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The American president’s foreign policy agenda represents a complex mix of policy preferences driven both by necessity and choice. It would seem that, given the ability of other actors to substantially influence the nature of the president’s foreign policy agenda, and given the president’s own limited time, attention and expertise, the president’s ability to put issues on his foreign policy agenda would be fairly circumscribed. However, is this necessarily the case? In fact, we argue and show that presidents are able to manipulate the foreign policy agenda and make tactical choices regarding when to emphasize foreign policy issues in order to advance their policy preferences. We argue that presidents’ weekly radio addresses to the nation represent one such expression of presidential agenda-setting that scholars have largely neglected. It is our contention that presidents use these speeches to direct or redirect domestic attention away from some issues and toward others. We model the president’s foreign policy agenda, as expressed in the choice of issues selected for the weekly radio addresses, as a function of the president’s policy preferences regarding the US domestic political environment and the international environment and other key factors.

This paper presents findings from a randomized field-training experiment designed to study the impact TASERs on police officers’ use-of-force decisions. Officers were randomly assigned to either a treatment group (with TASERs) or a control group (without TASERs) and then participated in training scenarios involving different levels of suspect resistance. The study investigates whether and to what extent officers armed with the TASER use it as an alternative to other types of less-lethal force (e.g., empty hands, pepper spray, and the baton) and the firearm, controlling for the level of suspect resistance. The findings indicate that officers who were armed with the TASER were significantly less likely to deploy pepper spray and the baton in response to aggressive physical resistance. Additionally, the results show that officers equipped with the TASER were less likely to discharge their firearm when confronted with suspect resistance that was potentially lethal. No differences in police behavior occurred in response to passive suspect resistance.

In his influential work Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdige wrote, Subcultures represent 'noise' (as opposed to sound): interference in the orderly sequence which leads from real events and phenomena to their representation in the media. We should therefore not underestimate the signifying power of the spectacular subculture not only as a metaphor for potential anarchy 'out there' but as an actual mechanism of semantic disorder: a kind of temporary blockage in the system of representatio n. Much of the attraction of subcultures comes from the possibility they olTer for reimagining the social landscape. Far distant from the prevailing norms of society, subcultural practices disrupt its smooth exploitative and demeaning workings. Punks, beats, mods, metalheads, ravers, hippies, and others have found on thc margins a space of authentic transformation and sometimes autonomy, offering to the rest of the world a performative critique of its dull and hypocritical patterns. Hebdige's analysis of the "noise" produced by subcultures has deeply influenced the field of cultural studies; yet, it also runs the risk of overestimatin g the value of semantic as opposed to social innovation. The signifying behaviors embedded in subcultures have often been sufficiently transparent to make them readily available for appropriation; subcultures have served as fertile ground for trendspotters ready to bring the newest style to market. Stability is also a problem: disobedient individuals may abandon the difficult project of social transformation for mere signifying practices. And, they all too often glide smoothly back into the dominant culture once their years of butting heads with authority become tiresome. This should come as no surprise. The 1970s counter-revolution effectively smashed the transformative and revolutionary hopes of the radical 1960s, ushering in the age of Reagan-Thatcher conservatism. In response, disenchanted youth found themselves limited primarily to apolitical or pre-political spaces. Whereas the 1960s heralded a Cultural Revolution on a global scale, the subcultures that emerged in its wake were forced to carve out individualized, local spaces (for example. Temporary Autonomous Zones or TAZs) in which their signifying practices of resistance would be encouraged and protected. Lines were sharply drawn between and even within competing subcultures, as demanded by survival and influenced by the broader hyper-individualism then rampant in society. By the end ofthe 1990s, however, a new phenomenon began to emerge. With thc rise of a global movement against neoliberalism, sparked in 1994 by thc Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico and culminating in the massive protests

We develop a model of public evaluations of U.S. foreign policies that emphasizes the role of core values and informational cues as a means to explain how the public renders judgments on complex issues. We argue that the public will most fundamentally be concerned with presidential success in maintaining U.S. peace and security and will rely heavily on presidential activities and media coverage of foreign policy events.