Majority Leader Research Articles

Цифровая протестная активность в провинциальных городах современной России

Digital protest in Russian provincial cities is fundamentally different from such protest activity of metropolitan cities. The typical forms of digital political protest activity in metropolitan cities is oppositional political activity, while in the provincial cities the most popular topics on social networks are: solving hobbies-related issues, environmental issues, local socio-economic problems, such as the problems of defrauded equity holders etc. Despite the apparent interest in the elections, opposition parties and movements, residents of the Russian provincial cities do not trust the major popular leaders of the political opposition in large cities and metropolitan areas. This testifies to the split of Russia into a country of metropolitan cities and a country of provincial ones, different value systems of provincial and capital Russia, which may negatively affect the development of the political situation in the future.

The Politicization of the U.S. Supreme Court: Danger to Democracy

Our democracy is experiencing increased danger by virtue of the continued politicization of the U.S. Supreme Court. The author believes that without a neutral judiciary, our tripartite system cannot function as the founders intended. The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during September 2020 leaves a historic vacancy and presents yet another opportunity for a permanent and dramatic precedent to be established for the Supreme Court nomination process. With voting for the 2020 presidential election having already started in many states, the decision by President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to accelerate the nomination process, only weeks before a presidential election may result in changing the political makeup of the Court for many decades. The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is inextricability tied to issues immediately before the Court, including the 2020 election and future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), scheduled to be heard just one week following the presidential election. The author thanks the Cardozo Law Review for this opportunity to comment and discuss the positions and merits for and against postponing the nomination and confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice until after the presidential election. This Article proceeds in seven parts. First, I examine the life, death, and impact of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Second, is a brief review of the four-years of the Trump presidency. Third, is a discussion about the Supreme Court nomination process. Fourth, is a look at the eighteen Supreme Court nominations during the past 35 years. Fifth, I explore what is now known about nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Sixth, is my discussion of the likely implications of this nomination for the future of the Court. And last, I conclude.

A Conversation

A Conversation

The Superpower of the PALTC Clinician

The Superpower of the PALTC Clinician

De-Politicization of the Supreme Court Nomination Process: A Practical Plan for Temporary Court Expansion

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 45 days before the November 3, 2020 presidential election, ignited a titanic political firestorm over the nomination of her replacement by President Trump. In a stunning reversal of his prior position, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced within hours of RBG’s death that the Senate would hold a confirmation vote on Trump’s nominee despite having refused to consider any nomination by President Obama to fill the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia for a norm-busting 237 days before the 2016 presidential election. Attempting to justify his actions, Leader McConnell stated in 2016 that “[t]he American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefor this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.” This paper proposes a Plan, consistent with constitutional powers granted to the President and Congress and with historic precedents, by which the Democrats could respond to the unprincipled maneuverings of Leader McConnell, while seeking in the long run, to de-politicize the nomination process and improve Court legitimacy. The proposed Plan involves legislation (the Merrick Garland Supreme Court De-Politicization Act) that would add immediately two Supreme Court Justices, as permitted by the Constitution and substantial precedents, but only for a limited time. To prevent future tit for tat expansion, the legislation would allow for the appointment of two additional Justices by the end of the next President’s first term unless a proposed Constitutional Amendment is adopted to eventually return the Court size to nine upon departure of the first two Justices created by the legislation. Of course the Plan assumes that the Democrats achieve unified control over Congress and the presidency as a result of the November 3, 2020 election. The effect would be to convert the likely 6-3 conservative super majority of the Court (assuming RBG’s replacement nomination is approved by the Senate) to a more balanced 6-5 tilt in favor of conservatives or even 6-7 in favor of Justices appointed by Democratic presidents. To handle the inevitable negative reaction, the proposed Constitutional amendment would freeze the number of Justices, first at eleven and eventually nine, once the “Scalia” and “RBG” seats are vacated. Unlike most other proposals for Court reform advanced by progressives, this proposed Plan is moderate and practical. In particular, the legislation would add third and fourth seats only if the linked Constitutional amendment fails to be adopted during the first two years of the next administration. By threatening the additional two seats, Republicans will have a powerful incentive to reach agreement with the Democrats on a depoliticized nomination process and revised Court structure and/or jurisdiction. To that end, the proposed Constitutional amendment also includes a second section that provides for automatic confirmation of all Supreme Court nominations made 90 days before a Presidential Election Day. Should the Senate fail, after 90 days, to provide “Advice and Consent” via a recorded final vote, the nomination would be treated automatically as “confirmed.” In recognition that certain McConnell arguments were only misapplied but were otherwise valid, a third section of the Amendment provides that no nomination may be made by the president during the period starting 90 days before the next Election Day for President and ending on the next occurring Presidential Inauguration Day. Sections 2 and 3 would thus insure that no future Majority Leader would be able to engage in the type of raw-power, partisan maneuvering that characterize Mitch McConnell’s stewardship of the Senate’s Supreme Court Advice and Consent functions. Other Court reforms such as proposed by Ryan D. Doerfler and Samuel Moyn and/or by Daniel Epps and Ganesh Sitaraman could be considered to avoid the need to add the second pair of Justices. This paper discusses a number of likely challenges to adoption of the proposed Plan including the potentially negative consequences that would result in a Supreme Court constituted by an even number of Justices. This could occur under the proposed Plan over a considerable period of time should the departure of the newly added first and second justices occur at widely separated times. To test the seriousness of this challenge, a statistical study was undertaken of the historic vote coalitions occurring in all Supreme Court decisions rendered during several different periods, over the last four decades, in which the decisions were considered by courts consisting of either nine justices or eight justices. The study was made using the on-line Supreme Court Database of coded decisions maintained by the Washington University Law School. The results of this study demonstrate, strongly, consistently and counter-intuitively, that courts constituted by an even number of Justices resolve a higher percentage of cases by overwhelming majorities as compared with courts constituted by an odd number of Justices.

