Professor Of Political Science Research Articles

Democracy in Divided Societies: Electoral Engineering for Conflict Management “Chapter 3 Centripetal Incentives and Political Engineering in Australia”

Benjamin Reilly is a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Western Australia. Benjamin previously served as dean of the Sir Walter Murdoch School and was director of the Centre for democratic institutions at the Australian National University (ANU). Benjamin is also an expert in the Australian government, the United Nations, and other international organizations. As a professor of political science, Benjamin was invited to various scientific forums to speak at well-known campuses, such as Harvard, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins. Publicizing scientific papers and books earned Benjamin numerous international grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the United StatesInstitute of Peace, the East-West Center, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Australian Research Council. Benjamin’s ideas and thoughts were widely published in various international and national newspapers, including the New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Time Magazine.

SABRINA P. RAMET East Central Europe and Communism, Politics, Culture, Society, 1943-1991 (New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2023), 326 pp.

The book East Central Europe and Communism, Politics, Culture, Society, 1943-1991, was published in 2023 by Sabrina P. Ramet - professor of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, specialized in Central-European societies, politics and cultural evolutions. The author depicts in a comprehensive analysis the establishment of the communist regime, the development, the critical points and its collapse in the Soviet Bloc.

Attitudes of Political Science Instructors at Jordanian Universities towards Activating Political Involvement: An Analytical Study

Objectives: The study aimed at recognizing trends of political science professors at the Jordanian universities towards the activation of political participation and recognizing the impacts of variables: (social type, age, social status academic rank, monthly income, and the university).
 Methods: To meet study goals, a descriptive survey method was utilized, employing a questionnaire with two sections: one on demographic traits and the other on political science professors' perspectives regarding political participation activation in Jordanian universities. The sample included (83) professors—(59) male and (23) female—from various public and private universities.
 Results: These findings address the study's questions and validate its hypotheses. Key outcomes include: fostering trust between the populace and ruling elite, ensuring peaceful power succession through fair elections, guaranteeing public freedoms, and respecting human rights as major political trends. In terms of economics, notable trends include enhancing citizens' quality of life, safeguarding the national economy, creating job opportunities, and curbing unemployment. Social priorities involve protecting the family structure, promoting diverse opinions, and combating crime and drug proliferation. Cultural and educational highlights comprise elevating education standards, reducing nepotism, favoritism, and enhancing the role of educational institutions.
 Conclusions: The study submitted several recommendations aiming at activating political participation, the most important of which are: laying dialogue programs about activating political participation to grant space for alighting discussion to increase political awareness level for the significance of political participation and reviewing rules and legislations that hinder this participation.

Responses and Reflections on Scott's Study of Zomia in Recent Years in Domestic Academia

James Scott, a professor of political science and anthropology in the United States, proposed the influential "Zomia" theory in his book The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. The theory has garnered significant international interest and has yielded numerous research findings. Meanwhile, the domestic academic community has shown little regard for the book. Until 2016, when the Chinese translation of Scott’s "Zomia" was published in China, the impact of his theory in the Chinese literary world had been significant, prompting lively discussions among numerous scholars. Local scholars utilized their own research experience to either introduce it as a new theory and method into their research practice or thoroughly analyze its viewpoints, contents, theories, and methods. This paper analyzes the role and significance of Scott's book in relevant research fields by combining domestic research. The aim is to provide a reference for further research in these fields.

Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters: Reflections of Political Theory from Antiquity to the Age of COVID

Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters: Reflections of Political Theory from Antiquity to the Age of COVID

Green Political Science

Each year we have the honor to publish an article version of the APSA Presidential Address. In the six years we have done this John Ishiyama is the first comparativist whose work we have featured in this capacity. He presently holds an appointment as University Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas. John has long been a fixture in the subfield of comparative politics for his contributions on democratization, political parties, and ethnic politics in both the post-Soviet region and Africa. He has also written extensively on teaching, publishing, and assessment in political science. He has published over 150 articles. And while the outlets and subject matter are too diverse to summarize succinctly, we do want to mention that “The Politics of Intercountry Adoption: Explaining Variation in the Legal Requirements of Sub-Saharan African Countries,” coauthored with Marijke Breuning, won the 2010 APSA Heinz Eulau Award for Best Journal Article published in Perspectives on Politics during the previous year (2009).

