American States Research Articles

Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787–1860 by William D. Adler

Reviewed by: Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787–1860 by William D. Adler Mitchell G. Klingenberg (bio) Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787–1860. By William D. Adler. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Pp. 240. Cloth, $75.00.) On the eve of the Mexican-American War, the regular U.S. Army numbered just 3,554 officers and men.1 Yet by 1845 the army had emerged as an important institution in American life. After the war, though its size remained diminutive, the army’s importance to national development increased with the westward march of American settlement. How could a profession of arms—undersized and regarded with considerable skepticism by segments of the citizenry since the creation of the republic—facilitate such rapid expansion of the American economy and state? [End Page 250] William D. Adler argues in Engineering Expansion that through the U.S. Army’s use of force—and, just as important, through extensive nonvio-lent means—it was instrumental in shaping the destiny of the nineteenth-century United States. The army did this in numerous ways: by coercion, by consolidating newly acquired territory under federal control, by encouraging westward settlement, by protecting American citizens on the frontier along important routes of supply, by bringing its technical expertise to bear in developing and constructing infrastructure, by promoting science and technology, and by facilitating the flow of goods and services. In all of this, the army expanded an economy that otherwise lacked the guiding hand of a strong, centralized, and bureaucratized state. Adler’s methods reflect his academic training in political science. Throughout, he deploys robust quantitative and theoretical analysis in depicting how the army charted the nation’s economic expansion at the center, the nation’s capital and developed population centers in the East, and at the periphery, “the frontier regions of the nation” (3). His findings are multifaceted. Through force and coercion, the U.S. Army “shaped the pattern and direction of the country’s economic future,” without which the United States may well “have developed in a very different way” (55). Though the army contributed valuable engineering expertise (which officers acquired at the United States Military Academy) to the construction of roads and canals at the center, Adler finds that the army’s role in developing infrastructure was more pronounced in frontier regions. Just as intuitively, Adler finds that congressional authorities exercised stronger control over the U.S. Army in the center, whereas at the periphery officers could execute their orders to the letter or interpret them with flexibility absent direct oversight. In this respect, Adler suggests, “civilian control over the military was, at best, highly attenuated” (108). In the book’s ultimate (and strongest) chapter, Adler demonstrates how the organization of the War Department and its personnel—in particular, bureau chiefs under the secretary of war who resourced army operations at the periphery— enabled the army to influence policy makers. Bureaus such as the Corps of Topographical Engineers (the inspiration for Adler’s title) helped the War Department to achieve a degree of bureaucratic autonomy theretofore never experienced in the United States and enjoyed considerable success shaping the economic future of the nation. Engineering Expansion is a monograph in the classic sense of the term: compact, highly theoretical, and arranged as a compilation of analytical sections that read almost as articles. Its chapters, “Coercion and Economic Development,” “Building the Nation, Building the Economy,” “Who Commands?” and “Political Entrepreneurs and Institutional Capacity,” [End Page 251] build well on one another and teem with charts and tables. These depict major conflicts with Native American tribes, the expansion and contraction of the U.S. Army, road construction in the antebellum period, the various professions of United States Military Academy graduates in the first thirty-eight years of the institution’s history, fluctuations in the number of troops garrisoned at various forts across the United States from 1834 to 1840, a roster of the tenures and major socioeconomic activities of all secretaries of war from 1789 to 1860, and Senate votes to defund and reorganize the army (among other data points). Curiously, the book contains no engravings or images, a problem...