Foreword: The Degradation of American Democracy—and the Court

Foreword: The Degradation of American Democracy—and the Court

Mount Nebo and the development and the end of an era: Jacinto Convit (1913-2014) and Francisco Kerdel-Vegas (1928-2020)

In the second half of the 20th century, an important series of scientific and sociopolitical events took place in Venezuela. These developments were related to changes in the world and particularly in the United States. In dermatology, beneficial and marked advances germinated and grew. They were propelled in Venezuela by particular characteristics in the local development of this specialty and critically by personal features of two major leaders, Dr Francisco Kerdel-Vegas, who died June 18, 2020, at the age of 92, and Dr Jacinto Convit, who died in 2014 at the age of 101. The interaction of these two cooperating leaders and the scientific and social environment with which they acted are presented.

The political struggle for ‘the people’: populist discourse in the 2019 South African elections

ABSTRACT This article investigates populist rhetoric in the 2019 South African elections. I argue that both Julius Malema and Dr. Pieter Groenewald consistently employed populist appeals. Although populism is mostly confined to smaller opposition parties, I demonstrate that all major leaders utilised populist rhetoric to some degree. I briefly investigate the consequences of the EFF's populism, and contend that their campaign rhetoric has largely been mirrored in their behaviour between elections, challenging South Africa's democracy. Lastly, both populists made explicitly racialised appeals, albeit to different constituencies, contravening the country's political norm of nonracialism, seen as underpinning its political stability.

How the House Sues

The House of Representatives is suing, more than ever before. But how does the House actually initiate lawsuits? For decades, the House authorized litigation through full chamber votes. Yet recently the House has delegated to its Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) — a five-member body composed of the Speaker, Majority Leader and Whip, and Minority Leader and Whip — authority to initiate suit on the House’s behalf. That delegation raises novel questions at the intersection of Articles I and III, and all of the House’s currently-pending, BLAG-initiated suits rest on its legality. It is also entirely unstudied. This Article is the first to analyze the history, practice, and lawfulness of the House’s delegation of litigating authority to BLAG. It finds BLAG is likely constitutional under Article I’s Rulemaking Clause. And in any event, it concludes that BLAG’s constitutionality may pose a nonjusticiable political question. In so doing, this Article aims to open a dialogue over this critical, overlooked actor in American public law.

Consociationalism under examination: Is consociationalism the optimal multiculturalist approach for Turkey?

