Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:36:35.381Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

In Defense of Genopolitics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

JAMES H. FOWLER  and
CHRISTOPHER T. DAWES
JAMES H. FOWLER*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
CHRISTOPHER T. DAWES*
Affiliation:
New York University
*
James Fowler is Professor of Medical Genetics and Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. ([email protected]).
Christopher T. Dawes is Assistant Professor of Politics at the Department of Politics, New York University.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The American Political Science Review recently published a critique of an article we published in the Journal of Politics in 2008. In that article we showed that variants of the genes 5HTT and MAOA were significantly associated with voter turnout in a sample of 2,300 subjects from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Here, we address the critique first by conducting a replication study using an independent sample of 9,300 subjects. This study replicates the gene-environment interaction of the 5HTT gene variant with church attendance, but not the association with MAOA. We then focus on the general argument of the critique, showing that many of its characterizations of the literature in genetics and in political science are misleading or incorrect. We conclude by illustrating the ways in which genopolitics has already made a lasting contribution to the field of political science and by offering guidelines for future studies in genopolitics that are based on state-of-the-art recommendations from the field of behavior genetics.

Type
FORUM: THE DEBATE OVER GENOPOLITICS
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 107 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 362 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alford, J. R., Funk, C. L., and Hibbing, J. R.. 2005. “Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?” American Political Science Review 99 (2): 153–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arceneaux, K., Johnson, M., and Maes, H. H.. 2012. “The Genetic Basis of Political Sophistication.” Twin Research and Human Genetics 15 (1): 34–41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beauchamp, J. P., Cesarini, D., Johannesson, M., van der Loos, M. J. H. M., Koellinger, P. D., Groenen, P. J. F., Fowler, J. H., Rosenquist, J. N., Thurik, A. R., and Christakis, N. A.. 2011. “Molecular Genetics and Economics.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 25 (4): 1–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benjamin, D., et al. 2012a. “The Promises and Pitfalls of Genoeconomics.” Annual Review of Economics 4: 627–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benjamin, D., et al. 2012b. “The Genetic Architecture of Economic and Political Preferences.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (21): 8026–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berent, M. K., Krosnick, J. A., and Lupia, A.. 2011. “The Quality of Government Records and “Overestimation” of Registration and Turnout in Surveys: Lessons from the 2008 ANES Panel Study's Registration and Turnout Validation Exercises.” Working Paper NES s012554. August 2011 version. Ann Arbor, MI: American National Election Studies.Google Scholar
Bertolino, A., Arciero, G., Rubino, V., Latorre, V., De Candia, M., and Mazzola, V.. 2005. “Variation of Human Amygdala Response during Threatening Stimuli as a Function of 5HTTLPR Genotype and Personality Style.” Biological Psychiatry 57: 1517–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blais, A., and Labbé-St-Vincent, S.. 2011. “Personality Traits, Political Attitudes, and the Propensity to Vote.” European Journal of Political Research 50: 395–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, R. M., Fariss, C. J., Jones, J. J., Kramer, A. D. I., Marlow, C., Settle, J. E., and Fowler, J. H.. 2012. “A 61-million-person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization.” Nature 489: 295–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bowler, S., and Donovan, T.. 2002. “Democracy, Institutions and Attitudes about Citizen Influence on Government.” British Journal of Political Science 32: 371–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassel, C. A. 1999. “Voluntary Associating, Churches, and Social Participation Theories of Turnout.” Social Science Quarterly 80 (3): 504–17.Google Scholar
Chabris, C., et al. 2012. “Most Reported Genetic Associations with General Intelligence Are Probably False Positives.” Psychological Science 23 (11): 1314–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charney, E., and English, W.. 2012. “Candidate Genes and Political Behavior.” American Political Science Review 106 (1): 1–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheung, V. G., and Spielman, R. S.. 2009. “Genetics of Human Gene Expression: Mapping DNA Variants That Influence Gene Expression.” Nature Reviews Genetics 10: 595–604.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Christakis, N. A., and Fowler, J. H.. 2009. Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. New York: Little Brown.Google Scholar
