articles+ search results

EXPERTISE, HIGH speed trains, ENERGY shortages, INFRASTRUCTURE funds, and REINVESTMENT

The Northeast Corridor Improvement Project aimed to upgrade the most important passenger route in the country so that it could support high-speed trains. By the early 1970s, North America's rail network had been in decline for decades. However, the energy crisis and strong congressional support prompted a policy of reinvestment. Execution of the Northeast Corridor Improvement Project was plagued with problems owing to both lack of experience delivering major rail projects and a counter-productive, complex administrative structure resulting from conflicts between Congress and the White House. The project's original scope, which was necessary to achieve high-speed operations, was reduced over time as budgetary limits were exceeded. Compared to the coeval Paris–Lyon high-speed rail project, Northeast Corridor Improvement Project history demonstrates the importance of continuous infrastructure investment to maintain the expertise necessary to effectively deliver major capital projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PARTISANSHIP, SEXUAL harassment, CITIZEN attitudes, LEGISLATIVE voting, PRACTICAL politics, PUBLIC officers, SEXUAL assault, and LEGISLATIVE hearings

Two current members of the U.S. Supreme Court took their seats despite allegations of sexual harassment (Clarence Thomas) and sexual assault (Brett Kavanaugh) leveled against them during their confirmation hearings. In each instance, the Senate vote was close and split mainly along party lines: Republicans for and Democrats against. Polls showed that a similar division existed among party supporters in the electorate. There are, however, differences among rank-and-file partisans that help shape their views on the issues raised by these two controversial appointments to the nation's highest court. Using data from a national survey of registered voters, we examine the factors associated with citizens' attitudes about the role of women in politics, the extent to which sexism is a problem in society, the recent avalanche of sexual harassment charges made against elected officials and other political (as well as entertainment, business, and academic) figures, and the #MeToo movement. We are particularly interested in whether a strong sense of partisan identity adds significantly to our understanding of people's attitudes on these matters. In addition, our experimental evidence allows us to determine whether shared partisanship overrides other factors when an elected official from one's own party is accused of sexual misbehavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PUBLIC officers and TOMBS

The present paper publishes a new, nearly complete bulla excavated in 2013 beneath Robinson's Arch in Jerusalem. It was first identified in 2019 during sifting of soil excavated from a Roman-era drainage channel. The bulla belonged to a Judahite government official, 'the One Who Is Over the House'. The excavation of this bulla validates the authenticity of several other bulla bearing the same legend and clarifies both epigraphic and biblical attestations of the title 'the One Who Is Over the House'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States senators, CONSTITUENTS (Persons), POLICY sciences, DOMESTIC travel, REPRESENTATIVE government, ELECTION districts, and ATTENTION

Is local attention a substitute for policy representation? Fenno (1978) famously described how legislators develop personal ties with their constituents through periodic visits to their districts and carefully crafted communications. Existing work suggests that such interactions insulate incumbents electorally, creating less need to represent constituents' policy preferences. Surprisingly, this important argument has never been tested systematically. In this paper, I use data on senator travel and staffing behavior along with survey data from the 2011–2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to investigate this claim. In addition to showing that areas with important campaign donors are significantly more likely to receive resources, I find that local visits may decrease approval among ideologically opposed constituents. Furthermore, I find inconsistent evidence regarding the effectiveness of local staff. These results suggest that local attention does not always cultivate goodwill in the district. Under polarized politics, home style does not effectively substitute for policy representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL media, AUTOMATIC classification, ELECTIONS, CLASSIFICATION, POLITICAL campaigns, OFFENSIVE behavior, and VIDEO coding

Negativity in election campaign matters. To what extent can the content of social media posts provide a reliable indicator of candidates' campaign negativity? We introduce and critically assess an automated classification procedure that we trained to annotate more than 16,000 tweets of candidates competing in the 2018 Senate Midterms. The algorithm is able to identify the presence of political attacks (both in general, and specifically for character and policy attacks) and incivility. Due to the novel nature of the instrument, the article discusses the external and convergent validity of these measures. Results suggest that automated classifications are able to provide reliable measurements of campaign negativity. Triangulations with independent data show that our automatic classification is strongly associated with the experts' perceptions of the candidates' campaign. Furthermore, variations in our measures of negativity can be explained by theoretically relevant factors at the candidate and context levels (e.g., incumbency status and candidate gender); theoretically meaningful trends are also found when replicating the analysis using tweets for the 2020 Senate election, coded using the automated classifier developed for 2018. The implications of such results for the automated coding of campaign negativity in social media are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FEDERAL Rules of Evidence (U.S.), CIVIL procedure, CRIMINAL procedure, CIVIL rights, and FEDERAL laws

The Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) rest on an unacceptably shaky constitutional foundation. Unlike other regimes of federal rulemaking-for Civil Procedure, for Criminal Procedure, and for Appellate Procedure-the FRE rulemaking process contemplated by the Rules Enabling Act is both formally and functionally defective because Congress enacted the FRE as a statute first but purports to permit the Supreme Court to revise, repeal, and amend those laws over time, operating as a kind of supercharged administrative agency with the authority to countermand congressional statutes. Formally, this system violates the constitutionally-delineated separation of powers as announced in Chadha, Clinton, and the non-delegation doctrine because it allows statutes of the United States to be effectively rewritten by the Supreme Court outside the constraints of bicameralism and presentment, requirements of Article I, Section 7. Especially in light of the Court's signals in recent terms that it may be seeking to revivify the non-delegation doctrine soon, focusing on the FRE's formal deficiencies is urgent. Yet functionalists about the separation of powers also need to condemn our current FRE rulemaking process. Functionally, the FRE rulemaking system is constitutionally suspect because it permits the Supreme Court-outside of its Article III authority to hear "cases and controversies"-to repeal and amend substantive statutes unilaterally, a power that can threaten bedrock commitments to our federalism and to our constitutional rights to the jury. The decisions about how and when to displace state law in favor of federal law and about how and when to grant powers to juries over judges cannot be vested in the Judicial Branch alone without the structural restraints of an Article III "case or controversy." The paper concludes by offering some ways to fix our evidence law and to put it on firmer footing, permitting better power-sharing and dialogue between two branches of government-Congress and the Supreme Court-that both have reasonable claims to some authority in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OSTEOPATHIC physicians, MEDICAL offices, MEDICAL laws & legislation, PHYSICIANS' assistants, SPECIALTY pharmacies, and ACADEMIC medical centers

Background: After Congress passed the Drug Quality and Security Act (DQSA) in 2013, new rules led to increased oversight of compounding pharmacies and also draft guidance relating to compounding in physicians' offices. Objective: To gather information from state medical board directors about the nature and frequency of reported adverse events associated with compounding in physicians' offices, and board policies regarding the regulation of such compounding. Design: Cross-sectional survey study. Participants were surveyed regarding: (1) the number of compounding-associated adverse events in physician offices; and (2) the extent to which their board implements United States Pharmacopeia (USP) standards on physician office compounding. Setting: Remote data collection at an academic medical center. Participants: Executive directors or comparable executives of state medical and osteopathic boards. Measurements: Adverse event reports associated with medications compounded in physician offices. State board rules consistent with USP compounding standards for physician offices. Results: Seventy percent of state boards (47/67) responded, with 42 complete responses analyzed. The majority (71%) of boards able to provide information on compounding errors had received no reports of these. None of the reported errors were known to have resulted in patient harm. Ninety percent of respondents had not incorporated any USP compounding standards into their regulations. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the incidence of adverse events associated with in-office compounding is low, and that this may be limiting the propensity of state medical and osteopathic boards to implement strict regulations, such as USP compounding standards, that would further restrict such compounding. Therefore, regulatory agencies and legislators would better serve their mission by reallocating resources to ensure the integrity of other aspects of the drug supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PEDIATRIC neurology and EPILEPSY surgery

