Psychologists are known for using science to influence public policymaking on criminal justice, education, health, and other specific policies. Little is known, however, about what commonalities ...exist across youth and family policies and, in particular, how prevalent polarization and research utilization are in political decisions. In response, this article examines how youth and family policies are positioned on the decision-making agenda and who advances them from an overlooked point of view, that of state legislators. Semistructured qualitative interviews inquired about research use, partisan polarization, and strategies for effectively advancing youth/family policies with 123 legislators; 24 legislators nominated by colleagues as exemplar champions of youth and family issues; and 13 key informants. Policymakers report youth and families are a population deserving of support. This widely shared value premise makes some policies to support youth and families less partisan. In addition, policymakers report that research can sometimes be more important for youth and family issues, particularly evidence on economic feasibility. Despite the importance of research, policymakers express concerns about its objectivity, conflicting results, and source credibility. Compared with colleagues, Youth and Family Champions are committed to a higher purpose; knowledgeable on policy issues and political maneuvers; and skilled in listening, earning colleagues' trust, and building relationships with colleagues and external stakeholders. For connecting research and policy, the article suggests that researchers could attract the attention of policymakers by illustrating their studies with a compelling story that places a human face on the issue and portrays the pragmatic significance of the findings.
Public Significance Statement
This article looks for commonalities that cut across specific youth and family policies and finds empirical evidence that policymaking is not polarized on all issues. In particular, there are a pocket of youth and family policies where polarization is less prevalent and science can play a substantive role. Amidst the widespread defeatism expressed by many social scientists, the findings provide a reason for optimism by pointing to places where policymaking functions better and policies are more research-based.
This study brings a fresh perspective to elite polarization by examining how policymakers and party leaders interpret and respond to it. Polarization is examined through the language and lived ...experience of those most familiar with it—policymakers themselves. Face-to-face interviews posed qualitative and quantitative questions to 212 legislators and 13 key informants from two states that varied in polarization. Most legislators describe polarization in negative terms. Consistent with “Community Dissonance Theory,” analyses reveal differences in a legislature’s institutional culture with policymakers in the more polarized state reporting more fraying of the social fabric and fracturing of decision-making processes. Specifically, legislators report more limited opportunities to build relationships with colleagues across party lines and for the minority party to make meaningful contributions. Corroborating the “Theory of Pernicious Polarization,” polarization appears to function as a relationship-based process that leaders can use for instrumental political ends. Polarization depends on whether party leaders react to rifts in tribal, non-compromising ways and how the minority responds. Consistent with “Conditional Party Governance” theory, party leaders can contribute to dysfunctional polarization by encouraging homogeneity in their own party and polarity from the opposing party. Drawing on policymakers’ own words, states vary in whether elite polarization is dysfunctional.
For decades, science has made few advances regarding when, why, how, and even whether research is utilized in policymaking. Guided by community dissonance theory, this study examines research ...utilization in an overlooked population-state legislators. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 123 legislators in two states; 32 legislators nominated by their colleagues as exemplar research users; and 13 key informants. Drawing on the lived experience and language of legislators, the study found a slice of issues, segments of policymakers, and points in the policy process where research was used in policymaking. Legislators who were most likely to use research were in the minority party and were "go-to" legislators who developed specialized expertise on an issue. Research was less utilized on issues driven by morality, ideology, or passion. Research was more utilized on issues that were new, nonemotional, or technical, and those for which the legislator had no established position or bipartisan consensus had been reached. Research use was facilitated when it was introduced early in the policy process and made available in committees. The utilization of research depended on its credibility, which policymakers typically assessed by the reliability of the source and, in particular, its nonpartisan reputation among political adversaries. Theoretically, the findings support the predictions of community dissonance theory in explaining and promoting future research use. Pragmatically, policymakers recommended that researchers provide more access to credible research from nonpartisan sources, and communicate in concise and understandable language why the research is important to policymakers and what the core findings are.