Democratic Peace and Liberal Peace: Argumentative and Intentions


 Some people believe that the concept of liberal peace should be seen in relation to the thesis of democratic peace. This literature focused more on whether democratic countries are more peaceful in their foreign relations and tried to provide a theoretical and empirical explanation for this. The democratic peace thesis states the following: 1) Democratic states rarely fight each other. 2) Democratic countries tend to be more open to international trade than non-democratic ones, which creates interdependencies that prevent war from breaking out between them.3) Democracies tend to be more internally peaceful than other systems. Here, it is important to point out that the thesis of democratic peace is closely related to Immanuel Kant’s idea of “perpetual peace”. As for the liberal peace thesis, from Richmond’s point of view, it bears four main aspects that emerged from the discussions in international theory and the different historical contexts related to the subject, especially in the West. These include the four aspects of liberal peace (victorious peace, constitutional peace, institutional peace, and civil peace). Richmond noted that the peace of the victor is the result of the old realist argument that peace depends on military victory and on the domination of the victor. But the peace of the victor may result in political resistance, as in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second, constitutional peace, derives from the Kantian argument that peace is the result of democracy, commerce, and a set of universal values based on individualism. Richmond notes that "the constitutional peace struggles with those who do not want to share power, and who do not want to entrench local legal structures that might prohibit their activities." As for institutional peace, it is the peace that results from normative and legal institutional arrangements between countries that agree - in a multilateral manner - on ways to act and impose or define their behavior. This can be found in international institutions such as the United Nations as well as regional organizations such as the European Union, the African Union (AU), the League of Arab States (AL), the Organization of American States (OAS), and subregional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The fourth aspect, (civil peace), which emphasizes the importance of the participation of citizens and civil society institutions in making peace. Unlike the other three aspects of liberal peace, the contribution of individuals rather than the state or international organization is included in this strategy.
 

Reclaiming the Blessings of Religious Liberty: Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment

Thomas Jefferson once described America's new religious freedom guarantees as a ‘fair’ and ‘novel experiment’.1These guarantees, set out in the new American state and federal constitutions of 1776 to 1791, defied the millennium-old assumptions inherited from Western Europe: that one form of Christianity must be established in a community and that the state must protect and support it against all other forms of faith. America would no longer suffer such governmental prescriptions and proscriptions of religion, Jefferson declared. All forms of Christianity had to stand on their own feet and on an equal footing with all other religions. Their survival and growth had to turn on the cogency of their word, not the coercion of the sword, and on the faith of their members, not the force of the law.

Analysis of the influence of Christianity on Current American Culture Wars

Although many who live in the United States may conclude the overturn of progressive policies as a representation of the cultural war, few can really specify the origin of the conflict. This paper focuses on the historical and sociological reasons behind the current American culture war. It can be concluded that the origin of the current culture war is heavily attributed to the influence of Christian, or specifically, Protestant ideology on the construction of American collective consciousness. Through analysis of research databases from the past, this research proposes that (a) the American state has never been separated from its church and (b) Protestantism is a result of old collective consciousness and a root for democracy, the new collective consciousness. Thus, (c) the cultural war in current American society is between two sets of collective consciousnessbetween Protestantism and universal democracy. In addition to research on the origin of the cultural war, this research also seeks to suggest the importance of understanding the context of a situation.

“Don't Say Gay” in Alabama: A taxonomic framework ofLGBTQ+ information support services in public libraries—An exploratory website content analysis of critical resistance

AbstractThe American state of Alabama has recently developed a national notoriety as a toxic place for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning/queer (LGBTQ+) people owing to several laws that have supported human rights violations and denied their civil liberties. This case study assesses how Alabama's public libraries are providing culturally relevant web access and coverage to LGBTQ+ information to meet their needs/concerns in a region that is oppressive to sexual and gender minorities. In the process, it illustrates public libraries' emerging role as simultaneously impotent to the majority's infringements, while finding creative ways to serve as counter narrative spaces of resistance representing “voices” of, and from, the margins. This exploratory assessment is based on documenting web‐based information for LGBTQ+ people in Alabama's 230 public libraries and identifies seven intersectional examples of information offerings, categorized into three groupings: (a) information sources (collections, resources); (b) information policy/planning (assigned role, strategic representation); (c) connections (internal, external, news/events). It provides a taxonomic framework with representative examples that challenge the regional stereotype of solely deficit marginalization. The discussion provides new opportunities to build collaborations of sharing within Alabama's public library networks to better address LGBTQ+ concerns and inequities in their local and regional communities.

