the regressive nature of consumption taxes poses a challenge to partisan theory. using data for up to 20 oecd countries in the period 1970-2003 this article aims to explore the question of whether the idea that social democratic governments typically have to compromise on policy goals and core constituency interests to make themselves more appealing to the median voter necessitates the use of r...

Evidence-based policy making in health is of great importance when addressing issues of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health inequalities. I explore the role of evidence in influencing the decisions of policy makers, and question the relevance and accuracy of current evidence to the life experiences, social and cultural environments, and aspirations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islan...

Social interaction with unknown individuals requires fast processing of information to decide whether it is friend or foe. This process of discrimination and decision-making is stressful and triggers secretion of corticosterone activating mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR). The MR is involved in appraisal of novel experiences and risk assessment. Recently, we have ...

Public policy teaching cases serve two important pedagogical purposes that intersect for me. First, they fulfill the professional school student’s demand for “real world” materials and skills (Barnes, Christensen, & Hansen, 1994; Kenney, 2001a). Second, a central tenet of feminist social science calls for examining social policy from the point of view of the objects of policy, giving voice to w...

Understanding the neural basis of social behavior has become an important goal for cognitive neuroscience and a key aim is to link neural processes observed in the laboratory to more naturalistic social behaviors in real-world contexts. Although it is accepted that mirror mechanisms contribute to the occurrence of motor resonance (MR) and are common to action execution, observation, and imitati...

The connection between health and housing was widely understood by nineteenth century social reformers and philanthropists and was the dominant framework for low-income housing until the early twentieth century. The Affordable Care Act has not only set in motion reform in the nation’s health care system, but also opens up new opportunities for re-connecting the housing and health sectors. While...

The promulgation of South African policy regarding the place of religion in public education was delayed until 2003, after a lively debate. The National Policy on Religion in Education effectively banned confessional, sectarian religion from public schools, but allowed for the teaching of Religion Studies as an academic subject and for religious observances, on condition that these were offered...

Moral reasoning (MR) is a socio-cognitive skill essential to appropriate social functioning in childhood, and evolves in quality and complexity during ontogenetic development. Past research suggests that MR is related to age, socioeconomic factors, as well as some social and cognitive skills, such as executive functioning (EF), theory of mind (ToM), empathy, and affect recognition. However, the...

Managed relocation (also known as assisted colonization, assisted migration) is one of the more controversial proposals to emerge in the ecological community in recent years. A conservation strategy involving the translocation of species to novel ecosystems in anticipation of range shifts forced by climate change, managed relocation (MR) has divided many ecologists and conservationists, mostly ...