Doi:10.2990/32_2_2, published by Association for Politics and the Life Sciences at Texas Tech University and the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, October 2013.

The uses of natural selection argument in politics have been constant since Charles Darwin’s times. They have also been varied. The readings of Darwin’s theory range from the most radically individualist views, as in orthodox socio-Darwinism, to the most communitarian, as in Peter Kropotkin’s and other socialist perspectives. This essay argues that such diverse, contradictory, and sometimes even outrageous political derivations from Darwin’s theory may be partially explained by some incompleteness and ambivalences underlying Darwin’s concepts. “Natural selection,” “struggle for existence,” and “survival of the fittest” are open concepts and may suggest some hierarchical and segregationist interpretations. Circumstantially, Darwin accepted social “checks,” such as discouraging marriage of “lower” individuals to prevent them from reproducing, in a vein of Malthusian politics. This makes Darwin’s theory of selection by struggle collide with his theory of social instincts, by which he explains the origins of morality. It also favors reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species or The Descent of Man from opposite, mostly ideological perspectives. Darwin’s position is ambivalent, although hardly unreasonable. The recognition he makes of social instincts, as well as the use of the concept of artificial selection, entails accepting the role of human consciousness, by which social evolution cannot be reduced to natural evolution, as socio-Darwinians did next and as some neo-Darwinists seem to repeat. On these grounds, this essay argues the inadequacy of the conventional model of natural selection for understanding politics. If we want to describe politics in Darwin’s language, artificial rather than natural selection would be the concept that performs better for explaining the courses of politics in real society.

Partisans in the American electorate are affectively polarized, which coincides with the tendency for partisan geographic sorting. Could mate selection pressures contribute to this geographic tendency, and how might they interact with out-party affect? I propose a model in which an individual’s perception of their mate success in a niche is key. I argue that perceived mate success is a function of a niche’s partisanship and one’s out-party affect, which in turn, incentivizes sorting. The model is partially tested with conjoint experiments on multiple U.S. samples. Results show that partisans perceive a lower probability of mate success in niches with greater shares of out-partisans and that mate success interacts with negative out-party affect. I also replicate findings on political mate choice preferences with a more appropriate method. Lastly, this project links instrumentality and affect, which is a departure from past work. In doing so, it contributes to research on the consequences of mate pressures for political behavior.

Some would argue there is a global movement afoot to study “biopolitics.” More and more scholarly reports that help shape our understanding of the political domain from this perspective are filling the pages of research journals. This is an important era of increasing scholarly interest in the intersection of the political and biological worlds and the rapidly evolving analytical innovations available to explore this still under-explored domain. With the arrival of these new opportunities comes a new editorial team at Politics and the Life Sciences (PLS). It is a team that extends its appreciation to the Council of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences for the trust they put in it to steer the journal forward at this interesting and critical time. As well, it is a team that expresses its heartfelt gratitude to its immediate predecessors, Tony Wohlers, Maggie Kosal, and their editorial colleagues, for their determined leadership of the journal over the last three years and the easy transition they facilitated for the new team. They clearly laid a firm foundation for the next stage of the development of the journal.

This study tests two sets of competing hypotheses about the relationship between trait reactivity to positive and negative stimuli (i.e., motivational reactivity), moral stances on social principles (i.e., social morality), and political ideology. The classic view contends that a specific political ideology or social morality results from a specific motivational reactivity pattern, whereas the dynamic coordination account suggests that trait motivational reactivity modulates an individual’s political ideology and social morality as a result of the majority political beliefs in their immediate social context. A survey using subjects recruited from a liberal-leaning social context was conducted to test these hypotheses. Results support the dynamic coordination account. Reactivity to negativity (indexed by defensive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of the dominant social morality and political ideology. Reactivity to positivity (indexed by appetitive system activation scores) is associated with the adoption of nondominant social moral and political stances.

In June of 1991, a team of experts from the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspected an Iraqi facility at Samarra, known as the “Muthanna State Enterprise for Pesticide Production.” Its inspection revealed a chemical weapons factory (United Nations, 1991). Inspectors found mustard gas and organophosphorus nerve agents, types GB and GF, as well as tabun—agent GA (CBW News, 1991). They estimated that the facility had the capacity to produce 2.5 tons of sarin and 5 tons of mustard gas per day. According to media reports, “dozens” of companies were implicated in the construction and production processes of the facility, including companies originating from Austria, France, Germany, India, Switzerland, the United States, and seven other countries (CBW News, 1991; Independent, July 17, 1991).

Recent advances in the biosciences and biotechnology erode confidence in the reliability of the Biological Weapons Convention (1972). During its review conferences (1980, 1986) concerns were expressed as to the military misuse of civil research. Although some improvements were achieved at these conferences, there still exist major deficiencies related to the definition of substances and activities to be controlled, to verification and to cooperation (transfer of technology). It is suggested that in light of the positive international climate an entirely new regime should be built. This endeavor might draw on experience acquired in environmental treaty making. An institution should be entrusted with adapting the scope of the regime (controlled substances and activities) to scientific progress, with monitoring compliance, and with organizing cooperation. Thus would be matched the rigidity of international law with the flexibility required by science and politics.

The biological defense research program maintained by the Department of Defense as a deterrent to the potential use of biological warfare against United States forces or national interests has been subjected to intense criticism. Concerns center on developments in the protective programs and the potential for new offensive developments through the application of biotechnology. The arms control activities intended to preclude any offensive developments are reviewed which point out the relative ineffectiveness of these control mechanisms. The nature, scope and direction of the biological defense research program and the openness of the program are noted. The proliferation of biological warfare capabilities adds to the urgency of an adequate defense program. The political nature of the problem and its relationship to control of biological warfare is examined and the interplay between the technical and the political roles leads to a potential solution. Key attributes of a control program should be enhanced efforts to develop the political framework to achieve effective control mechanisms while maintaining a complementary biological defense research program as the only effective deterrent at this time.

This article considers the ways in which teachers of public administration can address biopolitical issues within an established professional curriculum. The author distinguishes between the teleological and instrumental aspects of a belief system, holding that biobehavioral explanation can be pedagogically useful and can provide public administrators with a model for assessing and responding to workplace phenomena. The article proposes that undergraduate and graduate teaching impose different standards on an instructor seeking to introduce biobehavioral and biostructural concepts. The different standards arise out of the explicit and focused career instrumentality of graduate study in public administration, as well as age graded differences in receptivity to particular propositions about human nature. Finally, this article details some ways in which biobehavioral explanation can be introduced in organizational behavior classes and in classes that consider the structure of public organizations and their decision-making processes.