The Consequences of Legislative Professionalism in U.S. State Legislatures: A Review

As polarization and gridlock continues to grip national politics, Americans are increasingly looking to states to remedy the nation’s most significant challenges. But this was not always the case. Americans are increasingly looking to states to remedy the nation’s most significant challenges. But this was not always the case. In the 1960s, state governments—particularly their legislatures—were in crisis. Few legislatures had the capacity to address the daunting issues that were creating massive political, social, and economic unrest in American states and cities. After decades of reforms to address these issues, and the studies of legislative reform that followed, we can make some conclusions about the consequences of legislative professionalization. The purpose of this paper is to present the key findings from work dedicated to the study of these consequences.

Chief Justice Selection Rules and Judicial Ideology

AbstractWe examine how institutional selection procedures affect the ideology of state supreme court chief justices. We argue that institutional selection methods empower those charged with choosing chief justices to select court leaders who reflect their own preferences, and we test this theory using data from all 50 American states from 1970 to 2017. Our results show that states that use popular elections to select chief justices tend to produce court leaders whose preferences reflect the electorate, and states that use commission-assisted elite appointment tend to produce chief justices whose preferences mirror those of political elites. While we find that peer election systems produce leaders with preferences similar to median court preferences, court preferences are also associated with other methods of chief justice selection.

The politics of legitimation in combined sanction regimes: the case of Venezuela

Abstract Regional international organizations (RIOs) and states are increasingly sanctioning governments, firms and individuals they consider to have violated international norms. How do different RIOs legitimize the decision to impose (or not impose) sanctions? And how do they react to the legitimation strategies of other RIOs and states? This article addresses these questions by analysing the legitimation strategies of the United States and four RIOs involved in the combined sanction regimes against Venezuela between 2014 and 2019: the Organization of American States, the Union of South American Nations, the Common Market of the South and the European Union. Refining the environment-based perspective on legitimation, the article proposes that combined sanction regimes work as environments that shape the legitimation strategies of senders not only by providing templates to emulate but also by triggering processes of differentiation. The article shows how Latin American RIOs adapted their legitimation strategies dynamically in reaction to changes in the strategies of Washington and Brussels. This process, however, was not unidirectional. When Latin American RIOs managed to articulate coherent strategies, they forced Washington and Brussels to recalibrate their own positions and engage in discursive legitimation processes as well.

Jaime E. Rodríguez O. (1940–2022)

Jaime E. Rodríguez O. (1940–2022)

A New Working Class: The Legacies of Public-Sector Employment in the Civil Rights Movement

A New Working Class: The Legacies of Public-Sector Employment in the Civil Rights Movement

All Things in Common: A Canadian Family and Its Island Utopia by Ruth Compton Brouwer (review)