Craig, I. W. 2007. “The Importance of Stress and Genetic Variation in Human Aggression.” Bioessays 29 (3): 227–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cranmer, Skyler J., and Dawes, Christopher T.. 2012. “The Heritability of Foreign Policy Preferences.” Twin Research and Human Genetics 15 (1): 52–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davies, G., et al. 2011. “Genome-Wide Association Studies Establish that Human Intelligence is Highly Heritable and Polygenic.” Molecular Psychiatry 16: 996–1005.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawes, C. T., and Fowler, J. H.. 2009. “Partisanship, Voting, and the Dopamine D2 Receptor Gene.” Journal of Politics 71 (3): 1157–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawes, C. T., Loewen, P. J., and Fowler, J. H.. 2011. “Social Preferences and Political Participation.” Journal of Politics 72 (4): 1189–98.Google Scholar
Dimas, A. S., et al. 2009. “Common Regulatory Variation Impacts Gene Expression in a Cell Type-dependent Manner.” Science 325: 1246–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, L. E., and Keller, M. C.. 2011. “A Critical Review of the First 10 Years of Candidate Gene-by-environment Interaction Research in Psychiatry.” American Journal of Psychiatry 168: 1041–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eaves, L. J., and Hatemi, P. K.. 2008. “Transmission of Attitudes toward Abortion and Gay Rights: Parental Socialization or Parental Mate Selection?” Behavior Genetics 38: 247–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edlin, A., Gelman, A., and Kaplan, N.. 2007. “Voting as a Rational Choice.” Rationality and Society 19 (3): 293–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenberger, N., Way, B., Taylor, S., Welch, W., and Lieberman, M.. 2007. “Understanding Genetic Risk to Aggression: Clues from the Brain's Response to Social Exclusion.” Biological Psychiatry 61: 1100–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Esarey, J., and Lawrence, J.. 2012. “Overconfidence in Testing of Interaction Hypotheses: Determining and Controlling the False Positive Rate.” Unpublished manuscriptGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J. H. 2005. “Turnout in a Small World.” In The Social Logic of Politics: Family, Friends, Neighbors, and Workmates as Contexts for Political Behavior, ed. Zuckerman, A.. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 269–87.Google Scholar
Fowler, J. H. 2006a. “Altruism and Turnout.” Journal of Politics 68 (3): 674–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J. H. 2006b. “Habitual Voting and Behavioral Turnout.” Journal of Politics 68 (2): 335–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J. H., Baker, L. A., and Dawes, C. T.. 2008. “Genetic Variation in Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 102 (2): 233–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J. H., and Dawes, C. T.. 2008. “Two Genes Predict Voter Turnout.” Journal of Politics 70 (3): 579–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, J. H., and Schreiber, D.. 2008. “Biology, Politics, and the Emerging Science of Human Nature.” Science 322 (5903): 912–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gerber, A. S., Green, D. P., and Larimer, C. W.. 2008. “Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-scale Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review 102 (1): 33–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, K., and Freedman, P.. 2002. “Campaign Advertising and Voter Turnout: New Evidence for a Stimulation Effect.” Journal of Politics 64 (3): 721–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hariri, A. R., et al. 2005. “A Susceptibility Gene for Affective Disorder and the Response of the Human Amygdala.” Archives of General Psychiatry 62: 146–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hariri, A. R., Matty, V. S., Tessitore, A., Kolachana, B., Fera, F., and Goldman, D.. 2002. “Serotonin Transporter Genetic Variation and the Response of the Human Amygala.” Science 297: 400–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Alford, J. R., Hibbing, J. R., Martin, N. G., and Eaves, L. J.. 2009. “Is There a ‘Party’ in Your Genes?” Political Research Quarterly 62 (3): 584–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Dawes, C. T., Frost-Keller, A., Settle, J. E., and Verhulst, B.. 2011. “Integrating Social Science and Genetics: News from the Political Front.” Biodemography and Social Biology 57: 67–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hatemi, P. K., Funk, C., Medland, S. E., Maes, H. H., Martin, N. G., and Eaves, L. J.. 2009. “Genetic Influences on Social Attitudes over the Life Course.” Journal of Politics 71 (3): 1141–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Gillespie, N. A., et al. 2011. “A Genome-wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes.” Journal of Politics 73 (1): 271–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Hibbing, J. R., et al. 2010. “Not by Twins Alone: Using the Extended Twin Family Design to Investigate the Genetic Basis of Political Beliefs.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (3): 798–814.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., McDermott, R., Bailey, J. M., and Martin, N. G.. 2012. “The Different Effects of Gender and Sex on Vote Choice.” Political Research Quarterly 65 (1): 76–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Medland, S. E., and Eaves, L. J.. 2009. “Genetic Sources for the Gender Gap?” Journal of Politics 71: 1–13.Google Scholar
