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- 5 justices, all confirmed by senators representing a minority of voters, appear willing to overturn Roe v. Wade
- What is fentanyl and why is it behind the deadly surge in US drug overdoses? A medical toxicologist explains
- 6 months after the climate summit, where to find progress on climate change in a more dangerous and divided world
- Religious beliefs give strength to the anti-abortion movement – but not all religions agree
- Russia is being made a pariah state – just like it and the Soviet Union were for most of the last 105 years
- Countries with lower-than-expected vaccination rates show unusually negative attitudes to vaccines on Twitter
- Starbucks' caffeinated anti-union efforts may leave a bitter taste – but are they legal?
| Posted: 10 May 2022 12:16 PM PDT  If the leaked Supreme Court decision on abortion is to be believed, five justices have voted during private deliberations to overturn Roe v. Wade. Notably, those five are what I refer to as "numerical minority justices." They are the only five in American history to qualify for that designation. And three of them were appointed by a minority president. Since Donald Trump lost the popular vote in the 2016 election, he was, by definition, a minority president, elected by a minority of the voters. Similarly, I define a "numerical minority justice" as a nominee who won confirmation with the support of a majority of senators, but senators who did not represent a majority of voters. That raises a question that goes to the heart of the Supreme Court's legitimacy in our democracy: Will this be a court out of line with America? If so, what might that mean for the country's politics and law? Indeed, for the nation itself?  Court out of step with America?Consider Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of the five justices whose name is on the leaked draft opinion overturning Roe. During his confirmation, Kavanaugh was supported by a majority of the 98 senators voting on the nomination – 49 Republicans and one Democrat. But the votes earned by those 50 senators in their most recent elections added up to a total of only 54,102,052. The 48 senators who opposed Kavanaugh's confirmation, all Democrats, garnered 78,623,957 total votes in their most recent elections – 24.5 million more votes from people supporting those senators. Compare those figures with the support for one justice who has apparently not joined with those planning to overturn Roe, Elena Kagan. The Senate confirmed Kagan to a seat on the court by a vote of 63-37. The 63 senators supporting her nomination had collected nearly twice as many votes in their most recent elections as the 37 senators in opposition. Seldom far from the mainstreamTo be sure, the framers of the Constitution purposely decided to provide each state with two senators, knowing that those senators from states with smaller populations would represent fewer – at times far fewer – citizens than those with larger ones. Today, for example, California's population is close to 40 million while Wyoming's is less than 600,000. Yet both states have two senators. This arrangement was a central aspect of the Great Compromise, which helped convince representatives from sparsely populated states — fearful of being ignored by an alliance of the heavily populated states — to back the new Constitution. Nevertheless, since the popular vote began to matter in the election of 1824, a minority president had never succeeded in appointing a minority justice. Indeed, until this century, even for presidents who won the popular vote by a large margin, significant Senate resistance more often than not doomed a nominee to the court. This might help to explain why political scientist Robert McCloskey concluded in 1960 that the court had rarely "lagged far behind nor forged far ahead of America" and that the justices had "seldom strayed very far from the mainstreams of American life." Might politics and the courts collide?Things are different today. We live in a period of deep political polarization. This shift in American politics raises some important questions about the Supreme Court's legitimacy in our democracy. In the past, political majorities at the polls have supported significant doctrinal shifts by the court, even if the specific rulings have been controversial. In other words, as McCloskey and fellow political scientist Robert Dahl observed, since one party typically dominated during an extended period of time, the justices – because they were products of that enduring regime – generally advanced the regime's interests in the long term. To put it simply, for much of American history, the court followed the election returns. For example, the 1905 decision of Lochner v. New York, which struck down state legislation designed to protect workers via the court's freedom of contract doctrine, was a product of the Republican regime that dominated American politics at the time. Similarly, the New Deal Democratic regime ushered in by the landslide election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 ultimately provided the political basis for another divisive decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which found that supposedly "separate-but-equal" segregated schools were unconstitutional. Today, no such majority exists. The popular vote for president and the Electoral College results have twice in the last six presidential elections been out of alignment. And the Democratic presidential nominee has won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, from 1992 to 2020, yet Republican presidents have appointed six of the nine sitting justices. Given this recent divide between