Reviewed by: All Things in Common: A Canadian Family and Its Island Utopia by Ruth Compton Brouwer Beth Moore Milroy Brouwer, Ruth Compton–All Things in Common: A Canadian Family and Its Island Utopia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2021. 207 p. Two exemplary contributions to Canadian social history stand out in Ruth Compton Brouwer’s All Things in Common. One is her illustration of how several research areas, such as family, religion, migration, land occupation, and rural life are connected to the utopian form of settlement, a type largely absent from Canadian historical research. Those connections are evident in the case she presents of a built utopia in Prince Edward Island (PEI), which incorporates all those areas. She argues for recognizing the relevance of utopian settlements to the country’s social history. Brouwer’s second contribution is to show how a utopian case can be explored sensitively yet dispassionately by a professional historian who is also a descendant of the family at the centre of the story. In this book, readers will find a richly documented and experientially grounded discussion of the Compton community because the author could use records and participants’ insights that would be unavailable to a non-family writer. Brouwer has published widely on Canadian social history. In this instance she uses both her formal training and personal experience to illuminate why and how one of the truly unusual settlements in this country came into being, and what it tells us about utopia and one corner of Canada. The book comprises two parts. Together, they give readers a penetrating history of this built utopia from the gradual articulation of its aim, through its implementation, to the settlement’s eventual dissolution in 1947. Part I provides necessary background starting with a family of Comptons arriving on the eastern seaboard of the United States in the early 1600s. The subsequent century of religious turmoil and revolutionary upheaval provoked a strand of the family to migrate to Atlantic Canada as part of the 1783 wave of United Empire Loyalists. Early on, a theme emerges that will run through the book. This is the resistance on the part of many Comptons to certain social norms related to religion, family, and the organization of labour. For example, unlike most of their relatives and neighbours living in New Jersey, the first Comptons to come to Canada chose not to support the revolutionary aspirations of the American states. Instead, William, Sarah, and their children became destitute refugees in New York and later in Atlantic Canada. Even when it might have served their financial interests to be a little more [End Page 198] conformist, they tenaciously held on to their beliefs in millenarianism and an old style of “godly” Christianity. These Comptons refrained from membership in any institutionalized Christian churches, which, in their view, had lost sight of true Christianity, offering merely a superficial, coddling “Churchianity,” as they called it. Their aim was to hold fast to their interpretation of early Christianity as found in bible passages, including this one: “‘And all that believed were together, and had all things in common’ (Acts 2:44)” (p. 100). When in the late 1820s, a successive generation of Comptons was putting down roots in PEI, they finally found the religious “home” they had long sought. William, Mary, and their children became followers of Donald McDonald, a pastor trained in Scotland who preached a kind of old Scottish Presbyterianism mixed with various idiosyncrasies and millenarianism. The mélange was so distinctive that his adherents were called McDonaldites. When McDonald died in 1867, some of the Compton clan decided to put together their own “unchurched” manner of worshipping God, inspired by their McDonaldite experiences and their own preferences. Throughout Part I, the author references the effects of imperialist practices regarding land and settlement, as well as how the fracturing of Christianity played out in the lives of generations of Comptons in North America. Part II describes the physical and social development of the Compton communal settlement, its maintenance, and evolution. The land they settled on was of questionable ownership with regard not only to the Indigenous Mi’kmaq who, prior to about 1800, used the whole island...

