In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

The Rise of the Creative Class

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Jonathan Haidt Pantheon Books, 2012One has likely heard that, for the sake of decorum, religion and politics should never be topics of conversation with strangers. Even amongst friends or even when it is known that others hold opposing political or religious views, why is it that discussion of religion and politics leads to visceral-level acrimony and that one's views are right and the other's views are wrong? Professor Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia examines the psychological basis of our "righteous minds" without resorting to any of the pejorative labeling that is usually found in a book on politics and religion and eschews a purely comparative approach. Haidt proposes the intriguing hypothesis that our visceral reaction to competing ideologies is a subconscious, rather than leaned, reaction that evolved over human evolution to innate senses of suffering, fairness, cheating and disease, and that moral foundations facilitated intra-group cooperation which in turn conferred survival advantages over other groups. These psychological mechanisms are genetic in origin and not necessarily amenable to rational and voluntary control - this is in part the reason debating one's ideological opposite more often leads to frustration rather than understanding. Haidt also suggests that morality is based on six "psychological systems" or foundations (Moral Foundations Theory), similar to the hypothesized adaptive mental modules which evolved to solve specific problems of survival in the human ancestral environment.While decorum pleads for more civility, it would be better, as Haidt suggests, dragging the issue of partisan politics out into the open in order to understand it and work around our righteous minds. Haidt suggests a few methods by which the level of rhetoric in American politics can be reduced, such that the political parties can at least be cordial as they have been in the past and work together to solve truly pressing social problems.There are a number of fascinating points raised in the current book, but most intriguing is the one that morality, ideology and religion are products of group selection, as adaptations that increased individual cooperation and suppressed selfishness, thereby increasing individual loyalty to the group. That morality, political ideology and religion buttress group survival is probably highly intuitive. However, given the contemporary focus on the individual as the source of adaptations, to the exclusion of all else, to suggest that adaptations such as religion and political ideology arose to enhance survival of groups is heresy or, as Haidt recounts, "foolishness". While previous rejection of group selection itself was due in part to conceptual issues, one could also point out the prevailing individualist social sentiment, "selfish gene" mentality and unrelenting hostility against those who supported the view that group selection did indeed apply to humans and not just to insects. Haidt gives a lengthy and convincing defense of group selection, his main point being that humans can pursue self- interest at the same time they promote self-interest within a group setting - humans are "90 percent chimp, 10 percent bees". One can readily observe in the news and entertainment mediate that religion is a frequent target of derision, even within the scientific community - Haidt points to the strident contempt that the "New Atheists" hold for religion. They claim that religion is purely a by-product of an adaptive psychological trait and as a mere by-product religion serves no useful purpose. However, the religious "sense" has somehow managed to persist in the human psyche. One explanation by the New Atheists of how religion propagated itself is that it is a "parasite" or "virus" which latches onto a susceptible host and induces the host to "infect" others. As a "virus" or "parasite" that is merely interested in its own survival, religion causes people to perform behaviors that do not increase their own reproductive fitness and may even be detrimental to survival, but religion spreads nonetheless. …

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

In ethnic and racial terms, America is growing rapidly more diverse. Yet attempts to extend racial threat hypotheses to today’s immigrants have generated inconsistent results. This article develops the politicized places hypothesis, an alternative that focuses on how national and local conditions interact to construe immigrants as threatening. Hostile political reactions to neighboring immigrants are most likely when communities undergo sudden influxes of immigrants and when salient national rhetoric reinforces the threat. Data from several sources, including twelve geocoded surveys from 1992 to 2009, provide consistent support for this approach. Time-series cross-sectional and panel data allow the analysis to exploit exogenous shifts in salient national issues such as the September 11 attacks, reducing the problem of residential self-selection and other threats to validity. The article also tests the hypothesis using new data on local anti-immigrant policies. By highlighting the interaction of local and national conditions, the politicized places hypothesis can explain both individual attitudes and local political outcomes.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1666159_code1305535.pdf?abstractid=1666159&mirid=5

Politicized Places: Explaining Where and When Immigrants Provoke Local Opposition

So far I have attempted to provide a broad framework within which to consider the importance of managerial and organisational integration. Inevitably in so doing I have found it necessary to raise wider educational and training issues which influence not only conceptual skills but also attitude. Indeed I have, on occasion, moved my argument or perspective to even wider considerations; issues pertaining to national culture. Culture, education policy or structure, industrial organisation, all interact in subtle and perhaps devious forms. Thus a cultural framework which is “overly status or class conscious” reflects this in its educational system. Most likely it is more predisposed to segment its secondary and tertiary education systems according to similar principles. It may well encourage separation of the university and technical college or polytechnic system to a degree that is industrially and commercially counterproductive — and integratively devisive. Such an educational system will no doubt require “preselection and filtering” which relies upon early, too early, subject specialisation; it may, subsequently, influence adversely the need for individuals and subgroups to communicate more intimately and to organise themselves more closely. In fact it may ensure the continuance of barriers, hierarchies, and polarised attitudes of class, structure and function all the way across and through commerce and industry.