the popular vote and the electoral vote, it seems reasonable to consider the possibility of the alternative to McCloskey's conclusions – of a court that consistently diverges from American majorities on the most pressing issues of the day. After all, Supreme Court justices have lifetime appointments and typically stay on the bench for many years, even decades. Their imprint on the law can be enduring and their legitimacy, conferred in part by the confirmation process, helps ensure their place in our democracy. Roe's pending endWith the addition of the Trump justices, many court observers suspected the 1973 Roe ruling, which affirmed a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, would become a prime target of the newly-established conservative majority. While Roe has been a deeply divisive decision since the day it was announced, the Republican in the White House at the time — Richard Nixon — neither publicly denounced it nor sought to overturn it. And three of his four appointees to the court joined the 7-2 majority, including the opinion's author Justice Harry Blackmun.  Of course, Nixon's Republican successor, Ronald Reagan, oversaw a Justice Department that repeatedly asked the court to reverse itself on Roe. But ultimately a majority of the justices refused to go along, including two of Reagan's three additions to the court, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy. Today, polls show significant opposition to overturning the decision. For example, according to a post-leak CBS News poll, 64% of Americans want the court to keep Roe "as is." A Washington Post-ABC News poll supports this conclusion, finding 54% of respondents did not think the court should overturn Roe, while 28% thought it should. It would be best if a court making a determination on the future of Roe could do so with the utmost democratic legitimacy. But given the state of U.S. politics today, that is a near impossibility. In September 2021, Gallup reported that the court's approval rating had fallen from 58% support a little more than a year earlier to a new low of 40%. Perhaps more strikingly, another poll showed an increasing partisan divide in views of the court, with 65% of Republicans approving of its work and just 46% of Democrats doing so. A five-justice conservative majority that discards Roe after nearly 50 years on the books will likely further the belief that the court reaches its rulings based mainly on politics rather than law, especially given the central role opponents of the decision have played in mobilizing voters to support Republican candidates like Donald Trump. As a political scientist who has studied and written about the Supreme Court for more than 25 years, I believe this result will likely further erode of the court's legitimacy, and deepen the partisan divide in America. This is an updated version of an article originally published on July 7, 2018.  Kevin J. McMahon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Posted: 10 May 2022 05:06 AM PDT  Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in nonmedical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl. Physicians like me have seen a rise in unintentional fentanyl use from people buying prescription opioids and other drugs laced, or adulterated, with fentanyl. Heroin users in my community in Massachusetts came to realize that fentanyl had entered the drug supply when overdose numbers exploded. In 2016, my colleagues and I found that patients who came to the emergency department reporting a heroin overdose often only had fentanyl present in their drug test results. As the Chief of Medical Toxicology at UMass Chan Medical School, I have studied fentanyl and its analogs for years. As fentanyl has become ubiquitous across the U.S., it has transformed the illicit drug market and raised the risk of overdose. Fentanyl and its analogsFentanyl is a synthetic opioid that was originally developed as an analgesic – or painkiller – for surgery. It has a specific chemical structure with multiple areas that can be modified, often illicitly, to form related compounds with marked differences in potency.  For example, carfentanil, a fentanyl analog formed by substituting one chemical group for another, is 100 times more potent than its parent structure. Another analog, acetylfentanyl, is approximately three times less potent than fentanyl, but has still led to clusters of overdoses in several states. Despite the number and diversity of its analogs, fentanyl itself continues to dominate the illicit opioid supply. Milligram per milligram, fentanyl is roughly 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. Lacing or replacing drugs with fentanylDrug dealers have used fentanyl analogs as an adulterant in illicit drug supplies since 1979, with fentanyl-related overdoses clustered in individual cities. The modern epidemic of fentanyl adulteration is far broader in its geographic distribution, production and number of deaths. Overdose deaths roughly quadrupled, going from 8,050 in 1999 to 33,091 in 2015. From May 2020 to April 2021, more than 100,000 Americans died from a drug overdose, with over 64% of these deaths due to synthetic opioids like fentanyl and its analogs. Illicitly manufactured fentanyl is internationally synthesized in China, Mexico and India, then exported to the United States as powder or pressed pills. Additionally, the emergence of the dark web, an encrypted and anonymous corner of the internet that's a haven for criminal activity, has facilitated the sale of fentanyl and other opioids shipped through traditional delivery services, including the U.S. Postal Service. Fentanyl is both sold alone and often used as an adulterant because