Remembering Herbert Gutman's Work, Culture, and Society Fifty Years On

Remembering Herbert Gutman's <i>Work, Culture, and Society</i> Fifty Years On

The Southern Cone and the Origins of Pan America, 1888–1933

Set out in forthright style by US Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the misnamed Monroe Doctrine of 1823 asserted common interests between the United States and Latin America based on shared security and respect for independence. Adams condemned future European colonization in Latin America while urging that armed incursions by Europeans be treated as hostile acts against the United States. For a half century, Adams's principles remained lifeless and unheeded. Europeans flaunted the doctrine during episodes like the Anglo-French intervention in the Río de la Plata of 1845–47 and the 1862–67 Franco-Austrian occupation of Mexico.Decisive change, in which Pan-Americanism, the heir to the Monroe Doctrine, played a part, accompanied the Gilded Age and industrialization in the United States and new outward-looking liberal states in Latin America. Once almost confined to imported Cuban sugar and Mexican silver, US trade surged to an apotheosis in the late 1920s, epitomized by exported automobiles. Pan-Americanism originated in the late 1880s under the auspices of James G. Blaine, one of Adams's successors as US secretary of state, with support by entrepreneurs led by Andrew Carnegie, the titan of US industry. The movement developed the Monroe Doctrine's concerns with security into a quest for commercial dominance and for suzerainty camouflaged by altruism and philanthropy. If the United States gradually achieved its commercial goals, the political and ostensibly idealistic objectives of Pan-Americanism fell short. As noted by Mark J. Petersen, in the early 1930s the Argentine diplomat Carlos Saavedra Lamas dismissed the Pan-American movement as falling short, leaving it as little more than a contrived sentimental expression of solidarity.In analyzing Pan-Americanism between the 1880s and the mid-1930s, Petersen concentrates on Chile and Argentina. Although the two countries were geographically contiguous, striking differences between them found reflection in their engagement with Pan-Americanism. Chileans maneuvered, in part through Pan-American channels, to avoid territorial concessions to Peru and Bolivia affecting control over the Atacama nitrate fields wrested during the 1879–83 War of the Pacific. When copper mining developed after 1900, Chileans adopted pro-Pan-Americanism as a public relations device to attract US mining investment. The dismal legacies of that policy appeared during the Great Depression, when plunging copper prices induced catastrophic economic collapse, and for a second time during the early 1970s, in the overthrow of constitutional government by a military dictatorship.Thanks to European trade and British-built railroads, Argentina remained the richest Latin American nation during Pan-Americanism's first half century. Despite the efforts of Pan-Americanists, US-Argentine relations remained fractious. Argentines showed little support for Pan-Americanism on its inception in 1890. In 1917, during World War I, Argentina refused to follow the United States into declaring war on the Central powers. A decade later, during the postwar, recriminations erupted between the two countries over Argentina's lack of access to US markets for meat and grains; meanwhile, the Argentine market became a magnet for American exporters, whose share of the Argentine import trade eventually surpassed that of all competitors. By the late 1920s, Argentina's trade imbalance and US dollar shortages contributed to outbreaks of anti-Americanism, initially during the 1928 Argentine election, in a populist campaign against Standard Oil, and then in 1929–33, in the form of support for a discriminatory pro-British bilateral trade treaty. Throughout such controversies, Pan-Americanism maintained an ineffectual background presence.While noting the principal issues affecting relations between the United States on one side and Chile and Argentina on the other, Petersen relegates these issues to the background. His index widely references items such as “trade” and “tariffs” but makes too few references to the leading constituents of trade from Chile and Argentina respectively affecting bilateral ties with the United States. While the author recognizes the standard critique of Pan-Americanism as imperialism decked in rhetoric and paternalism, this issue too remains incidental to his discussion. The book's positive features include a good synopsis of the birth of Pan-Americanism in 1889 under Blaine's auspices. At that time Roque Sáenz Peña, Argentine delegate to the First International Conference of American States, rejected calls for a customs union and counterproposed internal Latin American ties that he called americanismo. Early aspirations for de facto US political control ceded to the less ambitious pursuit of intermittent diplomatic leadership and the creation of networks of cultural exchange. Pan-Americanism left positive marks in fields including international law and medicine while contributing to a continental women's movement with accomplishments in education.Petersen demonstrates expertise in many topics of Chilean and Argentine history but fails to integrate Pan-Americanism with them: too commonly, the movement surfaces in his text as a digression into side issues. In all, The Southern Cone and the Origins of Pan America, 1888–1933 represents a solid discussion of the cultural and diplomatic features of Pan-Americanism set alongside semicompartmentalized historical discussions of Chile and Argentina.