About the Contributors

About the Contributors

The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920 by Ballard C. Campbell (review)

Reviewed by: The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920 by Ballard C. Campbell William D. Adler (bio) Keywords State-building, Early national state, Role of Government The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920. By Ballard C. Campbell. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2021. Pp. 392. Paper, $34.95.) Scholars of the early U.S. have long been interested in how state-building occurred, but a massive revival of attention to the subject in the past twenty years has produced a wave of important research. The Paradox of Power enters this conversation with an impressive contribution to our understanding of the early national state through a synthetic analysis of how [End Page 340] government grew, not only nationally but at the local and state levels as well. Ballard Campbell argues in this book that American state-building has been characterized by a paradox between theory and action: a strong commitment to anti-statist values on the one hand, with a practical necessity for enhanced state action on the other. Those immediate needs, such as physical infrastructure, security, education, and others, led over time to increased state capacity as an administrative apparatus was built to handle these various functions, he argues. The anti-statist values continued apace in our culture but ultimately could not arrest the growth of government. Campbell traces these shifts from the colonial period all the way through the early twentieth century, covering well-trodden soil on how government expanded at the local, state, and national levels. The book contains a wealth of information on what government did and how it did it, including an original collection of state-level actions (contained in the Appendix) that will be of much use to scholars. The greatest contribution of this work will be for those looking for a general treatment of the subject material, as it covers a wide range of time and a similarly wide range of governmental activities. Students in advanced undergraduate courses or graduate students who need an overview of state-building throughout early American history will benefit from reading this work. As for its contributions to the scholarly literature, since it is a work of synthesis, scholars will most benefit from the above mentioned dataset on state actions as well as wrestling with its argument about the "paradox" of American state-building, although even this is familiar to students of these questions. For example, in his work Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present (Princeton, NJ, 2015), Gary Gerstle makes a similar contention about the tension in the Constitution between personal liberties and limited government on the one hand, versus the notion of "the public good" that was more prevalent at the state level. In the field of American political development, political scientists have long debated these questions as well; most recently, in Stephen Skrowronek's Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive (Oxford, UK, 2021), the authors home in on the noteworthy friction between the "unity" in executive strength within the constitutional framework as compared to the large administrative apparatus that undermines that theoretical unity. No doubt, Campbell's thesis must be situated alongside these others and is one scholars must contend with. [End Page 341] Campbell has produced an important work that should be read by scholars of the early republic who are interested in continuing to explore these fundamental debates. In particular, Chapters 3–6 will be worthwhile for readers of this journal as Campbell moves from the founding of the republic through to the cusp of the Civil War. We will likely continue debating the nature of state-building in early America for many years to come. William D. Adler William D. Adler is associate professor of political science at Northeastern Illinois University. He is the author of Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787–1860 (Philadelphia, 2021) as well as articles on the early United States, the American presidency, and American political development. Copyright © 2023 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic

THE RISE OF A MULTIPOLAR WORLD AND ITS ROLE IN INFLUENCING THE POSITION OF THE REPUBLIC OF KOSOVO IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

