Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The fear of crime in bad neighborhoods can be a powerful motivator for many behaviors, such as the decision to not go out at night, to not allow one’s children to play outside unattended, or even to purchase a firearm. At the neighborhood level, it may even inspire residents to move away in search of better neighborhoods. However, the desire to escape a bad neighborhood may be influenced by a number of factors, perhaps most importantly, residents’ confidence in their local police department. Using the Community Survey portion of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, this research examines the relationship between fear of crime and the desire to move. This research also seeks to determine what role residents’ satisfaction with the police plays in their decisions to move. It is expected that the effect of residents’ fear of crime on the desire to move will be mediated by their satisfaction with their local police department. Alternatively, the fear of crime may actually interact with residents’ (dis)satisfaction with the police to influence their decision to move. Each of these possibilities will be examined to determine which relationship, if either, more accurately depicts how fear of crime and satisfaction with the police influence individuals’ decisions to move out of bad neighborhoods. Implications for theory and policy will be discussed.

Publication Type: Paper/Poster Proposal
Abstract: Empirical evidence suggests that the respondents’ approval motive, their desirability beliefs and the privacy of the response situation determine how prone survey answers are to social desirability bias. Previous research analyzed these factors separately and has not taken their possible interdependence into account. This paper examines the predictions from rational-choice theory that a strong approval motive, clear differences in the perceived desirability of response options and a lack of privacy are all necessary but not sufficient conditions for social desirability bias. This prediction was tested in our first study. With data from a local random sample, we found the beliefs about whether positive or negative racial attitudes are more desirable, and to what extent this is the case, to differ considerably between individual respondents and demographic groups. Respondents’ racial attitude answers were in agreement with these beliefs and this significantly stronger, when the attitude responses were recorded interviewer- rather than self-administered. Furthermore, this association substantially increased when subjects had a stronger approval motive. This threeway interaction between the desirability beliefs, response privacy, and the strength of the approval motive was theoretically predicted. In a second study, we addressed the issue of whether the results found in the first study are externally valid. Since attitude answers and desirability beliefs were collected in the same interview, the observed associations may be an artifact due to the subjects’ sensitization towards social desirability concerns. We thus collected in a separate study only racial attitude answers under conditions of varying response privacy. Aggregated differences in the desirability beliefs according to the attitude items, the respondents’ social status and their education observed in the first study were matched with the response behavior under the same conditions in the second study. The results from the first study were replicated with this method.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper is an enquiry into one strand of the stadial history articulated by several Scottish Enlightenment thinkers and their heirs amongst early nineteenth century political economists. It examines how they constructed and offered a history of sexual desire and endeavours to relate it to their larger theory of societal development.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The pressures of the early 20th century—industrialization, the loss of the frontier, and increasing technological efficiency—worried progressive thinkers. Their response was to
attempt to harness individual desires and obligations for “the social”. Willa Cather was concerned about these same pressures, but she offered a radically different solution. Instead of beginning with a vision for society, she portrayed how an individual could reclaim the imagination in order to preserve what is human. Cather’s The Professor’s House shows a thoughtful individual who eventually finds social obligation debilitating. His best hope to cope with the pressures of modernity is to sublimate his pre-social desires into wonder and the imagination, which form the basis for art, invention, and the best friendships.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Harvey Mansfield has argued that despite the prominence of sex as a central plot device in Machiavelli’s Mandragola, it is not a play about eros. He is correct in this regard: insofar as love enters into the plot, it seems to do so only as a derivative of the baser passions. However, desire in Mandragola exercises a tremendous force, and it is not, end of the day, without reference to love. This paper argues, then, that although the Mandragola is not a play about eros in the classical sense, it is certainly a play that explores love and desire, and one that reveals something about the place of these in politics. It argues that although love in the Mandragola seems to be debased, it remains as powerful and politically relevant a force as forms of love that point to something higher. This baser love disarms those who are vulnerable to their desires and so provides arms to those who possess the virtù to manipulate those desires. Insofar as it can be wielded as a weapon, then, love becomes a political tool, one that I will argue is, for Machiavelli, a potent accessory to virtù. The paper examines Machiavelli’s treatment of love and desire in the Mandragola within this context, and considers what insights this yields into the interplay of desire and virtue in his political teachings.