Epilepsia - May 2022 - Announcements Bridging Basic with Clinical Epileptology - 7: Accelerating Translation in Epilepsy Research b San Servolo (Venice), Italy https://www.ilae.org/congresses/2022-advanced-san-servolo-epilepsy-course B 23 - 25 September 2022 b B Canadian League Against Epilepsy 2022 Scientific Meeting b Kelowna, BC, Canada https://www.ilae.org/congresses/canadian-league-against-epilepsy-2022-scientific-meeting B 28 - 30 September 2022 b B 5th Swiss Federation of Clinical Neuro-Societies Congress b Basel, Switzerland https://sfcns2022.congress-imk.ch/frontend/index.php B 28 - 30 September 2022 b Cleveland Clinic Epilepsy Update and Review Course Ohio, USA & Virtual course https://www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/live/courses/EpilepsyUpdate22/ B 12 - 14 October 2022 b B 2022 ILAE British Branch Annual Scientific Meeting b Cardiff, UK https://www.ilaebritishconference.org.uk/ B 26 - 28 October 2022 b B Epilepsy Society of Australia 36th Annual Scientific Meeting b Adelaide, Australia https://www.ivvy.com.au/event/ESA2022/ B 14 - 17 December 2022 b B 12th World Congress for Neurorehabilitation b Vienna, Austria & Virtual congress https://www.wfnr-congress.org/ 2023 B 20 - 24 June 2023 b B 15th European Paediatric Neurology Society Congress (EPNS): From genome and connectome to cure b Prague, Czech Republic https://www.epns.info/epns-congress-2023/. [Extracted from the article]

GREEN movement, VOTING, THIRD parties (Politics), PRESIDENTIAL elections, and POLITICAL parties

The Wisconsin Green Party, a state affiliate of the US Green Party, is a third party in a two-party system. The US electoral system is not kind to third parties; 1949 was the last time a third party was represented in the US Congress, in the 2016 presidential election, just 1% of voters in Wisconsin voted for the Green Party candidate. Ethnographic fieldwork combined with in-depth interviews for this study finds that the policies and practices of the party may be inhibiting its efforts to grow support and improve its electoral standing. This paper details how the party operates in a narrow window of antiparty sentiment, with the emphasis on the intersection of their four core policy pillars, and party practices of 'being the message' serving to deter their two likeliest sources of new support; the logic of constituency representation given primacy over electoral competition. These issues, though currently acting as constraints on the party, potentially however also afford long-term opportunity for the party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PRESIDENTIAL system, LEGISLATIVE voting, VOTING, COMMITTEE reports, PARTISANSHIP, CONFLICT of interests, and IDEOLOGY

Why do legislators switch their votes between the committee and floor stages in multiparty presidential systems? The literature on the US Congress has argued that switches are conditional on cross‐cutting pressures by competing principals (i.e., party leaders and interest groups), partisanship, electoral competitiveness, ideology, seniority, and informational updates. This article argues that unlike in the US two‐party system, in multiparty systems electoral competitiveness increases the likelihood of switching. Additionally, the practice of switching is more likely for legislators whose competing principals are leaders with conflicting electoral interests. We test these hypotheses analyzing vote switches between committee reports and roll‐call votes in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies. Our results indicate that legislative vote switching indeed behaves differently in multiparty than in a two‐party presidential system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

FOOD labeling, INTERNET stores, CONSUMER behavior, INTERNET sales, FRUIT drinks, and GOVERNMENT agencies

Objective: The rapid growth in web-based grocery food purchasing has outpaced federal regulatory attention to the online provision of nutrition and allergen information historically required on food product labels. We sought to characterise the extent and variability that online retailers disclose required and regulated information and identify the legal authorities for the federal government to require online food retailers to disclose such information. Design: We performed a limited scan of ten products across nine national online retailers and conducted legal research using LexisNexis to analyse federal regulatory agencies' authorities. Setting: USA. Participants: N/A. Results: The scan of products revealed that required information (Nutrition Facts Panels, ingredient lists, common food allergens and per cent juice for fruit drinks) was present, conspicuous and legible for an average of only 36·5 % of the products surveyed, ranging from 11·4 % for potential allergens to 54·2 % for ingredients lists. More commonly, voluntary nutrition-related claims were prominently and conspicuously displayed (63·5 % across retailers and products). Our legal examination found that the Food and Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission and United States Department of Agriculture have existing regulatory authority over labelling, online sales and advertising, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programme retailers that can be utilised to address deficiencies in the provision of required information in the online food retail environment. Conclusions: Information regularly provided to consumers in conventional settings is not being uniformly provided online. Congress or the federal agencies can require online food retailers disclose required nutrition and allergen information to support health, nutrition, equity and informed consumer decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, HARASSMENT, and OYSTERS

