Support Party Strategies on Important Policy Issues: Results from Swedish Minority Governments

The survival of minority governments depends on support from non-cabinet parties that strive to safeguard government stability while also fulfilling their accountability to the electorate. This article argues that non-cabinet parties' propensity to support the government depends on their desire to uphold distinctiveness when accountability is at stake. This even applies to opposition parties that are officially committed to minority government support and, as a trade-off, receive policy pay-offs. By analysing opposition party voting in 23 years of Swedish minority governments (1991–2018), the article suggests that ideologically distant support parties are more likely to oppose the government on their core issues since compromise would involve too-large concessions. These results question our understanding of support party pay-offs as a trade-off for minority government support and highlight the rationality of entering a support agreement, which gives the support party a certain degree of policy influence while also keeping a distinct party profile.

The Advocacy Universe: A Methodology to Identify Politically Active 501(C)(4) Organizations

This article provides a framework that defines politically active 501(c)(4)s organizations and describes a methodology for identifying them among more than 80,000 social welfare organizations. We estimate that approximately 15% of (c)(4)s likely pursue advocacy or political action, while most are engaged in unrelated activities. Understanding the distinctive features of the social welfare sector and the politically engaged organizations within it are essential tasks for nonprofit scholars, yet the methodological and empirical challenges are complex and significant. To date, there has been no systematic study of the nature and efficacy of these organizations. We create a multistage methodology that allows researchers to identify politically active (c)(4)s and to investigate subgroups focused on different policy issues and with different member groups. This article summarizes how we identify organizations and strategies needed to reveal whether an organization is engaged in political activities. We explain the approach we took and the challenges we encountered.

Consider your companions carefully: How voters perceive (coalition) governments’ poor valence images?

Numerous studies of comparative political behavior examine how voters perceive parties’ ideological positions on various policy issues, either in a standard uni-dimensional space or on single issues. These studies assume these ideological positions to be representative of the entire governing coalition, classifying the government as a single unitary. While a common assumption when assessing coalition governments’ ideological positions, it is unclear whether this logic of shared accountability holds for voters’ perceptions of valence. To fill this gap, I use a conjoint experiment to assess the perceptual influence of valence issues on coalitional accountability. Overall, my results show that unlike standard left-right ideological positions, voters project the prime minister’s and (junior) cabinet members’ low valence bidirectionally onto each other. This research has implications for the prime minister’s selection process for (junior) cabinet members and junior parties’ own calculus of whether to participate in a coalition or not.

Toward a Rural Philosophy of Education

This essay calls for the development of a rural philosophy of education and outlines considerations toward that end. Questioning the applicability of current school reform initiatives to rural education, the essay draws on the work of rural philosopher Wendell Berry, educational historian Paul Theobald, and other rural scholars to outline considerations for the development of such an education philosophy. Education policy issues, rural history, and current economic, political, and cultural challenges are presented. Differences, strengths, and needs of rural education are highlighted as considerations that must be addressed in the formation of a philosophy of rural education.

Africa, 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063

The hierarchical state-led model of governance that is used to address global policy issues has proved to be wanting on sustainable development. This chapter discusses the concept of transnational governance of sustainable development, focusing on the United Nations 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 in Africa. The premise is that implementation of the two agendas represents an enormous challenge to African governments in terms of resources, extent, and urgency. The chapter will make a reasonable case that transnational governance is required for active engagement of non-state actors and relevant institutions to mobilize resources to support the effective implementation and monitoring of the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 in Africa.

Public Policy Issues Affecting Integrated Health Care: Challenges, Opportunities, and Implications for Clinical Mental Health Counselors

The growing need for the treatment of the whole person creates an opportunity for establishing a holistic integrated health care (IHC) system in various clinical settings. Considering the issues with existing IHC models and related public policies, and the current barriers facing clinical mental health counselors (CMHCs) who hope to become an integral part of IHC teams, we propose a new holistic IHC model. We highlight several practical implications of our proposed model that could be beneficial for the development of professional identity of CMHCs and their inclusion in IHC teams. We also offer numerous propositions for improving IHC-related policies in favor of CMHCs and the counseling profession.

The Philip Seymour Hoffman Project

The purpose of this chapter, and the class project upon which it is based, has been to demonstrate the prosocial role social media, and in particular Facebook, can play in media literacy, by providing a framework for showcasing rigorous student research and harnessing creative responses to salient social welfare and policy issues. Specifically, Facebook can potentially raise awareness of opioid abuse, which has spiraled into a global epidemic, provide narratives that reach broader audiences, and thus fill a gap in substantive mainstream media coverage on the topic. The chapter traces the evolution and progress of a student project in a media literacy class at a New York public university and puts efforts to address the current opioid crisis in an historical context. The immediate catalyst for the project was the sudden, tragic, heroin-related death in 2014 of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, but the “bigger picture” has been broader communities. This study may interest media educators, their educational institution, government agencies, and health institutions that deal with health policy.

Gender and Racial Gaps in Support for Policing and Correctional Reforms: Are the Gaps a Consequence of Political Partisanship?

Divisive criminal justice issues are typically framed through gender and racial lenses, with little empirical work considering the increasing role of political partisanship. Using the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study ( N = 55,000), we estimate multivariate models of support for four policing and correctional reforms. The models initially point to gender gaps and racial gaps. However, as with many public policy issues, support for criminal justice reforms are largely a product of political partisanship—the gender and racial gaps are largely a consequence of gender and racial gaps in partisanship and appear to be driven by white Republican men. As legislative bodies continue to be overrepresented with individuals with the same demographic profile, criminal justice reform prospects are limited.

Kidney Paired Exchanges and Variants

Given the growing gap between the demand and supply of kidneys needed for transplantation, and the better outcomes of living versus deceased donor kidney transplants, living kidney donation is being more aggressively endorsed and promoted. Traditionally, living kidney donors were ABO- and HLA-compatible with their recipients, with whom they were genetically and/or emotionally related. When a living donor-recipient pair is not compatible, there is growing acceptance of employing alternative living donor transplantation strategies such as paired kidney exchanges and domino chains. This chapter addresses the ethical and policy issues that are raised by participation in kidney paired exchanges and domino kidney chains. Specific attention is given to the participation of histocompatible donor-recipient pairs in these programs when the donor could just donate directly. Justice and other ethical issues raised by advance donor programs and list-paired exchanges are also discussed.