Pediatric Disaster Readiness and Community Hospitals in a Rural American State

Introduction:Pediatric patients represent a small (but important) subset of the patient population routinely visiting emergency departments (ED) each year. With the aim of better understanding the disaster preparedness level for pediatric-specific mass casualty and surge incidents, a survey was conducted involving all hospitals that routinely manage pediatric patients in their emergency departments, to better understand the preparedness levels for these facilities.Method:This is a retrospective analysis of data collected in 2014 and repeated in 2021. Our focus included one predominantly rural state in the United States of America (USA). We examined results from surveys conducted where facilities self-reported objective criteria that resulted in a readiness score (as it relates to pediatric readiness). Reporting stratification reflected the annual pediatric ED volume with groups of; Low (&lt;1800/year), Medium (1800-4999 /year), Medium to High (5000-9999/year), and High (&gt;10,000/year).Results:Low-volume hospitals scored (Mean=59/Median=56), Medium volume hospitals scored (Mean=62/Median=60), Medium to High volume hospitals (Mean=67/Median=65), and hospitals with High volumes (Mean=82/Median=83). All hospital volume ranges had outlier hospitals that scored between 82-97. The general tendency, lower volume hospitals had a lower level of readiness, and higher volume hospitals had a higher (to much higher) level of readiness.Conclusion:Pediatric disaster readiness needs to be improved at the community level. It is encouraging that pediatric disaster readiness has been addressed in the larger medical centers. Yet, it should be noted that even very low-volume hospitals (had outliers with) scores as high as 94 indicating that with ample support, and resources, pediatric disaster preparedness is achievable in every hospital regardless of size or volume. The results point to a need to develop, improve, and distribute resources and support local hospitals with pediatric disaster readiness.

Immunocompromise and herpes simplex virus type 1 encephalitis (HSVE): a nationwide cohort and case-control study (S25.009)

<h3>Objective:</h3> We aim to determine whether a relationship exists between immunocompromise as defined by autoimmune disease or immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory medications in patients and incident HSVE. <h3>Background:</h3> Among infectious etiologies of encephalitis, herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) is commonest. The association between immune status and HSVE is unclear. Using a U.S. Medicaid database of 75.6 million persons, we evaluated the association between HSVE and autoimmune conditions, exposure to immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory medications, and other medical comorbidities. <h3>Design/Methods:</h3> We used the U.S. Medicaid Analytic eXtract Database between the years of 2007–2010 from the 29 most populated American states. We first examined the crude incidence of HSVE in the population. We then age- and sex-matched adult cases of HSVE with a sufficient enrolment period to a larger control population without HSVE. In a case-control analysis, we examined the association between HSVE and exposure to both autoimmune disease and immunosuppressive/immunomodulatory medications. Analyses were conducted with conditional logistic regression progressively adjusting for sociodemographic factors, Charlson comorbidity index, and non-autoimmune comorbidities. <h3>Results:</h3> Incidence of HSVE was ~3.01 per 10⁵ person-years among adults. A total of 951 HSVE cases and 95,100 age- and sex-matched controls were compared. The HSVE population had higher rates of medical comorbidities than the control population. The association of HSVE and autoimmune conditions was strong, adjusted OR 2.6 (95% CI [2.2, 3.2]). The association of HSVE and immunomodulating medications had an OR of 2.2 [1.9, 2.6], also after covariate adjustment. When both exposures were included in regression models, the associations remained robust: 2.3 [1.9, 2.7] for autoimmune disease and 2.0 [1.7, 2.3] for immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory medications. <h3>Conclusions:</h3> In a large, national population, HSVE is strongly associated with pre-existing autoimmune disease and exposure to immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory medications. The role of antecedent immune-related dysregulation may have been underestimated to date. <b>Disclosure:</b> Dr. Tang has received personal compensation for serving as an employee of Third Rock Ventures. Dr. Bhattacharyya has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for Alexion Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Bhattacharyya has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as an Editor, Associate Editor, or Editorial Advisory Board Member for Continuum. The institution of Dr. Bhattacharyya has received research support from Alexion Pharmaceuticals. The institution of Dr. Bhattacharyya has received research support from National Institute of Health. The institution of Dr. Bhattacharyya has received research support from UCB. Dr. Bhattacharyya has received publishing royalties from a publication relating to health care. Dr. Bhattacharyya has received publishing royalties from a publication relating to health care. Dr. Bhattacharyya has received publishing royalties from a publication relating to health care. Dr. Miyawaki has received personal compensation in the range of $50,000-$99,999 for serving as an officer or member of the Board of Directors for Family Health, Inc.. Dr. Miyawaki has received personal compensation in the range of $10,000-$49,999 for serving as an Expert Witness for Morrison and Mahoney. Dr. Miyawaki has stock in Cincinnati Bengals. Dr. Miyawaki has received publishing royalties from a publication relating to health care. Dr. Miyawaki has received personal compensation in the range of $5,000-$9,999 for serving as a Consultant with US Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Yoshida has received personal compensation for serving as an employee of OM1, Inc. Dr. Yoshida has received personal compensation in the range of $10,000-$49,999 for serving as a Consultant for OM1, Inc. Dr. Wilcox has nothing to disclose. Karen Costenbader has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving as a Consultant for Amgen. Karen Costenbader has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving as a Consultant for Lilly. Karen Costenbader has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for Glaxo Smith Kline. Karen Costenbader has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving on a Scientific Advisory or Data Safety Monitoring board for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP. Karen Costenbader has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as an Editor, Associate Editor, or Editorial Advisory Board Member for Arthritis and Rheumatology. Karen Costenbader has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as an Editor, Associate Editor, or Editorial Advisory Board Member for Uptodate. Karen Costenbader has stock in Neutrolis. The institution of Karen Costenbader has received research support from Gilead. The institution of Karen Costenbader has received research support from Exagen. The institution of Karen Costenbader has received research support from Merck. Karen Costenbader has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as a grant reviewer with NIH. Prof. Solomon has nothing to disclose. Mr. Guan has nothing to disclose. Miss Lahey has nothing to disclose.

