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.     

The "Polish Problem"– American War-Time Perspectives

As one of the initial, and arguably most devastated, casualties of the Second World War, Poland's restoration as a free and independent state was seen as a test case for the viable continuation of the victorious Grand Alliance. Yet seemingly irreconcilable differences between the Western powers and the Soviet Union over intricate territorial and political issues (with the Polish state and people caught firmly in the middle) would signal the end of the working alliance. The US collectively struggled to come to terms with this "Polish problem"– its government failing to deliver to the Poles on those democratic principles enshrined within the Atlantic Charter, and its people finding the very ideals for which they had gone to war compromised. While reflecting the unique complexities of this particular dilemma, American officialsrsquo; perceptions of the conundrum over Poland bear a ringing familiarity to future East European developments and certainly set the tone for the ensuing West-Soviet impasse there. Indeed, this author would not be alone in suggesting that the superpower struggle over Poland at the close of World War II was itself the very genesis of the Cold War conflict.     

Working Twice as Hard to Get Half as Far: Race,Work Ethic,and America’s Deserving Poor

Attitudes toward racialized and redistributive policies like welfare are often thought of as a function of both principled ideological positions and the underlying racial attitudes a person holds. Kinder and Sanders (1996) look at racial resentment as one explanation, while Sniderman and his colleagues look to principled conservatism and authoritarianism as viable alternatives, claiming that racial resentment is merely proxying a legitimate race‐neutral commitment to equality of opportunity. This article engages this debate through an experimental design which tests whether “hard work” is rewarded in a color‐blind manner. The experimental design also affords scholars the opportunity to separate the effects of the two components of racial resentment: principled values and racial animus. The results show that American norms and implicit racism serve to uniquely privilege whites in a variety of ways.     

Intelligence and the formulation of policy and strategy in Early Modern Europe: The Spanish Monarchy in the Reign of Charles II (1665–1700)

This article seeks to explore the means whereby the Spanish Monarchy under the last Habsburg, Charles II (1665–1700), contributed to its own survival in the era of Louis XIV by exploring its acquisition and use of intelligence. There was nothing particularly distinctive about Spain's intelligence machinery. Nor was it always effective. Nevertheless, Spain's extensive diplomatic and imperial network facilitated the acquisition of a great deal of information which on occasion was clearly of great importance – for example, in preventing the destruction of Charles II's fleet in the summer of 1693 by that of Louis XIV. In sum, intelligence contributed to the remarkable resilience of the Spanish Monarchy in an age of supposed Spanish decline.     

Value Recapture: A Rose by Another Name

The fuel crisis, increased federal funding, and urban center development and redevelopment are all increasing the pressure for rapid transit systems in urban areas. As with other publicly funded developments, such systems often lead to an increase in value of privately owned land near transit stations. This is due to the enhanced commercial, industrial, and residential development potential created by superior access and concurrent generation of intense local activity. Such an increase in value is unearned-a windfall, in essence. Arguably, it should accrue, at least in part, to the public agency which incurred substantial expenditures in developing the public facility-the cause of the value increase in the first place. Such an accrual of value could be offset against the public cost of the improvement. This article deals with several proposed methods of such “value recapture”: “excess” or “supplemental” condemnation, tax assessment, intergovernmental cooperation and air rights development.     

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.     

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.