Researchers combined employment and demographic data from the Norwegian Registry from 1988 to 2006 with health data from two population surveys that examined Norwegian citizens around their 40^th birthdays. Both of the health datasets included a background questionnaire on behaviors as well as a physical examination. Due to Norway’s comprehensive population surveys, researchers had panel data on employment status for individuals in all years that could be matched with detailed health data from a single examination for any given individual.

Researchers compared average health outcomes for those identified as suffering a job displacement through firing or plant closure with a control group of workers who remained employed throughout the study. They used a difference-in-differences technique to examine relative changes in health outcomes after a displacement, which accounted for the fact that health data only existed for any individual worker at one point in time. The research design controlled for a variety of characteristics including education level, IQ, and earnings before displacement and was able to isolate the effect of job loss on several health outcomes. These included an indicator for heart disease from the Framingham Risk Score, as well as measures of cholesterol levels and whether the individual smoked.

Workers who experienced job loss tended to have shorter job tenure and less education than the control group, but were otherwise similar. On average, researchers found job displacement caused a statistically significant increase in the Framingham Risk Score for both men and women. Most of this occurred due to changes in behavior; holding other factors constant, job displacement increased the likelihood an individual was a smoker by two percent for men and three percent for women. Displacement also appeared to increase cholesterol levels for both men and women, although this was not statistically significant. Researchers found little evidence of health or behavioral spillover effects onto the spouses of displaced workers. The hardest hit workers, identified as those whose plant shut down, saw their cardio-vascular risk increase most dramatically.

The researchers identified measurable impacts on health, though two to three percent increases in smoking rates may not appear very dramatic. The authors suggest a need for additional research on the impact of unemployment on individual outcomes. Researchers lacked access to before- and after-job-loss health data on individuals, which could have more clearly identified the individual effects of job loss. Additionally, Norway’s generous social benefits including high unemployment insurance and universal health-care may reduce the financial and health impact of job displacement and suggest that this study’s results represent a lower bound on the effect of job losses on health. A comparable study in the US, where unemployment often results in loss of health insurance and a large decrease in expected future earnings, might find more substantial health effects. Policy-makers should take into account the potential for costly changes in the health of vulnerable populations during times of high unemployment.

Feature Photo: cc/Danya Vershinin

To analyze the gender gap in agricultural production worldwide, the authors use data from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization’s Rural Income Generating Activities (RIGA) database. Analyzing data from 16 developing countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, they compare male-headed households and female-headed households who rely on agriculture as their primary source of income. Croppenstedt et al. specifically explore the different levels of agricultural output and differing levels of participation in the commercial agricultural market between male and female farmers.

The authors find that female farmers are neither less industrious nor less skilled in relation to their male counterparts, but fall victim to several barriers that diminish their agricultural productivity. For example, legal structures or cultural norms often prevent women from accessing and owning farmland. In addition, women are less likely to use mechanization in their farming techniques, and they harvest fewer lucrative cash crops, such as tobacco or maize, compared with men. They also observe that women farmers have lower levels of education than male farmers, which may limit their ability to take up new technologies.

Many women in developing countries lack access to credit. The authors find this is particularly detrimental to agricultural productivity. Lacking financial resources to invest in agricultural inputs, women farmers are less likely to use chemical fertilizer and hybrid seeds or to hire seasonal labor. Furthermore, the authors state that women farmers are less likely to benefit from public agriculture programs, such as government-sponsored coupons for inputs and public extension services, which provide out-of-school training and education to farmers. They observe a “bias of service delivery toward men, which stems from the belief that men are the decision-makers and women are marginal farmers.” Moreover, extension services are typically aimed toward large commercial farms, rather than shareholder farms typically managed by women.

Notably, the gender gap in agricultural output and market participation does not decline as a country’s wealth increases. Thus, the authors warn, even as countries become more prosperous, women will likely continue to fall victim to the productivity trap.