LUNAR SCIENCE Europe quits Russian Moon missions The European Space Agency (ESA) announced last week it will stop partnerships with Russia on three upcoming Moon missions because of the war in Ukraine. TOXICOLOGY EPA ups formaldehyde warning A long-delayed assessment of the health effects of formaldehyde has concluded that the widely used chemical poses a greater cancer risk than had been estimated, which could lead to greater regulation. A draft assessment 12 years ago by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that linked formaldehyde exposure to an increased risk of leukemia and other cancers drew objections from members of Congress and industry representatives, who maintain that products containing formaldehyde are safe. [Extracted from the article]

PRISONERS, PREGNANT women, SOCIAL justice, GOVERNMENT policy, and REFLECTION (Philosophy)

In the last five decades, the number of women behind bars in the United States has risen exponentially. It is now estimated that there are nearly 58,000 admissions of pregnant people—disproportionately women of color—to jails and prisons each year. Recognizing the urgency and consequences of mass incarceration on pregnant people, their families, and communities, House Resolution 948: Justice for Incarcerated Moms Act of 2021 was introduced to Congress as a part of the Black Maternal Health Momnibus. The Justice for Incarcerated Moms Act aims to improve health care and promote dignity for incarcerated pregnant and parenting people through an array of policies and oversight. In this article, we review and reflect on the components of this bill within their broader public health and reproductive justice contexts. We close with recommendations for policymakers and professionals committed to promoting equity and justice for pregnant and postpartum incarcerated people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ULCERATIVE colitis, DRUG approval, DRUG efficacy, JANUS kinases, and IMMUNOLOGICAL adjuvants

NO confidence motions and SOCIAL distancing

The opposition MPs have reportedly gathered the required signatories to trigger the motion for the House to pass a vote of no confidence against the minister, but no date was set for the session. The MPs argue that the minister awarded the tender to al-Maktoum without seeking prior approval of parliament contrary to article 181 of the 1992 constitution. [Extracted from the article]

GOVERNMENT programs, CLINICAL medicine, DIABETES complications, DIABETES, and INSURANCE

In 2017, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to convene the National Clinical Care Commission to evaluate and make recommendations to improve federal programs that impact diabetes and its complications. This article summarizes the Commission's final report, highlighting recommendations that address administrative barriers that clinicians regularly face on behalf of their patients, such as access to lifestyle change and education programs, diabetes devices, and insurance coverage for evidence-based prevention and treatment strategies [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ARTIFICIAL implants, LEAD abatement, CARDIAC patients, TREATMENT effectiveness, HOSPITAL mortality, and INFECTION

Simple Summary: According to our analysis of the multicenter EORP ELECTRa (European Lead Extraction ConTRolled) Registry, about one-third of the candidates to complete removal of an implantable pacemaker/defibrillator because of device infection, through standard transvenous lead extraction, presents a systemic infection. Systemic infection is associated with a higher incidence of major in-hospital complications overall and a strong trend for procedure-related complications. Moreover, systemic infection is associated with increased procedure-related and non-procedure-related in-hospital mortality. Patients with cardiac implantable devices (CIED)-related infection with systemic vs. local involvement present different characteristics suggesting that in a relevant subgroup of patients the infection can be systemic from the beginning, without progression from CIED pocket. Background: Infections of cardiac implantable devices (CIEDI) have poor outcomes despite improvement in lead extraction (TLE) procedures. Methods: To explore the influence of CIEDI on the outcomes of TLE and the differences between patients with systemic (Sy) vs. local (Lo) CIEDI, we performed a sub-analysis of the EORP ELECTRa (European Lead Extraction ConTRolled) Registry. Results: Among 3555 patients enrolled by 73 centers in 19 Countries, the indication for TLE was CIEDI in 1850: 1170 with Lo-CIEDI and 680 with Sy-CIEDI. Patients with CIEDI had a worse in-hospital prognosis in terms of major complications (3.57% vs. 1.71%; p = 0.0007) and mortality (2.27% vs. 0.49%; p < 0.0001). Sy-CIEDI was an independent predictor of in-hospital death (H.R. 2.14; 95%CI 1.06–4.33. p = 0.0345). Patients with Sy-CIEDI more frequently had an initial CIED implant and a higher prevalence of comorbidities, while subjects with Lo-CIEDI had a higher prevalence of previous CIED procedures. Time from signs of CIEDI and TLE was longer for Lo-CIEDI despite a shorter pre-TLE antibiotic treatment. Conclusions: Patients with CIEDI have a worse in-hospital prognosis after TLE, especially for patients with Sy-CIEDI. These results raise the suspicion that in a relevant group of patients CIEDI can be systemic from the beginning without progression from Lo-CIEDI. Future research is needed to characterize this subgroup of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HAZARDOUS wastes, WASTE products, WASTE management, and ENVIRONMENTAL protection

