Go to Fullsize Slideshow

On May 8th, 2008, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann presented the inaugural Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize to Alice M. Rivlin, founding director of the Congressional Budget Office and former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, at a dinner at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The $20,000 Moynihan Prize was created by the American Academy of Political and Social Science to recognize public officials or scholars who champion the use of informed judgment to improve public policy.  Elizabeth Moynihan and Maura Moynihan were both present at the ceremony for the Prize honoring the late Senator, as were several former aides and friends of the Moynihan family. Journalist Sander Vanocur and Ambassador Peter Galbraith offered tributes to Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

In introducing the award, the Academy’s president Douglas S. Massey, said that in deciding to create a prize in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s honor, “what stood out most clearly was the role he played as the Conscience of the Congress when it came to recognizing the importance of evidence in the policy process.  For Pat Moynihan data mattered in making policy, and even more importantly, the quality of data mattered very much.  The Moynihan Prize was designed to honor individuals who share that commitment to the role of scientific evidence in the policy process.”

To read or listen to the tributes and Alice Rivlin’s acceptance remarks, click on the photos below:

Vanocur

Galbraith

Gutmann

Rivlin

Read more of this article

Click on photo to read or listen to acceptance speech

Cowan	Fehr	Lawrence-Lightfoot
Moffitt	Ostrom	Preston

On May 8th, 2008, AAPSS President Douglas S. Massey inducted six scholars as Fellows of the Academy, in recognition of their outstanding contributions to social science and their sustained efforts to communicate their research beyond their disciplines. They included: Geoffrey Cowan, Professor of Communication, University of Southern California, Ernst Fehr, Director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics University of Zurich, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, Professor in the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Terrie Moffitt, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University and Professor of Social Behavior and Development, King’s College London, Elinor Ostrom, Professor of Political Science, and Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, and Samuel Preston, Professor of Demography, University of Pennsylvania.

In inducting the new Fellows, Professor Massey spoke of the important role the social and political sciences have to play in setting the public agenda and improving public policy. “Tonight we are honoring individuals who have not only accomplished impressive intellectual breakthroughs--but who have done so with their eyes firmly focused on advancing the public good,” he noted.

At the installation dinner, which was held at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, each of the new Fellows spoke about how they felt their research had influenced public policy in ways that they welcomed.

Go to full size slideshow

AAPSS President Douglas Massey

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

Walter Lippmann’s brilliant career demonstrates that people outside of the academy can produce important and impactful scholarship. In 1922, Lippmann wrote a fascinating piece for The Annals which he called “Democracy, Foreign Policy, and the Split Personality of the Modern Statesman.” At the time, he was on the editorial staff of the New York World. Based on his regular conversations – and often close friendships – with world leaders, he asserted that statesmen were much more reasonable in private conversations than they were in their public pronouncements. Something that those people close to government leaders often know to be the case, but not something that a scholar would necessarily be able to determine on his own. Lippmann’s piece was made possible because he was deeply involved in the world of action. It also illustrates the importance of research that often grows out of something in one’s personal experience – a phenomenon that I think could be called biography as scholarship.

The road that led me to this fellowship has included stints well outside of academic life, and those experiences have informed much of my teaching and research.

Forty years ago, Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy won virtually all of the political primaries. Nevertheless, most of the delegates of that era were selected by party leaders, not by the public, something we are living with today as we think about the role of superdelegates. So the convention that summer selected Hubert Humphrey as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Like many others who had been involved in those campaigns, I felt cheated by the results. I played a key role that summer in organizing something that we pretentiously called “The Commission on the Democratic Selection of Presidential Nominees.”

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

My research over the last 20 years has aimed at a better understanding of the role of human motivation in economic and social interaction. Twenty to 30 years ago, mainstream thinking in economics was thoroughly based on the assumption of, first, rationality and, second, self interest. While it is undoubtedly the case that self interest is one important component in human motivation, it is not the only component and I always was convinced that social motives – motives to help, to support, to reciprocate, to cooperate, and to do justice to other people – play an important role, even in the economic domain. But one’s beliefs and what one can prove scientifically are two different pairs of shoes.Therefore, I started a research program studying the economic implications of these social motives, with the help of laboratory experiments and, more recently, by conducting field experiments and combining neuroscience with experimental economics.

