Category Archives: Politics

David Brooks: keep government funding for social science research

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Last Thursday, David Brooks made a case for retaining government money for social science research:

Fortunately, today we are in the middle of a golden age of behavioral research. Thousands of researchers are studying the way actual behavior differs from the way we assume people behave. They are coming up with more accurate theories of who we are, and scores of real-world applications. Here’s one simple example:

When you renew your driver’s license, you have a chance to enroll in an organ donation program. In countries like Germany and the U.S., you have to check a box if you want to opt in. Roughly 14 percent of people do. But behavioral scientists have discovered that how you set the defaults is really important. So in other countries, like Poland or France, you have to check a box if you want to opt out. In these countries, more than 90 percent of people participate.

This is a gigantic behavior difference cued by one tiny and costless change in procedure.

Yet in the middle of this golden age of behavioral research, there is a bill working through Congress that would eliminate the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. This is exactly how budgets should not be balanced — by cutting cheap things that produce enormous future benefits.

Here is what I think works in this column:

1. The examples are interesting and address important issues. I wish there were more people highlighting interesting research in such large venues.

2. The idea that a small research investment can have large results.

3. The reminder in the last paragraph: “People are complicated.”

Here is where I think this column could use some more work: why exactly should the government, as opposed to other organizations or sources, provide this money? (See a counterargument here.) Brooks could have made this case more clearly: there are a lot of social problems that affect our country and the government has the resources and clout to promote research. In certain areas, like poverty or public health, the government has a compelling interest in tackling these concerns as there are few other bodies that could handle the scope of these issues. Of course, many of these issues are politicized but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the government shouldn’t address these issues at all.

Hard to imagine the complex, modern world without bureaucracy

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It is common these days to hear complaints about bureaucracy, often related to the amount of time it takes to get something done or the waste involved in completing a large project. But it is hard to imagine the world we have today without bureaucracy:

For instance, as a student sociologist, I was taught that bureaucracy was essential to an ordered society. A system of administration, based on a division of labour, designed to undertake a large body of work in a routine manner, was deemed essential to advanced economics.

Yet the term is now used to denote obstruction, complication and sheer bloody-mindedness to produce the opposite outcome.

I guess the modern image is one of an army of pen-pushers, or more accurately, dedicated e-mailers, committed to frustrating the desired outcomes or value for money of any project…

We all need the right skill mix, effective teamwork and the most efficient use of defined resources to serve the public well. In that sense, strategic planning is as essential to the desired outcomes as the obvious contribution made by good service delivery.

So, there is a case for bureaucracy, although it is wise to avoid that term. Demonising particular roles and functions is dangerous. It must be always the quality and quantity of product that counts.

Max Weber wrote about how bureaucracy made modern society possible. It is remarkable to think how large societies are actually able to function. Take the United States: it has its problems but considering that it has over 300 million relatively wealthy people from all around the world, has a large land mass, and has undertaken numerous major projects over recent decades, things still get done and life is decent or good for many residents.

This commentary also hints at what Weber suggested was the possible problem with bureaucracy: a soulless, “iron cage.” The term today has a negative connotation often linked to the reduction of individual freedom. Thus, battles about bureaucracy are all around us: how much should you have to pay for your license plate? Should the government require restaurants to put calorie counts next to the menu? Should you be required to have medical insurance? And so on. It’s not bureaucracy that is really the issue: it is how it runs.

It then becomes a “framing” issue as people seek to avoid the “bureaucracy” label. The trend in recent decades has been to suggest governments, large or local, should be more business-like. Businesses are still bureaucracies – any organization can be a bureaucracy – but they have different goals and different methods of operation. Additionally, they are perceived as being less wasteful and more able to change course (both which are not necessarily true). In the current era of tight budgets, all levels of government are looking for ways to trim costs while maintaining service levels. As the commentator suggests, government needs to be more efficient and cost-effective.

Republicans benefit more from July 4th celebrations

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Here is some political information to digest ahead of July 4th: a Harvard study suggests Republicans gain more from Independence Day celebrations.

