Jody Baumgartner

EYE ON THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION: Who will the Democratic Party nominate as their giant slayer in 2020? Who will they pick to challenge President Trump? Will it be the familiar – and unpredictable – Joe Biden? The fiery but controversial Elizabeth Warren? Uber-progressive (and old white male) Bernie Sanders? What about “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg, the seemingly sensible centrist? Or will one of the other candidates make a surprise showing in Iowa or New Hampshire and vault to the front of the pack?

Mosier, Samantha L., and Arbindra Rimal. 2019. Where’s the Meat? An Evaluation of Diet and Partisanship Identification. British Food Journal, DOI: 10.1108/BFJ-03-2019-0193.

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively evaluate the connection between dietary choice and partisanship affiliation among the US population. Food has the potential to be a powerful factor connected to identity and political behaviour. This study analyses survey data (including frequency distributions, cross-tabulations and Tobit regression models) from the Natural Marketing Institute’s 2016 LOHAS database with a total sample population of 4,134. The results provide a platform for further exploring the interaction and effect of diet and partisan affiliation as it applies to political outcomes and market activities. This study confirms that individuals identify as either a Democrat or unaffiliated are more likely to report a vegan or vegetarian-based diet compared to Republicans. However, unaffiliated respondents are also just as likely as Republicans to report a red meat-intensive diet. Gender, race and education level are consistent explanatory factors across the entire population for influencing self-reported dietary behaviour, but location lifestyle factors, such as marital and employment status, influence partisan groups differently.

The Center for Survey Research issued a new report the week before Christmas from its Life, Liberty, and Happiness Project on national public opinion of marijuana legalization. The CSR’s marijuana report, which was co-authored by graduate students in the Department of Psychology, an undergraduate student majoring in political science, and faculty (Mark Bowler and Peter Francia), received coverage from National Public Radio in Raleigh (WUNC) and Charlotte (WFAE). The report also received local television and radio coverage in Greenville.

See:

https://www.wunc.org/post/ecu-study-finds-most-americans-support-marijuana-legalization and https://www.wfae.org/post/ecu-study-finds-most-americans-support-marijuana-legalization#stream/0.

https://www.wnct.com/top-stories/ecu-center-for-survey-research-releases-recent-research-on-legalization-of-marijuana/ and https://www.publicradioeast.org/post/ecu-study-finds-most-americans-support-marijuana-legalization.

Samantha Mosier recently published an article titled “Policies as Species: Viewing and Classifying Public Policy from an Evolutionary Perspective” (Politics and the Life Sciences, 38(3):117-131).

From the Abstract: This article proposes equating policies as species to develop a better understanding of how policies emerge, change, and diffuse across policymaking environments. Scholars have long shown an interest in understanding policy change and reinvention, whether incremental or nonincremental. The two subfields of public policy that can answer how and whypolicies change are not unified, leading to difficulty in comprehensively assessing policy emergence and change. The policy species concept bridges knowledge of the policy process and knowledge in the policy process by creating an operationalized definition of public policy and suggesting a process for classifying policies to observe subsequent behavior. Drawing from the field of biology, the policy species framework outlines how policies possess genotypes and phenotypes, which dictate what a policy is and how it can change. In tracing genotypic and phenetic change over time, policy evolution and change is more easily discernible. In turn, a more precise picture of how policies function is painted.

See: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/article/policies-as-species/7BF1B832C6BB839BC3C6FD5C65581288#fndtn-information

Want to learn more about primaries, elections and voting? Need help navigating the news and media? Think about attending sessions of Citizen U. This is a 10-week program, hosted by ECU Leadership and Engagement, meeting one night a week, with FREE food, awesome field trips and engaging guest speakers!

For more information and to apply, click here

Apply by Jan. 24, 2020. First session begins on Jan. 28, 2020.

The London School of Economics United States Politics and Policy Centre publishes a blog on the American Politics and Policy, and has just featured Olga Smirnova and Suzanne Leland’s book chapter “Contracting out in the Transit industry: Recent Perspectives of Transit Agency Managers”

See http://bit.ly/2mn8upL

Dr. Kassab’s new book, Terrorist Recruitment and the International System, is now available!

Recruitment is key to a terrorist network’s survival strategy. Steady enrollment is needed, not just to fight against perceived injustice, but to keep the network’s grand strategy alive. When a weak state fails to protect its territory and implement the rule of law because of corruption or incapacity, it results in the creation of power vacuums. Terrorist networks thrive within power vacuums and opportunistically fill the space where a weak state could not maintain control. This destabilizes the international system and forces great powers to intervene. Historically, interventions are ineffective in combatting terrorism and have actually increased recruitment through regional political destabilization. Further, interventions have drained the capabilities of states, allowing for shifts in the distribution of power, thus changing the international order. Understanding recruitment mechanisms is key to developing strategies to combat recruitment in the short and long term.

See: https://www.amazon.com/Terrorist-Recruitment-International-System-Kassab-ebook/dp/B081798BHM/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=hanna+kassab&qid=1574436650&sr=8-5

Political Science faculty have been busy sharing their insights with local media about the impeachment hearings and the 2020 elections.

Hugh Lee gave 3 interviews to about the impeachment hearings to WITN on September 25th, ECU News Services on September 27, and WCTI on November 13.

Jody Baumgartner and POLS students Bobby Fortune, Gavin Hockett and Tyler Polensky were also interviewed about impeachment by WITN’s Kathryn Dawson on November 15.

Peter Francia was interviewed by WNCT TV about the impact North Carolina could have on the 2020 elections on November 15.

Conventional Wisdom and American Elections: Exploding Myths, Exploring Misconceptions, by Drs. Baumgartner and Francia, is now officially in its 4th edition – and available!

From the book jacket: During every election cycle, political observers generate a seemingly limitless supply of theories, opinions, and predictions. Unfortunately, many of these assertions oversimplify complex subjects or over-hype the latest political fads. Inevitably, some misinformation becomes part of the conventional wisdom about American elections. The objective of this book is to bring clarity to several of these subjects.

See: https://smile.amazon.com/Conventional-Wisdom-American-Elections-Misconceptions/dp/1538129167/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=conventional+wisdom+baumgartner&qid=1574171420&sr=8-3

Olga Smirnova was invited for the North Carolina Local Government Budget Association summer conference (July) in Wilmington, NC.

Together with Jennifer Wolf from the City of Charlotte, they led the panel on “Green Investments for Public Facilities and Fleet”

See: http://nclgba.org/wordpress/nclgba19-recap-series-a-culture-of-high-performance/