Divisive Issues Research Articles

Health Law and Bigotry Distractions.

Bigotry distractions are strategic invocations of racism, transphobia, or negative stigma toward other marginalized groups to shape political discourse. Although the vast majority of Americans agree on large policy issues ranging from reducing air pollution to prosecuting corporate crime, bigotry distractions divert attention from areas of agreement toward divisive identity issues. This article explores how the nefarious targeting of identity groups through bigotry distractions may be the tallest barrier to health reform, and social change more broadly. The discussion extends the literature on dog whistles, strategic racism, and scapegoating.

Divisive issues can inform democracy.

Divisive issues can inform democracy.

Broad and Detailed Agreement: Public Preferences for German Immigration Policy

Immigration policy is often considered one of the most divisive issues in Western Europe and North America. We explore whether that debate has been oversimplified. We start from the position that immigration is a complex issue comprising many specific policy choices. We then investigate whether preferences are consistently open or closed across a range of immigration policy criteria. We analyze an original survey with a nationally representative sample of Germans. Our results suggest that preferences are not consistently open or closed on immigration, integration, and naturalization regulations. Overall, the German public would prefer to be open on some aspects of immigration policy and closed on others. In addition, population subsets who are either “pro-” or “anti-” immigration in general have the same preferences for whether to be open or closed on specific immigration policies. Our findings promote a more detailed approach to studying immigration preferences, which adds nuance to the idea of immigration as a grand societal conflict. In doing so, we highlight how future studies can refine expectations about when policy preferences are more permissive or restrictive.

Social Equity in Public Administration: Past, Present, and the Future

By 2018, the United States was (again) faced with a number of turbulent and divisive issues. In response, the Minnowbrook at 50 conference identified several critical areas of emphasis to advance social equity in research, teaching, and the practice of public administration. In this essay, we highlight these renewed efforts to describe its progress during the past five years (e.g., 2018–2023), as well as review the conceptual development of social equity in public administration prior to the Minnowbrook at 50 conference (e.g., pre-2018). We conclude with a re-examination of the future of social equity in public administration by upholding past principles, while encouraging new practices, pedagogy, and scholarship within the social equity domain (e.g., post-2023).

Publica utilitas praeferetur privatae: on the Inadequacy of Dividing Canon Law into Public and Private Law

The author undertakes the issue of the dichotomous division of law into public and private in the canonical legal system, which is an issue commonly known to many, including legal theorists. He does not try to distinguish the public and private dimensions in the applicable provisions of the Code of Canon Law, thus following other researchers, but rather demonstrates that the use of the public/private binomial is neither adequate nor sufficient, while describing the community of believers of the Catholic Church, whose differences from the lay communities (especially societies) are the hermeneutic starting point for some relevant conclusions. Moreover, the author supports the legislator’s definition of what is “public” and “private” in terms of the faithful functions (christifedeles) depending on their respective systemic position.

‘When There Is a Ban, There Is a Way’: Everyday Gambling and the Nigerian Political Economy, 1977–83

AbstractThis article focuses on the gambling milieu in Nigeria between the late 1970s and early 1980s. I consider the moment when the Federal Military Government (FMG) banned gambling nationwide, and ask why it became such a divisive issue during this tenuous period in Nigeria's history. I argue that amid impending transitional elections to a democratic regime, gambling embodied three key tensions that saturated Nigerian political and civil society during this period: job creation, the state's relationship with private capital, and the division of political power. Additionally, I propose that examining gambling's recreational value alongside its functional significance opens new avenues for the study of the gambling phenomenon in Africa that move beyond ethical considerations.

Utilization of In-Hospital Orthopaedic Spine Consultations: Evaluating the Impact of Health Care Policy

Access to specialty and private practice providers has been a divisive policy issue over the last decade, complicated by the conflict between a reduction in government-funded health care reimbursement and the need for health care providers to sustain a financially sound practice. This study evaluates the orthopedic spine consult service at an academic tertiary care center at 2 separate time points over a 5-year period to better understand the impact of decreasing orthopedic reimbursement rates and the increasing prevalence of federally supported medical insurance on the access to specialty care. In total 500 patients in 2017 and 480 patients in 2021 were included for the final analysis. A higher percentage of consults in 2021 came from the emergency department (74.0% versus 60.4%, P < 0.001); however, the emergency department saw fewer spinal cord injuries (11.9% versus 21.4%, P < 0.001), and the spinal cord injuries were less severe (3.1% versus 6.2% Association Impairment Scale A or B, P = 0.034). A smaller percentage of patients in 2021 went on to receive orthopedic spine surgery following consultation (35.2% versus 43.8%, P = 0.007), and those receiving surgery had an operation performed farther out from the initial consultation (4.73 versus 4.09 days, P < 0.001). Additionally, fewer patients with Medicare insurance (23.5% versus 30.8%) and more patients with Medicaid insurance (20.2% versus 12.4%) were seen in 2021 compared with 2017 (P = 0.003). Overall, this study found an increased proportion of Medicaid patients seen by the spine consult service but a decrease in the acuity of consults. Measures to improve access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act have revealed the complexity of this issue in health care. This study’s findings have demonstrated that while more patients did have insurance coverage following the Affordable Care Act, they still face a barrier to accessing outpatient orthopedic spine providers.

