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This paper examines the implications of recent developments in U.S. intercountry adoption (ICA) policy for vulnerable children. We review policy and practices from 2004-2018, including (1) the 2008 implementation of the Hague Convention and (2) the 2017 changes in Hague accrediting entities for adoption agencies. By analyzing the ICA contexts of the top five States of origin, we argue the decline in ICA is from factors within States of origin rather than U.S. policy. Though ICA benefits individual children's development, it can cause harm at a systems level, so the decline in ICA has mixed implications for vulnerable children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a statement of the American Geriatrics Society's (AGS) core policy priorities and the Society's positions on federal programs and policies that support older Americans as articulated to the new administration. Among the AGS priorities discussed in this paper are health reform, Medicare, and Medicaid. The AGS is committed to leveraging its expertise to inform regulatory and legislative policy proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a personal memoir of historical work at the Addiction Research Unit, in particular the genesis of the book Opium and the People. This topic had policy significance for US drug policy and a competing US study was funded. The development of the substance use history field is surveyed, and its expansion in recent times through a focused professional association and a critical mass of researchers in the area, covering a wide range of topics. The politics of using history in this area can be problematic. History now sits at the policy table more easily, but there is still a tendency for professionals in the field to use (and misuse) it, rather than calling on the interpretive and challenging approach they would obtain from professional historians. The paper calls for historians and others to move beyond a substance specific focus and to avoid the tendency for 'naive history' implicit in using only digitized industry archives as the sole source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the historical formation of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) in the United States and argues that programme emergence depended on the ability of policy entrepreneurs to link the economic concerns of agricultural production with the ideational concern of national security. Using a historical institutionalist framework this paper stresses the critical juncture of the Second World War and the positive feedback loop created between agricultural industries and schools to understand the emergence of the NSLP. In addition, it stresses the role of frames in policy-making and focuses on the use by policy entrepreneurs of a security frame whereby child malnutrition was cast as a national security issue. The policy window of war gave policy entrepreneurs the chance to use the politically and culturally resonant frame of security, in the contexts of agricultural subsidies, to push for the creation of this programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a case study of Transition House in Cambridge, MA, a pioneering feminist agency founded in 1976. Transition House has survived and is, today, a thriving agency. Based on interviews with and papers collected from those involved in founding and running it, as well as a few guests/clients, I argue that Transition House's evolution was impelled by three major forces shared with other early domestic violence agencies: changes in the culture due in part to successes of the battered women's movement in the early years, changes in the larger political-economic context due to national policies and economic trends, which make getting out of poverty in 2017 more difficult than it was in the 1970s, and learning from survivors and from evolving research on domestic violence. In 1976, the immediate focus was on women "battered" by their partners, and the agency was strongly identified with the women's movement. In 2017, the focus is on women who are battered by economic and social conditions as much as by their partners, and the agency is seen as a partner with the city and with other nonprofit agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of economic downturns for states’ redistributive politics. We track state policies from 1980 through 2010 and illustrate how economic downturns led states to adopt budget-balancing policies by suppressing both the increased spending on programs benefiting the poor otherwise expected under Democratic Party control and the tax cuts for the wealthy otherwise expected under Republican Party control. We also undertake a natural experiment case study—comparing the forty Democratic and Republican governors in office right before (2007–2008) and after (2009–2010) the onset of the Great Recession. We find that Republican governors were less likely to propose spending and increased calls for spending cuts; yet, no similar shift in tax proposals was evident with continued calls for tax cuts to the wealthy. Democratic governors exhibited a similar pattern, but were less responsive and more likely to maintain their earlier policy proposals even after a significant downturn in the national economy. Together, these findings highlight how economic and political conditions interact with one another to shape “who gets what, when, and how from government,” as well as clarify that we must ask and answer these questions separately for taxing and spending to capture the complex politics of redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the history of New York City’s Greenmarket program, a municipal farmers market program designed to bring fresh local food to New Yorkers as well as to prevent the loss of regional farmland to increasing suburbanization. In the 38 years since it was established, Greenmarket has expanded from a single location with 7 vendors to 195 vendors selling at fifty-three markets across all five boroughs. This paper traces tensions created by the program’s growth, its shifting place in the city’s food retail environment, and its current renewed commitment to the original goals. Drawing on primary documents, New York Times articles, and other popular press, this paper presents a comprehensive history of NYC’s Greenmarket, describes its unique position in New York City, and ability to serve as a model for other cities’ food planning efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Economists have long embraced the idea that services provided by nature have inherent economic value. Ecologists, other