Paradigm Wars Research Articles

The politics of evidence-based policy in Europe’s ‘migration crisis’

ABSTRACTIncreased migration across the Mediterranean to Europe during 2015 was associated with growing interest in generating new research evidence to assist policymakers in understanding the complexities of migration and improve policy responses. In the UK, this was reflected in funding by the Economic and Social Research Council for a Mediterranean Migration Research Programme. Drawing on evidence from the programme, this volume explores the nature of Europe’s ‘migration crisis’ and the extent to which the development of new migration management policies was grounded in evidence about the causes, drivers and consequences of migration to Europe. The authors conclude that there is a substantial ‘gap’ between the now significant body of evidence examining migration processes and European Union policy responses. This gap is attributed to three main factors: the long-standing ‘paradigm war’ in social research between positivist, interpretivist and critical approaches which means that what counts as ‘evidence’ is contested; competing knowledge claims associated with research and other forms of evidence used to construct and/or support policy narratives; and, perhaps most importantly, the politics of policymaking, which has resulted in policies based on underlying assumptions and vested interests rather than research evidence, even where this evidence is funded directly by European governments.

Targeted Killings in International Law: Considering Extra-judicial Killings on Canadians Abroad

The use of targeted killings has become more typical since the US declaration of a “Global War on Terror”. States such as the US and Israel have employed targeted killings as a means to combat the growing threat of international Islamic terrorism; the US has transitioned from a law enforcement paradigm to a law of war paradigm, through the Congress’ Authorization on the Use of Military Force. Although the legality of targeted killings is still contested in the international community, I argue that while the law enforcement paradigm is ineffective at containing the growing threat of terrorism, the law of war paradigm disregards international law and risks the protections of civilians unnecessarily. More constraints are needed through international law in order to maintain the core principles of the international humanitarian framework, while still combating terrorism and expanding the existing framework to cover non international armed conflicts such as that between al-Qaeda and the US. This can be done through the establishment of a new paradigm, called the continuous hostilities paradigm. If the existing international principles such as distinction, proportionality, military necessity and humanity are considered, targeted killings can be legal under international law. However, the indiscriminate killing of suspected terrorists by States cannot be considered legal, and it is crucial to consider the necessity of the protection of civilians

Epistemological Oppression and the Road to Awakening

Increasingly, it is becoming evident that qualitative research methodologies have much to contribute to producing health knowledge. Notwithstanding such advances, some would say the “paradigm war” continues, privileging postpositivist epistemologies. Our own experiences working within a post-positivist-dominated health research arena inspired the implementation of an “Epistemological Boot Camp” qualitative research training series. The central goal of the boot camp was to query the hypothesis that we are still in a paradigmatic “war zone” while imagining productive ways to both survive and thrive in the current climate. Moving forward, our hope is that our boot camp methodology can inspire other scholars to develop creative local initiatives that provide a platform to work toward recognizing the unique contributions of qualitative health research.

Educational psychology: A future retrospective.

In my response to Alexander’s (2018) paper marking the 125th anniversary of the American Psychological Association and the field of educational psychology, I have taken the perspective of a member of our discipline from some time in the future who is contributing to a larger work looking back at the history and development of our field (thus, a “future retrospective”). As this “future author,” I focus on Alexander’s (2018) article and selected developments in our field and more broadly since 2018. Two of the five thematic areas of influence that had established an enduring legacy for the field identified by Alexander are the primary focus: (a) interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary inquiry and (b) evidence-based practice (EBP). The concepts of theoretical integration and theoretical integrationists are discussed in relation to these themes. Early barriers to interdisciplinary approaches, including paradigm wars and a proliferation of false dichotomies, are noted. The emergence of complexity sciences and a complex systems framework for understanding learning and development is discussed, leading to deeper understanding of the unique social and historical context that shaped and informed our work in the second decade of the 21st-century, as well as the multifaceted context we work within today. Given the interwoven nature of the five thematic areas identified by Alexander, however, aspects of the other thematic areas and Alexander’s thoughts on the future of educational psychology are also encountered. I concur with Alexander in hoping that her paper and the responses to it generate discussion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

Review of Credible and Actionable Evidence: The Foundation for Rigorous and Influential Evaluations (Second Edition)

An important motivation for this book is articulated in the preface as the editors explain that tensions from an earlier quantitative–qualitative paradigm war in evaluation research appear to have resurfaced within the last decade or so and have re-exposed longstanding epistemological divisions among practitioners. Among the catalysts implicated in reigniting these controversies was the 2003 U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) “wholesale commitment to privileging experimental and some quasi-experimental designs over other methods in applied research and evaluation funding competitions”

The War Within

The ‘culture war’ paradigm has come to dominate the legal discourse on conflicts between religious liberty and sexual and LGBTQ equality. Despite its political relevance, this paradigm is problematic as applied to the broad universe of conflicts between religion and equality. As a result, legal discourse frequently misconceives religion as monolithically oppositional to equality, constantly seeking more ground, and without values in common with its challengers. This article argues for a modified framework that acknowledges the war that occurs within religion regarding equality challenges. Drawing on qualitative and experimental evidence from the United States and Israel and on cases from a range of countries and contexts, the article finds that conservative religious groups struggle between opposing perceived sexual nonconformity and tolerating it, and that their resolution of this struggle varies in systematic and predictable ways. Specifically, the article identifies the practice of ‘social impact regulation,’ whereby religious decision-makers selectively apply and enforce religious norms based on the perceived impact of sexual nonconformity on the community and the social status of the religious norm. The article discusses the consequences of this practice, demonstrates its breadth, and explores its implications for the culture war paradigm, for legal doctrine, and for the negotiation of conflicts between law and religion. Ultimately, the reality of the war within religion presents both challenges and opportunities for law.