its high potency allows dealers to traffic smaller quantities but maintain the drug effects buyers expect. Manufacturers may also add bulking agents, like flour or baking soda, to fentanyl to increase supply without adding costs. As a result, it is much more profitable to cut a kilogram of fentanyl compared to a kilogram of heroin. Unfortunately, fentanyl's high potency also means that even just a small amount can prove deadly. If the end user isn't aware that the drug they bought has been adulterated, this could easily lead to an overdose. Preventing fentanyl deathsAs an emergency physician, I give fentanyl as an analgesic, or painkiller, to relieve severe pain in an acute care setting. My colleagues and I choose fentanyl when patients need immediate pain relief or sedation, such as anesthesia for surgery. But even in the controlled conditions of a hospital, there is still a risk that using fentanyl can reduce breathing rates to dangerously low levels, the main cause of opioid overdose deaths. For those taking fentanyl in nonmedical settings, there is no medical team available to monitor someone's breathing rate in real time to ensure their safety. One measure to prevent fentanyl overdose is distributing naloxone to bystanders. Naloxone can reverse an overdose as it occurs by blocking the effects of opioids. Another measure is increasing the availability of opioid agonists like methadone and buprenorphine that reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms and cravings, helping people stay in treatment and decrease illicit drug use. Despite the lifesaving track records of these medications, their availability is limited by restrictions on where and how they can be used and inadequate numbers of prescribers. Other strategies to prevent overdose deaths include lowering the entry barrier to addiction treatment, fentanyl test strips, supervised consumption sites and even prescription diamorphine (heroin). Despite the evidence supporting these measures, however, local politics and funding priorities often limit whether communities are able to give them a try. Bold strategies are needed to interrupt the ever-increasing number of fentanyl-related deaths.  Kavita Babu receives research support from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Massachusetts Department of Health Bureau of Substance Abuse Services and royalties from UptoDate. |
| Posted: 10 May 2022 05:05 AM PDT  Six months ago, negotiators at the United Nations' Glasgow climate summit celebrated a series of new commitments to lower global greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. Analysts concluded that the new promises, including phasing out coal, would bend the global warming trajectory, though still fall short of the Paris climate agreement. Today, the world looks ever more complex. Russia is waging a war on European soil, with global implications for energy and food supplies. Some leaders who a few months ago were vowing to phase out fossil fuels are now encouraging fossil fuel companies to ramp up production. In the U.S., the Biden administration has struggled to get its promised actions through Congress. Last-ditch efforts have been underway to salvage some kind of climate and energy bill from the abandoned Build Back Better plan. Without it, U.S. commitments to reduce emissions by over 50% by 2030 look fanciful, and the rest of the world knows it – adding another blow to U.S. credibility overseas. Meanwhile, severe famines have hit Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Extreme heat has been threatening lives across India and Pakistan. Australia faced historic flooding, and the Southwestern U.S. can't keep up with the wildfires. As a former senior U.N. official, I've been involved in international climate negotiations for several years. At the halfway point of this year's climate negotiations, with the next U.N. climate conference in November 2022, here are three areas to watch for progress and cooperation in a world full of danger and division. Crisis response with long-term benefitsRussia's invasion of Ukraine has added to a triple whammy of food price, fuel price and inflationary spikes in a global economy still struggling to emerge from the pandemic. But Russia's aggression has also forced Europe and others to move away from dependence on Russian oil, gas and coal. The G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. – pledged on May 8, 2022, to phase out or ban Russian oil and accelerate their shifts to clean energy. In the short term, Europe's pivot means much more energy efficiency – the International Energy Agency estimates that the European Union can save 15%-20% of energy demand with efficiency measures. It also means importing oil and gas from elsewhere. In the medium term, the answer lies in ramping up renewable energy.  There are issues to solve. As Europe buys up gas from other places, it risks reducing gas supplies relied on by other countries, and forcing some of those countries to return to coal, a more carbon-intense fuel that destroys air quality. Some countries will need help expanding renewable energy and stabilizing energy prices to avoid a backlash to pro-climate policies. As the West races to renewables, it will also need to secure a supply chain for critical minerals and metals necessary for batteries and renewable energy technology, including replacing an overdependence on China with multiple supply sources. Ensuring integrity in corporate commitmentsFinance leaders and other private sector coalitions made headline-grabbing commitments at the Glasgow climate conference in November 2021. They promised to accelerate their transitions to net-zero emissions by 2050, and some firms and