Jack L. Walker, “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States”

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Levi-Faur
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Diffusion Of Innovations ◽  
Diffusion Study ◽  
American States ◽  
The Future ◽  
Research Questions

This chapter focuses on Jack L. Walker’s 1969 paper “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States,” which analyzes the phenomenon of diffusion as well as interdependent decision-making in a collective setting. The chapter summarizes Walker’s arguments and the reception of his work in, and its influence on, the field of political science. It then considers the research questions posed, such as why some states act as pioneers by adopting new programs more readily than others, and whether there are more or less stable patterns of diffusion of innovations. It also revisits Walker’s debate with Virginia Gray with regards to the latter’s seminal study “Innovation in the States: A Diffusion Study.” The chapter offers some suggestions on the future progress of diffusion scholarship and its potential to redefine our understanding of politics and policy.

Psychophysiology, cognition, and political differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Mansell ◽  
Allison Harell ◽  
Elisabeth Gidengil ◽  
Patrick A. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Future ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
Science Framework

AbstractWe introduce the Politics and the Life Sciences special issue on Psychophysiology, Cognition, and Political Differences. This issue represents the second special issue funded by the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences that adheres to the Open Science Framework for registered reports (RR). Here pre-analysis plans (PAPs) are peer-reviewed and given in-principle acceptance (IPA) prior to data being collected and/or analyzed, and are published contingent upon the preregistration of the study being followed as proposed. Bound by a common theme of the importance of incorporating psychophysiological perspectives into the study of politics, broadly defined, the articles in this special issue feature a unique set of research questions and methodologies. In the following, we summarize the findings, discuss the innovations produced by this research, and highlight the importance of open science for the future of political science research.

Federalism Theories and Principles of the US Supreme Court—Implications for National and State Powers and Public Policy and Administration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Wise
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
The Future ◽  
Research Questions

Abstract This article reviews and analyzes the federalism theories and principles that the US Supreme Court has employed during various eras and compares and contrasts them. It does this by specifying the major theoretical frameworks that have been proposed for Supreme Court federalism decision making and then examines how the Supreme Court has employed their components during various eras. It then draws implications for public policy and administration and poses research questions for the future.

Stewardship in the "Age of Algorithms"

First Monday ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifford Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Past ◽  
Large Complex ◽  
The Future ◽  
Total Failure ◽  
Digital Objects ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Technical Systems

This paper explores pragmatic approaches that might be employed to document the behavior of large, complex socio-technical systems (often today shorthanded as “algorithms”) that centrally involve some mixture of personalization, opaque rules, and machine learning components. Thinking rooted in traditional archival methodology — focusing on the preservation of physical and digital objects, and perhaps the accompanying preservation of their environments to permit subsequent interpretation or performance of the objects — has been a total failure for many reasons, and we must address this problem. The approaches presented here are clearly imperfect, unproven, labor-intensive, and sensitive to the often hidden factors that the target systems use for decision-making (including personalization of results, where relevant); but they are a place to begin, and their limitations are at least outlined. Numerous research questions must be explored before we can fully understand the strengths and limitations of what is proposed here. But it represents a way forward. This is essentially the first paper I am aware of which tries to effectively make progress on the stewardship challenges facing our society in the so-called “Age of Algorithms;” the paper concludes with some discussion of the failure to address these challenges to date, and the implications for the roles of archivists as opposed to other players in the broader enterprise of stewardship — that is, the capture of a record of the present and the transmission of this record, and the records bequeathed by the past, into the future. It may well be that we see the emergence of a new group of creators of documentation, perhaps predominantly social scientists and humanists, taking the front lines in dealing with the “Age of Algorithms,” with their materials then destined for our memory organizations to be cared for into the future.

A Meta-Analysis of Interviews and Cognitive Ability

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 157-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip L. Roth ◽  
Allen I. Huffcutt
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Incremental Validity ◽  
Employment Interviews ◽  
Moderator Analysis ◽  
The Future ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Meta Analyses ◽  
The Relationship

The topic of what interviews measure has received a great deal of attention over the years. One line of research has investigated the relationship between interviews and the construct of cognitive ability. A previous meta-analysis reported an overall corrected correlation of .40 ( Huffcutt, Roth, & McDaniel, 1996 ). A more recent meta-analysis reported a noticeably lower corrected correlation of .27 ( Berry, Sackett, & Landers, 2007 ). After reviewing both meta-analyses, it appears that the two studies posed different research questions. Further, there were a number of coding judgments in Berry et al. that merit review, and there was no moderator analysis for educational versus employment interviews. As a result, we reanalyzed the work by Berry et al. and found a corrected correlation of .42 for employment interviews (.15 higher than Berry et al., a 56% increase). Further, educational interviews were associated with a corrected correlation of .21, supporting their influence as a moderator. We suggest a better estimate of the correlation between employment interviews and cognitive ability is .42, and this takes us “back to the future” in that the better overall estimate of the employment interviews – cognitive ability relationship is roughly .40. This difference has implications for what is being measured by interviews and their incremental validity.

FISCAL PESSIMISM IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: TOCQUEVILLE'S CROSS REVISITED

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Isabel Cepeda ◽  
Pedro Fraile Balbín
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Income Redistribution ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Economic Decision ◽  
Modern School ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
The Future

ABSTRACT This paper explores Alexis de Tocqueville's thought on fiscal political economy as a forerunner of the modern school of preference falsification and rational irrationality in economic decision making. A good part of the literature has misrepresented Tocqueville as an unconditional optimist regarding the future of fiscal moderation under democracy. Yet, although he initially shared the cautious optimism of most classical economists with respect to taxes under extended suffrage, Tocqueville's view turned more pessimistic in the second volume of his Democracy in America. Universal enfranchisement and democratic governments would lead to higher taxes, more intense income redistribution and government control. Under democracy, the continuous search for unconditional equality would eventually jeopardise liberty and economic growth.

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