Obama shoots for science increase

How Obama is using the science of change.

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a worldfamous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scriptin...

Digital Rx: Obama pushing for paperless prescriptions.

Anti-egalitarians for Obama? Group-dominance motivation and the Obama vote

The election of the first Black president was a watershed moment in American race relations, and many Obama voters saw their choice as affirming and furthering the dream of racial equality. However, the present study provides evidence that Obama also garnered votes from an unlikely source: those wishing to maintain racial disparities. Data from a longitudinal study of the election suggest that,...

ChangeWe Can Believe In? Using Political Science to Predict Policy Change in the Obama Presidency

Based on the results of the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, an analysis using theories and methods of modern political science (pivotal politics theory, ideal point estimates, and bootstrap simulations) suggests that the conditions are ripe for real policy change. Specifically, we should expect policies to move significantly in a liberal direction, few or no policies should move ...

Green shoots

By the end of this year, when Germany crowns the 'word of the year', one of the strongest contenders to replace last year's 'Finanzkrise' (financial crisis) has to be the almost unpronounceable 'Abwrackprämie' or scrappage fee. Introduced with effect from 27 January under the original name of 'Umweltprämie' (environment reward) with a strictly limited budget, this scheme pays out 2,500 Euros to...