POLITICAL parties, TIME series analysis, RELIGIOUS minorities, LANGUAGE & languages, PATRIOTISM, EMOTIONS, and VOTING

This paper studies the use of emotion and reason in political discourse. Adopting computational-linguistics techniques to construct a validated text-based scale, we measure emotionality in six million speeches given in U.S. Congress over the years 1858–2014. Intuitively, emotionality spikes during times of war and is highest in speeches about patriotism. In the time series, emotionality was relatively low and stable in earlier years but increased significantly starting in the late 1970s. Across Congress members, emotionality is higher for Democrats, for women, for ethnic/religious minorities, for the opposition party and for members with ideologically extreme roll-call voting records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GROUP decision making, POLITICAL participation, PARTICIPATION, GOVERNMENT policy, MUSLIMS, DECISION making, PUBLIC sphere, and RELIGIOUS groups

Most of the researchers in American politics and public policy focus on the Presidency, Congress, and Judiciary as the main institutions in the U.S. and consider the relations and interactions among them. However, the relationship between these main institutions affected by interest groups which can be seen in the process of decision making and their contribution to the public sphere. In an attempt to consider the role of interest groups, this paper's main concern is to study the influence of interest groups on the public sphere in general, and particularly, the role of religious interest groups in the process of decision making for Muslim communities. The paper's assumption is that the mosque and other religious institutions in the U.S. have multifaceted roles to mobilize Muslims and push them for sociopolitical participation and on the other hand; they can affect legislative and executive branches in their process of decision making. I will review the literature of interest groups, religious organizations, and policy-making models to explain the process of decision making and the factors that affect these procedures. Then I consider the effect of these Muslim institutions on the process of decision making in the U.S. and explain the relationship between these interest groups and policymakers in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal Babylon Center for Humanities Studies is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

SEGREGATION in education, UNITED States education system, DUE process of law, and PLESSY v. Ferguson

This article examines the case of Karla Galarza v. Washington, DC Board of Education. On April 3, 1947, Karla Galarza refused to accept the board's directive to withdraw from the Black segregated Margaret Murray Washington Vocational School. Her father, Dr. Ernesto Galarza, supported her decision and worked to challenge the expulsion, and the system of segregation, as unconstitutional. The authors analyze materials from regional and national archives, oral accounts, legal documents, and personal collections, focusing on Dr. Galarza's voice in over one hundred pages of correspondence. Dr. Galarza brought together an interracial legal team, including Charles Hamilton Houston, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Congress, and the National Lawyers Guild. Dr. Galarza lauded the pedagogy of a Black teacher and the pluralism cultivated in a Black school community as evidence of democracy in action. The legal team proposed that Karla's expulsion constituted a violation of the Fifth Amendment, naming education as a property right. However, after extensive research and discussion across ten months, the organizations determined they should not pursue the case in court. The authors assert that this attempted legal intervention is an unnamed forerunner in the attack on Plessy v. Ferguson and complicates previous narratives of the long struggle to end school segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CURRICULUM change, PEACE, CURRICULUM, CURRICULUM planning, EDUCATIONAL law & legislation, and EDUCATION

Previous work has not yet comparatively studied which forms of peace education (PE) have been adopted in national laws. Through content analysis of policy documents, we seek to find out why the Colombian Congress established PE as mandatory content across all educational levels in 2014 in a postwar phase, while the German Standing Conference of Ministers of Education rejected attempts to implement PE since the Cold War. Whereas the German school curriculum has maintained a strong disciplinary structure that leads to the rejection of the local version of PE developed in the Federal Republic of Germany, either as military indoctrination or critical pedagogy, Colombia's curriculum based on classical education is now influenced by educational standards and citizenship education—both influences from the United States. Therefore, it was easier for Colombian policymakers and educators to mutate the local fusion of citizenship competences into a psychological version of PE to solve national conflicts at the expense of promoting moral, historical, and political thinking in connection with traditional school subjects. We conclude by reflecting on how socio-political context and didactic traditions matter in explaining why some educational discourses are rejected or mutate with previous institutionalized educational rhetoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States senators, SOCIAL media, REPUTATION, COLLECTIVE representation, and LOCAL government