scientists, and many in the environmental advocacy community have more recently come to focus on the connection between natural systems and economic value. The broadening interest in the economic value of nature over the last two decades led to the emergence of the interrelated and now commonly used terms ecosystem services and natural capital. To inform Canadian policy, this paper discusses some of the efforts that have been enacted elsewhere, with particular emphasis on those in the United States, and why some have been more successful than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though scholars have developed theoretically rich and empirically sophisticated accounts of presidential behavior within the modern era, it is less clear whether these insights shed light on presidents who served in earlier periods of history. In this paper, I sketch an outline of the incentive structures faced by late- nineteenth-century presidents that focuses on their contributions to party building and use county-level data from 1876 to 1896 to show that presidents' core partisan constituencies were disproportionate recipients of federal post offices. While presidential incentives may have differed across history, presidents appeared to be well positioned to act upon them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how financial deregulation and the partisan underpinnings of deregulation shaped the path of income inequality in the United States. Using time-series data from 1914 to 2010, we assess the effect of partisan politics on financial deregulation and, in turn, the effect of deregulation on income inequality. We find that financial deregulation has generally declined when Democrats attain more power in Washington and that deregulation has contributed to rising inequality. We also learn that the partisan effect on deregulation has diminished since the early 1980s, suggesting that one way partisan politics has contributed to the recent rise in inequality is related to convergence on matters of financial deregulation. We explore several potential explanations for this post–1980 partisan convergence, finding evidence supporting the idea that globalization, the increasing availability of credit, and shifts in campaign finance were contributing factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over time, there have been considerable changes in the variety, availability, production, distribution, and use and user(s) of psychoactive substances, the meaning of substance use and its impact on users and their social or physical environment(s). This article reviews the mechanisms of introduction of psychoactive substances such as alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea and cannabis to populations and communities that did not have them before. It considers the historical tension between early adopters who greet new substances with various levels of enthusiasm in their eagerness to enjoy what they believe to be the benefits of using these substances, and those focused on what they believe to be the negative aspects of use, who decry these new substances with horror. With more nonusers than users in the population, social policies tend to be directed at preventing, restricting, or punishing selected use, users and .drugs., using controls and interventions such regulation, incarceration, death sentence, treatment, prevention, legalization, taxation, among others. Whatever their intent or wished-for impact, all had consequences that produced additional, unplanned for, and (often) negative effects. This paper will consider some of these sequences as they occurred historically with other substances in light of the current shift to legalization and normalization of cannabis, noting the mechanisms of use, controls, and consequences of some types of formal interventions and give some attention to how and what we can learn from our experiences in order to plan ahead and become better prepared to successfully deal with the ‘unexpecteds’ of that well-known ‘hell’ paved with good intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For many Japanese people, the 49th parallel was only a line on a map, yet there were differences for the Japanese residents in the United States and Canada. The two nations had different concepts of citizenship and constitutions but, in what has been called “hemispheric orientalism,” prejudice knew no border. Both countries severely restricted immigration from Japan. In the United States, immigrants, the Issei, were aliens ineligible for citizenship. Thus, states could deny their access to commercial fishing and the right to own or lease land. Because the American constitution bestows full citizenship on the native-born, their American-born children, the Nisei, could vote and acquire land, but experienced discrimination especially in employment. On paper, the Canadian Issei had more civil rights since they could become naturalized but this provided few advantages apart from the rights to own land and to fish commercially. The Canadian Nisei had no more rights than their parents. In British Columbia, where 95 percent of the Japanese lived, they could not vote and provincial laws and customs denied their access to many occupations. During the Second World War, both nations required all the Nikkei to leave the Pacific Coast, incarcerated some, severely restricted the mobility of others, and proposed to “repatriate” many of them to Japan. Drawing mainly on the previous scholarship which has examined specific themes, time periods, or comparisons, this article offers an overview of how between the 1890s and the 1940s the effects of prejudice varied more in detail and timing than in principle even though formal consultation between the two nations was sporadic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While establishing a framework for colonial governance in the Philippines, American policymakers had to confront the issue of opium smoking, which was especially popular among the Philippine Chinese community. In 1903, the Philippine Commission proposed a return to the Spanish-era policy of controlling the opium trade through tax farming, igniting outrage among American Protestant missionaries in the Philippines and their supporters in the United States. Their actions revived a faltering global anti-opium movement, leading to a series of international agreements and domestic restrictions on opium and other drugs. Focusing mostly on American policy in the Philippines, this paper also examines the international ramifications of a changing drug control regime. It seeks to incorporate the debate over opium policy into broader narratives