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Understanding Peace Research: Methods and Challenges
by Kristine Hoglund Magnus ObergThis textbook provides a comprehensive overview of different methods and sources of information-gathering for peace and conflict students and researchers, as well as the challenges presented by such work. Research on conflict-ridden societies carries special challenges for the collection and evaluation of information about the conflict and its actors. First, due to the nature of information emerging, incentives to misrepresent and propaganda is common. News coverage is sometimes poor and reporting is often incomplete, selective and biased. Second, the sensitivity of the topic and the questions posed in peace and conflict research means that access to and the security of informants can be a problem. Peace and conflict research as a discipline encompasses a number of different approaches for obtaining empirical information which serve as a basis for analyzing various research topics. This book provides a comprehensive overview of different methods and sources of information-gathering for students and researchers, as well as the challenges presented by such work. It offers: tools for evaluating sources and information suggestions on where different types of information can be found advice on using different types of sources, including news reports and written narratives practical guidelines for constructing large-scale datasets insights and guidelines for comparative fieldwork, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and surveys? reflection and discussion on important ethical concerns in peace research This book will be of much interest for students and researchers of peace and conflict studies, conflict resolution, war and conflict studies, development studies, security studies and IR, as well as for NGO workers/researchers. Kristine Höglund is Associate Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. She has a PhD in Peace and Conflict Research from Uppsala University Sweden (2004). She is author of Peacemaking in the Shadow of Violence. Magnus Öberg is Associate Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Peace Research (since 2006). He has a PhD in Peace and Conflict Research from Uppsala University (2003) and is co-editor of Resources, Governance, and Civil Conflict (Routledge, 2008).
Understanding Peacekeeping
by Paul D. Williams Alex J. BellamyPeace operations remain a principal tool for managing armed conflict and protecting civilians. The fully revised, expanded and updated third edition of Understanding Peacekeeping provides a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the theory, history, and politics of peace operations. Drawing on a dataset of nearly two hundred historical and contemporary missions, this book evaluates the changing characteristics of the contemporary international environment in which peace operations are deployed, the strategic purposes peace operations are intended to achieve, and the major challenges facing today’s peacekeepers. All the chapters have been revised and updated, and five new chapters have been added – on stabilization, organized crime, exit strategies, force generation, and the use of force. Part 1 summarizes the central concepts and issues related to peace operations. Part 2 charts the historical development of peacekeeping, from 1945 through to 2020. Part 3 analyses the strategic purposes that United Nations and other peace operations are intended to achieve – namely, prevention, observation, assistance, enforcement, stabilization, and administration. Part 4 looks forward and examines the central challenges facing today’s peacekeepers: force generation, the regionalization and privatization of peace operations, the use of force, civilian protection, gender issues, policing and organized crime, and exit strategies.
Understanding Personal Security and Risk: A Guide for Business Travelers
by Charles E. GoslinUniting broad, time-tested security principles and the author’s 35-plus years of experience with international security, intelligence, and foreign affairs, Understanding Personal Security: A Guide for Business Travelers offers a detailed yet practical framework on which to develop personal security awareness and training programs. As a critical resource for any travelers who may need to make fast, smart judgements in high-risk environments, this book helps readers analyze threats, threat actors, and the common adversarial characteristics, as well as the function of risk as a differentiating principle. This versatile text blends abstract organizing principles with street honed instincts, becoming equally valuable to security managers with previous experience and those corporate or non-profit organizations with employees in developing nations.
Understanding Policing and Professional Practice (The Professional Policing Curriculum in Practice)
by Barrie Sheldon Peter WilliamsThis book outlines the foundations for understanding modern policing. It is an essential introduction for all policing students and trainee police officers to the underpinning aspects of the profession, providing a clear understanding of how the police service is currently organised and how it fits into the wider criminal justice system. Students are encouraged to think critically and reflect upon core concepts such as policing by consent, police accountability, governance and professional standards, and it examines the challenges of policing an increasingly global, technical and diverse world.The Professional Policing Curriculum in Practice is a new series of books that match the requirements of the new pre-join policing qualifications. The texts reflect modern policing, are up-to-date and relevant, and grounded in practice. They reflect the challenges faced by new students, linking theory to real-life operational practice, while addressing critical thinking and other academic skills needed for degree-level study.
Understanding Policy Change: How to Apply Political Economy Concepts in Practice
by Issel Masses Ferrer Alexander Hamilton Cristina Corduneanu-HuciHow do social and political contexts shape the success of reform efforts? How can policymakers evaluate the risks and opportunities of these complex environments to decide what projects are feasible? Under what conditions do individuals and organizations join forces to achieve development goals?
