Abstract:

This paper provides an account of the strategies of extortion and co-optation used by drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) toward civil society in Mexico. Our theoretical approach focuses on levels of territorial contestation among armed actors, as well as state capture by DTOs, to explain variation in co-opting or coercing civil society. Through the use of list experiments in a nationally representative survey, the paper measures extortion and assistance by DTOs in Mexico. We find that territorial contestation among rival DTOs increases predation on civil society while reducing DTOs assistance, which is found to occur in uncontested municipalities. Additionally, we find that extortion is higher in municipalities where DTOs have captured the state. These results suggest that territorial contestation and state capture are important in determining the strategy toward civil society during drug wars.

Speaker Bio:

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Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record by default. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication.

Over the last several decades, Emergency Medical Service (EMS) has become an important component of health care service. The main performance indicator in the EMS setting is the response time, i.e. the time to reach the patient once an ambulance is requested. Policy makers adopt a response time criteria to set the standards of this service, and the push to reduce it is justified by the assumed link between longer response time and worse health outcomes. However, current literature finds weak to no relation and this knowledge gap has been recently attributed to the endogeneity of response time. Indeed, the ambulance driver may take actions that result in shorter responses for most critical cases, and this unobserved behavior creates a downward bias in the results up to the point of finding zero effect. In line with previous literature, my analysis is performed on patients affected by cardiovascular disease, i.e. the time sensitive pathology adopted by policy makers to set the EMS standards in terms of response times and the main cause of death in developed countries. In my work I exploit changes in the amount of hourly rainfall and rationalization of emergency personnel during night shifts (i.e. 8pm to 7am) as instruments for response time. I document that a minute increase in response time results in a 2% increase in the probability of highly severe health conditions at the ambulance arrival on the scene and by 0.4% rise in the probability of death by the arrival at the hospital. Finally, I discuss and rank alternative solutions that may be implemented by policy makers to improve EMS performances.

Abstract:

As the number of migrants in Europe has risen in recent years, far right parties have fuelled voters’ fears concerning what the influx will mean for their nations. This project utilizes paired pre-election polls and actual vote shares across state and regional elections pre- and postmigrant crisis to provide evidence that far right sympathists often practiced preference falsification prior to this legitimizing shock, but that the crisis reshaped the political conversation such that far right identification is no longer deemed politically shameful. Although the theoretical framework surrounding preference falsification is well developed in the social movement literature as well as in American politics, Laura Jakli argues that it has untapped parallels in the study of Europe's far right. She also embeds priming and list experiments in a Facebook survey to determine whether there is a significant difference between subjects' willingness to identify with the far right using explicit versus implicit measurement approaches.

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Abstract:

The Allied occupation of Japan is remembered as the "good occupation." An American-led coalition successfully turned a militaristic enemy into a stable and democratic ally. Of course, the story was more complicated, but the occupation did forge one of the most enduring relationships in the postwar world. Recent events, from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to protests over American bases in Japan to increasingly aggressive territorial disputes between Asian nations over islands in the Pacific, have brought attention back to the subject of the occupation of Japan. But where did occupation policy come from? This talk considers the role of presidents, bureaucrats, think tanks, the media, and Congress as part of an informal policy network created to manage the postwar world during World War II.

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Abstract:

In India, the world’s largest democracy, the symbiotic relationship between crime and politics raises complex questions. For instance, how can free and fair democratic elections exist alongside rampant criminality? Why do political parties actively recruit candidates with reputations for wrongdoing? Why do voters elect (and even reelect) them, to the point that a third of state and national legislators assume office with pending criminal charges? In a new book, When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics, Milan Vaishnav takes readers deep into the marketplace for criminal politicians by drawing on fieldwork on the campaign trail, large surveys, and an original database on politicians’ backgrounds. The result is the first systematic study of an issue that has profound implications for democracy both with and beyond India’s borders.

Speaker Bio:

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About the Event: Despite much current talk about “America First,” the United States has a vital interest in global health that is rooted in both practical necessity and humanitarian traditions.  There is growing recognition of the complex problem of direct and indirect threats to the health and security of U.S. populations and people around the globe related to the state of health in all countries, the risk of disease spread into this country, the reality of emerging or resurging infections, most recently Ebola, Zika or a pandemic flu, and the growing possibility that biological agents might be deliberately used to do harm.  Perhaps less well-recognized are the significant health and safety risks posed by the growing number of products that flow across borders. In our increasingly globalized world, the benefits of a global marketplace can be seen in greater choice for consumers and new opportunities for business and innovation, but it has also created many new challenges for product oversight and protection of complex supply chains. Harmful products result from poor quality manufacturing, production, and distribution, contamination, and even from intentional adulteration, fraud and counterfeiting. Success in protecting the public now depends on reaching beyond our borders, and working effectively with regulatory authorities, industry, and intergovernmental and international organizations to build a global product safety net for consumers and patients around the world.  

About the Speaker: Dr. Hamburg is an internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine. As Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Dr. Hamburg serves as senior advisor on international matters and is the liaison with other Academies of Medicine around the world. She is also President-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Dr. Hamburg earned her A.B. from Harvard College, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School and completed her medical residency at Weill Cornell Medical Center. Following completion of her formal medical training, Dr. Hamburg went to Washington to explore the world of health policy. She soon took on the role of Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In 1991, Dr. Hamburg was named Commissioner of the New York City Department of health. During her six-year tenure there, she implemented rigorous public health initiatives that tackled the city’s most pressing crises head-on — including improved services for women and children, an internationally recognized tuberculosis control program, a needle-exchange program to combat HIV transmission, and the nation’s first public health bio-terrorism preparedness program.       

In 1997, President Clinton named Dr. Hamburg Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the lead policy position in the Department. She later became founding Vice President for Biological Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a foundation dedicated to reducing the threat to public safety from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

In 2009, President Obama nominated Dr. Hamburg for the post of FDA Commissioner. In that role, Dr. Hamburg emphasized the critical need for innovation in meeting medical care and public health needs. As Commissioner, she provided leadership on many groundbreaking activities, including: new authority to regulate tobacco products; implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act designed to transform food safety to a preventive system rather than simply responding when outbreaks occur; and modernization of the system for the evaluation and approval of medical products. Dr. Hamburg also worked hard to reposition FDA as an agency prepared for the challenges of globalization and was very active in efforts to establish new mechanisms for global governance of regulatory systems, including enhanced communication, collaboration and regulatory harmonization.

Dr. Hamburg currently sits on a number of Boards, including for the Commonwealth Fund, the Simons Foundation, the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy,  the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, the Urban Institute, and the American Museum of Natural History. She is also a member of the Harvard University Global Advisory Council, the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, the World Dementia Council and the Global Health Scientific Advisory Committee for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr Hamburg formerly served on the Boards of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller University, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Conservation International and Henry Schein Inc. Dr. Hamburg is an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Academy of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American College of Physicians. She is the recipient of multiple honorary degrees and numerous awards.