ECG Signal Classification with Convolutional Neural Networks

Cardiovascular waves in electrocardiograms (ECG) give significant data on heart conditions and the impacts of heart drugs. Division and analysis of ECG and its constituent cardiovascular waves are of high importance in cardiology determination and drug studies. Customarily, thoroughly prepared clinicians and cardiologists have performed ECG investigations. In any case, using clinicians in enormous scope ECG screening, for example, drug test stages or populace-based screening programs is not monetarily achievable. Consequently, an automated ECG division approach that can fragment heart waves accurately is of high significance. This thesis concentrates on Deep Learning (DL) based automated ECG division and outline techniques. Because of different shapes and irregularities in the ECG signal, the traditional straightforward component channels neglect to remove the assortment of cardiovascular wave arrangements. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) apply multi-facet including channels on the input to remove complex features from the sign. In this way, CNN can be used to remove various levelled highlights from ECG signals. Two Convnet structures are read up and utilized for the restriction of cardiovascular waves. Their exhibitions are contrasted with one another and different investigations in the writing too. The outcome shows that CNN is capable of extracting heart wave spatial elements with the great execution. Moreover, various long haul notwithstanding transient worldly patterns exists in ECG signals because of arrhythmia and other heart conditions. Generally speaking, momentary memory will be unable to catch the transient highlights in ECG signals, thus a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network is planned and utilized to catch long haul and momentary information dependencies in ECG sequences. This technique has worked on distinguishing proof of worldly highlights, especially in P-wave. To address the crude ECG signal division issue, a hybrid DL compressing of convolutional auto encoders and LSTM networks is proposed and contemplated. Results show that it performs commonly well for crude ECG signal division.

Breastfeeding and infant care as 'sexed' care work: reconsideration of the three Rs to enable women's rights, economic empowerment, nutrition and health.

Women's lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive history, including the number and spacing of their pregnancies and births, and for how long and how intensively they breastfeed their children. In turn, women's reproductive biology is closely linked to their social roles and situation, including regarding economic disadvantage and disproportionate unpaid work. Recognizing, as well as reducing and redistributing women's care and domestic work (known as the 'Three Rs'), is an established framework for addressing women's inequitable unpaid care work. However, the care work of breastfeeding presents a dilemma, and is even a divisive issue, for advocates of women's empowerment, because reducing breastfeeding and replacing it with commercial milk formula risks harming women's and children's health. It is therefore necessary for the interaction between women's reproductive biology and infant care role to be recognized in order to support women's human rights and enable governments to implement economic, employment and other policies to empower women. In this paper, we argue that breastfeeding-like childbirth-is reproductive work that should not be reduced and cannot sensibly be directly redistributed to fathers or others. Rather, we contend that the Three Rs agenda should be reconceptualized to isolate breastfeeding as 'sexed' care work that should be supported rather than reduced with action taken to avoid undermining breastfeeding. This means that initiatives toward gender equality should be assessed against their impact on women's ability to breastfeed. With this reconceptualization, adjustments are also needed to key global economic institutions and national statistical systems to appropriately recognize the value of this work. Additional structural supports such as maternity protection and childcare are needed to ensure that childbearing and breastfeeding do not disadvantage women amidst efforts to reduce gender pay gaps and gender economic inequality. Distinct policy interventions are also required to facilitate fathers' engagement in enabling and supporting breastfeeding through sharing the other unpaid care work associated with parents' time-consuming care responsibilities, for both infants and young children and related household work.