The purpose of this study is how the creation of a multipolar world is affecting the position of the Republic of Kosovo in international organizations. In recent years, the world has shifted toward a multipolar global order, where power is distributed among multiple nations and regions rather than a unipolar world dominated by a single superpower. The establishment of a multipolar world has had a significant impact on the position of the Republic of Kosovo in international organizations. Kosovo, a partially recognized country in Southeast Europe, declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but its sovereignty is not recognized by several countries, including Serbia, Russia, China, etc. In a unipolar world dominated by a single superpower, Kosovo's position in international organizations is likely to be determined by the policies and preferences of that dominant power.However, in a multipolar world, Kosovo has more opportunities to seek support from several countries and to defend its interests in various international forums. For the realization of this study, several methods and techniques are used. The methods used in this research are theoretical and empirical in nature. Induction method, deduction method, analysis method, and comparative method are used. In the methodology, the standardized questionnaire was applied through the Likert scale and their answers were included in the results. The research uses a questionnaire with 50 respondents, mainly composed of professors of political science and international relations, opinion leaders, journalists, experts on global problems, publicists, and economists. The questionnaire was completed online with all respondents. The questionnaire was compiled with open and closed questions, where the responses of the respondents were presented visually in the graph and percentage.The results show that most respondents think that the growth of a post American and multipolar world, as well as the growth of Chinese and Russian influence in the world, have weakened Kosovo's favorable position in international organizations. Most of the respondents accept the negative effects of multilateralism on Kosovo's position in its international subjectivity, but they also emphasize the negative and positive effects of American support for Kosovo, since the anti Americanism of some countries in the world only hinders international strengthening. of Kosovo, as they consider Kosovo as part of the American global domination.

THE ROLE OF DOCUMENTARY FILMS AT AL JAZEERA T.V CHANNEL IN PROVIDING JORDANIAN POLITICAL ELITES WITH KNOWLEDGE/ A SURVEY STUDY

The study aimed to identify the role of documentary films on Al-Jazeera channel in providing Jordanian political elites with knowledge, and to identify the effects resulting from exposure of the study sample to documentary films on Al-Jazeera channel by conducting a field study based on the survey method on a sample of (300) participants using the random sampling method. The sample was distributed among the Jordanian political elites: (MPs, senators , party leaders, political science professors, workers in the diplomatic corps). The study revealed that (63.7%) of the study sample are exposed to documentaries on AlJazeera channel, and the degree of dependence of Jordanian political elites who object to documentary films on Al-Jazeera is medium with a rate of (50.3%), while the degree of their confidence in the information provided by documentary films is high, at a rate of (54.5) %), And the results of the study showed that the most important reasons for Jordanian political elites displaying documentaries on Al-Jazeera are: following up on the epidemic trade file about the emerging corona virus and controversy over the possibility of its manufacture, then “following up the file of human rights violations and issues of opinion-holders in the prisons of Arab regimes, then“ follow-up ” The file of the military coups, "Identifying the scenes of the conflict in Libya". The most prominent effects resulting from the exposure of the study sample to these films came as follows: Cognitive effects, most notably “documentary films contributed to uncovering ambiguous details in the case of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” and then the emotional effects, most notably the documentary films that dealt with some sensitive issues in creating of our feelings of sympathy and solidarity with the affected parties, "then the behavioral influences, the most prominent of which was" invited my colleagues to watch documentaries because of the important information they provide.