Twitter is changing strategic messaging in the U.S. Senate. Senators are using Twitter to frame their political brand for constituents, fostering a new digital dialog with constituents. I propose a constituent-driven theory of strategic messaging where senators curate a reputation on Twitter that matches their perceived expectations of their primary constituency. Representation on social media challenges what we know about senators' institutionally and politically constrained behavior by analyzing them in a new media climate where individual discretion is high and the costs are low. Using a unique dataset of more than 180,000 hand-coded tweets by senators, I show that senators develop two types of digital constituent relationships – an issue-oriented, national reputation versus traditional outreach to geographic constituents. Senators with issue-based constituencies prioritize policy, conveying an issue-driven style of representation; however, senators with tepid electoral futures pair their policy rhetoric with state-based issues or local concerns. These findings expand the scope of existing theories on congressional communication and link the technological shifts in Congress to information senators use to build relationships with voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SEPARATION of powers, UNITED States politics & government, BUDGET, CHECKS & balances (Political science), EXECUTIVE power, and PRESIDENTS of the United States

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 consolidated executive budgetary powers within the presidency and Congress. I evaluate how the Act reforms altered the nature of executive budgetary influence, using an original historical database from fiscal years 1895 to 1940. I show that these reforms were not only consistent with both political branches' objective to empower presidents to rein in profligate executive budget proposals under the decentralized budgetary system but also afforded presidents greater budgetary influence when seeking higher funding levels relative to Congress. This mutually beneficial power-sharing arrangement between the president and Congress stands in contrast with existing accounts that these reforms favored one branch at the expense of the other. Finally, I offer evidence that this arrangement was made possible by solving collective action problems within the executive branch that reduced the capacity of seasoned agency heads to shape budgetary outcomes during the postreform era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNITED States politics & government, POLITICAL attitudes, MAYORS, VOTERS, GOVERNORS, POLITICAL oratory, and RHETORIC

One of the defining characteristics of modern politics in the United States is the increasing nationalization of elite- and voter-level behavior. Relying on measures of electoral vote shares, previous research has found evidence indicating a significant amount of state-level nationalization. Using an alternative source of data—the political rhetoric used by mayors, state governors, and members of Congress on Twitter—we examine and compare the amount of between-office nationalization throughout the federal system. We find that gubernatorial rhetoric closely matches that of members of Congress, but that there are substantial differences in the topics and content of mayoral speech. These results suggest that, on average, American mayors have largely remained focused on their local mandate. More broadly, our findings suggest a limit to which American politics has become nationalized—in some cases, all politics remains local. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EXECUTIVE power, PRESIDENTS of the United States, POWER (Social sciences), PRACTICAL politics, UNITED States politics & government, and LEGISLATORS

Understanding unilateralism may require examining the conditions that precede and motivate the president's action. But if members of Congress can anticipate unilateral action, their failure to legislate cannot be explained by "gridlock intervals" in a standard spatial model. I argue instead that they may willingly surrender authority to the president to head off potential attacks from voters or interest groups. This helps to explain the president's accumulation of authority over time. More broadly, I argue that just as a large literature has examined outside pressure on Congress in isolation, we should examine its influence in the presence of the president's unilateral powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GOVERNMENT agencies, APPOINTMENT to public office, POLARIZATION (Social sciences), PARTISANSHIP, and LEGISLATIVE power

Confirmation delay is decomposed to better understand both when and why the Senate augments its efforts to vet presidential nominees. Distinctions among expedited, normal, and protracted confirmation processes are analyzed, as well as those between the work of Senate standing committees and chamber floor. A theory of ex ante moral hazard reduction is proposed that predicts as the confirmation process becomes increasingly protracted in response to rising potential agency costs, the Senate will be increasingly swifter to confirm tier 1 top executive leaders to US federal agency leadership positions than tier 2 subordinate leadership nominees. The statistical evidence is consistent with this theory of differential vetting between nominee tiers for both Senate party polarization and the nominee's loyalty to the appointing president, as well as for agency decision-making independence restricted to protracted confirmation processes. Yet, such differential vetting is not empirically observed in response to interbranch policy conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COMMERCIAL treaties, CROP yields, LEGISLATORS, FREE trade, AGRICULTURAL policy, and LEGISLATIVE voting