Book Review: Nonprofit neighborhoods: An urban history of inequality and the American state

Book Review: Nonprofit neighborhoods: An urban history of inequality and the American state

California: An American State on the Global Stage

California: An American State on the Global Stage

Network Structure of Comorbidity Patterns in U.S. Adults with Depression: A National Study Based on Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

People with depression are at increased risk for comorbidities; however, the clustering of comorbidity patterns in these patients is still unclear. The aim of the study was to identify latent comorbidity patterns and explore the comorbidity network structure that included 12 chronic conditions in adults diagnosed with depressive disorder. A cross-sectional study was conducted based on secondary data from the 2017 behavioral risk factor surveillance system (BRFSS) covering all 50 American states. A sample of 89,209 U.S. participants, 29,079 men and 60,063 women aged 18 years or older, was considered using exploratory graphical analysis (EGA), a statistical graphical model that includes algorithms for grouping and factoring variables in a multivariate system of network relationships. The EGA findings show that the network presents 3 latent comorbidity patterns, i.e., that comorbidities are grouped into 3 factors. The first group was composed of 7 comorbidities (obesity, cancer, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, arthritis, kidney disease, and diabetes). The second pattern of latent comorbidity included the diagnosis of asthma and respiratory diseases. The last factor grouped 3 conditions (heart attack, coronary heart disease, and stroke). Hypertension reported higher measures of network centrality. Associations between chronic conditions were reported; furthermore, they were grouped into 3 latent dimensions of comorbidity and reported network factor loadings. The implementation of care and treatment guidelines and protocols for patients with depressive symptomatology and multimorbidity is suggested.

Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State

Conceived in Crisis: The Revolutionary Creation of an American State

The contingent value of connections: legislative turnover and revolving-door lobbyists

AbstractFormer legislators who lobby exacerbate the effects of financial resources on the relative political influence that various organized interests achieve. These lobbyists receive more income and achieve favorable policy outcomes more often than other lobbyists. The value of these revolving-door lobbyists, however, is contingent on the continued presence of former colleagues in legislatures. Former legislators achieve influence because of their insider connections, and membership turnover among incumbents decreases the value of this asset for interest groups. I examine the incomes and clienteles of former legislators who lobbied in the American states over seven decades. Turnover is a consistent, negative predictor of revolver value. This effect is enhanced by the presence of legislative staff support. This study is the first to examine the value of revolving-door lobbyists in the state legislatures. My findings imply that reforms that induce turnover help to level playing fields of political advocacy among interests with different levels of financial resources.