A National Survey

Although low voter turnout in national elections has garnered considerable attention and concern, much lower turnout in municipal elections has often been largely ignored. Using a survey of cities in California, this article examines a series of institutional remedies to low turnout in mayoral and city council elections. Moving local elections to coincide with the dates of national elections would have by far the largest impact on voter turnout, but other institutional changes that tend to raise the stakes of local elections also increase turnout. Specifically, less outsourcing of city services, the use of direct democracy, and more control in the hands of elected rather than appointed officials all tend to increase turnout.

/pdf/municipal-institutions-and-voter-turnout-in-local-elections-2k4h2i4zo5.pdf

Municipal Institutions and Voter Turnout in Local Elections

This paper focuses on the immigration-related demands currently being placed on local police in the United States, and the emergence of what we call a “multilayered jurisdictional patchwork” (MJP) of immigration enforcement. The evolving relationship between layers of government involved in enforcing immigration laws, sometimes dubbed “immigration federalism,” has so far received more attention from legal scholars than from social scientists. Against this backdrop, we report results from nationwide surveys of city police chiefs and county sheriffs and intensive fieldwork in three jurisdictions. The enforcement landscape we describe is complicated by the varying and over-lapping responsibilities of sheriffs and city police, and by the tendency for sheriffs to maintain closer relationships with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities. We highlight the contradictions inherent in this patchwork through case studies of Mesa, Arizona; New Haven, Connecticut; and Raleigh, North Carolina. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the MJP - for immigrants, for their communities, and for the evolving relationship between levels of government in the federal system.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1656530_code1458187.pdf?abstractid=1656530&mirid=1&type=2

A Multilayered Jurisdictional Patchwork: Immigration Federalism in the United States

This article focuses on the immigration-related demands currently being placed on local police in the United States and the emergence of what we call a “multilayered jurisdictional patchwork” (MJP) of immigration enforcement. We report results from nationwide surveys of city police chiefs and county sheriffs and intensive fieldwork in three jurisdictions. The enforcement landscape we describe is complicated by the varying and overlapping responsibilities of sheriffs and city police, and by the tendency for sheriffs to maintain closer relationships with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities. We conclude by reflecting on the implications of the MJP—for immigrants, for their communities, and for the evolving relationship between levels of government in the federal system.

Political incorporation theory suggests that the incorporation of new groups into city electoral politics will precede any improvements in the way that local bureaucracies treat members of those groups. We argue, however, that the logic and sequencing of political incorporation and bureaucratic response do not apply when explaining police practices toward immigrant residents. Drawing on survey evidence and case studies of California cities, we find that police departments are ahead of city councils and other municipal agencies in providing language support and that local elected officials are largely unaware of key practices of their police departments regarding interactions with immigrants. Such findings support the perspective of bureaucratic incorporation of immigrants, in which local bureaucracies proactively develop their own practices, drawing on a professional ethos.

Police Practices in Immigrant-Destination Cities: Political Control or Bureaucratic Professionalism?

The American metropolis has been transformed over the past quarter century. Cities have turned inside out, with rapidly growing suburbs evolving into edge cities and technoburbs. But not all suburbs are alike. In "Shaping Suburbia," Paul Lewis argues that a fundamental political logic underlies the patterns of suburban growth and states that the key to understanding suburbia is to understand the local governments that control it - their number, functions, and power. Using innovative models and data analyses, Lewis shows that the relative political fragmentation of a metropolitan area plays a key part in shaping its suburbs."

Paul G. Lewis

Papers

Municipal Institutions and Voter Turnout in Local Elections

A Multilayered Jurisdictional Patchwork: Immigration Federalism in the United States

A Multilayered Jurisdictional Patchwork: Immigration Federalism in the United States

Police Practices in Immigrant-Destination Cities: Political Control or Bureaucratic Professionalism?

Shaping Suburbia: How Political Institutions Organize Urban Development