Given these findings, Croppenstedt et al. recommend several policy reforms to shrink the gender gap in agricultural production in the developing world. They argue, for example, that increasing access to credit and educational opportunities for women could significantly improve agricultural productivity among female farmers. They also note that women’s empowerment groups can serve as an important source of information and social capital for women farmers. The authors conclude, “The policy response must understand the roots of these problems and address causes at the roots rather than merely addressing symptoms.” In the absence of sound and sustainable policy change, however, women farmers will likely continue to struggle to escape the productivity trap and lag behind their male counterparts.

Feature Photo: cc/ICRISAT

The theory behind health IT‘s effect on quality is simple. It suggests that the technologies will be used to automate rule-based treatment guidelines and protocols along with patient data to reduce errors and suggest treatments, especially for patients with fairly simple diagnoses.  Additionally, for patients with more complex conditions, information management and communications across different specialists will be improved, leading to better case management. The former was the basis for receiving subsidies under the 2009 HITECH act.

In the paper, the authors employed a difference in difference (DID) regression to control for unobservable effects across hospitals. They used adoption information from the Health Information Management System Society (HIMSS) to document timing of adoption of various types of health IT technology, such as electronic medical records and order entry systems along with discharge records from all Medicare patients at fee-for-service hospitals who had been admitted for acute myocardial infarctions (AMI), congestive heart failure (CHF), coronary atherosclerosis (CA), and pneumonia (PN). The data contain over 6.6 million observations, along with rich demographic and patient history information. They used the data to construct patient severity measures, indicating the degree of risk for mortality. Importantly, the rich dataset allowed for estimation of heterogeneous effects across diagnoses. The researchers utilized AMI as a control, as important decisions on treatment for heart attacks are standardized and do not utilize health IT as much.

When analyzing the data, the authors found no statistically significant improvement for the marginal patient. That is, those cases that were projected to benefit most from health IT expansion saw no effect on outcomes. However, for patients with more complex and severe cases, there was a statistically significant improvement in outcomes. For patients in the 60^th decile or higher of severity, health IT adoption was associated with a reduction in mortality in about 200 per every 100,000 admissions.  With specific diseases, IT adoption prevented deaths in 500 out of every 100,000 admissions of PN patients and 100 deaths for every 100,000 admissions for CA and CHF patients. Notably, IT adoption had no effect on the control diagnosis, AMI.

The authors also looked for positive network externalities, based on the idea that more widespread adoption of health IT would bring more effective use of the technology. While they found no statistically significant correlation, the indicator they used is the estimated impact of neighboring hospitals’ adoption rates. This may not be a good indicator, as these hospitals are not necessarily sharing information. A better indicator would utilize information about the amount of information shared about patients with primary care physicians and other specialists through health IT. A report by the Kaiser Family Foundation states that the lack of health IT system uniformity has limited its efficacy and gains to its adoption. Access to the primary care physicians’ information or information on how integrated the IT network is with local physicians and specialists would provide a wider range of the patients’ history and be more indicative of the benefits to sharing information.

While this study indicates little to no gains from health IT adoption, it focused on the Medicare population, who are older, more likely to have negative health outcomes, and are not necessarily representative of the effects on the general population. Another limitation is that the study focused only on four diagnoses and looked only at admitted patients at hospitals. As most health care is provided by general practitioners and family doctors, one would expect benefits to accumulate in these practices at a higher rate than at hospitals. Still, we may need to temper our expectations of the gains to health IT adoption. Widely accepted diagnoses and procedures are likely to be practiced by competent physicians regardless of the assistance provided by health IT systems. This study suggests that this is the case, although health IT provides some benefits to those patients with the most complicated diagnoses.

Photo cc: Positive Force Production...

Avi Jorisch, American Foreign Policy Council

Avi Jorisch is an expert on national security issues relating to terrorism, illicit finance, and radical Islam. He is the founder of Red Cell Intelligence Group, a firm that provides consulting and training services to the US government. In addition, Mr. Jorisch is a Senior Fellow for Counter-Terrorism at the American Foreign Policy Council and serves on the Advisory Board of United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI). Mr. Jorisch is the author of several books, including Iran’s Dirty Banking: How the Islamic Republic Skirts International Financial Sanctions (2010) and Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah’s al-Manar Television (2004).