AbstractSome scholars maintain that the Republic of Turkey should construct a consociational model to manage its ethno‐cultural diversity. This article suggests consociationalism is not the optimal multiculturalist approach for Turkey, where there is some degree of interethnic moderation between ethnic Kurds and Turks at the grassroots level. In the presence of this mass‐based moderation, a consociational formula is unlikely to provide Turkish political leaders with political incentives that urge them to cooperate and enter into consociational power‐sharing arrangements with their Kurdish counterparts. This renders consociational power‐sharing arrangements difficult to promote or enforce in Turkey. In the absence of such incentives, any multicultural reform of the consociational formula would not be sustainable in Turkey. There would simply not be enough popular support for such reforms. There are some electoral strategies that offer both majority and minority leaders political incentives to move toward the moderate middle, form interethnic coalitions, foster interculturalism, and increase the number of intercultural citizens. These strategies are offered by centripetalism, another multiculturalist approach to managing ethno‐cultural diversity.

Взаимодействие корпоративных структур в ЕС: влияние цифровизации

The article discusses the trends in industry and market concentration, the transformation of business models and interaction strategies of the European Union companies under the influence of digitalization. The analysis of business structure statistics in various sectors of the EU economy is carried out, supplemented by a case study of changes in the forms and structure of companies and their groups due to adaptation to new technological realities. It is shown that by incorporating digital opportunities into their business models, companies begin to perform the functions of not only the supplier of goods and services and the creator of technology, but also the networking manager, as well as the aggregator of assets. At the same time, the roles of small and large companies are somewhat modified, making it possible for two different trends to exist simultaneously. On the one hand, the concentration of key industries is declining, according to statistical data. However, an empirical analysis of specific cases indicates the absorption of new functions and areas of competence by major industry leaders. This is largely due to expanded interaction with a network of small innovative companies. At the same time, interaction with a client most often remains with a large partner as the digital intensity index indicates the low activity of small businesses in the field of online sales and data analysis. It is assumed that the structural crisis caused by the COVID‑19 pandemic and the state’s response to it will lead to a new restructuring of global production chains, a new quality of relationships within these chains, as well as a strengthening of digital companies and conglomerates in the EU.

Supreme Court Appointments in Presidential Election Years: The Case of John Hessin Clarke

Supreme Court Appointments in Presidential Election YearsThe Case of John Hessin Clarke Jonathan L. Entin (bio) When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly on February 13, 2016, Republicans in the US Senate immediately made clear that they would not consider any nominee proposed by President Barack Obama. Because 2016 was a presidential election year, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared within hours of Scalia’s passing: “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice.”1 True to their word, the GOP-controlled Senate refused to take any action on Obama’s nomination of Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as Justice Scalia’s successor. This inaction provoked widespread debate, but the vacancy remained open for President Donald J. Trump to appoint Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, of the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, to Scalia’s seat.2 The refusal to act on Judge Garland’s nomination marked the first time in 150 years that the Senate had completely stonewalled a Supreme Court [End Page 30] nominee.3 But this does not mean that the confirmation process used to be genteel or straightforward. Since World War II, the only two Supreme Court appointments that had occurred during a presidential election cycle illustrated the fraught nature of such matters. In October 1956, shortly after the opening of the Court’s new term, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated New Jersey Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. to succeed Justice Sherman Minton, who had retired for health reasons. Eisenhower chose Brennan in an effort to appeal to Catholic voters who traditionally supported Democrats.4 The president acted quickly to put Brennan on the Court, giving him a recess appointment that meant that he was able to hear cases before the Senate got a chance to vote on his confirmation. This posed two potential problems. First, because the recess appointment came before the election, Brennan might not have received a permanent appointment had Eisenhower lost.5 Second, even if Eisenhower won (as he of course did), the recess appointment could undermine Brennan’s independence on the bench because the Senate might retaliate against him for controversial decisions, or, more subtly, Brennan might at least subconsciously decide cases with that possibility in mind.6 In June 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced his retirement. The timing of the announcement was seen as a thinly veiled attempt to prevent the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Richard M. Nixon, from [End Page 31] appointing his successor. Warren and Nixon disliked each other from their days in Republican politics in their home state of California, and Nixon had strongly criticized the Warren Court’s liberal rulings on criminal law and procedure.7 President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was not seeking reelection, nominated Justice Abe Fortas as the new chief justice, but Republicans and southern Democrats in the Senate filibustered the nomination, and Fortas eventually withdrew.8 Despite the small number of postwar Supreme Court appointments in presidential election years, the prospect of such appointments fueled interbranch tensions. The Brennan appointment played a significant role in the Senate’s adoption of a resolution opposing recess appointments except in “unusual circumstances” to avoid “a demonstrable breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.”9 Although the resolution expressed only the sense of the Senate, the timing of this move was hardly coincidental: the vote occurred on August 29, 1960, just two days before Congress adjourned to concentrate on the general election, so it served as at least a symbolic warning against any last-minute recess appointments.10 Similarly, as Republicans often pointed out during the Garland stalemate, Vice President Joseph R. Biden, while chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee, had advised President George H. W. Bush not to try to push through a nominee while he was running for reelection in 1992.11 This warning also seemed like no idle threat, coming only a few years after the controversy over the failed nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork and the tumultuous confirmation process for Justice Clarence Thomas. It was not always thus. In 1932, a politically vulnerable President...