Polish Americans Today

Dominik Stecula, assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University Fort Collins, wants to provide an updated, data-driven overview of American Polonia that tells us more than the mere demographic. This survey was based on 1,781 online respondents in 2020–21. The survey is a follow-up of one also sponsored and published in 2009 by the Piast Institute, authored by the late Thaddeus Radziłowski and Stecula.Stecula's survey covers a range of demographics, values, and political choices of the respondents. The respondents’ demographic data includes their age, marital status, educational and income levels, and religious affiliation (including frequency of practice). The values include both the sacred and secular: attitudes toward life issues (abortion and capital punishment) and attachment to Polonia (conceptually in the value attached to language preservation and heritage, and practically in terms of organizational membership, activity, and financial support). The political includes the ideological (conservative/liberal), the partisan (party affiliation and voting patterns), and views of current issues, like climate change, government-sponsored anti-poverty programs, and genetically modified foods. Other interesting questions include from whence Polonia gets its information of the wider world, of Poland, and of its own community, and attitudes toward “conspiracy theories.” The survey also examines whether and how often respondents travel to Poland. Data is almost always broken down between US- and foreign-born respondents.Stecula's respondents are overwhelmingly Catholic (65 percent). More than a third are pro-abortion; and 42 percent consider preserving Polonia's heritage the most important issue facing the community. The respondents reported greater reliance (68 percent) than Americans in general on traditional media and lesser reliance on ideologically identified outlets, like Fox or MSNBC. The largest cohort of respondents were first generation immigrants in the United States (39 percent) and nearly half held graduate or professional degrees (46 percent).The self-selected respondents learned of the poll through social media and ethnic newspapers. Stecula argues that the method is justified because Polonia lacks both money and human resources for a truly random national poll of Polonia. He also notes that the results represent Polonia's most active and engaged (e.g., those who found out about the survey and took the initiative to respond), and so gives us insight into the community's movers and shakers.Perhaps. Stecula's data gives us insight into a particular slice of Polonia, but the generational and educational skew of the respondents may also skew other results, for example, values. In the absence of broader, regular, and more systematic surveys of Polonia at-large—its demographics, values, and politics—this study provides a valuable data-point, at least in terms of further studies about Polonia's leadership. Stecula's research affords a useful point-of-comparison for further studies both of Polonia at large and how its leadership may or may not mirror its rank-and-file.

A Message from the Editor: Introduction to the Special Issue on Human Trafficking

A Message from the EditorIntroduction to the Special Issue on Human Trafficking Michael R. Hall, Sabella Abidde, and José de Arimatéia da Cruz In November 2000, the United Nations adopted the "Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime." It stated, "'Trafficking in persons' shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."1 The 7th INTERPOL Global Conference on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in September 2019—three months before the 37th Annual Association of Global South Studies (AGSS) Conference held in Argentina's capital in December 2019. The INTERPOL conference attracted 750 participants from ninety-seven countries who focused on disrupting the "business model" of criminal enterprises behind human trafficking and migrant smuggling. In her opening remarks at the INTERPOL conference, Patricia Bullrich, Argentina's Minister of Security, described human trafficking and migrant smuggling as "the strong over the weak—those who exploit the vulnerability for their own profit." According to Bullrich, "It is important that we understand the essence of the crime, [End Page ix] not only to fight the offenders, but also to develop our ability to return freedom and peace of mind to all those who have suffered as victims."2 While attending the AGSS conference, Professor of Political Science Sabella Abidde at Alabama State University, Professor of Political Science José de Arimatéia da Cruz at Georgia Southern University, and Professor of History Michael R. Hall at Georgia Southern University—encouraged and influenced by the success and popularity of the recent INTERPOL conference—initiated a project that would examine the issue of human trafficking in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Initially, the plan was to host a series of panels at the 38th annual AGSS conference to be held in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in October 2020. Due to travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the conference was canceled. As a result, we approached Ryan Alexander, the editor of the Journal of Global South Studies (JGSS), with a plan for an issue of the journal dedicated to the theme of human trafficking in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The fruition of this endeavor are the six articles by nine scholars from multiple disciplines included in this issue of the journal. In "Theorizing Human Trafficking and Unfree Labor," Julia Harnoncourt from the University of Luxembourg and Miguel Paredes from the University of Vienna examine human trafficking in the context of labor exploitation. The authors explain that unfree labor transpires when the workers cannot sell their labor freely. Significantly, the unfree labor condition involves a situation in which the laborer cannot end their labor relation. After placing their research in historical perspective, the authors examine the Palermo Protocol and the application of laws against human trafficking in two case studies: Bolivia and Brazil. In "Paradoxes and Anomalies in Caribbean Anti-Trafficking Law and Practice," Jason Haynes from the University of the Birmingham assesses existing state practice on human trafficking in the Caribbean. Haynes' study is based on empirical data collected from interviews with 50 government officials and nongovernmental organization representatives in twelve Caribbean nations. In "Comparative Analysis of Human Trafficking in Caribbean and African Islands from the Annual Trafficking in Persons Report," Kathleen M. Vogel from Arizona State University examines current trends in human trafficking in African and Caribbean islands. Especially relevant is the author's discussion of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on human trafficking. In "Sun, Sand, Sex, and Safari: The Interplay of Sex Tourism and Global Inequalities [End Page...

