Is an Early Start the Best Start?: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Political Science Summer Bridge Program

Summer bridge programs are supposed to connect a graduating high school senior’s summer to their first semester in college, easing the transition away from home and into a university setting. Although research is plentiful on the programs, assessments regarding the overall effectiveness of such programs have been mixed (e.g., Cabrera, Miner, and Milem 2013 Cabrera, Nolan, Danielle Miner, and Jeffrey Milem. 2013. “Can A Summer Bridge Program Impact First-Year Persistence And Performance?: A Case Study Of The New Start Summer Program.” Research in Higher Education 54(5): 481–498.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Douglas and Attewell 2014 Douglas, Daniel, and Paul Attewell. 2014. “The Bridge and the Troll Underneath: Summer Bridge Programs and Degree Completion.” American Journal of Education 121(1): 87–109.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Grayson 2003 Grayson, J. Paul. 2003. “The Consequences of Early Adjustment to University.” Higher Education 46(4): 411–429.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). As Cabrera, Miner, and Milem (2013 Cabrera, Nolan, Danielle Miner, and Jeffrey Milem. 2013. “Can A Summer Bridge Program Impact First-Year Persistence And Performance?: A Case Study Of The New Start Summer Program.” Research in Higher Education 54(5): 481–498.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) note, many of the studies collect data from participants in a one-time satisfaction survey and/or do not have an equivalent group of students who did not participate in the program from which to compare effectiveness. Our proposed study mitigates these flaws by employing a nonequivalent-groups quasi-experiment (NEG). Our bridge program—called Early Start (ES)— tapped into social, emotional, and academic engagement, as we sought to integrate the students into the university and school communities while holding high expectations and actively involving them in their own learning (Tinto 2004 Tinto, Vincent. 2004. Student Retention and Graduation-Facing the Truth, Living with the Consequences. Washington, DC: The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. [Google Scholar]). Results suggest that not only were students enrolled in our program better socially and emotionally integrated into the university during their first year but they also scored better on content-based political science questions at the end of the fall semester, compared to their non-Early Start peers. Finally, aggregated data indicate an increase in retention for Early Start participants.     

Appeals to the Hispanic Demographic: Targeting through Facebook Autoplay Videos by the Clinton Campaign during the 2015/2016 Presidential Primaries

By looking at the autoplay videos posted and shared on Hillary Clinton’s Facebook account during the 2015 Facebook. 2015. “The Value of Video for Brands.” Webpage Accessed 28 April 2017. https://www.facebook.com/business/news/value-of-video [Google Scholar]/2016 Clinton, H. 2016. “A Special Moment during a Meeting with the Union of Peasants. Yes You Can! Watch the Video. Facebook Status Update.” Retrieved 20 November 2016. https://www.facebook.com/hillaryclinton/posts/1090969694292892 [Google Scholar] primary election season, this article offers much needed insight into the communication aspect of campaign targeting. Using data analysis extracted from the leading social media platform, the article examines what groups of Hispanic Facebook users were attracted to Clinton’s targeted autoplay videos, what elements within these videos best enticed these people into liking the videos, and if the Clinton campaign appeared to learn what types of autoplay videos were most effective over the course of the primary season.     

Using Active-Learning Pedagogy to Develop Essay-Writing Skills in Introductory Political Theory Tutorials

Building on prior research into active learning pedagogy in political science, I discuss the development of a new active learning strategy called the “thesis-building carousel,” designed for use in political theory tutorials. This use of active learning pedagogy in a graduate student-led political theory tutorial represents the overlap of several currents of political science education research. First, the graduate teaching assistant-led tutorial is a common complement to large lecture-based introductory courses in political theory. Second, where International Relations has led the expansion of active learning in political science, political theory has lagged behind other subfields (Archer &; Miller 2011 Archer, Candace C. and Melissa K. Miller. 2011. “Prioritizing Active Learning: An Exploration of Gateway Courses in Political Science.” PS: Political Science &; Politics 44(2): 429–434.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The thesis-building carousel is designed to develop skills necessary for political theory classes—essay writing and peer review. The article concludes with a discussion of how active learning activities designed for specialized spaces can be modified for use in traditional classroom settings, with the example of three forms of “summary carousels.”     