A Seat at the Table: Just How Representative is the Legislative Process? An Analysis of the Gender Distribution of Witnesses Before a Select Group of Committees in the U.S. Congress

This paper documents and analyzes the 2,277 witnesses who testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means (Ways & Means) and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance (Finance) for the 110th (2007-2008), 111th (2009-2010) and the 112th Congresses (2011-2012). This allows us to measure the frequency of women as witness before committees controlled by Democrats (Nancy Pelosi as Speaker (2007-2010); Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader (2007-2012)), and Republicans (John Boehner as Speaker (2011-2012)). We construct a unique Congressional Record Representation Dataset (CRRD) using publicly-available committee reports and hearing transcripts to identify witnesses testifying before these committees to measure each committee as to its efforts to represent women and persons of color. This paper is the initial summary of our findings for witness representation before the tax-writing committees in terms of gender for the 110th through the 112th Congresses (the Review Period), and is the preliminary analysis of a larger project to measure and study the impact of women and persons of color testifying before multiple congressional committees from the 110th through the 115th Congresses. We presented this paper at the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association. Extended versions of the CRRD are included in a forthcoming article by Caroline Bruckner titled, Doubling Down on a Billion Dollar Blind Spot: Women Business Owners and Tax Reform, which the American University Washington College of Law Business Law Review is publishing in Spring 2020.

Precarious Politics: Friends of Coal, the UMWA, and the Affective Terrain of Energy Identification

Precarious Politics:Friends of Coal, the UMWA, and the Affective Terrain of Energy Identification Sylvia Ryerson (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Rocky Adkins, then Democratic House majority leader for the Kentucky House of Representatives, speaking at a pro-coal rally in 2012 (Tom Hansell, "The Narrative of Renewal: 'If We Can't Mine Coal, What Are We Going To Do?'"https://dailyyonder.com/the-narrative-of-renewal-if-we-cantmine-coal-what-are-we-going-to-do/2018/10/10/), Adkins is now senior adviser to the governor of Kentucky, Andy Beshear. Photograph by Tom Hansell / After Coal, 2012. In the iconic scene of Harlan County USA, Barbara Kopple's 1976 Academy Award–winning documentary film, shots are fired in the dark at striking miners and their wives, and Kopple's camera is knocked to the ground. The moment captures the violent escalation of the Brookside Strike of 1973–74, organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) against Duke Power, the owner of the Eastover Coal Company's Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky. In the early morning darkness, the battle lines are clear. The predominantly white UMWA miners and their wives on the picket line confront the company-hired [End Page 719] "gun thugs" working to bring in scabs and break up the strike. With an active membership of 213,113 and 1,329 local chapters nationwide, in 1973 the UMWA remained one of the largest and most powerful labor organizations in the country, and the Appalachian coalfields had long played a central role in the union's history.1 The Brookside Strike gained symbolic significance and moral authority by contextualizing itself as a clear continuation of the Harlan County mine wars of the 1930s known as "Bloody Harlan," the nearly-decade-long battle that first established the UMWA in Eastern Kentucky. Kopple films a local UMWA rally during the Brookside Strike, where the songwriter Florence Reece comes to the podium. Her husband, Sam Reece, was a Harlan County miner and union organizer in the 1930s, and the retaliation they faced inspired Florence to pen the now-famous social justice anthem "Which Side Are You On?" As she sings her renowned verses to the 1970s crowd, Come all you poor workersGood news to you I'll tellHow the good ol' unionHas come in here to dwell Which side are you on?Which side are you on? If you go to Harlan CountyThere is no neutral thereYou'll either be a union manOr a thug for J. H. Blair Which side are you on?Which side are you on?2 Released some forty years later, the 2015 documentary film Overburden follows the fight against mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in the Coal River Valley of southern West Virginia, and across the Central Appalachian coalfields of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. The drama climaxes at a 2009 anti-MTR rally held outside a Massey Energy–owned coal processing plant near Coal River Mountain, the site of an impending MTR job. The "anti-MTR" activists are met by dozens of "pro-coal" miners and supporters, in an emotional confrontation. As the anti-MTR activists demand that the state intervene to halt the blasting, pro-coal supporters shout back angrily "go home tree huggers!" and wave Massey Energy flags. Thirty-one arrests are made, as the anti-MTR protestors attempt to block the road to the plant.3 Again, the [End Page 720] battle lines are clear—but the political allegiances have completely changed. While the picketers of the Brookside Strike held signs reading "Duke Power Wants Rate Increases for Customers, Poverty for Coal Miners" and "Duke Power Co. Owns the Brookside Mine, But They Don't Own Us," the miners at the 2009 protests held signs reading "EPA = Equal Poverty for All" and "If You're Against Coal Then Turn Off Your Lights."4 In a stunning reconfiguration of roles, this scene played out over and over again in protests and rallies across the coalfields beginning in the early 2000s. The question "Which side are you on?" remained ever present in the coalfields, but the sides were redrawn: one was...