In a 2011 article published in The National Interest, you state, “At the end of the day, organizations like Hizballah and Hamas really care not about the people of the region, but about amassing power and implementing their world vision.” Could you elaborate on how you perceive these organizations’ world vision? How has your thinking changed since 2011?

Ideologically, these organizations have not changed since their inception. If you look at their charters, and what they are today, they are pretty much the same organizations. Both Hamas and Hizballah wish to create Islamic Republics, states that are based on Islamic sharia law. Both of them also wish to gather power, play in elections, and essentially roll out their visions of an Islamic Republic.

Hizballah, which is a proxy for the Islamic Republic of Iran, wants to create states that are mullatocracies—that is, states run by the mullahs and based on principles of Islamic sharia law. Hamas also wishes to implement Islamic law, but with a Sunni interpretation. This would involve the implementation of a caliphate.

Unfortunately, my thinking has not changed since 2011. I have spent time with both Hizballah and Hamas, and I am intimately familiar with their ideologies. I also continue to monitor their radio and television stations and their print media, both in Arabic and in English.

How have organizations such as Hamas and Hizballah used the media as a platform to transmit their message? More specifically, could you speak about your efforts to expose the link between al-Manar, a Lebanese television station, and these organizations?

Both organizations have a tremendous presence online and in the print media. Al-Manar is an Iranian-funded and Hizballah-run Shiite television station that reaches around 20 to 25 million viewers a day. It is a massive media outlet that essentially calls on its viewers to carry out suicide operations, attack American and coalition troops in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and implement Islamic sharia law. It also calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. I always like to say that al-Manar makes Al Jazeera look like a girl scout cookie infomercial.

Al-Manar is essentially terror television. I spent time with the organization in 2002 interviewing their officials, and if you read my first book, Beacon of Hatred, you’ll see the terrible, frightening messages that the news agency promotes. People in the United States and throughout the world should be aware of these types of messages and their potential impact on the next generation of Muslims and Arabs.

How has the recent surge in social media changed the way terrorist groups communicate their vision to the rest of the world?

Al-Manar uses all media outlets to communicate with its operatives in the field and to brainwash the population. This includes social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. It is a very powerful media organization, and it is waging psychological warfare in a way that is very alarming.

What strategy should the United States use in fighting these terrorist organizations?

First of all, we should call this a war against radical Islam, and note my choice of words here. One in every four persons in the world is a Muslim, so this is not a war against Islam but a war against a radical derivation of Islam—both Democrats and Republicans fail to understand this.

If you look at Republicans, President Bush called this a “war against terror.” This is nonsensical because we do not wage wars against tactics; we wage wars against countries and ideologies. In World War II, we did not fight against Japanese kamikazes or German U-boats, we fought against the Japanese Empire and against Nazism. If you look at the Democrats, the current administration refuses to acknowledge the link between radical Islam and terrorism.

The US government has not come to terms with the fact that we are fighting against a radical ideology—an ideology that emanates from Iran and Saudi Arabia. Until it does, we are spinning our wheels in the wrong direction.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the interviewer or this publication.

Special thanks to Chicago Friends of Israel and Blake Fleisher.

Feature Photo: cc/IsraelMFA’s

Robert Hormats, Under Secretary of State

Robert “Bob” Hormats was sworn in as Under Secretary of State on September 23, 2009. He was formerly vicechairman of Goldman Sachs (International), after joining Goldman Sachs in 1982. Bob also served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs from 1981 to 1982, Ambassador and Deputy US Trade Representative from 1979 to 1981, and Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs at the Department of State from 1977 to 1979. Bob was a recipient of the French Legion of Honor in 1982 and the Arthur Fleming Award in 1974. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned a BA with a concentration in economics and political science from Tufts University in 1965. He earned a MA in 1966 and a PhD in International Economics in 1970 from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

A new study is making waves after reporting that a higher unemployment rate is associated with lower political support for environmentally friendly policies. How can the United States, and the world, best achieve the twin goals of economic growth and environmental sustainability in the coming century?

