Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Trust in the national government has declined greatly over the last fifty years, and over the past decade citizens have taken direct action to limit the actions of their politicians at both the national and state levels. Might negative feelings about national-level political actors be driving some of the punitive actions taken against state politicians? Research has long shown that governors benefit from a popular President of their party, and recent preliminary research suggests that state legislators may be rewarded when feelings about the U.S. Congress improve.

This paper extends earlier research investigating whether the public’s punitive actions against state legislatures are the result of actual state-level conditions or whether the public’s negative feelings about Congress are driving these actions. Here we investigate another possible connection between attitudes about national and state actors.

Using an augmented set of available public opinion, policy, and institutional measures, we test to see whether gubernatorial approval is affected by feelings about a state’s U.S. Senators. Controlling for many factors known to impact gubernatorial ratings, we find that the public’s feelings about their U.S. Senators (junior Senators specifically) are linked to state governor approval. In addition, this study also uncovered some interesting findings concerning state level forces. One of the more interesting findings concerned lame duck governor status. This status alone leads to a substantial decrease in gubernatorial approval. However, when combined with incumbency this effect reverses.

Publication Type: Paper/Poster Proposal
Abstract: Authors: Amanda Wilmot and Jacqui Jones

Abstract

One of the key objectives of National Statistics is to improve public confidence in official statistics by demonstrating that they are produced to best professional standards and free from political interference. In order to do this a greater understanding of the nature of ‘trust’and public confidence in statistics was required.

The Office for National Statistics and the Statistics Commission, UK, are working together on different aspects intended to identify the key issues relating to this subject. Various strands of the project combine both quantitative and qualitative methods of inquiry to inform the debate.

This paper discusses: i) the conceptualisation, development and operationalisation of a structured questionnaire module administered to the general public via the National Statistics Omnibus survey; and, ii) a qualitative exploration of the general public’s views of official statistics and how they formulate these views, principally captured through a series of focus groups. These two strands ran along-side each other, informing, supporting and complimenting the findings from both.

Publication Type: Session Presentation
Abstract: This session proposes an overview of the newly formulated French Language diplomas, the DELF and the DALF, offered by the French Minister of Education. The Common European Language Framework is the departure point for the evolution of these exams. Educators will become familiar with the format of the exams as well as the Standards in the European Framework as a base for discussion of course offerings and classroom teaching practices. This session will be conducted in French.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: We report some broad findings from our “ethics matter project” in which we interviewed 95 mayors and council members in 12 cities in Kansas, Missouri, and California about their allegiances to various principles of morality and justice and their stances on ten hypothetical policy issues that typically arise in American cities. Our findings suggest that urban officials should not be regarded as prisoners of their environments, as “cultural warriors or ideologues having highly consistent principles that they apply to most issues, or as partisans committed to Democratic and Republic positions. Instead, they should be recognized, at least in part, as moral agents who apply a wide variety of moral and justice principles to the resolution of issues in many policy domains, and who must interact with colleagues whose multiple allegiances to various political principles mean that issues must be resolved in a pluralist manner, albeit with greater attention to concerns of morality and justice than suggested by older orthodox models of pluralism that focused only on the diversity of interests and the distribution of power associated with these interests.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: My paper is a preliminary draft explaining how official knowledge about populations and individuals has been produced in Japan’s modern period (1868-present), with a focus on when and how the State has been able to use enumerative programs for individual surveillance. My analysis is built from sociological theory that integrates three variable areas – institutional organization, technology and political context – into historically specific fields of interested action. I use comparative and historical methods to explain the development and nature of enumeration in three different time periods, each chosen for their feature of active political debate about enumeration’s purposes and procedures. My data are organizational and personnel records from national census and household register agencies, and minutes from National Diet committee meetings. Variances within and among the three areas across time periods explain the Japanese State’s ability to use enumeration for individual surveillance versus enumeration for producing population level knowledge. My findings show that political power alone cannot produce surveillance, but that organizational features and technology have also aligned historically to achieve this. My research contributes to comparative studies of enumeration systems, cultural and organizational analyses of the State and of knowledge production, and new research on contemporary surveillance.