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

It is thrilling to be receiving this fellowship honoring the wonderful work of Margaret Mead, whose pioneering scholarship crossed theoretical, disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries, whose writing spoke to broad and diverse audiences beyond the Academy, and who blended the roles of scholar and activist with a passion and a determination that left her singular imprint on the world. As a graduate student, I remember being immediately drawn to Mead’s writings, to the largeness of her mind, to her curiosity about things big and small, to her clarity of voice, to her determination to make a difference, and to her optimism about the human spirit and our capacity to create a better, more just world. I loved her impatience, her courage, and her pragmatism. I loved her womanly wisdom.

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

Robert Dahl had a faith that people could govern themselves, if one was able to enable them to create the kind of complex structures that sometimes we call federal systems but sometimes we call multi-level systems. We are still working on how to develop a good scientific language for dealing with systems that exist within systems that exist within systems. I think the social sciences are now evolving so that we are slowly but surely developing methods to understand complexity rather than trying to eliminate it. For a long time, in the effort to preserve biodiversity, we attempted to eliminate institutional diversity. Indigenous people throughout the whole world, who had been stewards of forests, water systems, and fisheries were moved out. There were plans made in national capitals to create preservation areas. We have maps galore showing preservation areas all over the world. Scholars have done extensive research in water and forestry resources and some of those preservation areas do work.

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

Demographers are far off at the inductive end of the social sciences.  I like to think that what we do is close to the Chinese injunction “learn truth from facts.” My own career has been heavily focused on questions of health. Social scientists have made big contributions to this field by focusing on the health of populations, a broader canvas than one finds in schools of medicine or public health. My dissertation provided an abrupt introduction to public discourse. It described how cigarette smoking by men was distorting mortality patterns in 17 countries, using demographic rather than epidemiologic data. When it was published as a monograph, it was roundly attacked by the Tobacco Institute, an organization funded by tobacco companies. So when a newspaper did a piece on my book, the Tobacco Institute would write a letter to the editor. Their claim at the time, believe it or not, was that the lungs of smokers were genetically different from the lungs of nonsmokers; smoker’s peculiar lungs caused them both to smoke and to die of lung cancer.

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

It is very appropriate that my fellowship has been named in honor of the late Professor Thorsten Sellin. Professor Sellin’s work and my work have shared certain themes for a long time.

First, Professor Sellin spent his career advocating against the death penalty and against punitive justice practices in general. In 1993, I published a theoretical paper that took a developmental view of juvenile delinquency. The theory described two groups of delinquent young people. In a nutshell, one group, called Life-Course Persistent Offenders, start their antisocial behavior in very early childhood and continue to develop during adolescence and adulthood into serious and ever more violent offenders. The other group, in contrast, called Adolescence-Limited Offenders, have short-term involvement in delinquency as kind of a normal part of adjusting to growing up.

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

Note: The following are excerpts from a tribute to Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivered on May 8th, 2008 at the presentation of the Inaugural Daniel Patrick Moynihan prize.

I was honored that you asked me here tonight, not just because Pat Moynihan was a friend for 53 years, but also the occasion gives me the chance to be with his wife Elizabeth, an intellect of equal force and importance, and their daughter Maura, who is honorary chair of the Moynihan Prize Steering Committee. Pat Moynihan was a prize all by himself. When we first met in September 1950 at the graduate school of the London School of Economics, he was the richest man I’d ever met. Forget all those stories he told, which evoke Marlon Brando working on the docks of New York; he was no Marlon Brando but he was no pauper.

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

Note: The following are excerpts from a tribute to Daniel Patrick Moynihan delivered on May 8th, 2008 at the presentation of the Inaugural Daniel Patrick Moynihan prize.

[Our visit to Sarajevo] had a very profound impact on Senator Moynihan, who went there because of his outrage at the violation of international law that was taking place. That, in a European city, aggression launched by a neighboring country on the internationally recognized state of Bosnia-Herzegovina was taking place, and that the UN charter was not being invoked or used. That the violation was being tolerated, and in fact that officials of the first Bush administration tried very hard to prevent us from going at all. It was really extremely courageous, and he came back and he wrote a long memo to President-elect Bill Clinton...not much happened on the Moynihan memo until 1995 when it became more or less US policy. But it did have one consequence, which is that I ended up becoming the first US Ambassador to Croatia…We didn’t have an Ambassador in Bosnia, so it was the center of the operation in the region and I ended up spending five years there…

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

Note: The following are excerpts from remarks delivered by Amy Gutmann on May 8th, 2008 in presenting the Inaugural Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize to Alice M Rivlin.

