Threat and Right‐Wing Attitudes: A Cross‐National Approach

Threat relates to right‐wing ideological attitudes at the individual level. The present study aims to extend this relationship to the national level. More specifically, in a sample of 91 nations, we collected country‐level indicators of threat (including inflation, unemployment, gross national product, homicide rate, and life expectancy). Moreover, we analyzed data from the European and World Value Survey (total N = 134,516) to obtain aggregated country‐level indicators for social‐cultural and economic‐hierarchical right‐wing attitudes for each of these countries. In accordance with previous findings based on the individual level, a positive relationship between threat indicators and right‐wing attitudes emerged. This relationship was stronger than what was usually reported at the individual level. In the discussion, we focus on the mutually reinforcing influence at the individual and national levels in terms of right‐wing attitudes.     

Voting and Values: Reciprocal Effects over Time

Two studies investigated reciprocal effects of values and voting. Study 1 measured adults' basic values and core political values both before (n = 1379) and following (n = 1030) the 2006 Italian national election. Both types of values predicted voting. Voting choice influenced subsequent core political values but not basic values. The political values of free enterprise, civil liberties, equality, law and order, military intervention, and accepting immigrants changed to become more compatible with the ideology of the chosen coalition. Study 2 measured core political values before (n = 697) and following (n = 506) the 2008 Italian national election. It largely replicated the reciprocal effects of voting and political values of Study 1. In addition, it demonstrated that left‐right ideology mediated the reciprocal effects of voting and political values. Moreover, voter certainty moderated these effects. Political values predicted vote choice more weakly among undecided than decided voters, but voting choice led to more value change among undecided voters.     

Schadenfreude and just world belief

The present study tested the hypothesis that a threat of a just world belief intensifies experience of schadenfreude (i.e., pleasure at another's misfortune). The participants read scenarios which were designed to threaten or maintain their just world belief. Subsequently, they were transferred to an online magazine presenting funny stories about other peoples' failures. As presumed, the participants exposed to the threat of just world belief spent more time on reading. These results confirmed the existence of a link between just world threat and schadenfreude.     

Origin Stories: Same-Sex Sexuality and Christian Right Politics

In this paper, we examine dominant Christian conservative narratives of the origins of same-sex sexuality. Critics of the Christian right usually focus on a narrative of choice that Christian right organisations and activists use to explain the origins of same-sex sexuality. A choice narrative grounds a range of political positions and, in many contexts, effectively neutralises both claims of discrimination and public support for potential legal remedies. On the other hand, a narrative of development receives less attention from critics of the Christian right. Although it cannot be reduced to its political efficacy, the narrative of development has a political as well as therapeutic function. Indeed, this narrative circulates tacitly through a different set of public debates than those usually associated with the narrative of choice, including debates over programmes geared to eliminate antigay harassment in public schools. The two narratives create tensions within Christian conservative thought that can destabilise antigay social and political projects.     

Are all experiences of fit created equal? Two paths to persuasion

Regulatory fit influences the effectiveness of persuasion through two paths: 1) a “feeling right” as “feeling good about the target” effect where feeling right is a positive feeling that transfers positivity directly to the target, similar to “feelings as information” or fluency effects, and 2) a “feeling right” as “feeling confident about the evaluation” effect where feeling right is feeling confident about one's evaluative judgments of the target that increases reliance on those evaluations. We propose that the involvement with an attitude-related issue in a persuasion message is one key factor that determines when each effect will occur. Five studies demonstrate that under high involvement, fit increased reliance on evaluative reactions to the target, making a target of a positive advocacy message evaluated as more positive and a target of a negative advocacy message evaluated as more negative; and under low involvement, fit increased the positivity of feelings toward the target regardless of the valence of the message advocacy, making the evaluation of the target more positive for either a positive or negative advocacy message.     

From world hunger to food sovereignty: food ethics and human development

The role of Amartya Sen's early work on famine notwithstanding, food security is generally seen as but one capability among many for scholars writing in development ethics. The early literature on the ethics of hunger is summarized to show how Sen's Poverty and Famines was written in response to debates of past decades, and a brief discussion of food security as a capability follows. However, Sen's characterization of smallholder food security also supports the development of agency in both a political and an economic sense. Economic agency is discussed and tied to longstanding literatures on the moral significance of farming within political economy. Finally, while the newly emergent literature on food sovereignty includes many themes, it is shown to be re-articulating arguments that stress smallholder's economic agency as a development goal. This pattern of argument thus provides a way to reconcile at least some of the claims being advanced under the banner of food sovereignty with the human development approach, while also restoring food ethics to a more central place in the overall discourse of development ethics.     

卫生行政强制与相对人自主权行使的道德缓冲

从卫生行政强制保护公共卫生利益与相对人自主权行使存在的矛盾出发,讨论建立道德缓冲机制解决两者间矛盾的必要性、可能性。阐述卫生行政执法者通过职业道德建设与人文精神关怀,以缓冲执法违法;相对人以道德约束缓冲自主权滥用。     

Getting it Right

In addition to noting significant differences of interpretation between me and Kristopher Norris on understanding classic just war thought and judging its importance, this Comment flags errors of fact and faulty logic in the Norris essay.     

JUST WAR THEORY,HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION,AND THE NEED FOR A DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self‐defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth‐century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the “just authority” of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near‐unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions.