Several toxins are “dual-use” in that they have legitimate therapeutic, pharmaceutical, or scientific applications as well as potential military utility as toxin warfare (TW) agents. The growing peaceful applications of such toxins may complicate efforts to ban their use for warfare or terrorist purposes. Worldwide consumption of toxins for medical therapy and scientific research has increased from a few grams to the current level of hundreds of grams per year, and the projected future growth of toxin therapies will require tens to hundreds of kilograms of material annually, blurring the distinction between medically useful and militarily significant quantities. As a result, a proliferator might seek to acquire an offensive TW capability under the guise of “peaceful” activities permitted by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). To examine this problem more closely, the case of ricin—a putative toxin warfare agent with expanding scientific and medical applications—is discussed in detail. Finally, an analysis of policy options for regulating dual-use toxins concludes that precise monitoring of toxin production would be impracticable in many cases, and that international efforts to achieve greater openness and transparency offer the most realistic basis for distinguishing between the legitimate and banned uses of toxins.

Civil violence is a complex and often horrific phenomenon whose characteristics have varied by era, setting, and circumstance. Its objective analysis has rarely been feasible at spatial and temporal scales great enough and resolutions fine enough to reveal patterns useful in prevention, intervention, or adjudication. An extraordinary data set simultaneously meeting scale and resolution criteria was collected during conflict in Guatemala from 1977 through 1986. Reported here is its spatial-temporal analysis; reported as well is a putatively novel method for estimating power-law exponents from aggregate data. Analysis showed that the relationship between ethnic mix and killing was smooth yet highly nonlinear, that the temporal texture of killings was rough, and that the distribution of killing-event sizes was dichotomous, with nongenocidal and genocidal conflict periods displaying Zipf and non-Zipf distributions, respectively. These results add statistical support to claims that the Guatemalan military operated under at least two directives with respect to killing and that one of these effected a genocidal campaign against an indigenous people, the Mayans. Implications for group-behavioral modeling, conflict prevention, peace-keeping intervention, human-rights monitoring, and transitional justice are noted.

Economic considerations typically have led societies to develop rather than to preserve wild and natural places. Accordingly, preservationists traditionally have based arguments for protecting nature on its intrinsic rather than instrumental worth. These traditional arguments rest on aesthetic, moral, and spiritual rather than on economic values. Today, though, many environmentalists point to the preservation of nature's “services” as the reason to protect ecosystems from conscious manipulation or careless degradation. Many cite a decision by New York City to spend over $1 billion to purchase land in the Catskills watershed to secure or restore the capacity of the natural ecosystem to purify the City's water supply. This essay questions the validity of this example and, in turn, the generalizability of the thesis it has widely been thought to support.

Supreme Court oral argument (OA) is one of many face-to-face settings of political interaction. This article describes a methodology for the systematic observation and measurement of behavior in OA developed in a study of over 300 randomly selected cases from the 1969-1981 terms of the U.S. Supreme Court. Five sources of observation are integrated into the OA database at the speaking turn level of analysis: the actual text of verbal behavior; categorical behavior codes; aspects of language use and speech behavior events; electro-acoustical measurement of voice quality; and content analysis of subject matter. Preliminary data are presented to illustrate the methodology and its application to theoretical concerns of the research project.

This article considers one of the many ways in which the state might intervene in the life of a pregnant woman in order to prevent serious harm to the child she intends to bear: requiring a substance-abusing pregnant woman to live in a residential treatment center for the duration of her pregnancy. While the author agrees with those who argue that such state action is unjustifiable, she points out that the facts grounding this normative conclusion may change. Disagreeing with those who contend that, regardless of the circumstances, the state may never interfere with the activities of a pregnant woman in order to prevent harm to her future child, the author considers both the present situation and the most likely future scenario, and offers a compromise solution—civil commitment to an outpatient treatment facility.

Physical attractiveness is an important social factor in our daily interactions. Scholars in social psychology provide evidence that attractiveness stereotypes and the “halo effect” are prominent in affecting the traits we attribute to others. However, the interest in attractiveness has not directly filtered down to questions of political behavior beyond candidates and elites. Utilizing measures of attractiveness across multiple surveys, we examine the relationship between attractiveness and political beliefs. Controlling for socioeconomic status, we find that more attractive individuals are more likely to report higher levels of political efficacy, identify as conservative, and identify as Republican. These findings suggest an additional mechanism for political socialization that has further implications for understanding how the body intertwines with the social nature of politics.