financiers were specific about ending financing for coal plants that don't capture and store their carbon, cutting methane emissions and supporting ending deforestation. Their promises faced cries of "greenwash" from many climate advocacy groups. Some efforts are now underway to hold companies, as well as countries, to their commitments. A U.N. group chaired by former Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is now working on a framework to hold companies, cities, states and banks to account when they claim to have "net-zero" emissions. This is designed to ensure that companies that pledged last year to meet net-zero now say how, and on what scientific basis. For many companies, especially those with large emissions footprints, part of their commitment to get to net-zero includes buying carbon offsets – often investments in nature – to balance the ledger. This summer, two efforts to put guardrails around voluntary carbon markets are expected to issue their first sets of guidance for issuers of carbon credits and for firms that want to use voluntary carbon markets to fulfill their net-zero claims. The goal is to ensure carbon markets reduce emissions and provide a steady stream of revenue for parts of the world that need finance for their green growth. Climate change influencing electionsClimate change is now an increasingly important factor in elections. French President Emmanuel Macron, trying to woo supporters of a candidate to his left and energize young voters, made more dramatic climate pledges, vowing to be "the first major nation to abandon gas, oil and coal." With Chile's swing to the left, the country's redrafted constitution will incorporate climate stewardship.  In Australia, Scott Morrison's government – which supported opening one of the world's largest coal mines at the same time the Australian private sector is focusing on renewable energy – faces an election on May 21, 2022, with heatwaves and extreme flooding fresh in voters' minds. Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro faces opponents in October who are talking about protecting the climate. Elections are fought and won on pocketbook issues, and energy prices are high and inflation is taking hold. But voters around the world are also experiencing the effects of climate change firsthand and are increasingly concerned. The next climate conferenceCountries will be facing a different set of economic and security challenges when the next round of U.N. talks begins in November in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, compared to the challenges they faced in Glasgow. They will be expected to show progress on their commitments while struggling for bandwidth, dealing with the climate emergency as an integral part of security, economic recovery and global health. There is no time to push climate action out into the future. Every decimal point of warming avoided is an opportunity for better health, more prosperity and better security.  Rachel Kyte is a member of the U.N. secretary-general's high-level advisory group on climate action and co-chair of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative. |
| Religious beliefs give strength to the anti-abortion movement – but not all religions agree Posted: 10 May 2022 05:05 AM PDT  The leaked draft of Justice Samuel Alito's opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which has sent shock waves across the United States, indicates that a majority of Supreme Court justices will likely overturn the constitutional right to an abortion granted in Roe v. Wade. Employing unusually harsh language, Alito declared that "Roe and Planned Parenthood v.Casey must be overruled" because of the decisions' "abuse of judicial authority." "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start," Alito wrote, and its "reasoning was exceptionally weak." He also asserted that neither abortion nor privacy is mentioned in the text of the Constitution, nor should they be considered to be "deeply rooted in the Nation's history or traditions" so as to be worthy of protection. As a professor of constitutional law who has taught about reproductive rights for more than 20 years, I argue that Alito's legal reasoning leaves out several established constitutional principles also not mentioned in the text – such as separation of powers and executive privilege – as well as rights that conservatives hold near and dear like the right to marry and parental rights. Alito's claim that a right to an abortion "was entirely unknown in American law" until Roe is unfounded. Historically, abortion was not completely illegal, even in Puritan New England. The first abortion restrictions were enacted in the U.S. in the 1820s. Even then, they generally outlawed abortions only after "quickening," the early equivalence of fetal viability – the ability to survive outside the mother's womb. Alito's legal rationales aside, the legal debate over abortion is as much a religious dispute as it is a constitutional one. Religious opposition Most anti-abortion rallies have signs and banners with religious admonitions such as "pray for life" and "pray to end abortion." Today, the Catholic Church's strong opposition to abortion and contraception is well known. However, in an interesting recent book, "Abortion in Early Modern Italy," historian John Christopoulos argues that prior to 1588, the Catholic Church's position on abortion was more ambiguous. Before then, the church did not necessarily oppose abortion before quickening, but in that year shifted its position through a papal declaration that pronounced that the human soul is created at the moment of conception, known as "ensoulment," and that all abortions were murder. In 