Energy security and environmental protection are necessary components of sustainable economic growth that will lead to improved living standards in both the near and long terms.

There is a gradually emerging understanding that GDP may once have been an adequate measure of economic growth, but it is sometimes an inadequate measure of economic health. As we move deeper into the 21^st Century, more countries are recognizing that natural capital has an economic value, and that while our economic health is undoubtedly measured in growth and employment, it also is measured in the preservation (or depletion) of our natural and human capital.

Economic growth in the 20^th century was largely defined by improved utilization of labor. Cost per unit output was reduced by one of two ways: improving productivity — mainly through technological advancement — or utilizing cheaper sources of labor. For the most part, natural and environmental resources were not included in our economic calculus because these resources were thought to be so abundant that they could be treated as “free” goods. This way of thinking is now obviously false. Natural resources — energy, water, raw materials, clean air — are neither infinite nor free.

The quality of growth in the next century will be defined not by the rush for cheap labor but rather by sustainable management of natural resources — or, in economic terms, natural capital. Therefore, strong environmental standards and more efficient utilization of natural resources in production and other forms of economic activity can have a net positive economic influence by improving profitability, spurring demand for green technology, creating employment in new industries, and improving public health.

The United States’ environmental vision, for instance, took a turn for the better in the 1960s and 1970s with the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Some feared that that our economy would be weakened by these and subsequent laws, but this was not the case. Today, we have some of the cleanest air and water in the world. National air quality standards for the emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides from power plants alone have contributed to the creation of approximately 200,000 US jobs in the past seven years and to more than $37 billion in exports of environment control technology in 2010.

Moving to a green economy doesn’t mean sacrificing economic growth or creating fewer jobs. Transitioning to a green economy is an opportunity for American businesses to implement practices that are more responsible to their customers, reduce costs, improve our planet, and benefit shareholders. Using less energy, raw materials, and water per unit of output will lead to greater cost efficiency for firms in the medium to long term. This is an opportunity for American businesses to take leadership in natural resource efficiency and in the development of new technologies and services to produce cleaner energy and improve the environment.

On what areas specifically should businesses focus in the next decade to be globally competitive?

Companies need to examine all aspects of their operations, one of the most important being how they use energy and other natural resources. The central point is that eco-friendly and money saving are not mutually exclusive — in fact, often simple changes in a company’s operations can accomplish both.

Beginning in the 1990s, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and McDonald’s formed a public-private partnership to switch from foam-plastic sandwich boxes to paper-based sandwich wraps, eliminating some 300 million pounds of packaging waste over ten years. In addition, McDonald’s saved $6 million per year.

Similarly, in 2000, EDF began a collaboration with FedEx to develop a cleaner, more efficient delivery truck. FedEx now operates one of the largest hybrid fleets in the industry, with more than 1,800 alternative energy vehicles worldwide, including the first all-electric parcel delivery trucks in the United States. As a result, FedEx saved over 66 million gallons of fuel over the last 10 years.

EDF is not alone in this space. Indeed, many groups are engaged in efforts to make businesses more sustainable and more competitive. Organizations such as the US Green Building Council — a group of builders and environmentalists — are working to green and make more efficient companies’ infrastructure by designing buildings that will consume less energy, mitigate their environment impact, and cost less throughout their lifespan.

The Council’s “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” or LEED rating system is setting a high standard for buildings in the United States and is rapidly spreading to other countries. The United States is also an example – over a dozen US embassies are LEED certified, including Brazzaville, Dubai, and Monrovia, which earned the prestigious rating of LEED Gold.

What policies do you support in meeting these goals?

Innovation is absolutely critical for achieving a sustainable future. To foster innovation, governments need to develop markets that are open and competitive. They need to vigorously protect intellectual property rights so that entrepreneurs and innovators — in the United States, but also in China, India, and elsewhere — can reap profits for their efforts, thereby incentivizing more intellectual and financial investment for innovation. They need transparent, evidence-based regulatory systems, which are critical to consumer confidence and to providing a level playing field upon which businesses can compete. Governments must foster global collaboration in research and development because many of today’s challenges are simply too great to tackle alone. Additionally, governments need to strengthen the rule of law because innovation is stifled without transparent and unbiased regulations and laws, such as on intellectual property rights.