The Purpose and Perception of Learning Objectives

Much of existing assessment and instructional design strategies revolve around the use of learning objectives. Learning objectives are used by faculty, by instructional designers, by accreditors, by assessment offices, and by students. But even as the use of learning objectives becomes more widespread, the definition and purpose have remained unclear. Instructional designers argue that learning objectives exist to provide a focused mindset for students engaging in the content, while faculty often view learning objectives as an administrative requirement that has little impact on teaching or student performance. Existing research on the subject is primarily normative and/or qualitative in nature (Harden 2002 Harden, Ronald M. 2002. “Learning Outcomes and Instructional Objectives: Is There a Difference?” Medical Teacher 24 (2):151–155.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Torrance 2007 Torrance, Harry. 2007. “Assessment as Learning? How the Use of Explicit Learning Objectives, Assessment Criteria and Feedback in Post-Secondary Education and Training Can Come to Dominate Learning.” Assessment in Education 14 (3):281–94. doi:10.1080/09695940701591867.[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). In this article, the researchers seek to use empirical evidence to examine the definitions, purpose, and impact of learning objectives on student performance. We find that there is no shared understanding of definitions and purpose, and using an experimental design, we find that learning objective wording and use in the classroom does not affect student performance.     

European Culture and the European Union's ‘Turkey Question’

This article attempts to discern whether Turkey belongs to Europe's emerging pan-European cosmopolitan culture and investigates the political implications of Turkish cultural ‘otherness’. The article revisits Laitin's (2002 Laitin, David D. 2002. ‘Culture and National Identity: “The East” and European Integration’. West European Politics, 25(2): 56–80. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggestion that social mobility in contemporary Europe requires individuals to possess 2 ± 1 cultural repertoires. Then, drawing on analysis of Eurobarometer, World Values Survey, European Values Survey, and original datasets, it compares the cultural repertoires of citizens from four groups of European countries – the EU's founding members, countries that joined the Communities between 1973 and 1995, countries of the 2004/2007 enlargement wave, and Turkey itself. The data support the conventional wisdom that Turkey is culturally quite different from EU norms. Still, the article concludes by interrogating the political implications of this difference and suggesting that Turkey's cultural alterity does not necessarily preclude the possibility of smooth Turkish integration into the EU.     

Mobile Trust,Enacted Relationships: Social Capital in a State-Level Policy Network

ABSTRACT

What holds a policy network together? Our previous work on policy networks and “network systems” (Rethemeyer 2005 Rethemeyer , R. Karl. 2005 . “Conceptualizing and Measuring Collaborative Networks.” . Public Administration Review 64 ( 6 ): 62 – 66 . [Google Scholar]; 2007a,b; Rethemeyer and Hatmaker 2008 Rethemeyer , R. Karl and Deneen M. Hatmaker. 2008 . “Network Management Reconsidered: An Inquiry into Management of Network Structures in Public Sector Service Provision.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18 : 617 – 646 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) suggests that personal social capital, organizational social capital, and resource dependence are complementary bases for cohesion in policy networks. In this article we take up the challenge issued by Ibarra, Kilduff, and Tsai (2005 Ibarra , Herminia , Martin Kilduff , and Wenpin Tsai. 2005 . “Zooming In and Out: Connecting Individuals and Collectivities at the Frontiers of Organizational Network Research.” . Organization Science 16 ( 4 ): 359 – 371 .[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 359) to “bring the individual back in” to network studies by examining the dynamics between individual and organizational social capital (a process that has not been fully developed in the literature) and to tighten the connection between social capital and resource dependence. Although researchers acknowledge that personal social capital contributes to organizational social capital (Knoke 1999 ——— . 1999 . “Organizational Networks and Corporate Social Capital.” Pp. 17 – 42 in R. T. A. J. Leenders and S. M. Gabbay , eds., Corporate Social Capital and Liability . Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers . [Google Scholar]; Burt 1992 Burt , Ronald S. 1992 . Structural Holes . Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press . [Google Scholar]), to our knowledge, no studies have examined how it contributes in a longitudinal, interorganizational policy network study.In this paper we present findings from a longitudinal case study of an adult basic education policy network between 1998 (“Wave 1”) and 2005 (“Wave 2”) in a state we have pseudonymed “Newstatia.” Using the theoretical framework from the first section and the case findings in section three, we weave together social capital and resource dependence to present the concept of “enacted interorganizational relationships.”     