1968, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops founded the National Right to Life organization to coordinate activities of state groups that opposed abortion. In 1973, following Roe, the organization incorporated as the National Right to Life Committee, severing formal ties with the Catholic Church in order to attract conservative Protestants. In addition to Catholic groups such as Priests for Life, opposition to abortion is driven by other conservative groups with Protestant members, including the Faith and Freedom Coalition and the Family Research Council. More militant anti-abortion groups such as Operation Rescue and Operation Save America also state their opposition on religious grounds. According to one OSA official, "Satan wants to kill innocent babies, demean marriage and distort the image of God." Religious divisionIn actuality, America's religious community is divided over the issue of abortion. According to the Pew Research Center, approximately three-quarters of white evangelical Protestants – 77% – say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while 63% of white Protestants who are not evangelical say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Interestingly, attitudes of Catholic laity are more narrowly split – 55% favor legal abortion in all or most cases, while 43% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. As philosopher Peter Wenz argued in his book "Abortion Rights as Religious Freedom," one's opinion about whether a pre-viable fetus is a person is a religious decision. Abortion restrictions interfere with this right to religious freedom. Several liberal denominations agree. A 1981 resolution of the United Church of Christ declares that "every woman must have the freedom of choice to follow her personal and religious convictions concerning the completion or termination of a pregnancy." And according to the National Council of Jewish Women, Jewish law does not recognize a fetus to be a person but instead teaches that abortion is permitted and even required when a woman's health is endangered. Yet for conservative Christians who believe that life or ensoulment begins at conception, there can be no compromise on the issue of abortion. And the issue of abortion has long been a priority among conservatives in a way not shared by liberals. This helps explain much of the staying power in the anti-abortion movement. Fifty years of legal precedent support the right to abortion. But anti-abortion activists' moral certainty about the issue is so strong that, in their eyes, even this half-century of precedent seems destined to crumble. After all, they reason, legal rules and principles are rarely absolute. For them, the religious certainty about the wrongness of abortion provides an answer that the law lacks.  Steven K. Green does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Posted: 10 May 2022 05:05 AM PDT  The U.S. and its European allies recently said they planned to take a new approach in their relations with Russia: They would isolate and contain the country in the aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine. Doing so would keep Russia out of international organizations, restrict imports and exports, and prevent further military moves, ultimately weakening it. This treatment of Russia is nothing new for Western countries. While Russia is more economically and politically isolated now than it has ever been, it is no stranger to isolation and containment. Looking back over the last 100 years, it's clear that the period between 1992 and 2001, when Russia embraced the West and was largely embraced by it, is the exception. For most of the 20th century and the early 21st century, Russia has been a fearsome power that the West has wanted to hobble. The West is now returning to a strategy that was effective before in containing Russia.  Russia stands alone – mostlyFollowing the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia, as part of the newly formed Soviet Union, found itself isolated from other nations. A revolutionary state that espoused an ideology of worldwide revolution threatened other powers. That isolation took many forms. The country was not a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles, the most important of several treaties that ended World War I. It was not a member of the League of Nations, the organization founded after World War I to resolve disputes between nations, until 1934. Russia had no foreign trade agreements before 1921 and was not fully recognized in diplomacy by non-Russian powers before 1924. As a revolutionary pariah state that saw itself encircled by enemies, the Soviet Union hardened its view of the world. While the so-called Grand Alliance of the U.S., Great Britain and Soviet Union found common cause against Nazi Germany during World War II, the relationship was never comfortable. It crumbled swiftly after the war as the three powers focused on their respective spheres of vital interest and expressed differing views for the postwar world.  