Hatemi, P. K., Medland, S. E., Morley, K. I., Heath, A. C., and Martin, N. G.. 2007. “The Genetics of Voting: An Australian Twin Study.” Behavior Genetics 37: 435–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heinz, A., et al. 2005. “Amygdala-Prefrontal Coupling Depends on a Genetic Variation of the Serotonin Transporter.” Nature Neuroscience 8: 20–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hewitt, J. K. 2012. “Editorial Policy on Candidate Gene Association and Candidate Gene-by-environment Interaction Studies of Complex Traits.” Behavior Genetics 42: 1–2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hu, X.-Z., et al. 2006. “Serotonin Transporter Promoter Gain-of-Function Genotypes Are Linked to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.” American Journal of Human Genetics 78: 815–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ioannidis, J. 2005. “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” PLoS Medicine 2 (8): e124. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackson, R. A., and Carsey, T. M.. 2007. “U.S. Senate Campaigns, Negative Advertising, and Voter Mobilization in the 1998 Midterm Election.” Electoral Studies 26 (1): 180–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jankowski, Richard. 2007. “Altruism and the Decision to Vote: Explaining and Testing High Voter Turnout.” Rationality and Society 19 (1): 4–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kan, K. H., and Yang, C. C.. 2001. “On Expressive Voting: Evidence from the 1988 US Presidential Election.” Public Choice 108 (3–4): 295–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karp, J. A., and Brockington, D.. 2005. “Social Desirability and Response Validity: A Comparative Analysis of Overreporting Voter Turnout in Five Countries.” Journal of Politics 67 (3): 825–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, G. 1998. Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klemmensen, R., Hatemi, P. K., Hobolt, S. B., Skytthe, A., and Nørgaard, A. S.. 2011. “Heritability in Political Interest and Efficacy across Cultures: Denmark and the United States.” Twin Research and Human Genetics 15 (1): 15–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knack, Stephen. 1991. “Social Altruism and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the 1991 NES Pilot Study.” 1991 NES Pilot Study Reports.Google Scholar
Koch, J. 1998. “The Perot Candidacy and Attitudes toward Government and Politics.” Political Research Quarterly 51 (1): 141–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lande, R. 1980. “The Genetic Covariance between Characters Maintained by Pleiotropic Mutations.” Genetics 94: 203–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Littvay, L. 2012. “Do Heritability Estimates of Political Phenotypes Suffer from an Equal Environment Assumption Violation? Evidence from an Empirical Study.” Twin Research and Human Genetics 15 (1): 6–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Loewen, P. J., and Dawes, C. T.. 2012. “Heritability of Duty and Voter Turnout.” Political Psychology 33 (3): 363–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, M. 2010. “Rate, Molecular Spectrum, and Consequences of Human Mutation.” PNAS 107 (3): 961–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mackay, T. F. 2001. “The Genetic Architecture of Quantitative Traits.” Annual Review of Genetics 35: 303–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, N. G., et al. 1986. “Transmission of Social Attitudes.” PNAS 83 (12): 4364–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDermott, R, et al. 2009. “Monoamine Oxidase A Gene (MAOA) Predicts Behavioral Aggression Following Provocation.” PNAS 106 (7): 2118–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDermott, R. E., and Hatemi, P. K., ed. 2011. Man Is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Medland, S. E., and Hatemi, P. K.. 2008. “Political Science, Biometric Theory and Twin Studies: A Methodological Introduction.” Political Analysis 17 (2): 191–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer-Lindenberg, A., et al. 2006. ‘‘Neural Mechanisms of Genetic Risk for Impulsivity and Violence in Humans.’’ PNAS 103 (16): 6269–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mondak, J. J., Hibbing, M. V., Canache, D., Seligson, M. A., and Anderson, M. R.. 2010. “Personality and Civic Engagement: An Integrative Framework for the Study of Trait Effects on Political Behavior.” American Political Science Review 104 (1): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, D. L., and Lesch, K. P.. 2008. “Targetting the Murine Serotonin Transporter: Insights into Human Neurobiology.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 9: 85–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Norton, E., and Han, E.. 2008. “Genetic Information, Obesity, and Labor Market Outcomes.” Health Economics 17 (9): 1089–1104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olsen, M. E. 1972. “Social Participation and Voting Turnout: A Multivariate Analysis.” American Sociological Review 37 (3): 317–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oxley, D. R., et al. 2008. “Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits.” Science 321 (5896): 1667–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pearson, T., and Manolio, T.. 2008. “How to Interpret a Genome-wide Association Study.” Journal of the American Medical Association 299 (11): 1335–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plomin, Robert. 2008. Behavioral Genetics. 5th ed. New York: Worth Publishers.Google Scholar