What efforts has your agency made to promote a clean, green economy in the 21st Century?

Through bilateral and multilateral fora such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), we are paving the way for clean energy and environmental sustainability to underpin economic growth both at home and abroad. Our engagement on these issues is broad and diverse. For example, we recently had a team of negotiators conclude a brand-new treaty to reduce global mercury pollution – an enormous benefit for the health of the children of the world, including of the United States. The treaty also has direct economic benefits because healthy workers are essential for a healthy economy.

Another example is the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, a voluntary, collaborative global partnership uniting governments, intergovernmental organizations, the private sector, and civil society to quickly reduce short-lived climate pollutants such as methane, black carbon, and many hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). Aggressive action on these pollutants could avoid over 30 million tons of annual crop losses by 2030, to name just one of the benefits. More than 30 countries have joined to date, as have more than 25 international organizations and non-governmental organizations.

Our Trade Agreements with countries, ranging from Colombia to Korea, for the first time include obligations to implement and enforce several important multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). These agreements are covering trade impacting endangered species, production of ozone depleting substances, and conservation of wetlands. To date, the United States has dedicated approximately $100 million to trade-related environmental cooperation. Our partner countries have improved over 140 environmental laws and regulations. We have worked with these governments, NGOs, and the private sector to improve private sector environmental performance. So far, companies we have worked with have invested approximately $1.3 million in environmental improvements, saving over 1.2 million gallons of water, 1 million kWh electricity, and 405,000 gallons of fuels per year – environmental and economic savings that will continue to grow in the future.

Feature Photo: cc/Ben Heine

Research has shown that when left untreated, depression in parents is associated with an increased risk for preterm births, and young children’s’ low birth weight, poor physical health, physical endangerment, and developmental, emotional, and mental health problems. Despite the breadth of knowledge available on the potential impacts of a parent’s or mother’s depression on her children, little is known about its national prevalence among low-income mothers and the subsequent rates of different types of treatment and their relationship to insurance status. As a part of the Urban Institute’s “Linking Depressed Mothers to Effective Services” project, Marla McDaniel and Christopher Lowenstein attempt to address this information deficiency in a recent research brief.

In order to examine and estimate national trends on depression and its treatment, the authors combined the three recent rounds of data (2008-2010) from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) with assistance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Within this data, they specifically focused on low-income mothers with young children, which is defined as a woman 18 years of age or older with a biological child under the age of six and an income below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

In terms of prevalence of major depression among low-income women as compared to higher-income women, a larger share of low-income women experienced a major depressive episode in the past year whereas the proportion experiencing major depression at one point in their lives does not vary by income. Approximately one in eleven low-income mothers with young children (or 8.8 percent) had major depression in the past year versus 7.5 percent of mothers across all income groups. Furthermore, low-income mothers were also more likely to have severe depressive symptoms that interfered with daily activities, with 69.7 percent of depressed low-income mothers compared to 54 percent of depressed higher-income mothers having a condition categorized as severe or very severe.

Similar patterns exist for treatment rates across different types of recommended treatments. Using a broadly defined definition for depression treatment, more than one-third of low-income mothers experiencing depression have not received prescription medication or therapy as a form of treatment. For higher-income mothers, the absence of these treatments is slightly smaller at 25.3 percent.

The report also found a relationship between insurance status and access to treatment. The lack of insurance resulted in much lower levels of treatment—51.6 percent of uninsured mothers with depression versus 66.9 percent of those insured with depression—although the level of severity remained relatively constant across groups with and without insurance. On the other hand, the authors estimated that low-income mothers on Medicaid had similar rates of treatments as mothers with private insurance.