Hitler Reconsidered: A New Construct by Peter Longerich and His Contemporaries

Hitler Reconsidered: A New Construct by Peter Longerich and His Contemporaries Paul Bookbinder Hitler: A Biography. By Peter Longerich. Trans. Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. 1344. Cloth $39.95. ISBN 978-0190056735. It is surprising that seventy-five years after his death there is still so much interest in Adolf Hitler. Historians are writing intensively researched books about him and political commentators are making comparisons with current Western leaders who are endorsing what is being labeled as “illiberal democracy.” In Germany, a new heavily annotated version of Mein Kampf is now available to the general public for the first time. Peter Longerich’s new biography of Hitler is a most significant addition to our understanding of Hitler both because of its comprehensive discussion of how Hitler achieved power, how he ruled, and his successes and failures and because Longerich, more than any other historian, sees Hitler as a brilliant practitioner of politics even more than as a charismatic leader. Longerich argues that Hitler understood how politics worked in an age of mass participation in national political life and could manipulate the forces that made for success in achieving and holding power. Longerich provides an armature of detail to build an understanding of Hitler’s path to power, his time as dictator, and his responsibility for World War II and the Holocaust. And he establishes a framework that students of the Nazi period can use to incorporate the work of such historians as Thomas Weber, who concentrates on the early part of Hitler’s rise to power; Johann Chapoutot, who describes his racial ideology and policies; and Stephen Fritz and Rolf-Dieter Müller, who study Hitler as a military leader. Longerich incorporates here many of the rich details amassed in his earlier exhaustive studies of the other major leaders of the Nazi movement to create a balanced and complete picture of Hitler and his unique role within the Nazi movement. While other impressive major biographies of Hitler have been around for some time, particularly Ian Kershaw’s two-volume biography Hitler, Longerich’s work represents an updated attempt at a comprehensive reconsideration of the subject. In this essay, I concentrate on the major points that Longerich advances and compare his significant interpretations of almost all aspects of Hitler’s career, and particularly his role as a political leader, with the work of other historians who have recently written about similar issues. Taken together, Longerich’s book and these other recent works yield new ways of looking at this cataclysmic figure. [End Page 593] In the conclusion of his book, Longerich sums up the centrality of Hitler’s role in every aspect of the Nazi regime. He writes: It is beyond question that no single individual was responsible for the catastrophic outcome of the twelve years of dictatorship. Millions of committed Nazis had worked tirelessly for this regime; a huge army of willing helpers and opportunistic fellow travelers had given it unquestionable support; the elites had been only too glad to put their specialized knowledge and experience at its disposal; officers and soldiers had carried out their military tasks obediently and with great commitment; the majority of the population had followed their Führer devotedly and without protest. And yet these facts on their own are not adequate to explain what happened. There had to be a political figure who knew how to exploit the preconditions and forces designed to realize his aims and ambitions. At the heart of the Third Reich there was a determined dictator who shaped this process, focused all these energies on himself as an individual, and managed to acquire such extensive powers that he enjoyed unprecedented freedom of action. (949) Longerich claims, then, that “Hitler was actively involved in the most disparate areas of politics to a much greater extent than hitherto has been assumed” (949). It is particularly valuable to note that, in this argument, Longerich returns to Karl Bracher’s emphasis on Hitler’s political skills that the large numbers of historians who have focused on his charisma have often underestimated. “In this analysis,” Longerich explains, “we are following a ‘seizure of power’ in stages set out by...