Containment's beginningsAfter World War II, the U.S. wanted to ensure that democratic governments were established in Europe. The Soviets were intent on establishing communist regimes in Eastern Europe. To frustrate Russia's ambitions, what was called "the doctrine of containment" became postwar policy. It was most famously articulated by U.S. diplomat George Kennan in a cable in 1946, later published in Foreign Affairs in 1947. "It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies," wrote Kennan. "The United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate … to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power," he wrote. Kennan wrote that the West would not find a way to live with the Soviet Union and that Soviet power could not be controlled by logic or reason, but could be influenced by the logic of force. He argued that political and economic means could be used to contain Soviet power and potentially force it to retreat in its ambitions. Iron Curtain entrenchesKennan's calls for containment of the Soviet Union were followed by concrete actions by the U.S. government. The Truman Doctrine in 1947 advocated for the U.S. to help rebuild shattered postwar economies in Europe so communism would not become an attractive proposition. The Marshall Plan implemented this approach and extended economic assistance to postwar Europe. It helped reinvigorate European industry and laid a pathway for European integration. Marshall Plan assistance, which ultimately totaled US$155 billion in current dollars, was offered to all European countries, including the Soviet Union. But the Soviets rejected the offer and forced Eastern European countries under their influence to do the same. The Soviets answered these Western moves with the creation in 1947 of the Cominform, a Soviet-led bloc of Communist parties aimed at defeating what it saw as U.S.-led Western imperialism and cementing party rule in member countries. Further moves came in 1949 with the creation of the economic organization of Communist countries known as COMECON. The result was the clear division of Europe into two economic and political spheres, isolating the Soviet bloc from the West. The "Iron Curtain" – the ideological, military and economic divide between democratic Western countries and the Soviet Union, along with the communist countries in its orbit – had solidified.  Containment's militarizationConcern grew among the Western countries about potential military confrontation with the Soviet Union. That led in 1949 to the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, as part of the move to contain the Soviet Union militarily. Following NATO's creation, in 1950 the U.S. State Department proposed a new policy – a top-secret report referred to as "NSC-68" – that emphasized the use of military force over diplomacy in dealing with Soviet power. As the State Department Historian writes:
More aggressive than Kennan's ideas of containment, this policy called for a massive buildup of U.S. conventional and nuclear arsenals. Soviet ambition would thus be restricted because its leaders would not likely seek a hot war with the West. President Harry Truman signed off on NSC-68 in September 1950. It remained U.S. policy until the end of the Cold War in 1991. Containment's effectsBy the early 1950s, The Soviet Union was isolated and contained by economic, political and military means in Europe. Yet Soviet leaders sought to consolidate and maintain power over Eastern Europe, using force at times. The Soviets also exercised cautious ambitions in other regions, provoking Western fears of a spread of Soviet power to the Far East, the developing world and Latin America. The U.S. and its partners worked to isolate Soviet power beyond Europe with the creation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization in 1954 and through attempts to support noncommunist regimes in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and the developing world during the ensuing decades. [Understand key political developments, each week. Subscribe to The Conversation's politics newsletter.] The effects of the isolation of the Soviet Union during the Cold War era became clear as Soviet and Eastern Bloc economies lagged behind those of the West, particularly in the production of consumer goods, as early as the 1950s. The democratic freedoms of the West were largely absent. Isolation also led to the Soviet closed state, with propaganda, the stifling of dissent, censorship, a state-controlled media, suspicion of foreigners and a society that was intended to be impervious to foreign influence. Additionally, the West's militarized containment of the Soviet Union drove a costly arms race, both nuclear and conventional, which had damaging effects on the Soviet economy by the late 1970s. That contributed to other societal challenges to Soviet power, such as rising nationalism and disillusionment with the Soviet project, which became clear in the 1980s as Soviet society faced food and consumer good shortagesand dissent rose. All served as contributing factors to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2022, the West is responding to Russian aggression as it has done so before – through implementing policies of isolation and containment to curb and weaken Russian power.  Alastair Kocho-Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Posted: 10 May 2022 05:04 AM PDT  The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big ideaIn countries with lower-than-expected COVID-19 vaccination rates, mentions of side effects and negative emotions dominated overall social media discourses on COVID-19 vaccines, according to our new research published in the journal Vaccines. Our team wanted to understand whether the tone of social media conversations around the world matched differing country-level vaccination rates. To do this, we analyzed more than 21.3 million tweets in 33 languages from 192 countries posted between November 2020 and August 2021, searching any tweet that mentioned "COVID-19" and "vaccine" or "vaccination." We then calculated percentages of these tweets that mentioned keywords signifying adverse events of vaccination, such as side effects, blood clots or death. In addition, we used an artificial intelligence algorithm to analyze the sentiment and emotional tone of tweets. This algorithm can identify positive and negative