Return of the John Birch Society : a progenitor of conspiracy-minded politics rises again in Texas

Ostracized for decades, the John Birch Society, one of the powerful cornerstones of the late 1950s and 1960s extreme conservative movement, is making a comeback in Texas. In early 2017, in the tiny farming town of Holland, new members gather in a church annex to learn about a secret conspiracy to emasculate ordinary Americans by taking their guns, their religion, and their heritage. In sprawling Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city, members listen eagerly as a Southern Baptist pastor (who doubles as a George Washington impersonator) thunders that President Trump was sent from God to save the country. “John Birch Society membership in Texas has doubled in the last three years, and state legislators are joining the group,” says Jan Carter, a 75-year-old retiree who leads the Central Texas Chapter of the John Birch Society. This report is a journey into the singular world of the John Birch Society in Texas, a world riven with far-right, conspiracy-minded ideology. The report examines the sociological, political, and psychological forces that have contributed to the resurgence of the John Birch Society; forces that are underreported in the mainstream media, and forces that helped propel Donald Trump to the White HouseJournalis

Smoking Outside: The Effect of the Irish Workplace Smoking Ban on Smoking Prevalence Among the Employed. ESRI WP459. June 2013

In March 2004, Ireland became the first country to introduce a nationwide workplace smoking ban. The smoking ban increased the non-monetary cost of smoking by prohibiting smoking in the majority of indoor workplaces. The aim of this paper is to examine whether the extra non-monetary cost of smoking was concentrated on the employed. Using two waves of the nationally representative Slán survey, a difference-in-differences approach is used to measure changes in smoking behaviour among the employed relative to the non-working population following the introduction of the workplace smoking ban. By isolating those workers most affected by the ban, the research finds that the workplace smoking ban did not induce a greater reduction in smoking prevalence among the employed population compared to the non-working population. In fact, the evidence suggests a significantly larger decrease in smoking prevalence among the non-workers relative to the employed. This pattern is particularly strong for occasional smokers. Changes in the real price of cigarettes and changes in attitudes to risk are discussed as possible causes for the pattern observed

ANALYSING THE DISTRIBUTIONAL IMPACT OF INDIRECT TAXES: A NEW APPROACH FOR IRELAND. ESRI Research Bulletin 2017/07

When considering changes to tax policy, it is important to know who is likely to be affected and to what extent. Simulating the effects of changes in direct taxation (e.g. income tax) requires reliable data on incomes, while simulating the effects of changes in indirect taxation (e.g. VAT) requires reliable data on expenditure. Because no single Irish data set contains detailed information on both household incomes and expenditures, simulating the overall impact of both direct and indirect taxes for different income and social groups can be difficult. The present paper applied a method for estimating household expenditure and matching it to household income data. It is hoped that the method will improve our ability to simulate the impacts of proposed or actual changes in taxes in Ireland

Do youth access control policies stop young people smoking? Evidence from Ireland. ESRI WP572, September 2017

Increasing the legal age at which individuals can buy tobacco has become an increasingly common policy tool aimed at reducing youth smoking. There remains, however, some debate on whether such policies are an efficient use of resources. Evidence thus far has either (i) relied on local or regional Minimum Legal Age (MLA) reforms which suffer from a range of potential endogeneity and spillover biases, or (ii) rely on the use of adult population control groups that are, in many cases, unsuitable. Missing from the debate on the effectiveness of MLA policy is an analysis of a national increase in an MLA, where a suitable control group of identically aged adolescents exists. The 2001 MLA reform in the Republic of Ireland, which increased the MLA from 16 to 18, offers natural experiment conditions whereby issues relating to endogeneity, spillover effects and unreliable control groups are made redundant. The outcomes examined in the analysis are also novel compared to previous research, as both intensity of current smoking behaviour and previous smoking experience are examined. The evidence found here strongly supports increases in MLAs as an effective policy tool to reduce youth smoking rates

Smoking Outside: the Effect of the Irish Workplace Smoking Ban on Smoking Prevalence among the Employed. ESRI Research Bulletin 2015/2/1

Does forcing workers to go outside to smoke reduce smoking? In March 2004, the Tobacco Smoking (Prohibition) Regulations 2003 were implemented in Ireland. The introduction of these regulations meant that Ireland became the first country in the world to introduce a nationwide workplace smoking ban. With a small number of exceptions, smoking was prohibited in all Irish indoor workplaces, with employers being fined for non-compliance. This research measured the effect of the ban on smoking

Major patterns of group interaction in South African society

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented March 1974Although recent historians have stated "the central theme of South African history is interaction between peoples of diverse origins, languages, technologies, Ideologies and social systems, meeting on South African soil", scant attention has been paid to such interaction by social scientists. Instead, most work in such disciplines has been segmentary, and focuses on the Internal arrangements or attitudes of one group rather than on the relationships that that group has to other groups or to the wider society. This in itself may be one reflection of the polarities of the society that have influenced the pattern of social research itself. The result however, is that outside of the work of historians, there has been insufficient study of the consequences of interaction between the different groups in the population. Yet, such interaction is one vital key to an understanding of the social structure. In this paper, an attempt will be made to overview the most important patterns of group interaction across the lines - ( political, ethnic, economic and class - that so clearly demarcate the major groups in South African society. The primary focus in this exploration of the contact and cleavages between such groups will be the present, with some attempt to indicate emerging trends