Nuclear Nonproliferation

Author(s):  
Matthew Kroenig

This chapter challenges the notion that US nuclear posture has a significant bearing on the proliferation behavior of other states. Many believe that a robust US nuclear arsenal is an important determinant of proliferation decisions in other states and that the United States can dissuade proliferation elsewhere by reducing the size of its own nuclear arsenal. This chapter argues that state decisions on nonproliferation issues are driven by a range of other factors and, once these considerations are taken into account, there is little remaining variance to be explained by US nuclear posture. This argument is supported with a case study of the Iranian nuclear program and a statistical analysis using a data set on US nuclear arsenal size from 1945 to 2011. It finds no evidence of a relationship between the size of the US nuclear arsenal and a variety of nuclear nonproliferation outcomes.

Author(s):  
Dawn Langan Teele

This chapter presents a case study of women's enfranchisement in the United States. It argues that the formation of a broad coalition of women, symbolized by growing membership in a large non-partisan suffrage organization, in combination with competitive conditions in state legislatures, was crucial to securing politicians' support for women's suffrage in the states. The chapter first gives a broad overview of the phases of the US suffrage movement, arguing that the salience of political cleavages related to race, ethnicity, nativity, and class influenced the type of movement suffragists sought to build. It then describes the political geography of the Gilded Age, showing how the diversity of political competition and party organization that characterized the several regions mirrors the pattern of women's enfranchisement across the states.


Author(s):  
Holly M. Mikkelson

This chapter traces the development of the medical interpreting profession in the United States as a case study. It begins with the conception of interpreters as volunteer helpers or dual-role medical professionals who happened to have some knowledge of languages other than English. Then it examines the emergence of training programs for medical interpreters, incipient efforts to impose standards by means of certification tests, the role of government in providing language access in health care, and the beginning of a labor market for paid medical interpreters. The chapter concludes with a description of the current situation of professional medical interpreting in the United States, in terms of training, certification and the labor market, and makes recommendations for further development.


1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Holden

The US.-sponsored programs of military and police collaboration with the Central American governments during the Cold War also contributed to the surveillance capacity of those states during the period when the Central American state formation process was being completed. Guatemala is used as a case study. Washington’s contribution was framed by the conventional discourse of “security against communism” but also by an underlying technocratic ethos in which “modernization” and “security” were higher priorities than democratization.


Author(s):  
Elina Reponen ◽  
Thomas G Rundall ◽  
Stephen M Shortell ◽  
Janet C Blodgett ◽  
Ritva Jokela ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Healthcare organizations around the world are striving to achieve transformational performance improvement, often through adopting process improvement methodologies such as Lean management. Indeed, Lean management has been implemented in hospitals in many countries. But despite a shared methodology and the potential benefit of benchmarking lean implementation and its effects on hospital performance, cross-national Lean benchmarking is rare. Healthcare organisations in different countries operate in very different contexts, including different healthcare system models, and these differences may be perceived as limiting the ability of improvers to benchmark Lean implementation and related organisational performance. However, there is no empirical research available on the international relevance and applicability of Lean implementation and hospital performance measures. To begin to understand the opportunities and limitations related to cross-national benchmarking of Lean in hospitals, we conducted a cross-national case study of the relevance and applicability of measures of Lean implementation in hospitals and hospital performance. Methods We report an exploratory case study of the relevance of Lean implementation measures and the applicability of hospital performance measures using quantitative comparisons of data from Hospital District of XX XX University Hospital in Finland and a sample of 75 large academic hospitals in the United States. Results The relevance of Lean-related measures was high across the two countries: almost 90% of the items developed for a US survey were relevant and available from XX. A majority of the US-based measures for financial performance (66.7%), service provision/utilisation (100.0%), and service provision/care processes (60.0%) were available from XX. Differences in patient satisfaction measures prevented comparisons between XX and the US. Of 18 clinical outcome measures, only four (22%) were not comparable. Clinical outcome measures were less affected by the differences in healthcare system models than measures related to service provision and financial performance. Conclusions Lean implementation measures are highly relevant in healthcare organisations operating in the United States and Finland, as is the applicability of a variety of performance improvement measures. Cross-national benchmarking in Lean healthcare is feasible, but a careful assessment of contextual factors, including the healthcare system model, and their impact on the applicability and relevance of chosen benchmarking measures is necessary. The differences between the US and Finnish healthcare system models is most clearly reflected in financial performance measures and care process measures.