sentiment as well as emotions in language – such as joy, fear, sadness or anger. We applied the algorithm to tweets mentioning COVID-19 vaccines, allowing us to measure the general emotional trends of different countries on Twitter. Prior research has shown that emotions toward vaccines may influence whether a person decides to get a COVID-19 vaccination. Our study allowed us to examine this theory at national scales. Globally, 1.15% of tweets related to COVID-19 vaccines mentioned side effects. Sentiments toward vaccines were on average more negative than positive, with nearly two times more negative tweets than positive ones. But interestingly, negative emotions like fear, sadness or anger appeared only 0.7 times as often as joy worldwide. Using these numbers as baselines, our analysis controlled for national socioeconomic characteristics as well as numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths and then compared countries' Twitter trends and vaccination rates to global averages. We removed ads and spam from our analysis, but did not remove tweets that may be posted by bots, as they are a part of the Twitter landscape. We found that when social media discourse on vaccination is more negative than the global average in a country, the vaccination rate tends to be lower than expected. In particular, a high prevalence of tweets mentioning "side effects" or displaying fear, sadness or anger were predictive of low vaccination rates. For example, 1.42% of tweets from South Africa mentioned "side effects" – higher than the global average of 1.15% – and negative emotions appeared in tweets 1.55 times as often as joy – more than double the global average. At the time of our analysis, South Africa reported a vaccination rate of 30%, lower than other countries with similar characteristics. We found similar correlations between negative Twitter sentiments and lower-than-expected vaccination rates in many other countries, including Namibia, Ukraine, Croatia, Poland, Mexico, the Philippines and Burma. In the U.S., fear, sadness or anger appeared almost as often as joy – showing more negativity than the global average. At the time of the analysis, the vaccination rate in the U.S. was 72%, lower than the 80% or above in many other high-income countries, like Germany and Canada.  Why it mattersIn most developed countries – including the U.S. – many individuals are refusing vaccines even though vaccines are plentiful and easy to access. Social media has been a critical means of disseminating COVID-19 information. But Twitter, Facebook and other platforms have also been flooded with misinformation and disinformation – as well as people's personal sentiments on vaccination – since the beginning of the pandemic. Research shows that the more information about COVID-19 people are exposed to via social media, the less accurate their knowledge about COVID-19. Our research expands on these individual-level findings and shows social media discourses are also associated with vaccination behavior at the national level. What still isn't knownOur findings show a correlation between social media discourse and vaccination, but this type of analysis cannot identify causality. We also did not explore the reasons behind why some countries show more negative emotions in tweets than others. This might be linked to cultural differences among countries. Another limitation is due to the vagueness of language. The AI system we used is relatively good at characterizing sentiments and emotions in a tweet, but not 100% accurate. Additionally, the AI is not as strong when analyzing tweets in languages other than English. What's nextThe World Health Organization has declared the widespread misinformation about COVID-19 an infodemic, and 132 countries have agreed to combat it. Our findings support the idea that global efforts to combat misinformation, address negative emotions and promote positive language surrounding COVID-19 vaccination on social media may help boost global vaccination rates.  Jungmi Jun received funding from the Social Media Core of Big Data Health Science Center, University of South Carolina. Ali Zain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
| Starbucks' caffeinated anti-union efforts may leave a bitter taste – but are they legal? Posted: 10 May 2022 05:04 AM PDT  Good news greeted Starbucks workers on May 3, 2022, in the shape of a promise of new pay increases. But there was a catch: Employees at unionized stores – or those planning to unionize – shouldn't expect to see a dime of this hike. As far as efforts to discourage workers from supporting union drives go, the move by Starbucks appears pretty blatant. And it comes as the coffee chain sees a massive surge of union activity. Since its first victory at two stores in Buffalo in December 2021, Starbucks Workers United has now filed for union elections at over 250 stores – comprising over 6,600 employees – in over 30 states, according to the National Labor Relations Board. Moreover, the union has won 54 of the 64 elections conducted to date, many by overwhelming margins. As a scholar of organized labor, I find the growth of the union movement at Starbucks remarkable. But it has also prompted what I would characterize as a remarkably aggressive stance against unions among executives at the coffee chain. Starbucks management appears intent on halting unionizing momentum among employees – even if that means risking sanction from the federal watchdog. Indeed, on May 6, a regional director of the NLRB issued a complaint against the coffee chain over prior instances of anti-union tactics that the labor official deemed to have strayed across the line of what is legal. Anti-union