The three key findings of those attending July 4th celebrations:

  • When done before the age of 18, it increases the likelihood of a youth identifying as a Republican by at least 2 percent.
  • It raises the likelihood that parade watchers will vote for a Republican candidate by 4 percent.
  • It boosts the likelihood a reveler will vote by about 1 percent and increases the chances they’ll make a political contribution by 3 percent.

What’s more, the impact isn’t fleeting. “Surprisingly, the estimates show that the impact on political preferences is permanent, with no evidence of the effects depreciating as individuals become older,”said the Harvard report.

Finally, the report suggests that if people are looking for a super-patriotic July 4th, though should head to Republican towns. “Republican adults celebrate Fourth of July more intensively in the first place.”

Perhaps this makes for a good politicized headline but without a comparison to how other factors influence political behaviors (with particular percentages), it seems like the effects of such celebrations are fairly small.

Based on this, do more Democratic communities celebrate July 4th and express their patriotism on that day in different ways?

Job for sociology majors: Greek prime minister

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Greece is in a difficult economic crisis these days. Trying to navigate the country through the mess is sociologist and Prime Minister George Papandreou:

The Papandreous have dominated Greek politics for more than half a century. But last week, Prime Minister George Papandreou, whose father and grandfather had both been premiers before him, nearly walked away from it all…

Papandreou, a multilingual sociologist who was born in St. Paul, Minn. and educated in the United States and Great Britain, was initially seen by many as adept at handling the Europeans. A former foreign minister, he was well liked by his European peers and had an easy rapport with them. But he had a harder task with Greeks, who have never quite viewed him as one of their own.

Papandreou is a health-conscious cyclist in a nation that loves its cafes, cigarettes and greasy-spoon tavernas. He drives a Prius and loves to talk about green energy. His father, Andreas, was a fiery populist who was known for his electrifying speeches. But Papandreou is a genial, if uninspiring, speaker who does not seem to enjoy the aggressive dialogue found in Greek politics, said Stamatis, the novelist…

Papandreou is viewed as a sincere politician, even if Greeks cannot identify with him, said Christoforos Vernardakis, president of the polling firm VPRC and a political science professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

I would guess that his political heritage, the third in his family to serve as Greece’s prime minister, helped him more in getting this job than a sociology background. As a sociologist, how would Papandreou analyze or view his own privileged background and how this impacts his relationship with the citizens of Greece?

Still, I wonder how Papandreou would say sociology has helped him direct Greece and interact with foreign leaders  in this high-powered position.

Great Quotes in Homeownership #2: Herbert Hoover on the value of owning a home in 1931

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Herbert Hoover is not a well-regarded President. But he did have a lot to say about home ownership even as the country was going through the Great Depression. Here are some of Hoover’s thoughts from 1931:

“Next to food and clothing, the housing of a nation is its most vital problem. . . . The sentiment for home ownership is embedded in the American heart [of] millions of people who dwell in tenements, apartments and rented rows of solid brick. . . . This aspiration penetrates the heart of our national wellbeing. It makes for happier married life. It makes for better children. It makes for courage to meet the battle of life. . . . There is a wide distinction between homes and mere housing. Those immortal ballads, ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ and ‘The Little Grey Home in the West’ were not written about tenements or apartments. . . . They were written about an individual abode, alive with tender associations of childhood, the family life at the fireside, the free out-of-doors, the independence, the security and the pride in possession of the family’s own home. . . . Many of our people must live under other conditions. But they never sing songs about a pile of rent receipts. . . .”

Over these warm words and some 1,900 others like them President Hoover had worked with a full heart for two months. One evening last week he took them all, in the form of a keynote address, to Constitution Hall and there, in a voice brimming with emotion, delivered them to the assembled delegates of the President’s Conference on Home Building & Home Ownership. At this great gathering President Hoover again demonstrated his ability and leadership in an unofficial activity outside the constitutional realm of the Presidency.

The conference’s major purpose, President Hoover said, was “to stimulate industrial action,” not “to set up government in the building of homes.” To promote home owning the President urged a better system of home financing, thus keying his program in with his proposed Home Loan Discount system (TIME, Nov. 23).