of imperial ideology, international cooperation, and local responses to colonial rule, demonstrating how a variety of actors shaped the new drug-control regimes both in the Philippines and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of the phrase 'basic research' as a term used in science policy discussion dates only to about 1920. At the time the phrase referred to what we today commonly refer to as applied research in support of specific missions or goals, especially agriculture. Upon the publication of Vannevar Bush's well-known report, Science - The Endless Frontier, the phrase 'basic research' became a key political symbol, representing various identifications, expectations and demands related to science policy among scientists and politicians. This paper tracks and evaluates the evolution of 'basic research' as a political symbol from early in the 20th century to the present. With considerable attention having been paid to the on-going evolution of post-Cold War science policy, much less attention has focused on the factors which have shaped the dominant narrative of contemporary science policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the history of American support for Iranian counter-narcotics policy between 1945 and 1989. In particular, it explores the general failings of Tehran's attempt to ban the domestic production and consumption of opium. The significance of this period is two-fold. First, this essay argues that American-backed efforts to combat the opium trade in Iran highlighted the detrimental effects narcotics had upon both state and society in Iran. Second, it suggests that the Iranian ban upon narcotics helped to stimulate a rise in Afghan opium production before the Soviet invasion of 1979. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of monetary freedom, the decreasing value of the U.S. dollar and the author's assertion that the U.S. Federal Reserve is unconstitutional. The author contends that the global financial system is reliant upon a false trust in the U.S. paper dollar, and that the purchasing power of the dollar is decreasing due to elevations in consumer prices. The author discusses various additional contributing factors that threaten monetary freedom and affect failing U.S. monetary policy, including the lack of congressional oversight, the danger of inflation and excessive governmental control regarding competition in currencies.

ABSTRACT Both human research and animal research operate within established standards and procedures. Although the human research environment has been criticized for its sometimes inefficient and imperfect process, reported abuses of human subjects in research served as the impetus for the establishment of the Nuremberg Code, Declaration of Helsinki, and the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the resulting Belmont Report. No similar, comprehensive and principled effort has addressed the use of animals in research. Although published policies regarding animal research provide relevant regulatory guidance, these policies have not emerged from the process of specifying consistent and reasoned ethical principles. The lack of a fundamental effort to explore the ethical issues and principles regarding the use of animals in research has led to unclear and disparate policies. Recent studies have increased our understanding of animal cognition and emotion, suggesting that animals' potential for experiencing a wide variety of harms, such as pain and fear, is greater than has been previously appreciated. Furthermore, relationships between methods of captivity and certain laboratory procedures and the resulting adverse physical, social and psychological effects have been established. In light of this information, current protections may need to be reconsidered and modified. This paper explores the historical convergence and divergence in the creation of human and animal research guidelines, as well as opportunities to align ethical frameworks with new scientific discoveries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the potential long-term legacy of abstinence-only discourses in the USA in order to consider the extent of the changes that might actually occur as a consequence of the 2009 presidential election. It first provides a brief overview of the history of discourses regarding youth sexuality and sex education over the past 30 years in the USA to underline the evolution towards a discourse on teenage sexuality as 'risk' behaviour. It will then examine the cultural support in the USA for sex education approaches that, while not necessarily focused on abstinence only, privilege abstinence as the most desirable behaviour and thus fail to or avoid underlining the pleasurable dimension of sexuality and the legitimacy young people have in seeking it. Finally, hypotheses on the possible evolution of discourses on youth sexuality in the USA will be formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1915 and 1920,18 U.S. states considered the introduction of compulsory health insurance. Progressive reformers expected state health insurance to be welfare enhancing for American wage-workers since it would result in lower cost insurance and an extension of coverage to more of the population. The evidence presented in this paper indicates that the absence of broad political support for health insurance legislation in this early period reflects that compulsory insurance would not have improved on what was available and affordable through voluntary arrangements and had the potential to reduce the welfare of wage-earners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the concept of 'land use planning' is now firmly enmeshed in American urban planning, its meaning still remains vague. This paper aims to clarify the meaning by examining the historical development of land use planning in the USA. At the beginning of the twentieth century, city planners viewed a city as an organic unit of public facilities. While city planning thereafter provided potential elements of land use planning, such as zoning, zoning surveys and land use classification systems, the idea of land use planning itself was actually derived from rural county planning and was initially utilized in urban county planning as a guide for zoning in the 1930s. After bringing about a change in the way cities were viewed, that is, as a pattern of land use and population density, land use planning was further employed as a guide for urban redevelopment policies in the 1940s, and finally reaching full integration into city planning in the 1950s and 1960s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]