ТУРЕЦКИЙ КОНТИНГЕНТ В КОММУНИСТИЧЕСКОМ УНИВЕРСИТЕТЕ ТРУДЯЩИХСЯ ВОСТОКА. ЧАСТЬ I

The Communist University of Workers of the East (Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudiashchikhsia Vostoka, KUTV) was opened in early 1921 in Moscow with the aim of training national cadres for work in party and government bodies in the Soviet and foreign East. The press organ of the KUTV was the academic research journal “The Revolutionary East”, publishing articles on Oriental Studies by the country’s leading scientists. Formally reporting to the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks, KUTV in fact carried out all of its multifaceted work under the leadership of Comintern. For this reason, the documents of Comintern are of great importance for the study of KUTV history. With an eye on the upcoming 100th anniversary of the university, this article aims to study the contingent of Turkish students who studied there in 1921–1938. The author analyses memoirs and analytical works that impacted the Turkish leftist movement. Graduates of KUTV retained their memories of the days spent in Moscow, their living conditions, organization of classes, recreation and internships. The article attempts to reconstruct the names and individual episodes of the activities of Turkish students. Along with the poet Nazim Hikmet, many major leaders of the leftist movement and of the Turkish Communist Party (TCP) were also alumni and teachers of Communist university. However, ideological differences within the TCP itself and the severe consequences of political persecution by the Turkish government crushed the development of the communist movement in the country. After returning to their homeland, part of the KUTVovites were arrested and imprisoned for a long period, another part abandoned socialist ideas, and some even joined the Kemalist camp.

Why Party Leaders Tend to Be Extremists

This paper proposes that strategic concerns about negotiations strongly influence whom parties select to be legislative leaders. Leaders tilt more extreme than the typical party member. Hence, they can credibly threaten to let negotiations break down if they find proposed legislation personally unacceptable. Such threats move negotiations towards the ideal point of the median party member. We present a simple framework for analyzing the roles of extreme leaders in legislative negotiations. We then confirm the tendency towards extreme leaders empirically in congressional data ranging from 1900 to the present. We also evaluate and reject several alternative explanations for extremeness. Extreme leadership cannot be explained by a tendency for more senior members of Congress to come from safer, more extreme congressional districts. Nor is it merely a product of recent polarization. Instead, as our theory predicts and our empirical results confirm, rank-and-file members balance their own ideologies with knowledge of the opposing party’s ideological orientation. In response, they select leaders extreme enough to aid in negotiations but not so extreme as to lead to total breakdowns in negotiation. Hence, as the evidence reveals, the degree of extremeness for a leader is greater for majority than minority parties, and for the majority party when its majority is greater. The filibuster threat inhibits the Senate Majority Leader from being as extreme as the Speaker of the House.

Концептуализация “азиатских ценностей” в Малайзии и Сингапуре

“Asian values” as a concept appeared in the socio-political discourse in 1990s due to the so-called Rise of Asia. Major political leaders of Malaysia and Singapore, Mahathir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Y., played a special role in their conceptual design. The discourse “Asian values” provoked a strong reaction in scientific and political circles around the world, the debates on them are still continuing. The main question regarding “Asian values” is how to determine the degree and nature of their influence on the development of the countries of the East. The purpose of this study is to identify different approaches to the assessment of this concept, the reasons for their occurrence, as well as the role and place of “Asian values” in the process of modernization in the East. As a result, it was revealed that the political situation in the region brought about the development of the concept. Owing to the struggle of a number of states for their influence on the Southeast Asian countries, the latter turned to “Asian values” as ideological sources of self-identification. Another reason is the fact that this concept allows to take into account specific ways of modernization in each country. Finally, the concept was adopted as an ideological basis for the integration process in ASEAN, which remains one of the most progressive integration associations in the Asia-Pacific region. Thus, today, the concept of “Asian values” not only proved its viability, but also became an occasion for development of similar ideas in other regions of the world. Acknowledgements. The article was prepared in the framework of the project no. 19-011-31053 “Megatrends of World Politics in the 21st Century: Spheres of Manifestation and Development” with financial support from RFBR and EISR.

