Evaluation and education: the ideal learning community

In this article we develop philosophically Cronbach's (1982) suggestion that the evaluator is an educator. The motivation for this article arose from problems encountered by us on a major evaluation project and from dissatisfaction with the existent philosophical underpinnings of evaluation theory. We propose, and provide a justification for, a model of evaluation based upon the notion of the evaluator as educator, which is sufficiently broad philosophically not only to subsume scientistic and humanistic models, but also to transcend them. Within this broad philosophical model we develop a particular theory of evaluation, based essentially upon Wittgenstein, and in which the notion of a learning community is taken as central. Finally we consider some practical implications of this theory of evaluation.     

The Arrow--Directional Semiotics: Wayfinding in Transit

Airport language is a spectacle, an interface for social relations between humans and machines. Signage intensifies social relations--reconfiguring territories of geophysical/architectural space into territories of recognition that speak to a productive power of language that is fundamentally non-representational. Airports are walked, the signs don't accompany or reflect upon the airport, they are machined into it. The traveller navigates through a highly textually mediated space where the signs not only enact semioticised territories but also directly intervene into the material machinic processes of travelling. As Guattari (1992: 49) might say, these point-signs 'don't simply secrete significations'. They activate the bringing into being of ontological universes. This paper focuses on 'signage' in a quite expanded yet also limited sense. It focuses on the increasing standardisation of the signifying semiologies of transit wayfinding systems which signal the primacy of pragmatic interactivity in the communicative event of walking the airport. If the controlling semiosis of non-places is, as Auge´ (1995) notes, the dominant space of supermodernity, then a thorough consideration of such signifying technologies would seem in order. This paper focuses on one of the most ubiquitous signs at the airport: the arrow. The airport's arrow is an asemic figure through which perhaps to read the semiotic technologies of the airport itself. The arrow is both a tool and a trope for the imperatives of global transit: it turns place into passage, striates space into controlled flows, and urges the traveller to 'move on'. It is a point sign that leads the way to a consideration of the technologies, both semiotic and a-semiotic, that provide the navigational and behavioural guidance that is increasingly in evidence, not only at the airport but in all public spaces.     

Media News Evaluation and Welfare Retrenchment: The Untransparent Cutbacks of the Housing Allowance

Radical welfare cutbacks normally only occur if there is obfuscation and citizens do not notice the changes. However, the media can potentially make untransparent events known and understandable to citizens. The role of the media in welfare retrenchment has not been sufficiently theorised or studied. This article attempts to partly remedy this. Research on media's news evaluation has not been in vogue lately. The literature largely has an anecdotal or atheoretical character. Here two dimensions are identified that underlay many of the news factors on the existing checklists: form and substance. Contrary to most existing research, this article focuses on an important political topic that has not had media coverage. Such a bias is a democratic problem per se. Social policy cutbacks offer an indicator upon which one can argue that there is a mismatch between the importance of an event and the media coverage it has received. The case studies of media coverage of cutbacks discussed in this article show that the media did not expose governmental blame‐avoiding behaviour, but there is evidence that media's news evaluation gave priority to transparent events whether they were important or not. Almost nothing was written on the untransparent cutbacks of the housing allowances, but the media covered the relatively insignificant, but very transparent, repayment of the housing allowance very much. Interviews with a number of important journalists regarding their news evaluation of these events substantiate the importance of transparency for press coverage. The implication is that obfuscation of cutbacks is indeed a useful governmental strategy.     

Applying the Environment Shaping Methodology: Conceptual and Practical Challenges

Abstract

Repatriation has long been the international community's preferred solution to refugee crises. This article argues that repatriation must be understood not in terms of physical return but as a process of political rapprochement between citizen, community and state. In particular, this work takes account of the need to accommodate community-based political identities. Repatriation should be conceived of as the deliberate remaking of a social compact between not only refugee-citizen and state but also refugee-nation and state. This offers a means for resolving the inherent contradiction between the notion of universal human rights and contemporary political organization which determines meaningful access to these rights on the basis of group or national identities. This is particularly important given the role of group-based conflict in causing mass refugee flight.     