Foreword

Foreword Ryan Alexander, Editor Following on the success of our spring 2021 special issue dedicated to Brazil, I am pleased to present to you a special issue dedicated to the topic of human trafficking in the Global South. Organized by Professor of Political Science Sabella Abidde at Alabama State University, Professor of Political Science José de Arimatéia da Cruz at Georgia Southern University, and Professor of History Michael R. Hall at Georgia Southern University, this issue looks at various dynamics of human trafficking in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The collection was inspired in part by the 7th INTERPOL Global Conference on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, just months before the Association of Global South Studies held its own annual meeting there. The editors of this collection have provided a brief introduction, which follows this foreword, to the project and the individual articles contained within it. As always, I want to express my thanks to the many people who make this journal possible, including the anonymous peer reviewers who review manuscripts; the volunteer associate editors (Joseph Bangura for Africa, Srobana Battacharya for Asia, Sonia Farid for the Middle East, Tyler Ralston for the Americas, Jason Strakes for Eurasia, and Michael Hall for book reviews); Sara Abernathy, JGSS editorial assistant; Lauren Phillips, manager of journals at the University of Florida Press; Raven Hudson, the press's editorial assistant for journals; and the copy editors at the press. Our parent organization, the Association of Global South Studies, was established in order to provide an international structure for the humane and scientific study of peoples, problems, and issues in the world's developing countries, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of life in those places. The late Dr. Harold Isaacs, professor emeritus of history at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, Georgia, founded the Association of Third [End Page vii] World Studies (ATWS), Inc., in 1983. The association now has a global membership and chapters in South Asia and Africa. In the summer of 2016, following a vote of the members of the association, ATWS was renamed the Association of Global South Studies (AGSS). As ATWS, the association began its history as an institution in 1991 when, under the newly ratified ATWS constitution, elected officials assumed responsibility for the management of the organization. Since 1992, the executive headquarters have been located at Georgia Southern University (1992–2003), Mississippi State University (2003–2006), and Louisiana State University–Shreveport (2006–). Due to the dedicated and energetic leadership of Zia H. Hashmi and Paul Rodell at Georgia Southern, Shu-hui Wu at Mississippi State, and William Pederson at LSU-Shreveport, AGSS has made great progress as a global, professional organization. In 1995, the United Nations recognized the success of AGSS by granting it UN "consultative status," thus enabling the association to increase its direct impact on world development. AGSS has an established and newly revamped website, to be found at http://apps.gsw.edu/atws/. Membership in AGSS is open to any person interested in studying the developing countries. Yearly membership dues are $60.00, which includes an annual subscription to JGSS. The yearly subscription rate is $60.00; single copies are $30.00. Discounts are available for students and those living in the developing countries. Membership and subscription forms, as well as copies of JTWS/JGSS, may be obtained by writing to the Association of Global South Studies, Inc., care of Ryan Alexander, History Department, SUNY-Plattsburgh, Champlain Valley Hall 224, Plattsburgh, NY 12901. Individuals interested in submitting articles to be considered, or refereed, for publication by the JGSS Board of Editors should write to the editor, also Ryan Alexander, at the above address. Alternatively, manuscripts may be sent to the editor via email: ralex006@plattsburgh.edu. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Scopus, GEOBASE, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), International Political Science Abstracts Database (IPSA), Political Science Database, Sociological Abstracts, Historical Abstracts, America: History and Life, Periodica Islamica, Social Sciences Index, PAIS Indexes, CAB International (CABI), and others. [End Page viii] Copyright © 2023 Association of Global South Studies, Inc.

