Transforming Power Relationships: Leadership, Risk, and Hope. IHS Political Science Series No. 135, May 2013

Chronic communal conflicts resemble the prisoner’s dilemma. Both communities prefer peace to war. But neither trusts the other, viewing the other’s gain as its own loss, so potentially shared interests often go unrealized. Achieving positive-sum outcomes from apparently zero-sum struggles requires a kind of riskembracing leadership. To succeed leaders must: a) see power relations as potentially positive-sum; b) strengthen negotiating adversaries instead of weakening them; and c) demonstrate hope for a positive future and take great personal risks to achieve it. Such leadership is exemplified by Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk in the South African democratic transition. To illuminate the strategic dilemmas Mandela and de Klerk faced, we examine the work of Robert Axelrod, Thomas Schelling, and Josep Colomer, who highlight important dimensions of the problem but underplay the role of risk-embracing leadership. Finally we discuss leadership successes and failures in the Northern Ireland settlement and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Can Higher Prices Stimulate Product Use? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Zambia

The controversy over whether and how much to charge for health products in the developing world rests, in part, on whether higher prices can increase use, either by targeting distribution to high-use households (a screening effect), or by stimulating use psychologically through a sunk-cost effect. We develop a methodology for separating these two effects. We implement the methodology in a field experiment in Zambia using door-to-door marketing of a home water purification solution. We find that higher prices screen out those who use the product less. By contrast, we find no consistent evidence of sunk-cost effects.

Mobile DNA and evolution in the 21st century

Scientific history has had a profound effect on the theories of evolution. At the beginning of the 21st century, molecular cell biology has revealed a dense structure of information-processing networks that use the genome as an interactive read-write (RW) memory system rather than an organism blueprint. Genome sequencing has documented the importance of mobile DNA activities and major genome restructuring events at key junctures in evolution: exon shuffling, changes in cis-regulatory sites, horizontal transfer, cell fusions and whole genome doublings (WGDs). The natural genetic engineering functions that mediate genome restructuring are activated by multiple stimuli, in particular by events similar to those found in the DNA record: microbial infection and interspecific hybridization leading to the formation of allotetraploids. These molecular genetic discoveries, plus a consideration of how mobile DNA rearrangements increase the efficiency of generating functional genomic novelties, make it possible to formulate a 21st century view of interactive evolutionary processes. This view integrates contemporary knowledge of the molecular basis of genetic change, major genome events in evolution, and stimuli that activate DNA restructuring with classical cytogenetic understanding about the role of hybridization in species diversification

A complete record from colonization to extinction reveals density dependence and the importance of winter conditions for a population of the silvery blue, Glaucopsyche lygdamus.

Butterflies in the family Lycaenidac are often the focus of conservation efforts. However, our understanding of lycaenid population dynamics has been limited to relatively few examples of long-term monitoring data that have been reported. Here, factors associated with population regulation are investigated using a complete record of a single population of the silvery blue, Glaucopsyche lygdamus Doubleday (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae). Adults of G. lygdamus were first observed in an annual grassland near Davis, California, in 1982 and were last seen in 2003. Relationships between inter-annual variation in abundance and climatic variables were examined, accounting for density dependent effects. Significant effects of both negative density dependence and climatic variation were detected, particularly precipitation and temperature during winter months. Variation in precipitation, the strongest predictor of abundance, was associated directly and positively with butterfly abundance in the same year. Winter temperatures had a negative effect in the same year, but had a lagged, positive effect on abundance in the subsequent year. Mechanistic hypotheses are posed that include climatic effects mediated through both larval and adult plant resources