Regional Place and City Space: How Metropolitan Configurations Influence Central City Policy Responsiveness

The debate between proponents of metropolitan consolidation and polyarchic fragmentation poses many conflicting arguments, offers varied hypotheses, and reaches multiple conclusions about the effects of political structures and institutional arrangements on democratic governance. Despite varied and widespread attention to the topic, however, little resolution has been offered to appease either side. Additionally problematic is that implicit in both of these schools of research is the assumption that efficiency, whether achieved in fragmented or consolidated settings, is the prime preference of the citizenry. In this article, I specifically pursue the following research question: How do jurisdictional and metropolitan configurations influence the responsiveness of urban governments to public opinion? My findings illustrate that not only is considering the effect of metro place on city space a necessary and important pursuit, but a broader conceptualization of citizen preferences is of critical importance to scholars of urban politics, especially when assumptions about public opinion motivate choices about institutional sizes and structures.     

Meaning and material in the language of the street

This paper describes the materiality of street signs, an unappreciated and ubiquitous type of everyday written text. Drawing on social semiotics, linguistic landscapes and writing system research, it uses a categorisation of social roles associated with street signs and of the functions of street signs applied to street signs in Newcastle upon Tyne, with some other wider examples. The materials are divided into: stone and metal signs, which use capitals and archaic letters, convey permanence and quality, and are locating in function; signs handwritten or printed on paper, which also use capitals, convey temporary status and novelty and are mostly informing; painted signs, which often use lower case, have highly individual letter forms to express identity, and are usually informing; other materials ranging from glass to snow, expressing diverse ideas of permanence. The conclusion is that the meaning of street signs depends in part on the materials they are made of, particularly to convey permanence and identity.     

How can we better align private security with the public interest? Towards a civilizing model of regulation

How can we better align private security with the public interest? This question has met with two answers in the literature on private security regulation, one seeking to cleanse the market of deviant sellers, the other to communalize the market through the empowerment of buyers. Both models of regulation are premised upon a limited neoclassical economic conception of how market transactions map onto the public interest. This article makes the case for a new model of regulation, one that seeks to civilize the market. Drawing upon the insights of economic sociology, our model regards the market for security as a moral economy in which commodity and non‐commodity values jostle and collide. On this basis, we propose a regulatory architecture where buyers and sellers are cast not only as economic actors but also as moral actors, revealing new avenues through which to encompass private security within the democratic promise of security.     

New rôles of government in supporting manufacturing: the capabilities of support agencies in Ghana and Zimbabwe

This study examines the roles and capabilities of executive agencies in providing support services to manufacturing in Ghana and Zimbabwe. It asserts that the new roles of government during and after adjustment have not been clearly defined and are in fact more complex than running state‐owned productive enterprises. The basic shift is said to be from direct provision of goods and services to the provision of an enabling environment through support in areas such as training, information, finance, export and investment promotion and technology. Economic development is stimulated when there is a harmonious relationship between entrepreneurs and their institutional environment, much of which is provided by the state. This article concentrates upon the role of meso‐level agencies in changing incentives faced by entrepreneurs and shifting them out of unproductive activity and into productive entrepreneurship, and outlines some of the preliminary results from related research. There are several factors which influence the capabilities of agencies providing these services. Essentially they may be divided into internal and external factors. This allows the analysis to consider not only budgeting and incentive systems but also the impact of external pressures experienced by any given agency. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

More than Writing on a Wall: Evaluating the Role that Codes of Ethics Play in Securing Accountability of Public Sector Decision‐Makers

This article argues that the essential factors of a public service code of ethics can be divided into five categories. These categories or principles are fairness, transparency, responsibility, efficiency and conflict of interest. These principles are identified in this article as being the basic elements of democratic accountability in relation to public sector decision‐making. The issues explored are not only the obstacles that the public service decision‐maker faces in internalising these principles but, also, the challenges for a pro‐active management in fostering such internalisation.     

Backjumps: writing,watching, erasing train graffiti

This article deals with mobile semiotics. First and foremost, it discusses mobility as a semiotic device. The analysis engages with backjumps, a genre of train graffiti that draws inventively on various forms of movement. The term backjump refers to any fairly elaborate graffiti piece painted on trains in traffic, notably during the trains’ extended stops at terminal stations. The examples focus on the Stockholm metro, where a rigorous anti-graffiti policy has been firmly in place: graffiti is quickly cleaned off trains and a range of strategies is implemented to keep graffiti writing under wraps. By slyly inserting graffiti into the metro system, the mobility-driven backjump practice allows graffiti writers to temporarily subvert this semiotic regime. Furthermore, the forms of semiotic mobility at play are not limited to the movement of the trains. As the present study shows, mobile backjumps are entangled in other patterns of mobility, which jointly underwrite a number of interlinked semiotic processes.     