Understanding Policy Fiascoes
by Paul 't HartA crisis of governance is widespread in western societies. Public administration is caught in a web of personal and organizational inter-dependencies that require continuous awareness and readjustment on the part of its practitioners. Understanding Policy Fiascoes applies policy analysis to come to terms with policy fiascoes, with a full appreciation of its limits. Despite the fact that policy failures may seem universal, they are in fact better understood as social, political and academic constructions. Bovens and 'tHart trace how and why certain episodes of public policymaking become labeled as "fiascoes." They highlight the analytical and political biases that shape our judgments of policy outcomes and the performance of policymakers and institutions.When put in their proper historical, institutional, and policymaking perspective, many policy fiascoes could easily have turned out quite differently. The authors show that the fact that these policy episodes unfolded as they did does not mean that they were inevitable. Careful analysis indicates that a whole series of variables, if not always manageable, can, through careful configurations of decisions, alter the course and outcomes of policies and programs, as well as the post-hoc judgments made about them.In examining public policymaking, certain questions arise: If public policymaking has failed so miserably, what does this tell us about the state of policy analysis? While policymakers are facing a crisis of legitimacy, policy analysis have been forced to reconsider the validity o their knowledge claims and the extent of their impact on the practice of policymaking. Understanding Policy Fiascoes will provide social scientists, policymakers, and political scientists with compelling perspectives on old problems and a path-breaking way to handle new problems.
Understanding Political Participation: Green Party Membership in Scotland
by Lynn BennieDeveloping a framework of analysis which enables a detailed empirical investigation of Scottish Green Party membership, this is a detailed assessment of why people become members of a green party. The questions are particularly relevant in the light of declining political participation. Lynn Bennie responds to the gap in the literature on green and small parties and builds on the work of other researchers who have used similar methods to explore membership of the larger parties. The volume incorporates an extensive review of participation literature; details the history of the Scottish Green Party; documents extensive survey data of party members; and develops an understanding of motivations behind membership of a green party. It will prove ideal for courses on political behaviour and green politics, and be of interest to sociologists and political science researchers.
Understanding Political Public Relations Techniques: An Exploration of Their Value and Function for Political Communication
by Albina GayosoThis book focuses on Political Public Relations (PPR) Techniques of both Russian and US Leaderships. It does so by analysing leadership (presidential or otherwise) inaugural addresses from the two countries between 1980 to 2018, using triangulation analysis of verbal, non-verbal language, and emotions of speakers. Given that the Russian perception of Political Public Relations, known as Political Technologies (PT) in Russia, is unique and often misunderstood or misinterpreted in Western scholarship, the book acts as a bridge between these two fields of studies. With that in mind, the study of Political Technologies is explained and applied in a wider sense than is offered by other disciplines, specifically in more meaningful ways than suggested in communications discipline in the West. In doing so, the book not only offers a deep dive into theory, but also provides a unique methodology aiming at extracting and analysing PPR or PT techniques. This triangulation method allows us to investigate a combined effect of audio visual and verbal “effects” on the general public, and offers a way of interpreting such “effects”. Readers would understand more about the research dynamic in PPR discipline, apply the triangulation methodology to expand this research, and more generally find out more about the evidence-based list of PPR techniques and their applications and interpretations.”
Understanding Political Science Research Methods: The Challenge of Inference
by Maryann Barakso Brian Schaffner Daniel M. SabetThis text starts by explaining the fundamental goal of good political science research--the ability to answer interesting and important questions by generating valid inferences about political phenomena. Before the text even discusses the process of developing a research question, the authors introduce the reader to what it means to make an inference and the different challenges that social scientists face when confronting this task. Only with this ultimate goal in mind will students be able to ask appropriate questions, conduct fruitful literature reviews, select and execute the proper research design, and critically evaluate the work of others. The authors' primary goal is to teach students to critically evaluate their own research designs and others' and analyze the extent to which they overcome the classic challenges to making inference: internal and external validity concerns, omitted variable bias, endogeneity, measurement, sampling, and case selection errors, and poor research questions or theory. As such, students will not only be better able to conduct political science research, but they will also be more savvy consumers of the constant flow of causal assertions that they confront in scholarship, in the media, and in conversations with others. Three themes run through Barakso, Sabet, and Schaffner's text: minimizing classic research problems to making valid inferences, effective presentation of research results, and the nonlinear nature of the research process. Throughout their academic years and later in their professional careers, students will need to effectively convey various bits of information. Presentation skills gleaned from this text will benefit students for a lifetime, whether they continue in academia or in a professional career. Several distinctive features make this book noteworthy: A common set of examples threaded throughout the text give students a common ground across chapters and expose them to a broad range of subfields in the discipline. Box features throughout the book illustrate the nonlinear, "non-textbook" reality of research, demonstrate the often false inferences and poor social science in the way the popular press covers politics, and encourage students to think about ethical issues at various stages of the research process. A companion website that gives students additional opportunities to fine tune their understanding of the book's material.
Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis
by Peter GalderisiIn politics, you begin by asking theoretically interesting questions. Sometimes statistics can help answer those questions. When it comes to applied statistics, students shouldn’t just learn a vast array of formula—they need to learn the basic concepts of statistics as solutions to particular problems. Peter Galderisi demonstrates that statistics are a summary of how to answer the problem: learn the math but only after learning the concepts and methodological considerations that give it context. With this as a starting point, Understanding Political Science Statistics asks students to consider how to address a research problem conceptually before being led to the appropriate formula. Throughout, Galderisi looks at problems through a lens of "observations and expectations," which can be applied to myriad statistical techniques, both descriptive and inferential. This approach links the answers researchers get from their individual data analysis to the research designs and questions from which these analyses are derived. By emphasizing the underlying logic of statistical analysis for greater understanding and drawing on applications and examples from political science (including law), the book illustrates how students can apply statistical concepts and techniques in their own research, in future coursework, and simply as an informed consumer of numbers in public discourse. The following features help students master the material: Legal and Methodological sidebars highlight key concepts and provide applied examples on law, politics, and methodology; End-of-chapter exercises allow students to test their mastery of the basic concepts and techniques along the way; A Sample Solutions Guide provides worked-out answers for odd-numbered exercises, with all answers available in the Instructor’s Manual; Key Terms are helpfully called out in both Marginal Definitions and a Glossary; A Companion Website (www.routledge.com/cw/galderisi) with further resources for both students and instructors; A diverse array of data sets include subsets of the ANES and Eurobarometer surveys; CCES; US Congressional district data; and a cross-national dataset with political, economic, and demographic variables; and Companion guides to SPSS and Stata walk students through the procedures for analysis and provide exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets.
Understanding Political Science Statistics using SPSS: A Manual with Exercises
by Peter GalderisiThis manual walks students through the procedures for analysis in SPSS and provides exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets. The manual complements the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis, by Peter Galderisi, making it easy to use alongside the book in a course or as a stand-alone guide to using SPSS. Galderisi demonstrates how to use both syntax and GUI driven formats and shows sample results of the analyses. Filled with annotated screenshots from SPSS version 22 (but compatible with all versions, including the student version), the students will be guided through standard processes replete with examples and exercises to ready them for future work in political science research. The diverse group of data sets provided include subsamples of both the 2008 and 2012 American National Election Studies, a Eurobarometer survey, single year and longitudinal congressional district files, the 2012 Comparative Congressional Election Study data set, and a comparative, crossnational country file. Versions with reduced case numbers and variables are also included that are compatible with the student version.This manual (and a parallel Stata manual) are available as stand-alone products or packaged with the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics.
Understanding Political Science Statistics using Stata: A Manual with Exercises
by Ellen SeljanThis manual walks students through the procedures for analysis in Stata and provides exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets. The manual complements the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis, by Peter Galderisi, making it easy to use alongside the book in a course or as a stand-alone guide to using Stata. Seljan demonstrates how to run commands in Stata for different kinds of research questions and shows the results of the analyses, using lots of annotated screenshots from Stata version 12 (but compatible with all versions, including Stata Small). Students will be guided through standard processes replete with examples and exercises to ready them for future work in political science research. The diverse group of data sets provided include subsamples of both the 2008 and 2012 American National Election Studies, a Eurobarometer survey, single year and longitudinal congressional district files, the 2012 Comparative Congressional Election Study, and a comparative, crossnational country file. Versions with reduced case numbers and variables are also included that are compatible with Stata Small.This manual (and a parallel SPSS manual) are available as stand-alone products or packaged with the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics.
Understanding Politics and Society
by Fabio de NardisThis textbook presents political sociology as a connective social science that studies political phenomena by creating fruitful connections with other perspectives. The relationship between politics and society is more complex than ever due to the emergence of new power structures, forms of conflict organization and management, and social practices of political participation. Several scholars describe this historical phase as the 'de-politicization of representative politics'. The book addresses classical themes of and approaches to political sociology, but also dedicates several chapters to contemporary developments within political sociology, including, for instance, the role of the internet and bottom-up political communication in social movements. In addition, the volume acts as a professional tool for those scholars and researchers that are beginning to study political processes from a sociological perspective.