Of course, Hoover gets some of the blame for not being able to move the country out of a position where it was difficult for many Americans to imagine homeownership, let alone a steady job. But these and other quotes from Hoover suggest he was a President who was committed to helping average Americans move from a monthly rent to a mortgage even in dark economic times. He suggested homeownership would lead to better social outcomes plus lead to feelings of nostalgia, “independence,” “security,” and “pride.”

This is also a reminder that the American value of homeownership was not just a post-World War II phenomenon. The rate of suburbanization was impressive in the post-war period but there had been a wave of suburbanization in the more prosperous 1920s that was interrupted by the Great Depression. I have occasionally found it interesting to think about how suburban growth patterns would have been different without the Great Depression and World War II. Several things might have happened earlier, like the building of interstates or the mass building of suburban communities (exemplified by the Levittowns). Perhaps the whole process might have simply taken longer, giving citizens and politicians more time to react and adjust.

I also wonder how Hoover’s goals of homeownership are viewed by today’s scholars who look back at this period: did these sentiments directly contribute to prolonging the Great Depression? How many of Hoover’s ideas ended up getting implemented in some form by subsequent leaders?

The educational level of immigrants in America

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A new report suggests that there are more immigrants with college degrees than immigrants without high school diplomas:

“There’s more high-skilled (immigrants) than people believe,” said Audrey Singer, senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the report, which contends that the economic contribution of immigrants has been overshadowed by the rancorous debate over illegal immigration.

Singer and Matthew Hall, a sociologist at the University of Illinois-Chicago, analyzed census data for the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas and found that 30 percent of working-age immigrants had at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 28 percent who lack a high school diploma.

The article suggests that the report is intended to influence the national immigration debate, presumably by suggesting that many immigrants are an asset to the country.

But it would be helpful here to compare these figures for immigrants to the statistics for American adults overall to know whether these figures are impressive or not. Here are the 2010 educational attainment figures for Americans 18 and older of all races: 27.28% have a bachelor’s degree or higher while 13.71% have less than a high school degree. It looks like the figures for immigrants are more polarized compared to the general population with a higher percentage, about 2-3% more, having a college degree while a much higher percentage, about double, having less than a high school diploma. (Figures for Americans 25 and older change a little: 29.93% have a college degree or greater while 12.86% have less than a high school degree.)

The value, then, in the figures about immigrants are probably in the field of public perceptions, particularly the statistic of immigrants with a college degree which matches up well with comparisons to Americans 18+ and 25+ years old.

(The article doesn’t address this and I don’t know if the report does either: does it matter that the figures for immigrants are drawn from the 100 largest metropolitan areas? Would the figures be different if looking at all immigrants?)

The difference between a sociologist and a geologist, the “soft” and “hard” sciences

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Comments about sociology can come from anywhere. See this example from a House member discussing FDA guidelines:

The most intense reaction was generated by a provision offered by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) that would block the FDA from issuing rules or guidance unless its decisions are based on “hard science” rather than “cost and consumer behavior.” The amendment would prevent the FDA from restricting a substance unless it caused greater harm to health than a product not containing the substance.

“The FDA is starting to use soft sciences in some considerations in the promulgation of its rules,” said Rehberg, who defined “hard science”, as “perceived as being more scientific, rigorous and accurate” than behavioral and social sciences.

“I hate to try and define the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, between a sociologist and a geologist, but there is clearly a difference,” he told the committee.

Three sets of comparisons are made here: between psychology and psychiatry, sociology and geology, and “hard” and “soft” science. I think it is pretty easy to make the first two distinctions, particularly between geology and sociology. But the third comparison seems a little strange: does Rehberg want to suggest that soft sciences are less true or that they matter less/are less valid for FDA decision making?

Overall, it sounds like Rehberg is suggesting that the “soft” sciences (psychology and sociology) are not as important in crafting FDA policies as the actual science that says whether certain products are good or bad for humans. But it seems somewhat silly to suggest that perceptions and behaviors shouldn’t influence policy decisions. A lot of legislation is driven by perceptions and values in addition to the actual influences in the physical world. Think about some of the major issues being discussed today such as the deficit or taxes: less of the conversation is about the actual impact on the country and more involves ideologies about who should be responsible for funding the government and what is the proper role and/or size of the government. One of the problems presented in this article is instructive: cigarettes are not illegal and yet government bodies are interested in limiting the consumption of them. Therefore, while menthol cigarettes may not be that much more harmful, if it is attractive to younger kids who then take smoking, why not regulate this? Of course, the smoking example is a loaded one and it would be hard to find someone who would suggest more smoking among teenagers is a good thing.