The use of intelligence by insurgent groups: the North Vietnamese in the Second Indochina War as a case study

The need to define intelligence is understandable because the secrecy surrounding it can almost make it appear too amorphous to study. In most definitions, the authors not only attempt to define what intelligence is but also who does it. Until recently the focus has been on the state with occasional focus on sub-state actors such as law enforcement agencies. After 9/11 there was a shift from the study of inter-state intelligence to the use of intelligence against non-state actors such as Al Qaeda. The literature still treated these non-state actors as something to be acted upon rather than intelligence actors in their own right. By examining the North Vietnamese use of intelligence during the Second Indochina War this article takes a step to redress that oversight. This article will discuss the North Vietnamese use of intelligence in the context of definitions of intelligence and intelligence actors and will use John Gentry’s proposed model of violent non-state actor intelligence as its analytical framework.     

农民工城市融合概念及对城市感知关系的影响——基于上海农民工的调查研究

数以亿计的农民工和谐融入城市是当前以及未来中国社会发展中的重大问题。为了研究文化融合、经济融合、政治融合和社会融合等诸方面的因素是如何影响农民工对城市的感知关系水平的,基于2010年在沪农民工的问卷调查数据,考察了农民工城市融合诸因素对城市感知关系(生活满意度、认同度、未来发展意愿)的影响。发现:文化融合程度越高,农民工对上海的认同程度就越高,也会更愿意留在上海发展,但其生活满意度未必越高;经济融合程度越高,城市生活满意度、城市认同度和未来留在上海发展的意愿都越高;政治融合只对未来发展意愿有影响;社会融合越高,农民工对城市的认同度越高,对生活也越满意。研究为政府引导和促进农民工和谐融入城市提供了新的视角。     

Should We Be Compelled to Have Identity Cards? Justifications for the Legal Enforcement of Obligations

In many countries, there is a debate about whether compulsory identity card schemes are acceptable and justifiable. The UK government, for example, has now committed itself to introduce such a scheme. This case provides the main example in the article, although the argument is of general application. Justifying compulsion requires not only that there be a demonstrated and fundamental obligation upon residents in a country to identify themselves using a prescribed card, but that the duty should be so strong as to merit legal enforcement. The article considers, from first principles, various arguments for the existence of an obligation upon citizens to possess a standard state-issued form of identification and produce it when reasonably requested to do, and for the enforceability of such a duty. A distinctive argument is presented that there can be a valid but limited justification for such an obligation. However, this will not justify any compulsory identity card scheme. Many schemes will violate important additional side-constraints, and there are reasons to suspect that the British government's current proposals may do so. If the argument is accepted, then it would clarify exactly what the focus of debate about an identity card scheme should be. The argument also has wider implications for the scope of individual obligations.     

Advocate or Reflection? Associations and Political Culture

This article questions one of the crucial issues of the current social capital debate: do voluntary associations necessarily contribute to the creation or maintenance of a civic culture? Based upon empirical and historical evidence this article demonstrates that associations' cultural spirit simply reflects and amplifies dominant cultural traits of a given time and a given society. Changes in public culture prompt changes in associative culture, and not vice versa. In other words, contemporary associations are more democratic and more civil because they exist within societies which are themselves more democratic and civil than societies of past times. Members in associations represent society's active parts; as activists they have a higher susceptibility to cultural trends and fashions. This susceptibility is the major reason for the modest but statistically significant relationship between membership in associations and a range of cultural attitudes. Zaller's concept of political persuasion is applied to explain the Zeitgeist dependence of voluntary associations.     

“Where Liberty Reigns and God is Supreme”: The Christian Right and the Tea Party Movement

In this article we argue that the tea party movement is the most conspicuous contemporary vehicle for reconciliation between Christian and economic conservatives. The analysis draws upon participant observation of two recent Christian right events at which the tea party was a central preoccupation. Offering evidence of the dynamics of a shifting framing process, it is argued that the Christian right elites are willing to accommodate strategically the precedence of economic issues but only if these are accompanied by a commitment to familiar Christian right positions on social issues.     