APA Joins in Call for Funding For Firearms Research

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Government & LegalFull AccessAPA Joins in Call for Funding For Firearms ResearchKatie O’ConnorKatie O’ConnorSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:2 Dec 2019https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2019.12a19AbstractThough it is the second leading cause of death among children and adolescents, firearm injury prevention receives a fraction of the funding allotted to other leading causes of death.Citing the public health concern presented by firearm violence, APA and five other medical organizations wrote a letter to key members of Congress asking them to include $50 million in funding for research on preventing firearm-related morbidity and mortality in their final appropriations package.“Federally funded public health research has played a significant role in addressing other public health crises such as youth smoking and motor vehicle crashes,” wrote APA and its five partner organizations: the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, and the American Osteopathic Association.“We need to apply the same rigorous scientific approach to reducing injuries and deaths associated with firearms,” the letter continued. Known as the Group of Six, the organizations represent over 590,000 frontline physicians and medical students.The organizations applauded the House for including $50 million for firearm-related, public health research in its appropriations legislation but asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-New York), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) to also include the funding in any final appropriations package.Over 39,000 people died in 2017 due to firearm-related injuries, according to the letter. Two-thirds of gun-related deaths are suicide deaths.“The United States is one of the only countries in the world with a rising rate of suicide,” said APA President Bruce Schwartz, M.D. “Congress must act decisively to reverse this trend.”“Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death overall in the United States and the second leading cause of death for young adults,” said APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A. “We need to dedicate research dollars to achieve a better understanding of this epidemic and prevent firearm-associated deaths.”A study published in Health Affairs in October analyzed the federal research dollars devoted to the leading causes of death for children and adolescents from 2008 to 2017. Cancer, the third-leading cause, received $335 million a year, while motor vehicle crashes, the number one cause, received $88 million. Though firearm injury is the second leading cause of death in this age group, it received only $12 million a year, “averaging $597 in research dollars per death,” the study found.“Pediatric firearm injury prevention is substantially underfunded in relation to the magnitude of the public health problem,” wrote lead author Rebecca Cunningham, M.D., a professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and colleagues. “According to our analysis, federal funding for this leading cause of pediatric mortality is 3.3% of what is needed for it to be commensurate with the funding for other common causes of pediatric death.”The Group of Six letter pointed out that both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are well placed to conduct research on firearm mortality. With $50 million, researchers at the agencies “could conduct 10 to 20 new, large, multiyear studies each year,” the groups wrote.“With this research,” they continued, “we will be able to better understand and quantify the scope, root causes, and impact of gun violence and identify opportunities to reduce injuries and fatalities.” ■ ISSUES NewArchived

Inconsistent classification of unexplained sudden deaths in infants and children hinders surveillance, prevention and research: recommendations from The 3rd International Congress on Sudden Infant and Child Death

This report details the proceedings and conclusions from the 3rd International Congress on Unexplained Deaths in Infants and Children, held November 26–27, 2018 at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. The Congress was motivated by the increasing rejection of the diagnosis Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in the medical examiner community, leading to falsely depressed reported SIDS rates and undermining the validity and reliability of the diagnosis, which remains a leading cause of infant and child mortality. We describe the diagnostic shift away from SIDS and the practical issues contributing to it. The Congress was attended by major figures and opinion leaders in this area from countries significantly engaged in this problem. Four categories (International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11 categories of MH11, MH12, MH14, PB00-PB0Z) were recommended for classification, and explicit definitions and guidance were provided for death certifiers. SIDS was reframed as unexplained sudden death in infancy or SIDS/MH11 to emphasize that either term signifies the lack of explanation following a rigorous investigation. A distinct category for children over the age of 1 was recommended (MH12). Definitions and exclusions were provided for the alternative categories of accidental asphyxia and undetermined. As recommended, unexplained sudden death in infancy or SIDS on a death certificate will code a unique, trackable entity, accurately reflecting the inability to determine a definitive explanation, while satisfying surveillance needs and reliable identification for research efforts. The conclusions will be submitted to the World Health Organization for inclusion in the upcoming ICD-11.