Unfortunately, the authors note that the data is unable to address the quality and intensity of the treatment the mothers receive. They argue that while the data highlight the gaps in treating depression, the true severity of the situation could be worse since treatment is only effective if the mother goes into remission from the depression. Therefore, mothers—in particular low-income mothers—need access not only to treatment, but quality treatment in order to reduce a child’s risk for various health conditions. Nevertheless, the analysis provides an important first step in understanding how prevalent the situation is and the need to focus attention to mothers in poverty like the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Sheikh Abdul Aziz al Nuaimi, United Arab Emirates

Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Ali bin Rashid al Nuaimi, is the Environmental Advisor to the Ajman Government in the United Arab Emirates as well as the General Secretary of the Al Ihsan Charity Association. Known as the “Green Sheikh,” he is a member of one of the ruling royal families in the UAE. He spreads a message of environmental sustainability through his activities with World Green Citizen, the Global Initiative Towards a Sustainable Iraq, and the Zayed Environmental Impact Network at Zayed University UAE. He earned his bachelor’s degree at UAE University and a doctorate from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.

This week, Julie Cooper speaks with the Green Sheikh, Abdul Aziz al Nuaimi, about his work as an environmentalist and the importance of direct personal engagement for promoting a sustainable future.

Special thanks this week to the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago, Lydia Veliko, and Sohair Omar.

This podcast was produced by Julie Cooper and Drew Blacker.

The rulings of the ECtHR are not, in practice, binding since the Court’s rulings are imposed on sovereign states. However, the authors posit that there are certain mechanisms through which the ECtHR has power. A ruling against a state may prompt other states to change their policy so they are not targeted in the future, the authors argue. Furthermore, the legal opinions rendered by the Court may be persuasive to national judges and affect their rulings on domestic policy. Finally, the Court’s rulings set the agenda for policy debate; when there has been a ruling on an issue it prompts discussion that may lead to policy change.

Based on these arguments, the authors hypothesize that ECtHR rulings on gay rights may, at least in some cases, affect domestic policy. To test this hypothesis, they codify all of the court’s rulings over the past 60 years on five key LGBT issues: decriminalization of same-sex conduct, equalizing the age of consent for gay and straight individuals, allowing homosexuals to serve in the military, and allowing transgendered individuals to officially change their gender and to marry persons of the opposite biological sex. They also use a number of sources to build a data set of LGBT policies in the 47 CoE member countries.

The authors use these data to conduct a series of logit regressions to determine the relationship between international rulings and domestic policies. The regressions control for other factors that could influence domestic policy, like public opinion on LGBT issues. They also include data on domestic policies surrounding LGBT issues that were not ruled on by the ECtHR, like rules on anti-gay hate speech and gay adoption. This allows them to isolate the effects of the rulings themselves.

The authors find that on average a pro-LGBT ECtHR ruling increases the chances that a country will adopt a pro-LGBT policy by 14 percentage points in any given year. This correlation holds true for all CoE member countries, not just the specific country that was the target of the ruling. Furthermore, the rulings seem to have an effect even when the public is generally averse to LGBT rights. However, if the government is very conservative, religious, or nationalistic, an ECtHR ruling has no effect on LGBT policy. Thus, the regression suggests that ECtHR rulings can affect policy change, but only with a flexible, responsive government.

The authors do acknowledge some limitations to their conclusions. They point out that the ECtHR often cites social trends in its rulings, suggesting that the regression may have an issue with endogeneity. Furthermore, many of the member states are also members of the European Union (EU), which has its own LGBT policies. Member states’ responses to EU policies may be confounding the regression results. However, the authors still believe that the results are significant and that they have implications for the relationship between international organizations and their member states.

Feature Photo: cc/Tim Hamilton

Wallace conducted an experiment using two separate surveys of a random sample of American adults. The first, administered to 2,737 respondents in 2008, gave people a scenario involving a prisoner of war and asked about their approval of torture as a method to extract information. A random segment of respondents, the treatment group, were informed of the fact that torture is illegal under international law. Some were also told that the prisoners were “insurgents” and others were told that the prisoners’ government was abusing American POWs.