or pro-Starbucks?In announcing the promised pay raise to nonunionized workers, Howard Schultz, who returned to Starbucks as interim CEO in March 2022, suggested that federal law prohibits Starbucks "from promising new wages and benefits at stores involved in union organizing." Union representatives counter that nothing in law stops Starbucks from offering such benefits to workers at unionized stores. Moreover, they say that threatening to withhold wage increases amounts to an illegal attempt to coerce workers and have filed a formal complaint with the NLRB. It is not the first time Schultz, who says he is not "anti-union" but "pro-Starbucks," has picked a fight with workers looking to unionize. In April, he told workers at a public forum that if they are unhappy working at Starbucks, they should seek employment elsewhere and claimed that American corporations nationwide are "under assault" by unions. The CEO also blamed organizing at Starbucks stores on "so-called workers" and an "outside force" – comments that appear at odds with the reality of what is going on at his stores. A quirk of the recent spate of unionizing efforts at Starbucks is that it is worker-driven, in that it is young employees spearheading the drive and spreading the word to other stores. This grassroots approach is nullifying many of the traditional anti-union tactics. Not only does it counter the claim that unionizing is being forced on workers from outsiders who may not have their best interests in mind, it also makes it harder for anti-union messages to go unchallenged. For example, group captive audience meetings – in which employees are mandated to attend sessions at which they are urged not to join a union – have proved less effective in part because pro-union workers have ensured that at least one activist is present to counter what is being said. And I have been told by organizers that at several Starbucks stores, workers have made a collective decision to refuse to attend such meetings. Reputational riskIn the face of diminishing returns for traditional efforts to persuade workers against unionizing, Starbucks appears to be upping the intensity. But going to war with its pro-union workers involves significant reputation risk for Starbucks – something the company itself has seemingly acknowledged. In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company warned investors: "Our responses to any union organizing efforts could negatively impact how our brand is perceived and have adverse effects on our business, including on our financial results." Starbucks is already facing uncomfortable headlines over its anti-union practices and the mounting number of complaints that they have prompted. Since the union campaign started in August 2021, Starbucks Workers United has filed 112 separate unfair labor practices charges against the company, prompting former NLRB chair William Gould to note, "I can't think of anything that has generated this many cases." Then on May 6, 2022, a director for the NLRB's Buffalo region issued a sweeping complaint against Starbucks. It covered over 200 instances of what it claims to be unlawful anti-union behavior. They included allegations of terminating, disciplining and surveilling pro-union workers; closing pro-union stores for several months and promising increased benefits to staff who refuse to unionize. Such NLRB complaints follow an investigation into claims of labor violations and indicate that the board has found merit in the complaints. To provide relief, the complaint requires Starbucks to put in place what amounts to a laundry list of remedies, including reinstating fired workers, providing training for Starbucks managers on workers' rights and allowing equal time for unions to address employees. It also calls on Schultz or Starbucks' executive vice president Rossann Williams – who ran the anti-union campaign in Buffalo last year – to record themselves reading a notice explaining to staff that they have a right to form a union, and for that recording to be distributed to every store in the U.S. Starbucks has indicated that it will contest the regional NLRB complaint. In a statement, the company said, "We believe the allegations contained in the complaint are false, and we look forward to presenting our evidence." An NLRB with more bite?Regardless of what the NLRB complaint says, or what the board rules in regard to the denial of promised pay increases, Starbucks' apparent efforts to slow union momentum may have some success. The Starbucks union recently suffered unexpected losses in Hawaii and Florida. Part of the problem facing worker-organizers is that it can take time to make charges of unfair anti-union practices stick. The NLRB has for decades been hampered by delays in its processes. It can take months for a ruling to come down, and if a company appeals the board's decision to a federal court, it can take years – by which time the damage to a union campaign may have already been done. Labor organizers will be hoping that the recent complaint against Starbucks will portend a decisiveness and desire to move more quickly at the NLRB under the Biden administration. President Joe Biden likes to tout his pro-union credentials. Indeed, he recently welcomed a pro-union Starbucks worker to the White House, prompting the company to demand that it get a similar invitation. But Biden's credentials as the self-proclaimed "most pro-union president in American history" may hang on how his administration, through the NLRB, is able to crack down on anti-union practices when they cross over the line.  John Logan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. |
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