Tax policy informed by Libertarian paternalism suggests that taxes should be levied on non-‘rational’ choice (i.e., where a person makes a ‘foolish’ decision by their own internal standards). In ...respect of excise taxes on sugar sweetened beverages, the regressivity of such policies can then be justified by reference to a progressive health effect, since the poor are more sensitive to changes in price and disproportionately tend to consume sugar sweetened beverages. However, as it currently stands, that conclusion is based merely on a presumption of irrationality of the poor as a class and neither the relative price of goods subject to such taxes, nor the associated ‘welfare loss’ from the levy of the tax, have been systematically measured. Such a presumption of non-‘rationality’ in food choice only holds with respect to persons who are
not
bound by relative prices of food, namely the wealthy. Accordingly, it is reasonable for scholars to consider the levy of excise taxes on unhealthy food consumed primarily by the wealthy (e.g.,
foie gras
) as a ‘nudge’ toward a healthier food choice. Furthermore, the poor are rational agents capable of analysing and comparing relative prices of food products taking into account the health effects. As various scholars have now proposed in medical journals, any incremental tax levied on the poor in respect of sugar-sweetened beverages should be offset, for example, with a credit for healthy foods including fruits and vegetables.
The gross amount of 'sin taxes' incorporated into the price of foods are not currently disclosed on food labels in the European Union. The ongoing discourse over food labelling centers instead on ...nutritional content labelling and 'traffic light' or 'inverted pyramid' labels in the United Kingdom and France. However, food 'sin tax' labelling may serve as a workable nutrition signpost for at least 15 reasons. For example, food 'sin tax' labelling is (i) simple for consumers to use and understand (ii) objective, and (iii) beyond any legal challenge in the European Union. Since food products are bought and sold using money it is reasonable to think that relative price and taxes may be broadly important in food choice to many consumers. Furthermore, a substantial subset of consumers may be so viscerally opposed to taxation that the payment of food taxes of even a small amount seems more immediate and objectionable than the prospect of disease from an unhealthy diet. For such fiscally-conscious consumers (and to a lesser extent for all consumers concerned with the relative price of foods), 'sin tax' food labelling could supplant or enhance the effectiveness of nutritional content labels in influencing consumer choice toward healthier food options.
Existing technologies can already automate most work functions, and the cost of these technologies is decreasing at a time when human labor costs are increasing. This, combined with ongoing advances ...in computing, artificial intelligence, and robotics, has led experts to predict that automation will lead to significant job losses and worsening income inequality. Policy makers are actively debating how to deal with these problems, with most proposals focusing on investing in education to train workers in new job types, or investing in social benefits to distribute the gains of automation. The importance of tax policy has been neglected in this debate, which is unfortunate because such policies are critically important. The tax system incentivizes automation even in cases where it is not otherwise efficient. This is because the vast majority of tax revenues are now derived from labor income, so firms avoid taxes by eliminating employees. Also, when a machine replaces a person, the government loses a substantial amount of tax revenue-potentially hundreds of billions of dollars a year in the aggregate. All of this is the unintended result of a system designed to tax labor rather than capital. Such a system no longer works once the labor is capital. Robots are not good taxpayers. We argue that existing tax policies must be changed. The system should be at least “neutral” as between robot and human workers, and automation should not be allowed to reduce tax revenue. This could be achieved through some combination of disallowing corporate tax deductions for automated workers, creating an “automation tax” which mirrors existing unemployment schemes, granting offsetting tax preferences for human workers, levying a corporate self-employment tax, and increasing the corporate tax rate.
The scientific study of “leadership” depends on the ability to intersubjectively test theories about leadership and to thereby identify leadership causation. Such a scientific endeavor is difficult ...because the study of leadership is a social science and is subject to change by ergodicity. Accordingly, to begin the scientific study of leadership it is necessary to reject an idea of leadership science as the study of singular observations followed by deductive syllogism to arrive at a certain result. As such, the study of leadership as science requires a general theory of leadership which will either be potentially falsified or gradually narrowed and amended over time.
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