Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In the historical present, U.S. governance strategies are often noted for their undeniable reliance on strategies of confinement and detention. This talk explores the significance of these strategies for youth in the U.S. As many know, U.S. justice systems are connected to continuing patterns of racial inequality. Trying youth as adults is one example where the state’s violent force perpetuates this inequality. In this talk, I place this practice within the range of governance tactics associated with juvenile justice systems. Using the youth tried as an adult as the limit point, I explore how regimes of rehabilitation, diversion, and control act alongside one another to produce gradations of citizenship and secure the normative prerequisites of the populace.

To do so, this talk explores the history of youth tried as adults in Seattle. I argue that the adult-youth represents the life that cannot be lived since its capacities for democratic inclusion are extinguished even before the realization of democratic citizenship. Yet, I also argue that this practice is connected to the more benevolently intentioned practices of the juvenile court. The violent, coercive exclusion associated with imprisonment—what some have called ‘thanopolitical’ technologies for upholding the death of the subject—are thus part and parcel of the biopolitical governance of youth. Today is the culmination of this tendency within the juvenile court rather than an unfortunate detour from equality. Thus, the contemporary geographies of citizenship enforced by imprisonment depend upon a range of liberal rationalities of governance.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This study explores the combined effect of message framing, intention to quit smoking, and nicotine dependence on the persuasiveness of smoking cessation messages. In two separate waves, pre- and post-message measures, assessing quitting intention and perceived behavioral control, were taken from current cigarette smokers (N = 151), with varying levels of nicotine dependence. The messages emphasized either benefits of quitting (positive frame), or cost of not quitting (negative frame). Results show that smokers’ intentions to quit smoking and nicotine dependence jointly influence the persuasiveness of positive and negative message frames. When nicotine dependence and quitting intention are both high, a negative frame works best. Conversely, when nicotine dependence or quitting intention is low, a positive frame is preferable. Smokers’ level of processing is proposed as the underlying mechanism explaining this differential effect of message frames.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: I summarize what we can learn from personnel economics about the likely empirical veracity of the statements from OPM and ICMA asserting the efficacy of pay-for-performance for public employees. I then provide empirical evidence from the U. S. federal government showing that, controlling for indicators of human capital and job design, job satisfaction is more predictive than pay satisfaction of the intention to not quit federal employment, and that detailed lists of “objective” measures (closed contracts) drive intrinsically motivated employees away from federal employment. The results also show that more educated employees, who are likely to be the most qualified and have opportunities outside the federal sector, are more likely to quit.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: One of the most frequently noted historical trends in the study of America’s institutional development is the steady growth of careerism in Congress. From the 1850s until the end of the century, the percent of members of the House of Representatives entering the chamber for the first time declined from 60 to 24 percent. Numerous explanations have been proposed to account for this trend including historical events, various incumbency-favoring electoral reforms and even the reinforcing effects of a rapidly evolving, member-friendly work environment in the House. This paper reports current research assessing the evidence for these and other explanations on the career choices of House incumbents. The tentative findings suggest a complex choice environment that varied significantly by region, over time, and according to the alternative career move available to the politician.