ILR Review ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 1262-1277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Fairlie ◽  
Javier Miranda ◽  
Nikolas Zolas

The field of entrepreneurship is growing rapidly and expanding into new areas. This article presents a new compilation of administrative panel data on the universe of business start-ups in the United States, which will be useful for future research in entrepreneurship. To create the US start-up panel data set, the authors link the universe of non-employer firms to the universe of employer firms in the Longitudinal Business Database (LBD). Start-up cohorts of more than five million new businesses per year, which create roughly three million jobs, can be tracked over time. To illustrate the potential of the new start-up panel data set for future research, the authors provide descriptive statistics for a few examples of research topics using a representative start-up cohort.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-180
Author(s):  
Saagar S Kulkarni ◽  
Kathryn E Lorenz

This paper examines two CDC data sets in order to provide a comprehensive overview and social implications of COVID-19 related deaths within the United States over the first eight months of 2020. By analyzing the first data set during this eight-month period with the variables of age, race, and individual states in the United States, we found correlations between COVID-19 deaths and these three variables. Overall, our multivariable regression model was found to be statistically significant.  When analyzing the second CDC data set, we used the same variables with one exception; gender was used in place of race. From this analysis, it was found that trends in age and individual states were significant. However, since gender was not found to be significant in predicting deaths, we concluded that, gender does not play a significant role in the prognosis of COVID-19 induced deaths. However, the age of an individual and his/her state of residence potentially play a significant role in determining life or death. Socio-economic analysis of the US population confirms Qualitative socio-economic Logic based Cascade Hypotheses (QLCH) of education, occupation, and income affecting race/ethnicity differently. For a given race/ethnicity, education drives occupation then income, where a person lives, and in turn his/her access to healthcare coverage. Considering socio-economic data based QLCH framework, we conclude that different races are poised for differing effects of COVID-19 and that Asians and Whites are in a stronger position to combat COVID-19 than Hispanics and Blacks.


2009 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 684-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P Dolowitz ◽  
Dale Medearis

Not enough has been written about the import, adaptation, and application of urban environmental and planning policies from abroad into the United States. Even less has been written about the voluntary cross-national transfer and application of environmental policies by American subnational actors and institutions. It is our intent to begin redressing this by discussing the transfer of urban environmental and planning policies from Germany to the United States during the early part of the 21st century. This discussion is informed by data drawn from governmental reports and planning statements and over thirty-five interviews with US urban environmental and planning practitioners operating in Germany and the United States. What we discover is that, unlike more rational models of policy transfer, the voluntary importation of environmental and planning policies into the US is seldom a problem-focused, goal-oriented process. Rather, what we find is that a better depiction of the transfer and adoption process is of a relatively anarchic situation. This appears to occur due to a range of institutional and cultural filters that predispose American policy makers against gathering (and using) information and experiences from abroad. We find that this filtering process tends to encourage policy makers to discount (or reject outright) the usefulness of overseas models and that, when they do engage in this process, any information gathered appears to be based less upon well-researched and analyzed data than embedded ‘tacit’ knowledge.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Pickering ◽  
Dale Allen ◽  
Eric Bucsela ◽  
Jos van Geffen ◽  
Henk Eskes ◽  
...  

<p>Nitric oxide (NO) is produced in lightning channels and quickly comes into equilibrium with nitrogen dioxide (NO<sub>2</sub>) in the atmosphere.  The production of NO<sub>x</sub> (NO + NO<sub>2</sub>) leads to subsequent increases in the concentrations of ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) and the hydroxyl radical (OH) and decreases in the concentration of methane (CH<sub>4</sub>), thus impacting the climate system.  Global production of NO<sub>x</sub> from lightning is uncertain by a factor of four.  NO<sub>x</sub> production by lightning will be examined using NO<sub>2</sub> columns from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on board the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor Satellite with an overpass time of approximately 1330 LT and flash rates from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) on board the NOAA GOES-16 (75.2° W) and GOES-17 (137.2° W) satellites.  Where there is overlap in coverage of the two GLM instruments, the greater of the two flash counts is used.  Two approaches have been undertaken for this analysis:  a series of case studies of storm systems over the United States, and a gridded analysis over the entire contiguous United States, Central America, northern South America, and surrounding oceans.  A modified Copernicus Sentinel 5P TROPOMI NO<sub>2</sub> data set is used here for the case-study analysis to improve data coverage over deep convective clouds.  In both approaches, only TROPOMI pixels with cloud fraction > 0.95 and cloud pressure < 500 hPa are used.  The stratospheric column is removed from the total slant column, and the result is divided by air mass factors appropriate for deep convective clouds containing lightning NO<sub>x</sub> (LNO<sub>x</sub>).  Case studies have been selected from deep convective systems over and near the United States during the warm seasons of 2018 and 2019.  For each of these systems, NO<sub>x</sub> production per flash is determined by multiplying a TROPOMI-based estimate of the mean tropospheric column of LNO<sub>x</sub> over each system by the storm area and then dividing by a GLM-based estimate of the flashes that contribute to the column.  In the large temporal and spatial scale analysis, the TROPOMI data are aggregated on a 0.5 x 0.5 degree grid and converted to moles LNO<sub>x</sub>*.  GLM flash counts during the one-hour period before TROPOMI overpass are similarly binned. A tropospheric background of LNO<sub>x</sub>* is estimated from grid cells without lightning and subtracted from LNO<sub>x</sub>* in cells with lightning to yield an estimate of freshly produced lightning NO<sub>x</sub>, designated LNO<sub>x</sub>.  Results of the two approaches are compared and discussed with respect to previous LNO<sub>x</sub> per flash estimates.</p><p> </p>