The results of the survey show that being informed of torture’s illegality had a significant negative effect on respondents’ opinions; 44 percent of the control group approved of torture versus only 38 percent of the treatment group. Furthermore, the effect was larger on those who had been told that the POWs were insurgents and those that were told that American POWs were being abused. Wallace suggests that this indicates that knowledge of international law has a dampening effect on the impulse for retaliation. However, these effects depend greatly on an individual’s ideology. The treatment reduced liberals’ approval of torture by 10 percentage points, but its effect on conservatives’ approval was statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Wallace also conducted a second survey in 2010 to parse out which aspects of international law resonate with the American public. He isolates three distinct aspects of the “legalization” of an international law: obligation (whether the law is binding), precision (how clearly and specifically a law defines key terms), and delegation (whether a third party, like the World Trade Organization, has the right to enforce a law). The second survey of 6,101 respondents again asked their opinion on torture while emphasizing different aspects of international law.

Wallace finds that the level of obligation has no discernible effect on public opinion, whereas respondents who were told that international law has a high level of precision were eight percentage points less likely to approve of torture than those who were told that the language is imprecise. Delegation also has a negative effect; being told that there is a high level of delegation reduced approval by five percentage points.

The survey again shows marked differences in response depending on a respondent’s ideology; conservatives were much more likely to be influenced by high levels of legalization. Being told that international law has a high degree of precision reduced conservatives’ approval rating by nine percentage points, versus four for liberals; and being told there are high levels of delegation reduced conservatives’ approval rating by six percentage points, while the effect on liberals was statistically insignificant.

Wallace believes that his analysis provides strong evidence to support the importance of domestic opinion in international law. He also argues that his results highlight the importance of political ideology in how domestic groups respond to foreign policy; only highly-legalized treaties are capable of shifting conservative preferences. However, he cautions that more work needs to be done to investigate the robustness of his findings in different scenarios.

Feature Photo: cc/jmtimages

Bev Perdue, North Carolina’s 73rd Governor

Bev Perdue served as North Carolina’s 73rd governor from 2009 to 2013. She was the state’s first female governor. Before holding the governorship, she served for a decade as the state’s lieutenant governor, a decade as a state senator, and four years in the state’s House of Representatives. She holds a PhD in education administration from the University of Florida and is a champion of education across all levels in North Carolina, but particularly in early childhood education.

You have been a proponent of early childhood education throughout your time in the North Carolina government. What inspires you to continue to advocate for this policy issue?

I continue to believe it’s the most important investment that we make as a people in the future. Making sure that every child in the country has a shot at being somebody starts with education. Kids from at-risk families, low-income children, and other kinds of social challenges—those children need the same kinds of access as kids of means.

The other side of the coin that I don’t think people think much about is that if you spend quality time, energy, and money on helping a two-, three-, or four-year-old level the playing field, by the time they enter a public or a private kindergarten, they’re not going to bring down the kids who had other opportunities. At the end of the day, it behooves all parents—parents who can afford it or parents who can’t afford it—to support early childhood education.

In December of 2011, North Carolina was one of only nine states to be awarded a share of the Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge funds ($500 million) for early childhood education. How did you all accomplish this, and what lessons can other states take away?

I put really bright people in charge of it. I believed my whole career in finding the brightest people with the most varied backgrounds to come together and build consensus around an outcome.

The public sector, the private sector, and the academic sector were very involved. We developed a plan that I think blew out Arne Duncan and the Department of Education. We have Race to the Top-Early Childhood and we are one of 12 with Race to the Top. We developed a continuum where we can start working with the child as soon as they enter the system, all the way through graduate school and college. The plan in how you invest, how you follow, and how you enrich children from pre-K all the way through college completion is really seamless in North Carolina.

The Feds understood that and wanted to be a part of having a data-driven, outcomes-based, early childhood initiative. Again, I believe very strongly in the metrics. If you’re going to give me $200 million, I need to be able to prove to you at the end of the day that it was $200 million well invested. Our system does that.