Price, A., et al. 2009. “The Impact of Divergence Time on the Nature of Population Structure: An Example from Iceland.” PLoS Genetics 5 (6): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rhee, S. H., and Waldman, I. D.. 2002. “Genetic and Environmental Influence on Antisocial Behavior: A Meta-analysis of Twin and Adoption Studies.” Psychological Bulletin 128: 90–529.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Risch, N., et al. 2009. “Interaction between the Serotonin Transporter Gene (5-HTTLPR), Stressful Life Events, and Risk of Depression: A Meta-analysis.” Journal of the American Medical Association 301: 2462–71.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sallach, D. L., Babchuk, N., and Booth, A.. 1972. “Social Involvement and Political Activity: Another View.” Social Science Quarterly 52 (March): 79–92.Google Scholar
Schwanhäusser, B. R. J., et al. 2011. “Global Quantification of Mammalian Gene Expression Control.” Nature 473 (7347): 337–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Settle, J. E., Dawes, C. T., Christakis, N. A., and , J. H. Fowler. 2010. “Friendships Moderate an Association between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology.” Journal of Politics 72 (4): 1189–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Settle, J. E., Dawes, C. T., and Fowler., J. H. 2009. “The Heritability of Partisan Attachment.” Political Research Quarterly 62 (3): 601–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, K. B., Alford, J. R., Hatemi, P. K., Eaves, L. J., Funk, C., and Hibbing, J. R.. 2012. “Biology, Ideology and Epistemology: How Do We Know Political Attitudes Are Inherited and Why Should We Care?” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1): 17–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, K. B., and Hatemi, P. K.. 2012. “OLS is AOK for ACE: A Regression-based Approach to Synthesizing Political Science and Behavioral Genetics Models.” Political Behavior. doi: 10.1007/s11109–012-9192–2.Google Scholar
Smolen, A., and Hewitt, J. K.. 2003. “Biomarkers in Wave III of the Add Health Study.” Technical Report, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.Google Scholar
Smolen, A., et al. 2012. “Add Health Wave IV Documentation Report: Candidate Genes” Technical Report, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.Google Scholar
Speliotes, E. K., et al. 2010. “Association Analyses of 249,796 Individuals Reveal 18 New Loci Associated with Body Mass Index.” Nature Genetics 42: 937–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stam, A. C., Von Hagen-Jamar, A. and Worthington, A. B. H.. 2012. “Fear and Attitudes towards Torture and Preventive War.” Twin Research and Human Genetics 15 (1): 60–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Timpone, R. J. 1998. “Ties that Bind - Measurement, Demographics, and Social Connectedness.” Political Behavior 20 (1): 53–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verhulst, B. 2012. “Integrating Classical and Contemporary Explanations of Political Participation.” Twin Research and Human Genetics 15 (1): 42–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhulst, B., & Estabrook, R.. 2012. “Using Genetic Information to Test Causal Relationships in Cross-Sectional Data.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 24 (3): 328–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhulst, B., Hatemi, P. K., and Eaves, L. J.. 2012a. “Covariation Not Causation: The Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Ideologies.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (1): 34–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verhulst, B., Hatemi, P. K., and Eaves, L. J.. 2012b. “Disentangling the Importance of Psychological Predispositions and Social Constructions in the Organization of American Political Ideology.” Political Psychology 33 (3): 375–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verhulst, B., Hatemi, P. K., and Martin, N. G.. 2010. “The Nature of the Relationship between Personality Traits and Political Attitudes.” Personality and Individual Differences 49: 306–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vinkhuyzen, A. A. E., et al. 2012. “Common SNPs Explain Some of the Variation in the Personality Dimensions of Neuroticism and Extraversion.” Translational Psychiatry 2: e102. doi:10.1038/tp.2012.27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Visscher, P. M., et al. 2006. “Assumption-Free Estimation of Heritability from Genome-wide Identity-by-descent Sharing between Full Siblings.” PLoS Genetics 2: e41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Visscher, P. M., Brown, M. A., McCarthy, M. I., and Yang, J.. 2012. “Five Years of GWAS Discovery.” American Journal of Human Genetics 90: 7–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weber, C., Johnson, M., and , K. Arceneaux. 2011. “Genetics, Personality, and Group Identity.” Social Science Quarterly, 92 (5): 1314–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, E. O. (1998). Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Xu, H., and Shete, S.. 2006. “Mixed-effects Logistic Approach for Association Following Linkage Scan for Complex Disorders.” Annals of Human Genetics 71: 230–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, J., et al. 2010. “Common SNPs Explain a Large Proportion of the Heritability for Human Height.” Nature Genetics 42 (7): 565–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: PDF

FOWLER and DAWES

Appendix

Download FOWLER and DAWES(PDF)
PDF 207.2 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.