Understanding Popular Culture and World Politics in the Digital Age (Popular Culture and World Politics)
by Caitlin Hamilton and Laura J. ShepherdThe practices of world politics are now scrutinised in a way that is unprecedented, with even those previously – or conventionally assumed to be – disengaged from international affairs being drawn into world politics by social media. Interactive websites allow users to follow election results in real-time from the other side of the world, and online mapping means that the world ‘out there’ is now available on your mobile phone. Understanding Popular Culture and World Politics in the Digital Age engages these themes in contemporary world politics, to better understand how digital communication through new media technologies changes our encounters with the world. Whether the focus is digital media, social networking or user-generated content, these sites of political activity and the artefacts they produce have much to tell us about how we engage world politics in the contemporary age. This volume represents the starting point of a dialogue about how digital technologies are beginning to impact the research and practice of scholars and practitioners in the field of International Relations, with the collection of cutting-edge essays dealing specifically with the intertextuality of world politics and digital popular culture. This book will be of use to International Relations research academics (and critically engaged publics) interested in the core themes of global politics – subjectivity, militarism, humanitarianism, civil society organisation, and governance. The book also employs theories and techniques closely associated with other social science disciplines, including political theory, sociology, cultural studies and media studies.
Understanding Populist Party Organisation
by Reinhard Heinisch Oscar MazzoleniRight-wing populist parties are thriving throughout Europe. With few exceptions, political systems have seen such parties make significant electoral gains and shape the national political discourse across the continent. In recent years, many populist parties have undergone leadership changes and other evolutionary challenges to which they adapted well, often contrary to expectations. This timely collection is devoted to understanding how Western European right-wing populist parties organize themselves. Without understanding the role of the organizational dynamics, we fail to understand how populist parties adapt over time and thus endure. Providing a systematic and comprehensive analysis of organizational issues of populist parties over time, Understanding Populist Party Organisation explores a range of political parties in Western Europe, examining their internal dynamics and questioning whether it is possible to discern or construct a general "populist" party typology of organization and representation. The book includes chapters on the Austrian Freedom Party, the Vlaams Belang, the Swiss People's Party, the Lega Nord, the Front National, the Norwegian Progress Party, and the Sweden Democrats.
Understanding Post-Communist Transformation: A Bottom Up Approach
by Richard RoseThe fall of the Berlin Wall launched the transformation of government, economy and society across half of Europe and the former Soviet Union. This text deals with the process of change in former Communist bloc countries, ten of which have become new European Union (EU) democracies while Russia and her neighbours remain burdened by their Soviet legacy. Drawing on more than a hundred public opinion surveys from the New Europe Barometer, the text compares how ordinary people have coped with the stresses and opportunities of transforming Communist societies into post-Communist societies and the resulting differences between peoples in the new EU member states and Russia. Subjects covered by Understanding Post-Communist Transformation include: Stresses and opportunities of economic transformation Social capital and the development of civil society Elections and the complexities of party politics The challenges for the EU of raising standards of democratic governance Differences between Russia’s and the West’s interpretation of political life Written by one of the world's most renowned authorities on this subject, this text is ideal for courses on transition, post-communism, democratization and Russian and Eastern European history and politics.
Understanding Power: An Imperative For Human Services
by Elaine PinderhughesUnderstanding Power: An Imperative for Human Services presents basic concepts explaining the multilevel, bidirectional, and recursive operation of power, its effects, and the thinking needed for effective intervention. This resource offers an opportunity to work toward building a metaview from which to address how power operates when it is just and to discover its potential for healing and helping people to find, discover, reclaim, or enhance their own power.
Understanding Power
by John Schoeffel Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and the decline of domestic social services, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the media's role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power offers a sweeping critique of the world around us and is definitive Chomsky.Characterized by Chomsky's accessible and informative style, this is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.
Understanding The Presidency Seventh Edition
by James P. Pfiffner Roger H. DavidsonUpdated in its 7th edition, Understanding the Presidency provides readers with a blend of classic and contemporary readings on the presidency to ground and expand their knowledge of the highest office in the land. The new edition gives readers the analytical tools needed to make sense of the modern presidency.