Activists in international courts: Backlash, funding, and strategy in international legal mobilization

Activists in international courts: Backlash, funding, and strategy in international legal mobilization

20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America by Ryan P. Burge

Reviewed by: 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America by Ryan P. Burge Mark Mattes 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America. By Ryan P. Burge. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022. ix + 249 pp. Avoid this book if you do not like hot button topics! But if you want some clear-headed, evidence-based reasoning about how faith intersects with public life, this book is valuable. Both a professor of political science and an American Baptist pastor, Ryan Burge corrects widespread perceptions about matters as diverse as how religious groups tend to vote, whether religion is in decline in America, how Christians view Donald Trump, whether education leads to secularism, as well as flash points like immigration, abortion, and same-sex marriage. Once you start, this book is hard to put down. It is impossible in a short review to describe every myth that Burge busts. I can only share highlights. He notes that Republicans assume that as much as 36% of Democrats are atheists when in truth it is only 9%. The flipside is that Democrats assume that 44% of Republicans are 65 or older when in reality it is 21%. Likewise, Democrats assume that 50% of Republicans earn $250,000 or more annually when in fact just 2% do. Burge is committed to a statistics-driven "empirical worldview" precisely because it is able to cut through caricatures. [End Page 114] Many of the false perceptions that Burge challenges deal with Evangelicals. This is not due to any bias against other groups like Muslims or Mormons. Accurate statistics require a sizable pool to assess. Evangelicals, along with Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants, have sufficient numbers to provide such information. Interpreting such statistics, however, also requires a knowledge of history and political dynamics. Burge has all these skills. Burge counters the claim that Evangelicalism is in decline by noting that it experienced a "short-lived burst" in the 1990s (15) and that its recent waning is a return to pre-1990s levels. In response to the view that Donald Trump was not the choice of devout Republicans, a stance which assumes that over time the Republican Party is less religious, Burge notes that in 2011 30% of Americans felt that elected officials who are privately immoral could still fulfill their duties in public life while by 2016 the number had changed to 72%. In other words, for many Americans, politicians' private lapses matter little with regard to their ability to deliver in public. Strangely, some people identify as Evangelical but seldom attend church. Burge contends that it is likely that non-church-going Republicans assume that Evangelicalism is congenial to their political platform and so self-identify accordingly (94). Burge notes that the number of Americans who identify as Christian has dropped by 20% since the 1970s. Interestingly, higher levels of education do not contribute to this drop. There is no evidence that college-educated young people are more likely to lack religious affiliation (57). The assumption that people return to faith late in life is not born out by the facts. What appears to be true is that those who stick with church never left it in the first place (118). That said, there is no doubt that secularization is growing in America. But note: "Of those raised nones, about 20 percent became evangelical as an adult, with another 9 percent becoming mainline and 6 percent becoming Catholic. Summed up, over 35 percent of people raised nones became Christians as adults" (168). Problematic is that political divisiveness defines the church: "Thus, many people who would like to find a church home are left with a landscape that is either theologically conservative and incredibly devout on one side or completely irreligious on the other. Left with those choices, [End Page 115] many Americans seem to be choosing to become a none rather than an evangelical or conservative Catholic" (183). Burge's is a refreshing voice because he does not follow a script from either the right or the left. Instead, like Sergeant Friday in Dragnet, "just the facts" is his motto. His goal is to help produce a humbler and gentler America. Mark Mattes Grand View University Des Moines...

Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport Between Teacher and Students by Rebecca A. Glazier

Reviewed by: Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport Between Teacher and Students by Rebecca A. Glazier Heather E. Yates Rebecca A. Glazier. Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport Between Teacher and Students. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021. 251pp $29.95. ISBN 9781421442655 (paperback), ISBN 9781421442662(e-book). The COVID-19 global pandemic redirected our collective focus to the methods of online teaching in a way that no other modern event has. The entire educational infrastructure was temporarily suspended. The public health crisis demanded that universities rapidly migrate courses, in the middle of the academic term, to online instructional formats. It was hurried, at times chaotic, and most everyone was pushed beyond their professional (and personal) capacities. The emergency presented some challenges that compounded some standing concerns about higher education and revealed new ones about declining college enrollment. In cases where university campuses suspended in-person operations and performed rapid pivots to digital spaces, faculty were students' primary, and sometimes, only connection with the university. The demands of the unusual circumstances uncovered an entirely new set of concerns for student learning and retention. The disruption partly reinvigorated a public discourse about the necessities of online teaching and learning, but it also accelerated another lurking problem: an online retention crisis. Much of the discussion around student retention settles on the needs of traditional students, meaning those who are physically present on campuses, while the needs of online students get pushed to the periphery. As it relates to retention issues, online teaching can suffer from negative stereotypes and mischaracterizations that give way to myths of detached, sterile environments devoid of meaningful human interactions, making the face-to-face classroom a preferred method of instruction (Palloff & Pratt, 2013). For students, some may think online classes are 'easier' than in-person courses (Young, 2006). In view of these challenges, Rebecca Glazier, professor of political science at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, authored Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport Between Teacher and Students. The book stands out from a sizeable literature concerning online teaching because it is not simply a best-practices guide to improving online pedagogy. It goes beyond that framework to reconstruct how we think about online teaching by offering a balanced treatment of students and professors in the online experience. One of the book's significant contributions is its focus on the lagging retention of online students in higher education. It also effectively dismantles the negative stereotypes associated with online teaching and, more generally, online classes. The book methodically and critically examines the issue of lagged online retention rates. Beyond the best-practices component, the book proposes evidence-based solutions on how best to address the online retention problem. The book's many strengths include its appeal to a wide audience, its applications across academic disciplines, and its utility for any level of teaching expertise. Glazier expertly describes the online retention gap as the differences in retention of student enrollments in online and in-person classes. Glazier observes that colleges commonly struggle with retaining online students more than any other student population. This digital retention gap is further characterized by Glazier's observation that students who want to succeed in a face-to-face classroom, but have limited options, are dropping out of online classes. The problem manifests in an [End Page 407] observable retention gap in enrollments between online and in-person classes where the in-person classes are enjoying more successful retention rates. While online students comprise a significant portion of the college population, many efforts to retain them get folded into traditional retention strategies. There are reasons why universities invest substantial amounts of capital to keep students on campus by focusing on positive student interactions and experiences within those physical spaces, which routinely enlist the energies of the faculty, staff, and the campus environment (Millea et al., 2018). However, an unintentional negative impact of this means that online students are rendered virtually invisible, which effectively relegates them to a second-class status on campuses. In addressing the online retention gap, Glazier provides a straight-forward, yet significant solution: rapport. The author shows the positive influence that human connectedness in digital learning spaces has on student...

Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem

Deliberative democracy and the digital public sphere: Asymmetrical fragmentation as a political not a technological problem

The perils of national narratives

The perils of national narratives

INTERSECTIONS OF MASS MEDIA, TERRORISM, AND POLICY RESPONSE: HOW MASS MEDIATED REPRESENTATIONS OF TERRORISM MAY INFLUENCE COUNTERTERRORIST POLICIES

On November 22, 2022, Dr. Brigitte Nacos, Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, presented Intersections of Mass Media, Terrorism, and Policy Response: How Mass Mediated Representations of Terrorism May Influence Counterterrorist Policies. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed were how the representation of terrorist attacks in mass media can influence public opinion and policy decisions. Several case studies were presented to illustrate this intersection. Received: 2022-12-20Revised: 2022-12-29

Contradictions on the Thresholds of a Changing World

Abstract This contribution is a transcript of a conversation that the author held with Sabah Alnasseri, Associate Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto, in December 2022.