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Linaa Jensen ◽  
Axel Bruns ◽  
Tim Graham ◽  
Daniel Angus ◽  
Anders Olof Larsson ◽  
...  

In this panel we combine longitudinal and cross-national studies of social media in election campaigns, expanding the time span as well as number of countries compared to former studies. The four papers present longitudinal studies, covering multiple election cycles from four different countries: Australia, the United States of America, Denmark and Sweden. By including these cases we focus on countries considered to be “first movers” when it comes to the digitization and internetization of the political life. As such, they are “most similar cases”. However, they also have different political systems: the US and Australia are characterized by a Westminster system dominated by a few large parties and a tradition of strong confrontation between government and opposition, whereas Denmark and Sweden are multi-party systems with a tradition of collaboration and coalition governments. Further, the countries’ media systems, as defined by Hallin & Mancini (2004), differ significantly; the US is characterized by a commercialized American media system with little role for public service broadcasters, Denmark and Sweden have very strong public service media, and Australia has elements of both these systems. Technologically, the four countries might be similar, but politically and in terms of media systems, they differ. Thus, studies of the four countries form a diverse yet solid set of cases for exploring the growing (and changing) role of social media in national elections. The papers address such issues by various methods and perspectives, from large-scale big data analyses of tweets to content analyses of Facebook pages and surveys among citizens. From different angles, the four papers circle around the same topics: do social media contribute to narrowing or widening the often-discussed gap between citizens and politicians? Does the increasing use (and changing character) of social media in election campaigns facilitate increased trust or rather a radicalized and more negative discourse? And do citizens feel more empowered and enlightened in a democratic sense? The Australian case study is based on a comprehensive analysis of interactions around candidates’ Twitter accounts, drawing on state-of-the-art methods. It stretches across three election cycles. It presents new evidence both on the use of Twitter in political campaigning in Australia, and on the public response to this use, not at least in the light of the overall context of a decline in trust towards the political system, in Australia and elsewhere. The US case study examines negativity, incivility, and intolerance expressed by candidates running for governor in 2014 as compared with 2018. In between those two election cycles, the United States had the remarkable presidential campaign of 2016, with an unprecedented volume and style of negative campaigning unseen in modern campaigning. This study thus asks whether the 2018 candidates were more negative and uncivil than their counterparts who ran in 2014. Results will illuminate the nature of political incivility and whether there is a coarseness of political discourse in the United States. The Danish case study is based on surveys of citizens’ Internet use / social media use across four elections, covering a time span of 12 years. It adds to an understanding of the growing use of social media but more importantly it investigates how citizens experienced effects of social media as tools for agenda-setting and efficacy, the latter understood as increased reflection and enlightenment. The Swedish case study covers three Swedish national elections, in 2010, 2014 and 2018. The research question is: how are viral posts from political parties on Facebook changing over time? By answering that question, the author can track the consequences of increased platformization of politics as well as an increased targeting towards the needs and wants of the audience, through what some will call populism. The studies all cover more or less the last decade. This represents a time span during which social media have matured and have come to play an increasing role in citizens’ daily lives. The contributions are interesting country-based case studies in themselves, but through this panel we seek to engage the audience in a discussion of the developments expected for the coming years.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-209
Author(s):  
Erwin Tan ◽  
Jae Jeok Park

The bulk of literature on the security dilemma has examined the phenomenon within the context of rivalry between great powers of roughly equal strength (for instance, the United States-Soviet nuclear arms race). Yet no study has examined the implications of power asymmetry between a strong power and a weak one when they are facing the security dilemma in their interaction. This manuscript shall examine how the asymmetry of interaction in the United States-North Korean security dilemma has presented repeated obstacles for the United States in seeking the denuclearization of North Korea. The asymmetry of their rivalry has significant implications for how Washington and Pyongyang view one another in their interaction. This asymmetry has created challenges for Washington as well as Pyongyang, as illustrated through this empirical case study’s analysis of how successive United States White House administrations since 1993 have responded to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. In this regard, it is possible the asymmetry of their interaction has become so deeply internalized that North Korea is, effectively, past a “point of no return” insofar as its nuclear program is concerned.


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