Patriotic Virtue

Some philosophers argue that the state and its citizens stand in a morally privileged position vis-à-vis one another, but not towards other states or citizens. However, many of those people, particularly philosophical liberals, also hold that morally insignificant differences, such as place of birth, sex or ethnicity, should not affect rights, liberties and life prospects. On the face of it, these two sets of ideas appear incompatible and point to a conflict in some liberal thought. Liberal philosophers, like John Rawls, have attempted to reconcile these conflicting ideas. His attempt has attracted a great deal of criticism, especially from those liberals attracted to a more cosmopolitan point of view. In this article, we use Aristotelian virtue ethics as the basis upon which to reconcile liberalism and patriotism. We argue that the state should be understood as an agent that stands in a special relationship to its citizens (of philia ). The state's virtue depends, in part, on it giving those citizens preferential treatment with regard to justice compared to citizens of other countries. Similarly, if citizens are to be just in their relations with their own state, they must behave in special ways towards that state as compared to other states. Certain forms of justice only arise in relationships of particular kinds.     

公共政策创新的因素分析——以《上海市政府信息公开规定》为例

随着施政的生态环境加速变迁,政府必须以创新公共政策的方式予以应对。但政府创新公共政策的内在因素是什么呢?已有的文献不仅局限于美国的政策生态,而且以计量方式考察经济、政治和社会因素,忽视了其中大量难以计量以及需要整合考察的因素。在一个融合条件(资源和要素、政治架构、现有制度和政策及社会文化)和机制(学习机制、决策机制、执行机制、激励机制和评价机制)的综合模型指导下,以分析性叙事的方法,具体考察上海市创新政府信息公开制度的内在因素。分析案例表明,尽管上海在条件和机制上都非常充分的情况下,也还必须融合各种条件和机制才能解释创新的出现及其有效运行。     

Geographies of Crime and Justice: Contemporary Transitional Justice and the Creation of 'Zones of Impunity'

This article explores some of the challenges that transnationalcrimes pose to the operation of transnational justice. By transnationalcrimes, we mean serious violations of international human rightsand humanitarian law that transcend national borders and areperpetrated by state or non-state actors. Many national andinternational legal mechanisms may only address a segment ofthese crimes, creating what we refer to as ‘zones of impunity.’This article examines how these dilemmas are unfolding in threeAfrican contexts: the possibility that Charles Taylor is triedfor crimes in Sierra Leone but not in Liberia; that only Congolese,and not Rwandans or Ugandans, face prosecution for crimes inIturi or elsewhere in the Democratic Republic of Congo; or thatJoseph Kony escapes prosecution in Uganda through being allowedamnesty or exile in Sudan. Our analytic framework considershow geography and politics affect legal responses to transnationalcrimes.     

Money,State, Hegemony: A Political Ontology of Money

This article develops a political understanding of the money-form, its relation to value, to society, and to the state. It argues that the value of assets is based on societal relations. These value relations are expressed in a general measure of value – money. Money serves as the equivalent for all asset values. This general equivalent is conceptualized as a master signifier. Based on Laclau’s political theory and theories of International Political Economy, the article argues that it is the master signifier, which not only defines the assets’ value relations, but also constitutes the assets by assigning value. It follows that the value of an asset can only be determined when it can be expressed in money, and that asset values can only be made comparable when they can be related to this general money-form. Furthermore, the transition from a specific object or credit to the money-form is theorized as a political process. Money ultimately represents a specific political relationship resulting from hegemonic struggles. To conceptualize money as a master signifier makes it possible to understand money not as a neutral measure of abstract value but as a general measure of value relations resulting from political processes and social struggles.     

Variable responses to neighborhood social contexts: Assimilation,conflict, and tipping points

The social contexts of urban neighborhoods provide a dimension to urban politics which extends beyond the characteristics of discrete political actors. This article shows that the political effects of these spatially defined social environments depend upon individual characteristics, as well as neighborhood properties; the contextual effects are not constant across individual categories or within individual categories across context. Using Democratic identification as the dependent variable, two reactions to context are demonstrated: conflict and assimilation. The interdependency of individual characteristics and contextual properties determines (1) which reaction occurs where for which individuals, and (2) the extent of political differences between occupational classes.An earlier version of this article was presented at the meetings of the Southern Political Science Association, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, November 1979, as Working Paper Number 1 of the Institute of Government Research at Louisiana State University.