Does comparative advantage explain legislators' support for trade liberalization? We use data on potential crop yields as determined by weather and soil characteristics to derive a new plausibly exogenous measure of comparative advantage in agriculture for each district in the United States. Evidence shows that comparative advantage in agriculture predicts how legislators vote on the ratification of preferential trade agreements in Congress. We show that legislators in districts with high agricultural comparative advantage are more likely to mention that trade agreements are good for agriculture in House floor debates preceding roll call votes on their ratifications. Individuals living in the same districts are also more likely to support free trade. Our analysis and results contribute to the literature on the political economy of trade and its distributional consequences and to our understanding of the economic determinants of legislators' voting decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LAW reform, POLITICAL reform, CONSTITUTIONAL amendments, ELECTION law, POLITICAL systems, NEW democracies, COUNTRIES, and ELECTIONS

Copyright of Middle East Studies Journal (MESJ) is the property of Middle East Studies Journal & Jordan Research Institute and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

GLIOMAS, BRAIN mapping, PATIENT decision making, CRANIOTOMY, NEUROLOGIC examination, and INTRAOPERATIVE monitoring

Background Mapping techniques are frequently used to preserve neurological function during glioma surgery. There is, however, no consensus regarding the use of many variables of these techniques. Currently, there are almost no objective data available about potential heterogeneity between surgeons and centers. The goal of this survey is therefore to globally identify, evaluate and analyze the local mapping procedures in glioma surgery. Methods The survey was distributed to members of the neurosurgical societies of the Netherlands (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Neurochirurgie—NVVN), Europe (European Association of Neurosurgical Societies—EANS), and the United States (Congress of Neurological Surgeons—CNS) between December 2020 and January 2021 with questions about awake mapping, asleep mapping, assessment of neurological morbidity, and decision making. Results Survey responses were obtained from 212 neurosurgeons from 42 countries. Overall, significant differences were observed for equipment and its settings that are used for both awake and asleep mapping, intraoperative assessment of eloquent areas, the use of surgical adjuncts and monitoring, anesthesia management, assessment of neurological morbidity, and perioperative decision making. Academic practices performed awake and asleep mapping procedures more often and employed a clinical neurophysiologist with telemetric monitoring more frequently. European neurosurgeons differed from US neurosurgeons regarding the modality for cortical/subcortical mapping and awake/asleep mapping, the use of surgical adjuncts, and anesthesia management during awake mapping. Discussion This survey demonstrates the heterogeneity among surgeons and centers with respect to their procedures for awake mapping, asleep mapping, assessing neurological morbidity, and decision making in glioma patients. These data invite further evaluations for key variables that can be optimized and may therefore benefit from consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has repeatedly taken the position that because the IRS does not ask taxpayers to identify their race or ethnicity on submitted tax returns, IRS enforcement actions are not affected by taxpayers' race or ethnicity. This claim, which I call "colorblind tax enforcement," has been made by multiple IRS Commissioners serving in multiple administrations (both Democratic and Republican). This claim has been made to members of Congress and to members of the press. In this Article, I refute the IRS position that racial bias cannot occur under current IRS practices. I do so by identifying the conditions under which race and ethnicity could determine tax enforcement outcomes under three separate models of racial bias: racial animus, implicit bias, and transmitted bias. I then demonstrate how such conditions can be present across seven distinct tax enforcement settings regardless of whether the IRS asks about race or ethnicity. The IRS enforcement settings ana-lyzed include summonses, civil penalty assessments, collection due process hearings, innocent spouse relief, and Department of Justice (DOJ) referrals. By establishing that every major enforcement function of the IRS remains vulnerable to racial bias, this Article also challenges the IRS decision to omit race and ethnicity from the collection and analysis of tax data. The absence of publicly available data on IRS enforcement activities by race should not be interpreted as evidence that no racial disparities exist. I conclude by describing alternative approaches to preventing racial bias in tax enforcement other than the current IRS policy of purported colorblindness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current model of federal-Indian relations, the United States claims a plenary legislative power, as putative guardian, to regulate Indian tribes. Under this model, tribes are essentially wards in a state of pupilage. But the federal-tribal relationship was not always so. Originally, the federal government embraced, even promoted, a more robust model of tribal sovereignty in which federal-Indian treatymaking and diplomacy figured prominently. Through treaties, the United States and tribes negotiated territorial boundaries, forged alliances, facilitated trade, and otherwise managed their relations. In 1871, Congress attempted to put an end to federal-Indian treatymaking by purporting to strip tribes of their status as legitimate treaty partners. In a rider to the 1871 Appropriations Act, Congress prohibited the recognition of tribes as sovereign entities with whom the United States could negotiate treaties. Since that time, the 1871 Act and the plenary power-pupilage model it entrenched have grown deep roots in federal Indian law and the policies of the United States. Congress has aggrandized its role in tribal life at the expense of tribal sovereignty, and the coordinate branches of the federal government have acquiesced in this foundational shift. The literature of federal Indian law has wrestled with the doctrine of plenary power, contemplated the fate of the federal-tribal treaty relationship, and questioned the constitutionality of the 1871 rider. This Article posits new arguments for the unconstitutionality of the 1871 Act, uprooting the presumptions underlying the Act and revitalizing the prospect of federal-Indian treatymaking. Two recent developments provide an opportunity for such a transformation. In Zivotofsky v. Kerry, the Supreme Court held that the President alone possesses the power to recognize foreign states and governments. While Zivotofsky was a landmark case for U.S. foreign relations law, its potential significance for federal Indian law has gone underappreciated. Zivotofsky did not directly address the locus of power to recognize tribal sovereignty to enter treaties, but it prompts the question and provides a blueprint for arriving at an answer. Engaging that blueprint, this Article argues that the President possesses the exclusive power to recognize tribes' sovereign capacity to enter treaties. The result: The 1871 Act is unconstitutional because it attempts to limit that power. In our view, the President can and should unilaterally reengage in federal-Indian treatymaking, revitalizing treatymaking and reanimating the sovereignty model of federal-Indian relations. A second development, the Supreme Court's decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, is less fundamental to the argument but also significant for revitalizing tribal sovereignty. In McGirt, the Court recognized the ongoing vitality of federal-Indian treaties that were entered when the sovereignty model prevailed, strengthening both claims to tribal sovereignty and the viability of treatymaking in the federal-Indian relationship. The implications of these developments are significant. Deracinating the 1871 Act disrupts the dominance of the plenary power doctrine and pupilage model with their attendant abuses, more fully realizes the promise of the United States' policy of Indian self-determination and commitment to international norms, and generates positive ripples for Indigenous-state relationships across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TIME perspective and PATIENCE