In October of 2012 you issued an executive order to authorize the expansion of the North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten program to serve up to 6,300 more children by the first of this year, bringing the number of these children served to around 31,000. Why was this necessary, despite winning a share of the Race to the Top–Early Learning Challenge funds?

The Early Learning funds weren’t continuation funds. There were very specific uses of the money that were outlined in the grant proposal, and none of those uses were providing absolute, direct childcare or child educational care. I had to figure out a way to do it.

I believe strongly in pre-K. Everybody knows I do. The courts in our state had ruled that pre-K access is a constitutional right in North Carolina. It didn’t rule that it had to be a certain income. It just said eligible children have the constitutional right, so the legislature was bound by the courts to move forward with the further investment, and they refused.

I visited communities and saw what was going on in the pre-Ks. I saw the difference that this kind of opportunity made for a three- or four-year-old. I figured it was the most important decision that I could make that month. I took a risk. The lawyers weren’t sure. I had the courts’ ruling, and my team was divided. But again, you know what your core values are, and you just go for it. At the end of the day, there have been about 12,000 kids who last year benefitted from a pre-K experience that they wouldn’t have had but for that decision. That’s worth the risk.

If policy makers want investments in early childhood education to work, arguments can be made to also invest in parents in regards to parenting skills. What are the challenges associated with investing in parents? 

The challenge is just making people understand the reason. One of the biggest disappointments of my term as governor was there was no money. There was no way to do what I wanted to do. One of the first things I’d intended to do was establish a nurse family practitioner program. Anytime a mother and dad, or mother or dad, had a baby, there would be somebody who would actually work with them in the hospital and actually go home to help them learn parenting skills.

I harken back to the dark ages when I was a young mama. I had an education. I had friends. I had a social system that worked for me. I had a good income. But I didn’t have parenting skills, and I was scared to death, and I wasn’t really good at it. I didn’t know what I was doing initially. I think that must be the feeling of every young mom and dad in the country.

Our country is one of the very few that doesn’t offer some kind of prop-up, if you will—a safety net or assistance around that experience. That would make that whole family unit stronger.

In his State of the Union address in February, President Obama proposed “working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.” What conditions are necessary for this to happen, and what challenges does North Carolina face?

I think all states face a bucket of challenges around resources and access—around just the capacity. It’s tough to build capacity quickly for that many four-year-olds in America. That was one of the biggest challenges. We set ours up so that it was open to public and private providers.

But if I’m a public school in a rural community, and my school is already bursting at the seams, and I’ve got mobile units in the back, how am I going to set up a four-year-old pre-K program, even if I have the money? I don’t have the space. If I have the space, I may not have the trained teachers, because again, in our state we require certification from pre-school teachers. Those kinds of logistical issues are problematic across America.

I think the president’s endorsement, his passion, and his awareness of the returns on early childhood education has sent a message not just in the public sector but also around the country. Head Start has not been nearly as academic as what the administration is talking about and what we have talked about in North Carolina. I don’t believe that pre-K, or pre-school education if it starts at three, should be just go play and learn to color. I think there have to be some metrics, some deliverables, so that we will know what the stated outcomes are—what the results are for the children. Data-driven again, in terms of returns on investment—that’s a real challenge for states. It’s a challenge for North Carolina.

President Obama is set to tour the country in the coming weeks to raise support for investing in early childhood education (in addition to support for the middle class). Will it be enough to convert people into advocates of early childhood education? If not, who does the burden fall on to convert people into advocates? Parents? Teachers? People in policy school?

I think it’s all three, but it’s also the business leaders of the country. I believe that just as business leaders are finally speaking out on immigration reform and the need to keep really bright and talented people from around the world in this country’s workforce, there needs to be a very involved and committed role from the business community around early childhood learning.

It behooves them because these children are their future workers. They have a real return on investments. I really hope that the president’s moving around the country will make the difference it should make.

But if what’s gone on in Washington is indicative of what will go on in Washington, regardless of his passion and his energy, there still seems to be unwillingness among the political leaders of our country to make decisions around monetary issues. I think that’s dangerous for America.

Feature Photo: cc/catd_mitchell