Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper addresses the pathologies of ‘normative’ learning in the international community. By normative learning, I refer to the adoption of specific principled frames of reference for public policy. I consider why, in spite of a wealth of evaluations, self-assessments, and lessons-learned reports published every year, the international community continues to struggle with responses to humanitarian emergencies when they arise. The paper argues that both structural and agent-based factors may account for this phenomenon. Using examples from international responses to complex humanitarian emergencies in the African Great Lakes region during the 1990’s, the paper seeks to add to our understanding of how norms contribute to international agenda-setting, and the processes by which normative learning occurs.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The proposed paper examines Washington’s ambitious nation building programs in the early decades of the Cold War (the Truman through Johnson presidencies) and draws relevant lessons for current US nation-building efforts in developing countries. Drawing upon fifteen years of research including extensive archival work, the declassification of thousands of pages of US government documents and interviews with contemporary policy makers, the paper will illuminate three lessons from past efforts, lessons that are highly relevant to today’s policies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since 1999, linguists and communication scholars have analyzed the fundraising texts housed in the Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication’s Fundraising Corpus. Researchers have examined rhetorical moves, metaphors, visual strategies, and persuasive appeals in direct-mail letters. While of interest to academicians, these studies are perceived as esoteric and opaque by practicing fundraisers. This paper describes a two-day training workshop that was developed to cross the bridge between the academy and the real world of fundraisers.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The current “epidemic” of methamphetamine is not the first since the drug’s discovery in 1893 by a Japanese pharmacologist. This paper identifies patterns common across four perceived methamphetamine epidemics. The discussion includes social conditions predating epidemics, dormancy of the problem, surge and alarm, morphing of the problem, hibernation, amnesia, and incubation. The paper concludes with implications for: legal production of the drug, physicians and pharmacists, enforcement strategies, prevention efforts, treatment, and management of the epidemic and its aftermath.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The data collection effort for the longitudinal offender interview component of the SVORI impact evaluation has been a massive undertaking. A total of 11,400 cases were fielded to 30 field interviewers , who had conducted a total of 7,120 interviews as of March 2007 in 14 states [16 sites but 14 states] —locating, tracking, and interviewing respondents in over 300 correctional facilities (and numerous communities within the 15 states) as well as in a multitude of communities. The experience gained from this undertaking can be used to better design subsequent studies involving incarcerated (and formerly incarcerated) populations and inform our understanding about the actual circumstances facing these individuals and the systems by which they are affected. This presentation will summarize key “lessons learned” from the SVORI field interviewers and supervisors, based on focus groups held with these individuals after nearly 3 years of field work. The presentation will focus on two interrelated topics: 1) successful strategies for conducting interviews with prisoners and former prisoners (including locating and tracing techniques, successfully interviewing in jails and prisons, data collection barriers and solutions, and preparation for going into the field) and 2) “firsthand” knowledge about the challenges facing returning prisoners and the systems designed to deal with them (including field interviewer perceptions about system shortcomings, success stories witnessed, and the “real world” conditions facing returning prisoners).