This article examines the choices made by revising chambers in bicameral congresses. It analyses how bill characteristics, chamber congruence, impatience and institutional context influence the decisions made by revising chambers regarding executive bills sent by the chamber of origin. The analysis focuses on the case of Chile, a presidential country in which the executive has substantial proposal power. The findings show that the probability of a bill passing with amendments is higher when it receives a presidential urgency and when the revising chamber is the Senate. Executive bills coming out of the Finance Committee are more likely than others to pass unamended. However, those bills are more likely to die in committee when the revising chamber is the Senate (i.e. the chamber whose membership has a longer time horizon). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

POLITICAL participation, CAMPAIGN funds, POLITICAL reform, PRIMARIES, and POWER (Social sciences)

Many believe primary elections distort representation in American legislatures because unrepresentative actors nominate extremist candidates. Advocates have reformed primaries to broaden voter participation and increase representation. Empirical evidence, however, is quite variable on the effects of reform. I argue that when institutional reform narrows one pathway of political influence, aggrieved actors take political action elsewhere to circumvent reform. I use a difference-in-differences design in the American states and find that although changing primary rules increases primary turnout, campaign contributions also increase with reform. Implementing nonpartisan primaries and reforming partisan primaries lead to estimated 9 and 21 percent increases in individual campaign contributions per cycle. This suggests actors substitute action across avenues of political influence to limit effects of institutional reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editors discuss research papers on racial and ethnic politics applying to legislative studies published within the issue, on such topics as women of color in Congress, African American women state legislators' campaign finance and symbolic politics in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The authors discuss examples from their semi-structured interviews with women in the U.S. Congress that show the value of scholarly attention to the ways gender and race simultaneously shape the behavior, experiences and influence of legislators.