Countervailing Claims: Pro-Diversity Responses to Stigma by Association Following the Unite the Right Rally

Why do firms take positions on divisive social issues? In this article, I draw on theories of stigma by association to explain why firms’ mere proximity to controversial political actors may lead stakeholders to presume that firms silent on social issues are misaligned with the stakeholders’ sociopolitical preferences. Firms, in turn, countervail these presumptions of misalignment by eschewing silence and claiming sociopolitical positions. Substantiating this theory in the context of employee recruitment following the 2017 Unite the Right White supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, I show that Charlottesville’s employers combated presumptions that they shared demonstrators’ anti-diversity positions by making countervailing pro-diversity claims in their online job postings. In supplementary analysis, I show that the rally was associated with a newfound wage premium in job postings by Charlottesville’s employers but that this premium was lower when employers made pro-diversity claims. This study advances understanding of strategic sociopolitical positioning whereby firms make calculated appeals to stakeholders. It contrasts with related research showing that firms use social claims to combat negative evaluations resulting from their own actions or to differentiate from competitors. In doing so, it suggests opportunities for further research investigating, for example, additional motivations for firms’ sociopolitical positioning, how positioning might evolve in the context of growing political polarization, and how positioning might relate to workplace inequality and diversity.

Stronger Than Yesterday: Investigating Peoples' Experiences of View Strengthening on Social Media

ABSTRACTPolarization of views (known as ideological polarization) is one of the greatest societal challenges of our time, potentially sewing distrust and hate among individuals and communities and threatening to undermine the fabric of democracy. Divisive issues such as abortion and gun control are ever‐present and can drive issue polarization, and even affective polarization—a disdain for ‘the other side,’ which can further divide society. Social media has been flagged as a breeding ground for polarized views, with private groups and personalized algorithms facilitating self‐creation of echo chambers that may lead to polarization. While there is prior research on the technological influences on view strengthening, scant Human‐centered research exists and most of it has focused on view change in general, rather than view strengthening specifically. To investigate peoples' experiences of view strengthening on social media, we interviewed 10 people who recently strengthened their views on important topics. While some took steps to avoid creating echo chambers (e.g., by seeking out opposing views), others intentionally created them to allow their views to strengthen without interference. These findings have important implications for designing social media platforms that support careful and conscious view strengthening while mitigating against the risk of information manipulation.

분단희곡에 나타난 재현의 경향성에 대한 연구

This study focused on theatrical works that address the issue of division from 2010 to the present day. The research was conducted in three main directions. Firstly, an attempt was made to redefine the concept of division plays. Secondly, the study aimed to identify the tendencies of representation that emerged in division plays during this period. Thirdly, the study focused on the characteristics and significance of the theatrical imagery present in the selected works. However, it should be acknowledged that the effort encountered limitations. The endeavor failed to effectively consolidate discussions into tangible realities or yield practical outcomes in specific contexts.

Competing Imaginaries and Partisan Divides in the Data Rhetoric of Advocacy Organizations

Data are wielded to shape public opinion, particularly in electoral contexts where the role and veracity of information is questioned. This post-truth era is characterized by world events in which facts too often are obfuscated and evidential standards are abandoned. To study how data are used to influence pressing and divisive contemporary issues, this paper explores the rhetorical work that quantitative data are doing through the blogging practices of advocacy organizations during the highly-polarized month preceding the 2016 United States elections. We present results of a qualitative content analysis of the quantitative data used in 337 blog posts published by five pairs of conservative and liberal advocacy organizations over the course of the month leading up to the 2016 US elections. We identify key data rhetoric practices along partisan lines and contribute an analytic framework-evaluating ethos, pathos, and logos- that can be used to analyze the rhetorical use of data in other contexts. We then characterize two different imaginaries that come into conflict in this research: 1) the political imaginaries being promoted through organizational blogging and 2) the sociotechnical imaginary of the data economy, foregrounding differences in the epistemic value of data in each. We conclude by outlining research challenges and trajectories for future research within each of the two imaginaries of data.

Reflective structured dialogue as a tool for addressing wicked public health problems.

Attempts to address wicked public health problems can benefit from collaborative approaches to problem-solving, such as dialogue through structured conversations, that engage a wide range of stakeholders in deliberate inquiry to build trust and mutual understanding. This study seeks to assess the effects of participation in Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD) on university students' polarization-related attitudes. The BYU Campus Conversations project held 27 structured conversations with 139 participants on three divisive public health topics: COVID-19, mental health, and racism. The conversation structure encouraged students to share their personal experiences and learn from others in an environment that promoted vulnerability and confidentiality. Pre- and post-conversation surveys measured participant outcomes and found that participation in conversations was strongly associated with improved attitudes related to openness, tribal identity, and moral disdain. Over 95% of participants reported that they enjoyed taking part in the conversations and that it helped them better understand the experiences of others. The results of this project indicate similar conversations could be an effective tool in helping build understanding around divisive public health issues in university and community settings.

Partisan Media Sentiment Toward Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming pervasive across society. However, its deployment appears to be a divisive issue. This research examines aversion to AI across the partisan divide. We analyze partisan media sentiment toward AI, a powerful driver of public opinion toward social issues. We conduct a text analysis of media articles on AI (N = 7,840) from several liberal-leaning and conservative-leaning media outlets. The results demonstrate that liberal-leaning media show a greater aversion to AI than conservative-leaning media. Furthermore, a mediation analysis suggests that liberal-leaning media are more concerned with AI magnifying social biases in society than conservative-leaning media, which drives the partisan media differences. Moreover, the results also show that media sentiment toward AI became more negative after George Floyd’s death, an event that heightened sensitivity about social biases in society. Implications for how these partisan media differences can polarize public opinion and policymaker support toward AI are discussed.

The AUKUS Anvil: Promise and Peril

The nascent Australia–United Kingdom–United States security partnership, known as AUKUS, aims to secure for the Royal Australian Navy from the US and the UK a capability in nuclear-powered submarines to bolster allied deterrence in the Pacific. The partnership’s strategic loft and immense ambition have already afforded it almost mythical status. But its pathway is hardly free of potential obstacles, which include limited defence-industrial capacities, production delays, personnel shortfalls, cost overruns and geopolitical change. If AUKUS is seen as strengthening the strategic linkage between the US and Australia, as an American endorsement of a close ally, and as Britain’s claim to great-power status, unravelling it would likely have the reverse effect. As the project unfolds, and particularly as divisive issues become more urgent, maintaining political and strategic alignments among the three capitals will inevitably become more challenging.

ABC’s North and South (Book I and Book II) Miniseries as an Expression of Reaganite Ideology

The article examines the compatibility of David L. Wolper’s adaptation of North and South (Book I and Book II) with Reaganite ideology. It discusses the modifications of the original text (characters and events) to demonstrate how a Civil War novel has been transformed into a mirror image of Reaganite America. Wolper’s TV adaptation forms part of Ronald Reagan’s governing narrative of building one and strong America. The positive investment in the past – sanitizing or eliminating socially divisive issues, such as slavery and promoting core values such as family – helps to reach the national consensus on history that everybody (Southerners and Northerners) can identify with. Wrapped in the 1980s aesthetics of opulence, Wolper’s adaptation conveys a message of America’s greatness, attainable under the Lincoln-Reagan rallying cry “we must all stand united as Americans.”

What Happens When Mini-Publics Are Held in a Deeply Divided Place? Evidence from Northern Ireland

A pessimistic view of the potential of deliberative mini-publics to effectively contribute to democratic decision making on highly contested issues in deeply divided places asserts that (1) deliberative quality would be low due to the bitterness prompted by discussion of divisive issues, and (2) levels of opinion change would be low given the stubbornly enduring nature of political attitudes in divided places. We empirically examined this pessimistic view using a quasi-experiment involving mini-publics on two separate issues in Northern Ireland: (1) the contentious ethno-national question of Northern Ireland’s constitutional status, and (2) the much less contested and non-ethno-national issue of social care. Contrary to the pessimistic view, we find evidence that from the perspective of the participants themselves, deliberative quality was higher in the mini-public on an ethno-national issue. However, in line with the pessimistic view, levels of self-reported opinion change were significantly lower in the ethno-national mini-public. Overall, the findings highlight the potential for carefully designed deliberative mini-publics to address divisive ethno-national issues: they provide a space for participants to engage with such issues in open and respectful discussion—even if the prospects for attitudinal change are more limited.

Causal Responsibility Division of Chronological Continuous Treatment Based on Change-Point Detection.

This paper introduces a novel approach, called causal relation quantification, based on change-point detection to address the issue of harmonic responsibility division in power systems. The proposed method focuses on determining the causal effect of chronological continuous treatment, enabling the identification of crucial treatment intervals. Within each interval, three propensity-score-based algorithms are executed to assess their respective causal effects. By integrating the results from each interval, the overall causal effect of a chronological continuous treatment variable can be calculated. This calculated overall causal effect represents the causal responsibility of each harmonic customer. The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated through a simulation study and demonstrated in an empirical harmonic application. The results of the simulation study indicate that our method provides accurate and robust estimates, while the calculated results in the harmonic application align closely with the real-world scenario as verified by on-site investigations.

Categories, Stigma, and Divisive Issues: The Role of Social Evaluations in a Dynamic World

Categories, Stigma, and Divisive Issues: The Role of Social Evaluations in a Dynamic World