Understanding Program Evaluation, Sage Human Services Guides, Volume 31
by Leonard Rutman George Mowbray"This is an interesting monograph and one which should be useful for the intended audience of program managers and students . . . particularly in respect to the emphasis placed on the utilization of evaluation information for management purposes and the need to tailor evaluations to meet this primary purpose." --Canadian Evaluation Society Newsletter
Understanding Protest Diffusion: The Case of the Egyptian Uprising of 2011
by Arne F. WackenhutThis book traces the mobilization process leading up to the January 25 Uprising, and furthers our understanding of the largely unexpected diffusion of protest during this Egyptian Revolution. Focusing on the role of the so-called “Cairo-based political opposition,” this study strongly suggests a need to pay closer attention to the complexity and contingent nature of such large-scale protest episodes. Building on interviews with activists, employees of NGOs in the human rights advocacy sector, and journalists, this in-depth single case study reveals how different movement organizations in the Egyptian prodemocracy movement had long, and largely unsuccessfully, tried to mobilize support for socio-political change in the country. Against this backdrop, the book illustrates how a coalition of activists sought to organize a protest event against police brutality in early 2011. The resulting protests on January 25 surprised not only the regime of Hosni Mubarak, but also the organizers.
Understanding Proto-Insurgencies
by Daniel BymanThis study examines how terrorist groups transition to insurgencies and identifies ways to combat proto-insurgents. It describes the steps groups must take to gain the size and capabilities of insurgencies, the role of outside state support, and actions governments can take to prevent potential insurgencies from blossoming. The most effective U.S. counterinsurgency action would be to anticipate the possibility of insurgencies developing; it could then provide training and advisory programs and inhibit outsides support.
Understanding Public Management
by Kjell A Eliassen Nick Sitter'A broad-ranging and highly intelligent account of key recent developments internationally which skillfully updates the public management and governance literatures' - Ewan Ferlie, Royal Holloway 'Public management has been radically changed and reformed... this book gives students a fine introduction to these changes and to the theories dealing with them' - Jørgen Grønnegaard Christensen, University of Aarhus An introduction and guide to the dramatic changes that have occurred in the provision of public services over the last two decades, this book combines theoretical perspectives with a range of case studies from Europe, North America and further afield to explain why, how and with what success liberal democracies have reformed the service role of the state. The book pays close attention to four major dimensions of this transition: " External challenges and opportunties: globalisation and EU integration " Reducing the role of the state: Liberalisation, privatisation, regulation and competition policy " Improving the role of the state: New Public Management, e-Government and beyond " Managing the New Public Sector: organisations, strategy and leadership This text is designed for undergraduate courses in public governance, but it also addresses the core components of MPA programmes - the parameters, tools, principles and theories of public sector reform.
Understanding Public Opinion
by Clyde Wilcox Barbara NorranderClick here to preview a sample chapter!In this highly anticipated revision, editors Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox expose students to the substance and process of public opinion research in an accessible way. Capturing the diversity of this research with 12 essays—10 new to this edition and 2 fully updated—well-respected contributors highlight the many approaches social scientists use to explore public opinion while citing actual research and teasing out the political implications of their findings.Understanding Public Opinion expands on important ideas that basic textbooks cover only briefly, such as public views of those on trial for terrorist acts, public attitudes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the rise and fall of public support for George W. Bush. Part introductions provide important thematic context, and a statistics primer in the appendix offers students a handy reference. More relevant and thought-provoking than ever, Understanding Public Opinion is the ideal supplement for any public opinion course.
Understanding Public Opinion Polls
by Jelke BethlehemPolls are conducted every day all around the world for almost everything (especially during elections). But not every poll is a good one. A lot depends on the type of questions asked, how they are asked and whether the sample used is truly representative. And these are not the only aspects of a poll that should be checked. So how does one separate the chaff from the wheat? That’s where Understanding Public Opinion Polls comes in. Written by a well-known author with over thirty years of experience, the book is built around a checklist for polls that describes the various aspects of polls to pay attention to if one intends to use its results. By comprehensively answering the questions in the checklist, a good idea of the quality of the poll is obtained. Features: Provides readers with a deeper understanding of practical and theoretical aspects of opinion polls while assuming no background in mathematics or statistics Shows how to determine if a poll is good or bad Provides a historical perspective and includes examples from real polls Gives special attention to online and election polls The book gives an overview of many aspects of polls – questionnaire design, sample selection, estimation, margins of error, nonresponse and weighting. It is essential reading for those who want to gain a better understanding of the ins and outs of polling including those who are confronted with polls in their daily life or work or those who need to learn how to conduct their own polls.