Japan is shutting down the last of its nuclear power plants. While the closure is slated to be temporary, popular opinion has shifted, and no one is certain when or if the reactor will be brought back online. Prior to the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, Japan counted on nuclear generation for 30 percent of its electrical needs. After the disaster, they turned off 53 nuclear plants, with the last one scheduled to go offline this month. Miranda Schreurs, professor of comparative politics and director of the Environmental Policy Research Centre at the Freie Universitat Berlin, says Japan ... Read More
Not Twitter Revolutions, But Twitter-Assisted Revolutions
April 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
It’s tempting to think of the Internet as the world’s best weapon against authoritarianism. Where it goes, democracy will follow, if we can just figure out how to strategically drop enough thumb drives, cell phones, and “shadow” technology. But, of course, the relationship between the Internet and democracy is much messier. And what we are now beginning to understand about it – with scientific rigor, that is – suggests that the laws governing this latest technology are not so different from its predecessors like radio and TV. “The Internet can play a role and facilitate ... Read More
Hit By a Pitch: Vicarious Punishment in the Batter’s Box
April 4, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
The notion of “collective punishment” feels like it belongs to a different time, or at least a different culture. Unless you’re a soccer hooligan or caught up in some ancient religious and/or family feud, attacking someone to get revenge against the group he belongs to is generally considered off-limits. But a newly published study notes this dynamic is alive and well on the playing fields of the great American pastime. Researchers report “beaning” a member of the opposing team — deliberately hitting him with a pitch — is divorced in fans’ minds from the notion of moral ... Read More
Humanitarian Aid: Moving the Dialogue Toward Prevention
April 3, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
This past year, as with the years before, the international news has been replete with stories of humanitarian disasters. War, drought, flood, earthquake, disease — there are constantly populations in crisis, constantly people for whom the difference between life and death lies in the response of the outside world. Perhaps it has always been this way. One thing that has changed, however, is who is doing the responding. Where disaster relief had once been overwhelmingly funded and provided by nations, increasingly we have seen that response to humanitarian disasters has been coming from ... Read More
Is It Worth Paying People to Be Healthy?
April 3, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
The Supreme Court spent a significant share of last week’s oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act debating the role of money in public health. Can the government rightly fine people for not buying health-care coverage? And what happens if such rebels face no penalty? Would we all, as a result, wind up less healthy? This line of thinking — the fine as a stick used to punish people who won’t get health care — isn’t the only potential contribution of money on public well being. Health researchers and behavioral economists are increasingly pondering the reverse: cash as carrot. ... Read More