A New Measure of Red Tape: Introducing the Three-Item Red Tape (TIRT) Scale

ABSTRACT

Much empirical red tape research utilizes the General Red Tape (GRT) scale, which asks respondents to rate the level of red tape on a scale of 0 to 10 (Rainey, Pandey, and Bozeman 1995 Rainey, H. G., S. K. Pandey, and B. Bozeman. 1995. “Research Note: Public and Private Managers’ Perceptions of Red Tape.” Public Administration Review 55(6): 567–574.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Because “popular usage of the term ‘red tape’ requires no precision” (Bozeman and Feeney 2011 Bozeman, B. and M. K. Feeney. 2011. Rules and Red Tape: A Prism for Public Administration Research and Theory. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. [Google Scholar], 3) and the GRT scale “assumes that respondents understand the terms to which they are responding” (101), evaluating red tape in this way may be theoretically disadvantageous. This article proposes a new measure—the Three-Item Red Tape (TIRT) scale—consisting of three items drawn from previous rules research on rule characteristics to which respondents characterize organizational rules by how burdensome, unnecessary, and ineffective they are. This measure has several advantages over existing measures: it includes several indicators; it does not include the term “red tape”; and it is drawn directly from Bozeman's (1993 Bozeman, B. 1993. “A Theory of Government ‘Red Tape.'” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 3(3): 273–303. [Google Scholar]; 2000 Bozeman, B. 2000. Bureaucracy and Red Tape. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. [Google Scholar]) operational definition of red tape. Using structural equation modeling to model survey data from two local government organizations (n = 1,666), this article evaluates the theoretical and empirical validity of this TIRT scale, compares it with the GRT scale, tests its relationship with formalization, which is known as a distinct concept, and addresses implications of this scale on red tape theory.     

What About Winning? Looking into the Blind Spot of the Theory of Campaign Professionalization

The international literature on campaign professionalization suggests that election campaigning has become increasingly slick and professional in recent decades. But while significant attention has been paid to changing campaign tools and tactics, one critical question has been consistently overlooked: Do professionalized campaigners perform better at the ballot box? This question should be a critical one for campaign scholars, yet the existing literature is almost entirely silent on the relationship between campaign professionalization and electoral outcomes. This paper reviews the existing literature for clues about how professionalized campaigning may help or hinder electoral performance and draws on recent research using Gibson and Rommele's (2009 Gibson , R. , and A. Rommele . ( 2009 ). Measuring the professionalization of political campaigning . Party Politics , 15 ( 3 ), 265 – 293 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) CAMPROF Index to identify avenues for further research on this under-examined topic.     

EU Cohesion Policy Implementation and Administrative Capacities: Insights from Italian Regions

In this article we explain Italy’s partial persisting difficulties in EU cohesion policy implementation by focusing on one specific variable: regional administrative capacity. In line with research findings based on the national level (Tosun, 2014 Tosun, J. (2014), Absorption of regional funds. A comparative analysis, Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol.52, No.2, pp.371–387. doi: 10.1111/jcms.12088[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), our working hypothesis is that administrative capacity is the most important explanatory factor of EU cohesion policy implementation also at the regional level. In the article, by adopting a ‘most similar research cases’ design approach, we test the hypothesis with reference to two Italian regions: Campania and Puglia. In addition, we seek to adequately define the concept of ‘administrative capacity’ and operationalize it properly. In the concluding section, we consider the competitive advantage of our definition and operationalization of the notion of administrative capacity also with reference to other policy sectors beyond cohesion policy.     

Campaign Intensity and Voting Correctly in Senate Elections

Starting from the premise that campaigns ought to have informational benefits for voters this study examines the characteristics of Senate electoral campaigns and their ability to facilitate “correct voting” as first described by Lau and Redlawsk (1997) Lau, Richard R. &; Redlawsk, David P. (1997) Voting correctly. American Political Science Review, 91(3), pp. 585–599. doi: 10.2307/2952076[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. Here, the political values and beliefs of voters are measured from the 1990 and 1992 Senate Election Studies to assess how far such beliefs match to their state's Senate candidates. The variation within Senate campaigns allows for a wider range of hypotheses to be tested about the conditions under which voting correctly occurs compared with prior studies that have focused on presidential elections. The findings are important in that they show a lower incidence of correct voting in Senate elections than in presidential races. However, this is moderated by individual knowledge, ideological sophistication, and a higher level of campaign intensity, all of which increase correct voting. The implications lend support to the normative value of campaigns in American politics.     