Based on this discussion, would either political party be willing to create legislation only based on “hard science” or is this only a suggestion when the “hard science” supports one’s existing viewpoint? Additionally, are there politicians out there who have publicly supported sociology rather than suggested it is a “soft” science?

Illinois redistricting also about capturing suburban voters

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Much of the press about redistricting in Illinois has highlighted how Democrats plan to increase their seats. But the Daily Herald offers an additional insight by suggesting that the redistricting is really about capturing suburban voters:

But even as political analysts poring over the new boundaries provide slightly different takes, one thing is certain: the suburbs, which saw booming growth over the last decade, were the prime meat in the proverbial fattened calf — filleted to produce congressional districts that would help assure a Democratic majority in the state’s delegation over the next 10 years…

“There’s been a shift in power,” Northern Illinois University professor Richard Greene said. “Because of the population shift, the Democratic core and the inner manufacturing suburbs are losing strength, as the outer-edge suburban communities are gaining substantially in strength.”

Democrats, political consultant Kitty Kurth said, want to continue to capitalize on their base — the largely Democratic voting bloc of Chicago, some of which has moved to the suburbs in recent years.

The new map appears to do just that, in some cases through odd-shaped districts that often start in solidly Democratic Chicago and extend into the suburbs through long, gnarled fingers. That essentially extends Democratic Chicago districts into traditionally Republican suburban ones, but not by so much as to put any Democratic majority at risk.

Traditionally, some of the suburban areas, particularly DuPage County, have been solidly Republican strongholds. While these figures are already changing somewhat, this redistricting might help push  these state offices further away from Republicans.

The article also goes on to note how the second Hispanic district in the state could be located in the southwest suburbs “centered around Aurora and Joliet.”

Such a move to control suburban votes would go along with commentary that suggests suburban voters are critical for national political outcomes.

Claim of social desirability bias in immigration polls

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Social desirability bias is the idea that people responding to surveys or other forms of data collection will say the socially correct answer rather than what they really think. A sociologist argues that this is the case for immigration polls:

A Gallup survey taken last year found 45 percent believe immigration should be decreased, compared to 17 percent saying it should be increased and 34 percent saying it should be kept at present levels. But should such figures be taken at face value? University of California, Berkeley, sociologist Alexander Janus argues not. Using a polling technique designed to uncover hidden bias, he concluded about 61 percent of Americans support a cutoff of immigration. Janus, who published his findings in the journal Social Science Quarterly, argues that “social desirability pressures” lead many on the left to lie about their true feelings on immigration — even when asked in an anonymous poll. In an interview, he discussed the survey he conducted in late 2005 and early 2006:

THE SURVEY: “The survey participants were first split into two similar groups. Individuals in one of the groups were presented with three concepts — ‘The federal government increasing assistance to the poor,’ ‘Professional athletes making millions of dollars per year,’ and ‘Large corporations polluting the environment’ — and asked how many of the three they opposed. Individuals in the second group were given the same three items as individuals in the first group, plus an immigration item: ‘Cutting off immigration to the United States.’ They were asked how many of the four they opposed. The difference in the average number of items named between the two groups can be attributed to opposition to the immigration item. The list experiment is superior to traditional questioning techniques in the sense that survey participants are never required to reveal to the interviewer their true attitudes or feelings.”…

I estimated that about 6 in 10 college graduates and more than 6 in 10 liberals hide their opposition to immigration when asked directly, using traditional survey measures.”

This sounds like an interesting technique because as he mentions, the respondents never have to say exactly which ideas they are opposed to.

In the long run for immigration policy, does it matter that much for liberals if people are secretly against immigration if they are willing to support it publicly? Of course, it could influence individual or small group interactions and how willing people are to participate in rallies and public events. But if people are still willing to vote in a socially desirable way, is this good enough?

I wonder if there are other numbers out there that are influenced by social desirability bias…