Fear and loathing in Kansas City: Political harassment and the making of moderates in America's abortion wars (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The pro‐life movement regularly employs tactics of political harassment in its campaign against abortion. As the murder of the controversial abortion doctor George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas, demonstrated last year, such tactics often betray a potential for violence. This paper explores how the militant tactics of the pro‐life movement in the 1990s have contributed to the formation of a ‘new’ political identity in Kansas politics: that of the moderate Republican. But for those that seek to counter‐mobilize against the Christian right, the political stakes remain high.     

Political preferences in the new middle class: A ‘correspondence analysis’ of the orientations of Australian professional workers

Most discussions of the relationship between class and political orientation assume a coherent and homogeneous class response. Here, the new middle class of professional workers is disassembled into constituent occupations. An analysis of political preference data by means of ‘correspondence analysis’ reveals a pattern which is consistent with a structural relationship between occupational experience and political preference.