SPID: A New Database for Inferring Public Policy Innovativeness and Diffusion Networks

Despite its rich tradition, there are key limitations to researchers' ability to make generalizable inferences about state policy innovation and diffusion. This paper introduces new data and methods to move from empirical analyses of single policies to the analysis of comprehensive populations of policies and rigorously inferred diffusion networks. We have gathered policy adoption data appropriate for estimating policy innovativeness and tracing diffusion ties in a targeted manner (e.g., by policy domain, time period, or policy type) and extended the development of methods necessary to accurately and efficiently infer those ties. Our state policy innovation and diffusion (SPID) database includes 728 different policies coded by topic area. We provide an overview of this new dataset and illustrate two key uses: (i) static and dynamic innovativeness measures and (ii) latent diffusion networks that capture common pathways of diffusion between states across policies. The scope of the data allows us to compare patterns in both across policy topic areas. We conclude that these new resources will enable researchers to empirically investigate classes of questions that were difficult or impossible to study previously, but whose roots go back to the origins of the political science policy innovation and diffusion literature.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

I begin with an attempt to discern the contours of the "debate" contained in the edited volume Theology and the Political: The New Debate. While the Radical Orthodox contributors are eager to critique those outside the fold, only two authors seem to talk back to them: Kenneth Surin and Mary-Jane Rubenstein. I agree with Surin's rejection of ontological hierarchy and Rubenstein's recommendation of Nancy's notion of "being-with," and I use their arguments to critique Radical Orthodoxy's ontology and their simplistic approach to "secular" authors, respectively. Insofar as one must discuss ontology in relation to theology and the political, I propose that we must actually develop a new ontology rather than simply reassert some version of the Thomistic synthesis. Finally, I fault the relative lack of reference to actual political practice, and above all the complete absence of Latin American liberation theology, in a volume ostensibly discussing "theology and the political."     

Home and away: constructing family and childhood in the context of working parenthood

Little is known about children's views and experiences of their parents’ work?life reconciliation and how these are negotiated in everyday family practices. This article examines families' experiences of work?life reconciliation from both children's and parents' perspectives, drawing on a qualitative longitudinal study with 14 families in Scotland. Such experiences have implications for the spatial and temporal construction of family and childhood in the UK, where working parenthood is increasingly the norm.     

Hillslope Runoff and Soil Erosion Following Reforestation in the Copper Basin,Tennessee, USA

The landscape of the 130 km² Copper Basin, in the southeastern USA, became extremely degraded during more than a century of logging, mining, acidification, grazing, and fire. In the twentieth century, the Copper Basin became the focus of a series of reforestation programs and is now largely tree‐covered again. To investigate the effects of over 50 years of reforestation efforts, we developed a space‐for‐time substitution and conducted rainfall simulation experiments in ‘forest’ patches of various ages, at sites remaining unvegetated, and at forested reference sites outside the basin. At 59 sites, we monitored surface runoff and sediment detachment rates during 30‐minute rainfall simulation experiments; and at 54 of those sites, we determined soil organic matter content. Then, we measured litter and observed soils at 25 of the sites, and measured soil respiration at a site in each age zone. The results demonstrate that soil erosion by sediment detachment decreases within a decade following reforestation. Recently reforested sites have soils with significantly less organic matter and have higher runoff rates than forests more than 50 years old. The long‐term persistence of low infiltration rates suggests that, at sites where the A and B soil horizons and the biological health of the soil have been lost, restoration of the hydrologic function of a landscape by reforestation may require centuries.     

Good sitting,looking and listening: the regulation of young children's emotions in the classroom

Increasing attention has been given in schools in recent years to emotions as part of children's development and as core to their learning. Yet limited attention has been paid to emotions in childhood research. Based on findings from an ethnographic study within a Scottish school with children aged 6–7 years, this article explores the construction and negotiation of emotions as a part of children's classroom experience. Children's bodies and emotions are highly controlled in the classroom but despite this control, children actively construct emotions in their everyday lives.