Everyone knows the story of President Kennedy describing a White House dinner gathering of 49 American Nobel laureates as “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of Thomas Jefferson dining alone.” With the installation of our new Fellows – including Penn’s own Sam Preston – tonight’s historic gathering of the American Academy of Political and Social Science represents truly the most extraordinary concentration of scholarly expertise and public policy influence assembled under one roof, with the exception of any time that Daniel Patrick Moynihan brilliantly held forth on any topic.

Read more of this article

Download: Right-click and Save As Podcast (MP3) Listen Now:

Note: The following remarks were delivered upon accepting the Inaugural Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize on May 8th, 2008.

I am deeply honored to be the first recipient of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize, and delighted to be here this evening in the company of all these distinguished scholars, to have Elizabeth and Maura here, and many, many friends and associates of Pat’s.

I think of Pat often, but I only recently noticed this Pennsylvania theme, which is odd for a man so strongly associated the state of New York. In fact, I thought of Pat very recently when as I stood on the balcony of the new Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC, and looked at one of the world’s most spectacular views which owes so much to Pat’s vision and persistence and dedication to restoring and enhancing Pennsylvania Avenue. And I think of him often as I work my way through Penn Station in New York City, and it’s a nice coincidence that this event in his honor is on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.

Read more of this article

We have all heard of the dismal levels of international public opinion of the U.S. and the increasing levels of anti-Americanism. Some respond with a ‘so what?’ attitude, and question the need for more positive perceptions. But international public opinion has very real consequences for the U.S and its people. Foreign public opposition to the Iraq war has weakened U.S. alliances, U.S. companies face hostility across the globe, and international terrorism is an ever-constant threat. Public diplomacy needs to be a key issue for the future President’s foreign policy, as a change in administration creates a strategic opening of significant proportions for U.S. diplomacy.

The upcoming presidential election is already positively changing global public opinion. A recent BBC World Service poll found that the U.S. image abroad has begun to improve for the first time, following years of decline. The elections have drawn substantial media coverage from foreign journalists, thereby explaining American politics to the world, and hopefully presenting the country in a new light. That said, the U.S. is still viewed more negatively than the European Union, Brazil, China, India and Russia. If we are to restore our “beacon on the hill” status, the next president must capitalize on the goodwill the elections have brought and rejuvenate public diplomacy efforts.

Read more of this article

If there’s one thing the 2008 election promises to be about it is “change.”  While the candidates emphasize their credentials at bringing change, it is important to remember that there is also a need to respond to change that has already occurred. And nowhere has change been more evident than in the arena of communication.

The media environment has been transformed in the last decade, presenting new challenges to the presidential candidates and to the victor in November.  Much as the famous Nixon-Kennedy debate signaled the beginning of the “visual era” of politics brought on by the advent of television, this election could very well contain similar lessons in the game of politics 2.0.

There are two things to watch: the way the candidates handle the new media environment in their campaigns and the extent to which they incorporate an understanding of this environment into their foreign policy, particularly in their approach to diplomacy.

The election could very well come down to which candidate is best able to manage the “YouTube effect.”  We are now in a world where any conduct of even remote interest is likely to be: a) recorded by anyone with a cell phone and b) distributed around the world almost instantaneously.  Politicians have always had to be careful about what they say and tiptoe through real and apparent contradictions, but the dangers of a misstep have been amplified by The YouTube effect.  Video evidence, though distorted in its own way, leaves less room for ambiguous interpretation and thus allows politicians less wiggle room.  But much as television opened the door to more “telegenic” candidates, the YouTube effect is also likely to offer opportunities to those who can master its sensibilities. Candidates need to figure out not only how to avoid the pitfalls of the YouTube effect but also how to turn it to his or her advantage.

