specifically, the paper considers: the Council of Australian Governments’ ‘National partnership agreement on preventive health’; the National Preventative Health Taskforce report, ‘Australia: the healthiest country by 2020’; and the Australian Government’s response to the taskforce report, ‘Taking preventative action’. Arising from these is the recent establishment of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. Together, these measures represent a substantial public investment in health promotion and disease prevention. The present paper finds that these initiatives clearly acknowledge significantly worse health outcomes for those subject to social or economic disadvantage, and contain measures aimed to improve health outcomes among Indigenous people and those in low socioeconomic status communities. However, we argue that, as a whole, these initiatives have (thus far) largely missed an opportunity to develop a whole of government approach to health promotion able to address upstream social determinants of health and health inequities in Australia. In particular, they are limited by a primary focus on individual health behaviours as risk factors for chronic disease, with too little attention on the wider socioeconomic and cultural factors that drive behaviours, and so disease outcomes, in populations

Red, Blue, and the Flu: Media Self-Selection and Partisan Gaps in Swine Flu Vaccinations

This study assesses the relationship between political partisanship and attitudes and behavior with respect to the Swine Flu crisis of 2009 in general, and the U.S. mass vaccination program in particular. I argue that even seemingly non-partisan political issues like public health are increasingly characterized by partisan polarization in public attitudes, and that such polarization is in part attributable, at least in part, to the breakdown of the information commons that characterized the American mass media from roughly the 1950s until the early 1990s. In its place has arisen an increasingly fragmented and niche-oriented media marketplace in which individuals are better able to limit their information exposure to attitudes and opinions that reinforce, rather than challenge, their preexisting beliefs. I test my argument against a variety of data sources, including opinion surveys and state level Swine Flu vaccination rate data.

Persuading the enemy: estimating the persuasive effects of partisan media with the preference-incorporating choice and assignment design

Does media choice cause polarization, or merely reflect it? We investigate a critical aspect of this puzzle: how partisan media contribute to attitude polarization among different groups of media consumers. We implement a new experimental design, called the Preference-Incorporating Choice and Assignment (PICA) design, that incorporates both free choice and forced exposure. We estimate jointly the degree of polarization caused by selective exposure and the persuasive effect of partisan media. Our design also enables us to conduct sensitivity analyses accounting for discrepancies between stated preferences and actual choice, a potential source of bias ignored in previous studies using similar designs. We find that partisan media can polarize both its regular consumers and inadvertent audiences who would otherwise not consume it, but ideologically-opposing media potentially also can ameliorate existing polarization between consumers. Taken together, these results deepen our understanding of when and how media polarize individuals.Accepted manuscrip

The Properties and Gaseous Environments of Powerful Classical Double Radio Galaxies

The properties of a sample of 31 very powerful classical double radio galaxies with redshifts between zero and 1.8 are studied. The source velocities, beam powers, ambient gas densities, total lifetimes, and total outflow energies are presented and discussed. The rate of growth of each side of each source were obtained using a spectral aging analysis. The beam power and ambient gas density were obtained by applying the strong shock jump conditions to the ends of each side of the source. The total outflow lifetime was obtained by applying the power-law relationship between the beam power and the total source lifetime derived elsewhere for sources of this type, and the total outflow energy was obtained by combining the beam power and the total source lifetime. Composite profiles were constructed by combining results obtained from each side of each source. The composite profiles indicate that the ambient gas density falls with distance from the central engine. The source velocities, beam powers, total lifetimes, and total energies seem to be independent of radio source size. This is consistent with the standard model in which each source grows at a roughly constant rate during which time the central engine puts out a roughly constant beam power. The fact that the total source lifetimes and energies are independent of radio source size indicates that the sources are being sampled at random times during their lifetimes.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, to appear in "Extragalactic Jets: Theory and Observation from Radio to Gamma Ray", eds. T. A. Rector and D. S. De Young, ASP conference series, Replaced version has minor textual correction

Foreign Policy Views and U.S Standing in the World

What do Americans think about the US role in world affairs and why do they think the way they do? Americans typically do not think about foreign policy most of the time, and, as a consequence, know relatively little about it (Almond 1950, Lippmann 1955, Converse 1964, Erskine 1963, Edwards 1983, Sobel 1993, Holsti 2004, Canes-Wrone 2006, Page and Bouton 2006, Berinsky 2007). While foreign policy issues can become salient when major international events (like 9/11 and the Iraq War) arise or when political candidates focus on foreign policy (Aldrich, Sullivan and Borgida 1989), ceteris paribus, Americans know and care more about domestic politics (Delli-Carpini and Keeter 1996, Holsti 1994, Canes-Wrone 2006, Converse 1964). Consequently, typical Americans are broadly aware of foreign policy, and have some available attitudes about it (Page and Bouton 2006, Aldrich et al. 1989). However, except in the face of political priming by elites or exogenous shocks, such attitudes may not be broadly accessible when making political decisions, like voting