In Born to Rebel (1996), Frank Sulloway proposed that laterborns are more rebellious than firstborns. In the context of Sulloway's theory, this article examines the difficulties of defining and measuring rebelliousness. Rebellious acts (such as attempting to overthrow a government) are one measure of rebelliousness. Using this measure, an analysis of six of Sulloway's samples undermines the theory. As a second measure of rebelliousness, Sulloway relies on the personality traits of his subjects. Many of the rebellious traits he selected, however, appear unrelated to rebellious behavior. A reexamination of 28 scientific revolutions Sulloway analyzed reveals other weaknesses. Finally, Born to Rebel contains a meta-analysis of the birth order literature. The application of two methodologies to the reconstructed data is discussed. Neither methodology appears to replicate the results in Born to Rebel. The conclusion is that Sulloway's claims for birth order effects should be rejected.

Within the broader context of several related biotech developments, including the proliferation of GM food in American grocery stories, the recent decision by Whole Foods Market, Inc. to require the labeling of all genetically modified (GM) organism products sold in its stores by 2018, and the development of GM animals for consumption, this essay asks whether the United States is inching towards a policy of mandatory GM food labeling. The analysis highlights aspects of the biotechnology policy debate in the United States and European Union, and traces public opinion as well as grassroots and legislative efforts aimed at GM food labeling. Findings show that activities at the federal level do not suggest any major regulatory changes regarding labeling in the near future; however, a growing number of individual states are considering GM food labeling legislation and political momentum in favor of labeling has picked up in recent years. Voluntary labeling by food companies may also become increasingly common.

Conventionally, flags are explained as symbols of group solidarity that achieve force through ritual processes. Alternatively, flags may be seen as symbols with positive or negative associations derived from our experiences with physical space. While this article accepts these interpretations, it also argues that they need to be augmented. Flag meaning is not entirely a social or linguistic construction because there is a link between flag displays and our inherent predispositions to cues about social rank. Our evolved social intelligence makes us sensitive to the topographic features of flag displays that signal relationships of dominance and subordination.

In the United States, women have long held the right to vote and can participate fully in the political process, and yet they are underrepresented at all levels of elected office. Worldwide, men’s dominance in the realm of politics has also been the norm. To date, scholars have focused on supply-side and demand-side explanations of women’s underrepresentation but differences in how men and women assess electoral risk (the risk involved in seeking political office) are not fully explained. To fill this gap, I explore how evolutionary theory offers insights into gendered differences in political ambition and the evaluation of electoral risk. Using the framework of life-history theory, I hypothesize that both cognitive and environmental factors in human evolution, particularly as they relate to sexual selection and social roles, have shaped the psychology of ambition in gendered ways affecting contemporary politics. Cognitive risk-assessment mechanisms evolving in the hominid line came to be expressed differently in females and males, in women and men. These gendered expressions plausibly reflect differentiable environmental pressures in the past and may help explain behaviors in and barriers to women’s electoral political activity in the present. If so, then the success of efforts to increase such activity — or, regressively, to suppress it — may be better understood.

Emotional appeals have always been an important instrument in the mobilization of political support in modern societies. As found in several experimental studies from the United States, the emotions displayed by leading politicians in their televised public appearances have an impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of the public. Positive emotions such as joy or happiness, pride, and amusement elicit a more positive assessment of politicians, whereas showing negative emotions such as anger or outrage often diminishes the public’s support. This transfer of emotions from sender to recipient has been described as “emotional contagion.” However, under specific circumstances, emotions expressed by politicians can result in counter-empathic reactions among recipients. To examine the role of emotions between political leaders and the public in an institutional and cultural setting outside the United States, this article presents experimental findings on the impact of emotions expressed by two leading German politicians on the German public. The study used emotional displays by Chancellor Angela Merkel and former parliamentary leader of the Left Party, Gregor Gysi, observing how their assessments by the German public changed in response to these displays. Consistent with existing research, we discovered positive effects on the evaluation of both politicians when they displayed positive emotions. However, the impact of negative emotions is different for Merkel and Gysi and can be described as contagion in the former and counter-contagion in the latter case. Furthermore, we found that individual recognition of the expressed emotions modified the effect they had on the evaluation of some leadership characteristics.