Read more of this article

Research published in this month’s issue of the journal Obesity offers strong evidence of yet one more piece of the puzzle of childhood overweight: too little sleep. Parents already know that children who go to bed late end up as cranky little monsters the next day; but they should also know that consistent sleep deficits pack on extra pounds in youngsters. The report, published by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, pulled together 17 studies on sleep and childhood obesity from around the world and found the pattern of data to be consistent: children who don’t get enough sleep are significantly more likely to be overweight. Specifically, for each hour increase in sleep, the risk of overweight was reduced by nine percent.

Why is sleep related to weight? These Hopkins authors, and others, have some hypotheses. First, it may be that overtired kids are more likely to reach for a sugary snack that will give them a boost when their energy lags. (That seems to be what happens for adults.) Second, kids who stay up later have more opportunity to snack, and their snack choices are probably not healthy ones. Finally, sleep deficits may affect certain hormones which, according to the authors of the study, increase children’s feelings of hunger and decrease their energy expenditures.

Read more of this article

Technology has been a target, rather than an ally, in the battle against childhood obesity. Parents are advised to keep television sets out of their children’s bedroom, turn the TV off during meals, and monitor and limit children’s “screen time”—those hours spent each day in front of computers, TV, or video games. The time children spend glued to these media devices is time they are not outside playing and being physically active. Perhaps even worse, these technologies are vehicles for the junk food industry’s messages, providing direct access to children. And most of these media are now mobile, so “screen time” can happen anywhere.

It’s tempting to think that technology is the problem and that limiting or removing its influence on children is the answer.

But could technology be part of the solution, helping us to steer children toward healthy eating and physical activity? Increasingly, the answer is yes. Those concerned with media influence on children’s sedentary behavior are beginning to sit up and notice video games like Nintendo’s Wii and Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) that require players to move. The state of West Virginia has actually integrated DDR into the physical education and after-school programming at all of their public schools and nationwide teachers are being offered ideas by Sony for using PlayStation 2 and Eye Toy in their classrooms to increase physical activity. While researchers have yet to deliver the verdict on whether these devices really do increase physical activity, for the first time, technology is being viewed as an ally with the potential to get kids up off the couch.

Read more of this article

When it comes to causes for the rise in childhood obesity, there have been many possible culprits: increasing portion sizes, the easy availability of high fat, nutrient poor foods, and fewer opportunities for physical activity. But what about the influence parents play? Although research has revealed a link between parent weight and child weight, the fact is that not all children of overweight parents are overweight themselves. Parents not only give their genetic make-up to their child, they can also have influence through the way they parent their children. In fact, parents may be able to buffer the impact of larger, environmental factors on whether or not a child becomes overweight.

Studies have shown that parents who engage in healthier eating and activity habits are more likely to have children who mimic these behaviors as they grow into adulthood. Thus, in order to get children to develop healthier eating and activity behaviors, parents must first engage in these behaviors themselves.

Parents can also shape their child’s food preferences and eating behaviors by making sure that healthier options are readily available. For example, remove all chips and cookies from the cabinets and have fresh fruit or cut up vegetable sticks readily available and visible so that when children are hungry for a snack, their only option is a healthy one. The same principle works to decrease sedentary behaviors. Studies have shown that children with a TV in their bedroom spend an additional 1.5 hours per day watching television than children without a set in their room. Removing the TV from the bedroom can help reduce screen time and consequently free up more time for physical activity. Placing objects that encourage children to be physically active (like a jump rope or running shoes) in plain sight can also serve to remind them that there are other options for entertainment than the computer or TV. By controlling the home environment, parents can shape their child’s behaviors, reduce temptations, and create a health-inducing space.

Read more of this article

Thousands of years ago, Aristotle called humans the "political animal." He engaged in vivisection and was thoroughly convinced of the need to employ biology to understand social and political behavior.

In more modern times, E.O. Wilson famously encouraged a "consilience" of the social and life sciences. And for decades a group of scholars has championed the cause of "biopolitics" by pointing out the failings of traditional approaches to the study of politics.

Unfortunately, these protestations and scholarly leading lights have had little impact on standard approaches to the study of politics, which, like most pursuits, has had different emphases at different times.

The first was an emphasis on legal-institutional features. Statutes and constitutionalism - structure and function - were the topics while politicians and citizens were nowhere to be found in this style of academic work.

Read more of this article