Fusing algorithms and analysts: open-source intelligence in the age of ‘Big Data’

In the age of ‘Big Data’, the potential value of open-source information for intelligence-related purposes is widely recognised. Of late, progress in this space has increasingly become associated with software that can expand our ability to gather, filter, interrelate and manipulate data through automated processes. The trend towards automation is both innovative and necessary. However, techno-centric efforts to replace human analysts with finely crafted algorithms across the board, from collection to synthesis and analysis of information, risk limiting the potential of OSINT rather than increasing its scope and impact. Effective OSINT systems must be carefully designed to facilitate complementarity, exploit the strengths, and mitigate the weaknesses of both human analysts and software solutions, obtaining the best contribution from both. Drawing on insights from the field of cognitive engineering, this article considers at a conceptual level how this might be achieved.     

Improving First Nations water security through governance

Many First Nations communities lack access to safe drinking water. In this article, we examine an under-appreciated tool for improving First Nations water security – governance – and develop a framework for guiding the design and analysis of First Nations water governance models. In particular, we argue that three key ideas from the public administration literature – financial resources, regulation, and formalization – should be integrated with Indigenous insights and philosophies that are specific to each First Nations community. We illustrate how this might work by focusing on the insights, traditions, and philosophies of an Anishinaabek community in southern Ontario.     

Seeking or controlling the truth? An examination of courtroom questioning practices by Canadian lawyers*

ABSTRACT

The questioning practices of Canadian lawyers were examined. Courtroom examinations (N?=?91) were coded for the type of utterance, the assumed purpose of the utterance, and the length of utterance. Results showed that approximately one-fifth of all utterances were classified as productive for gathering reliable information (i.e. open-ended, probing); less than one percent of all utterances were open-ended. Direct examinations contained more closed yes/no, probing, and open-ended questions. Cross-examinations contained more leading and clarification questions, and opinions. Moreover, cross- (vs. direct) examinations contained more questions with a ‘challenging the witness’ purpose. The longest utterances were opinions, followed by multiple and forced-choice questions. The longest answers were in response to open-ended questions, followed by multiple and probing questions. Implications for the truth-seeking function of the judiciary are discussed.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Adopting Open Educational Resources in an Introductory American Government Course

In this article, we present findings from a grant-funded initiative to replace traditional, proprietary textbooks with an open content textbook under a Creative Commons license in the introductory American government course (POLS 1101) at Middle Georgia State University. We find that the use of an open content textbook led to somewhat negative effects on student learning outcomes and student course satisfaction, although the associated lower textbook cost increased textbook accessibility to students. We conclude with some suggestions to those adopting textbooks in this course and to the wider discipline regarding measures that may lead to more unequivocally positive outcomes than those experienced in this study.     

Empowerment,Deliberative Development,and Local-Level Politics in Indonesia: Participatory Projects as a Source of Countervailing Power

The salience of the concept of “empowerment” has been deductively claimed more often than carefully defined or inductively assessed by development scholars and practitioners alike. We use evidence from a mixed methods examination of the Kecamatan (subdistrict) Development Project (KDP) in rural Indonesia, which we define here as development interventions that build marginalized groups’ capacity to engage local-level governing elites using routines of deliberative contestation. “Deliberative contestation” refers to marginalized groups’ practice of exercising associational autonomy in public forums using fairness-based arguments that challenge governing elites’ monopoly over public resource allocation decisions. Deliberative development interventions such as KDP possess a comparative advantage in building the capacity to engage because they actively provide open decision-making spaces, resources for argumentation (such as facilitators), and incentives to participate. They also promote peaceful resolutions to the conflicts they inevitably spark. In the KDP conflicts we analyze, marginalized groups used deliberative contestation to moderately but consistently shift local-level power relations in contexts with both low and high preexisting capacities for managing conflict. By contrast, marginalized groups in non-KDP development conflicts from comparable villages used “mobilizational contestation” to generate comparatively erratic shifts in power relations, shifts that depended greatly on the preexisting capacity for managing conflict.

Does Political Information Matter? An Experimental Test Relating to Party Positions on Europe

This article focuses on whether the provision of 'objectively' correct information to voters about where parties stand on an issue affects their placement of the parties, and ultimately their own position, on that issue. Classic theories of how mass publics make voting decisions assume that voters are able relatively accurately to place themselves and the parties on various issue dimensions. While these assumptions have been challenged, it is generally assumed that the provision of new information makes voters' placements more informed. We explicitly test this idea using a survey experiment focusing on one political issue – European integration. In the experiment, all respondents were twice asked to place the three main British parties and themselves on a bipolar scale of European integration. This was done towards the beginning, and then at the end of the survey. Most respondents were also given information on the 'informed' positions of the parties, derived from expert survey placement. Our analyses indicate that individuals' placements did change, and the tendency was related to both political sophistication and the inherent difficulty of placing the party. Only less sophisticated voters updated their placements, and these changes are concentrated on the placement of the Labour party, where the elite stance on Europe has been more conflicted. For all respondents we do not detect any corresponding changes in self-placement that would be congruent with 'cueing' effects.     

The Importance of Trust in Government for Public Administration: The Case of Zoning

Many scholars argue that citizens with higher levels of political trust are more likely to grant bureaucratic discretion to public administrators than citizens with lower levels of trust. Trust, therefore, can relieve the tension between managerial flexibility and political accountability in the modern administrative state. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence showing that trust is actually associated with citizens' willingness to cede policy-making power to government. This article tests theories about political trust and citizen competence using the case of zoning. Trust in local government is found to be an important predictor of support for zoning, but trust in state government and trust in national government have no effect. These findings suggest that trust affects policy choice and helps determine how much power citizens grant to local administrators.