This article outlines a consistent and rational model for solving ethnic conflicts. We argue that ethnic separation should be regarded as an alternative to national unity, and not simply dismissed as impossible. A decision on separation or unity should be made democratically by the group whose separation has been proposed. If separation is approved, migration over the border between the newly formed states should be part of such a solution. The article has three main parts: (1) a model for solving separationist demands; (2) an analysis of the evolutionary background to ethnic conflicts; and (3) a discussion of principal objections to the proposed model. The present international impotence in situations of ethnic conflict is to a high degree caused by seeing most solutions as impossible—either realistically or morally. This article stresses the virtue of having one model instead of the “flexibility” that currently prevails under the disguise of generally acclaimed, but contradictory ideals.

Although we may be pessimistic (with good reason) about contemporary politics, especially as it effects the prospects for the survival of the human species in the long run, we can be more optimistic about the study of politics from a life science perspective. Certainly the two are related. Becoming optimistic about the former may depend in part upon the further development of biopolitics and of the biobehaviorial and life sciences generally.

Political humor has long been used by candidates to mobilize supporters by enhancing status or denigrating the opposition. Research concerning laughter provides insight into the building of social bonds; however, little research has focused on the nonverbal cues displayed by the individual making humorous comments. This study first investigates whether there is a relationship between facial display behavior and the presence and strength of laughter. Next, the analysis explores whether specific candidate displays during a humorous comment depend on the target of the comment. This paper analyzes the use of humor by Republican and Democratic candidates during ten 2008 presidential primary debates. Data analyzed here employs laughter as an indicator of a successful humorous comment and documents candidate display behavior in the seconds immediately preceding and during each laughter event. Findings suggest specific facial displays play an important communication role. Different types of smiles, whether felt, false, or fear-based, are related to who laughs as well as how intensely the audience is judged to laugh.

Much of the American debate over physician assisted death (PAD) is framed as an ideological split between conservatives and liberals, pro life and pro choice advocates, and those who emphasize morality versus personal autonomy. Less examined, but no less relevant, is a split within the ranks of progressives—one that divides those supporting a right to die in the name of human rights from disability rights activists who invoke human rights to vehemently oppose euthanasia. This paper reviews how “dignity” serves both as a divisive wedge in this debate but also as a value that can span the divide between groups and open the way to productive discourse. Supporters of legalized euthanasia use “dignity” to express their position that some deaths might indeed be accelerated. At the same time, opponents adopt the concept to argue that physician assisted suicide stigmatizes life with a disability. To bridge this divide, the worldviews of two groups, Compassion & Choices and Not Dead Yet, are studied. The analysis concludes that the two organizations are more parallel than contrary—a finding that offers opportunities for dialogue and perhaps even advances in public policy.

One consequence of aging is diminished physical powers. In some cases, mental capabilities deteriorate, with concomitant rigidity of thought, impairment of intellect, emotional instability, and denial of disability (e.g., Post, 1980). Some have speculated that biological factors may have an effect on the political behavior of the elderly (see, e.g., G. Schubert, 1983). Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes (1960:262) note that decline of voter turnout with age is “… undoubtedly due to infirmities that make trips to the polling place more difficult.” Hudson and Binstock (1976:370) suggest that lowered participation “… may be interpreted in terms of physical declines….” Light (1981:2343) hypothesizes that “Health and mobility problems apparently prevent the elderly from topping the middle-aged in turnout.” On the other hand, Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980) find that with the introduction of controls for length of residence, income, education, and gender, the political effects of aging seem to disappear. However, no direct tests of the physical effects of aging upon the political orientations and behavior of the aged have appeared.

Human embryonic stem-cell (hESC) research offers substantial potential benefits but has generated politically influential controversies and, in the United States, funding restrictions. Some observers fear the United States has been falling behind nations more permissive in this field, but policy debate has remained largely anecdotal. This study reports citation data indicating that the share of hESC research publications credited to the United States in the six years following the introduction of key technologies was significantly less than in five less contentious biomedical-research areas. The United States share of hESC publications fell sharply in 2003 and remained near this reduced level in 2004. Putative explanations are reviewed and several implications discussed.