Time to Discuss: Data to Crunch or Problems to Solve? A Rejoinder to Robert Thomson

Testing the insights from qualitative case studies (Falkner et al. 2005 Falkner, G., Treib, O., Hartlapp, M. and Leiber, S. 2005. Complying with Europe. EU Harmonisation and Soft Law in the Member States, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) in quantitative models is a challenging task (see Thomson 2007). This article argues that in political science, our evaluation standards for quantitative analyses need to go far beyond the sophistication of calculations. They should include the quality of assumptions imputed, of data used, and of reasoning as to the political – as opposed to statistical – significance of regressions. When presenting statistical findings that counter solid qualitative work, scholars therefore are under an obligation also to present reasoned arguments for their case, taking into full account the qualitative findings on processes and mechanisms unveiled in these empirical studies.     

There is No Debriefing Without Prior Briefing: Writing a Briefing Memo as a Preparatory Activity to Make the Most of the Pedagogical Potential of Simulations

Simulations are traditionally divided into three phases, namely preparation, interaction, and debriefing. This article argues that the first phase has been neglected. The preparation phase is indeed widely seen as necessary but merely instrumental to the interaction phase of simulations rather than as a self-contained activity that may also provide an opportunity to make the most of their pedagogical potential. This article explains how writing a briefing memo to prepare a simulation challenges this taken-for-granted view. After outlining the reasons why I asked the students of my Introduction to International Relations module to write a briefing memo about the conflict in South Sudan in preparation for a simulation of the negotiation of a peace agreement, the article explains how it can be used to generate a stimulating class discussion. It then emphasizes how the three phases of the simulation fruitfully complement each other and allow teachers to go beyond the instrumentalist conception of the preparatory phase. Finally, the conclusion reflects about the “portability” (Kollars and Rosen 2016 Kollars, Nina and Amanda Rosen. 2016. “Bootstrapping and Portability in Simulation Design.” International Studies Perspectives 17(2): 202–213.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) of the briefing-negotiation-debriefing format outlined in this article.     

An Empirical Assessment of the Municipal Financial Situation in Spain

ABSTRACT

Public finance theories state that both political and socioeconomic factors must be considered in order to explain governments' finances. On the one hand, “partisan politics matters” thesis argues that progressive parties contribute to increase public deficit. On the other hand, Roubini and Sachs' weak government hypothesis (1989a Roubini , N. and J. D. Sachs . 1989a . “Political and Economic Determinants of Budget Deficits in the Industrial Democracies.” European Economic Review 33 : 903 – 938 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 1989b Roubini , N. and J. D. Sachs . 1989b . “Government Spending and Budget Deficits in the Industrial Countries.” Economic Policy: A European Forum 8 : 99 – 132 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) states that the higher the government fragmentation, the higher spending, deficit and debt. Accordingly, our work evaluates whether municipal ideology and political strength have an impact on public expenditures and taxes. With this aim, we analyze a representative sample of Spanish municipalities (2,729) for the year 2005. We find an influence of the size of the political majority on the municipal financial situation. However, we do not find evidence of the impact of the government's political ideology. Economic and population variables are found highly significant. Our data also show a “flypaper” effect in the Spanish municipal sector.     

How do Voters' Strategic Behaviors Mediate the Impact of Electoral Systems on the Effective Number of Electoral Parties? An Experimental Study

This article presents the results of an experiment that looks at the relationship between electoral systems, strategic voting and the effective number of electoral parties. The study is based on experiments conducted with groups of 21 participants. The experiments consisted of a series of elections involving four parties. Two main treatments were applied. First, four different voter distributions were created. Second, there were two kinds of electoral systems under which the subjects voted. The analysis indicates that voters do not coordinate on the same parties under different electoral rules. Importantly, we find that the classic type of strategic voting identified by Duverger (1954 Duverger, Maurice (1954) Political Parties (New York: Wiley). [Google Scholar]) is reinforced by a different type of strategic voting identified by Cox (1997 Cox, Gary W. (1997) Making Votes Count – Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), namely “strategic amplifying voting”. The results show that classic strategic voting reduces the effective number of electoral parties while strategic amplifying voting increases the latter. Overall, we show that voters' strategic behaviors mediate the impact of the electoral system on the effective number of electoral parties.     

