A Model of Lottery Participation

With the spread of state–sponsored lotteries to all but 17 states, it is important to understand the circumstances and perspectives of those who contribute to lottery revenues. A multivariate model of percent of income spent on lottery tickets indicates that participation is a declining function of income and education, and that it is higher among black, male, and older respondents. In addition, participation is affected by the social context of the respondent and the respondent's attitudes regarding the lottery as enjoyable and an escape. Attitudes favorable to lottery play are concentrated disproportionately among less advantaged groups, particularly the least educated.     

Household Craft Production in the Prehispanic Urban Setting of Mayapán,Yucatan, Mexico

The complexity of the organization of craft production mirrors multiple aspects of the larger political economies of premodern states. At the late Maya urban center of Mayapán, variation in the social contexts of crafting within a single settlement defies simple classificatory models that once held sway in the literature of nonWestern state societies. Most surplus crafters were independent and affluent commoners; notable exceptions include artisans working under direct elite supervision or elites who were directly engaged in crafting. Although household workshops concentrated around the city’s epicenter, others were dispersed across the site in unassuming residential neighborhoods or near outlying monumental groups. We consider the significance of pronounced household and regional economic interdependencies founded on well-developed surplus crafting practices, imported raw materials, market exchange, and tribute obligations at Mayapán. As for other premodern states, craft production also gave rise to greater opportunities for wealth differentiation within the commoner class. Producers in this urban political capital contributed in significant ways to a stable political economy by supplying goods that were required at all levels of the social hierarchy.     

Terr(it)or(ies) of Peace? The Congolese Mining Frontier and the Fight Against “Conflict Minerals”

This article traces the geography of the “conflict minerals” campaign and its impact on artisanal mining in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a region that currently emerges as a pioneer case of traceability and due diligence efforts with regard to the exploitation and trade in tantalum, tungsten and tin. We subsequently analyse the opening and attempted closure of the Congolese resource frontier in the context of recent market reform, and we describe how this process has accompanied a transnational corporate–government nexus bent on monopolising Congo's artisanal 3 T resources. Specifically, we argue how the conflict minerals campaign and its implementation “on the ground” has brought about a harmful, disruptive logic for an artisanal mining sector that is notoriously categorised as unruly, illegal, and informal, but of which upstream stakeholders have in practice been jeopardised by transnational reform. We thus shift the attention from questions on the political economy of “resource wars” towards a deeper understanding of the intersecting spaces of production and regulation that underpin formalisation and traceability of “conflict minerals” in this protracted conflict environment.     

Archaeological geophysics of a Bronze Age agricultural landscape: the AROURA Project,central mainland Greece

Between 2010 and 2012, the AROURA project conducted magnetometric prospection in the ancient polder around the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1300–1190 b.c.) fortress of Glas, mainland Greece. As had been hypothesized, the anomalies detected were consistent with a system of agricultural fields. This system appears to have been irrigated and drained through previously identified hydraulic mechanisms in and around the polder. Comparison of soil profiles of anomalies with those of background areas, including their magnetic susceptibilities, corroborated magnetometric data. Anomalies were traced from sampled to unsampled areas through corresponding reclassified satellite bandwidths. Constituent sediments of features discovered were dated to the Late Bronze Age through AMS radiocarbon and OSL analyses. The results validated the use of extensive geophysics to detect and investigate ancient agricultural landscapes.     

Trumping foreign policy: public diplomacy,framing, and public opinion among middle power publics

Even as the world’s sole superpower, the United States requires the cooperation of other states to achieve many of its foreign policy objectives. The President of the United States thus often serves as ‘Diplomat in Chief’ in public diplomacy efforts to appeal directly to publics abroad. Given Donald Trump’s antagonistic approach to foreign relations and widespread lack of popularity, what are the implications for support for US policy among publics abroad – particularly among middle power states allied to the US? While previous research on public opinion relying on observational data has found that confidence in the US President is linked to support for American foreign policy goals, the mechanisms at work remain unclear. Using original data from survey-based experiments conducted in Canada and Australia, this article seeks to clarify the effect of ‘presidential framing’ (presenting a policy goal as endorsed or not endorsed by Trump) on attitudes toward key policy issues in the Canada–US and Australia–US relationships. Results point to a negative ‘Trump framing’ effect in Canadians’ and Australians’ trade policy attitudes, but such an effect is not observed in other policy domains (energy policy in Canada, and refugee policy in Australia).