Performing the demos: towards a processive theory of global democracy

Debates on global democracy have tended to focus on the possibility of a global democratic entity based on the feasibility of institutional structures that, however inadvertently, take state-based conceptualizations of democracy as their reference point. More recently, however, some theorists have argued for a more ‘performative’ approach that focuses on the demos rather than the kratos and the capacity of political actors to ‘perform’ a role as members of a global demos (List and Koenig-Archibugi 2010 List, C. and Koenig-Archibugi, M., 2010. Can there be a global demos? an Agency-Based approach. Philosophy and public affairs, 38 (1), 76–110.10.1111/papa.2010.38.issue-1[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). While advancing global democracy debates, this ‘performative’ approach leans towards an overly mechanical, static account of performativity that defines democratic behaviour in terms of the functional requirements of political systems. Based on the ‘realist turn’ in contemporary political theory, this article argues for an alternative account of performativity. When coupled with a theory of political complexity, this implies a more processive theory of global democracy that is focused more on what it means for a demos to ‘perform’ democratically than the development of specific institutional configurations. A processive theory of global democracy concentrates more on the emergence of multilevel democratic practices that supplement existing state-based democratic procedures rather than conceiving global democracy as a new, fixed institutional configuration to replace existing democratic structures. Understood in these terms, the debate on the possibility or impossibility of global democracy, which takes as its reference point existing state-based institutional structures, deflects attention from the more pertinent and substantive matter of whether particular initiatives and processes in specific contexts are more or less democratic in global terms.     

Notes on contributors

Abstract

In his article for this issue of Economy and Society, Narayanan (2008 Narayanan, S. 2008. On the stalling of the Malaysian industrialization project. Economy and Society, 37(4): 595–601. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) presents a critique of our earlier work on Malaysian industrialization (Henderson &; Phillips 2007). Narayanan's objections are entirely empirical and they take the form of suggesting that had we looked at the ‘right’ data or ‘properly’ interpreted the data we provide, we would have seen that our hypothesis that Malaysia's industrialization project was ‘stalling’ was either wrong, or, if plausible, was unproven. In this response, we show that Narayanan is largely mistaken in his critique. While his contribution contains errors of interpretation, we argue that he is mistaken predominantly because he has misunderstood the methodological basis of our analysis. Specifically, he has failed to grasp our theoretical object and thus has been unable to identify the appropriate empirical terrain for assessing its significance and condition.     

Sino‐French relations: Historical alliance vs. economic reality

Abstract

In an increasingly integrated international economy, nation-states are, of themselves, no longer the prime containers or coordinators of political–economic activity. The extra-territoriality of states and the blurring of the boundaries between states and firms, for example, have been captured in analytical concepts such as ‘triangular diplomacy’ the ‘web of global interdependencies’ and ‘cosmopolitan democracy’. Such trends have become visible in what have been termed mega-urban regions or zones of economic integration or of graduated sovereignty. Moreover, such zones are held to illustrate non-traditional or cooperative inter-state relations. This paper utilizes Stopford and Strange's (1991) Stopford, J. and Strange, S. 1991. Rival States, Rival Firms: Competition for World Market Shares, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] notion of ‘triangular diplomacy’ to interpret the development of one such zone – the Indonesia–Malaysia–Singapore growth triangle (IMS-GT). The paper argues that whilst embodying elements of cooperative inter-state relations the development of the IMS-GT also highlights the persistence of the ‘traditional’ concerns of inter-state relations. It also uses the notion of triangular diplomacy to draw attention to different models of social order sought by multinational enterprises (MNEs).     

How Turnout Depends on the Number of Parties: A Logical Model

We illustrate the power of “logical models” (Taagepera, 2007 Taagepera, Rein (2007) Predicting Party Sizes: The Logic of Simple Electoral Systems (NewYork: Oxford University Press).[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) by offering a three-parameter model of the relationship between the effective number of parties and electoral turnout that makes use of the constraints on what parameter values are internally coherent given boundary conditions to specify functional form, and seeks not optimal curve fitting but rather a direct model testing. In our model, one parameter reflects an effect that generally acts to increase turnout as the effective number of parties increases, another an effect that generally acts to decrease turnout as the effective number of parties increases, while a third parameter allows for baseline variation in turnout across countries (or within countries across elections). We fit this model to district-level data from 237 elections held in 17 countries, representing a wide range of electoral system types generating multi-party contests, with over 20,000 district-election observations. The basic intuition, that turnout rises to a peak as the effective number of parties increases and then falls slowly, fits our data pretty well.