Carl Schmitt’s politics in the age of drone strikes: examining the Schmittian texture of Obama’s enemy

When George Bush declared to his global audience that they were either ‘with us or against us’, he appeared to directly invoke the Schmittian antithesis of friend vs. enemy. Against the historical backdrop of Bush’s war on terror, and the scholarly attention his foreign policy received in relation to Carl Schmitt’s concept of the political, this paper examines whether the Obama administration’s targeted killing regime has marked a departure from Schmitt’s paradigms of war and enmity. Focusing specifically upon the rapid increase in use of drone strikes during Barack Obama’s presidency, this paper argues that the production of the enemy’s abstractness and drive for its annihilation together push at the limits of the Schmittian political logic. However, rather than denoting the point at which political relations are unexplainable through a Schmittian lens, this paper proposes that this produced enemy and its treatment in drone ‘warfare’ obfuscates the lines between a complex of Schmittian paradigms.

SPICE Frame Work: A Tool for Analysis of Large Processual Data

The paradigm wars have led to dominance of instrumentality over purpose in the application of research methods resulting in journals showing distinct but hidden preferences for methodology driven articles. The bigger impact has been very poor theory development. Theories are crucially dependent upon establishment of causal linkages between factors identified in a phenomenon. It requires qualitative case based methodology to generate it and once established quantitative methods allow extension and validation of the theory. The very process of theory generation has been hampered by the debate on issues of validity and replication. What limits in numbers of cases must be sourced to successfully establish causal phenomenon is still a subject of debate. When multiple cases are used as part of case research strategy, issues of presentation of findings and critically ability to use strategies in theorirising from volume of process data come to the fore. Missing is a framework which would enable use of multiple case based designs regularly in research on management and allow use of generic heuristics to analyze process data. This paper generates such a generic framework. “SPICE” – an acronym standing for five generic dimensions-enables processual analysis of data from multiple case research designs. It generates patterns from the analysis resulting in establishing of causal mechanisms leading to generation of hypotheses and their verification. This framework will enable greater use of multiple case based research designs and thus better ways to generate theories.

The Effects of Paradigm Shifts on the Rules on the Use of Force in Military Operations

This article explores the effects of paradigm shifts, that is the transition from the law enforcement paradigm to the war fighting paradigm and vice versa, on the rules on the use of force for military operations. The concept and main elements of rules of engagement are explained, followed by an analysis of applicable law and its effect on the use of force in each of the two paradigms. Particular attention is focused on the divergent meanings of necessity and proportionality in the two paradigms. Finally, the effects of paradigm shifts on military operations and on the rules on the use of force are explained. The conclusion offers some guidance on the use of rules of engagement to support such paradigm transitions.

Reconciling Anti-Essentialism and Quantitative Methodology

Quantitative methodology has a contested role in feminist scholarship which remains almost exclusively qualitative. Considering Irigaray’s notion of mimicry, Spivak’s strategic essentialism, and Butler’s contingent foundations, the essentialising implications of quantitative methodology may prove less problematic if research projects assert strategic or political feminist aims. Still, a feminist deconstructive argument can be formed against quantitative studies in which socially constructed categories are considered independently determined. However, by application of Williams’ ideas of treating the categories in question as dependently rather than independently determined, social categories can be deconstructed quantitatively, enriching both the theoretical and empirical understandings of population-level social constructions of genders, ethnicities etc. Quantitative deconstruction has the potential to reconcile anti-essentialism and quantitative methodology, and thus, to make peace in the quantitative/qualitative Paradigm Wars.

Transnational Self-Defense and Liberal Values: Replacing Law with Flawed Policy in the 'Obama Doctrine'

In December 2016, the Obama administration released a Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States’ Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations (Report). Its purpose was to “enhance the public’s understanding of the legal and policy principles that have guided U.S. national security operations”. The Report outlines the administration’s view of international and domestic law regulating the resort to, and use of, armed force against non-state armed groups in the territory of other nations, here called “transnational self-defense.” In a personal foreword, President Obama claimed that the Report “reinforce[s] the fact that we defend our interests at home and around the world in a manner consistent with the laws, values, and traditions that are the source of our greatest strength.” In this chapter I argue that the Report and related 2013 Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG), which I collectively label the “Obama doctrine,” are inconsistent with both international law and fundamental American liberal values in two important ways. First, the Obama doctrine permits the resort to force in preemptive self-defense when not clearly necessary to avert a grave threat of impending harm. Second, the Report and PPG strongly imply that all uses of force in transnational self-defense occur within the context of armed conflict regulated by international laws of war. This adoption of an armed-conflict paradigm for all acts of transnational self-defense is erroneous in some contexts: not all violence between states and non-state actors creates or occurs within an armed conflict to which the laws of war apply. Relatedly, the Report extends its law of war paradigm to attacks against all “associated forces” of a non-state group without precisely outlining a legal and factual basis for doing so. When combined, these errors allow for much greater destruction of life and property than is clearly necessary to defend against a relatively specific, certain, impending threat of harm. Respect for international law and American liberal values requires a much more circumscribed and calibrated approach to transnational self-defense.

Wang Anyi, Taiwan, and the World: The 1983 International Writing Program and Biblical Allusions in Utopian Verses

Issues in Sino-American literary exchange during the Cold War is a growing field of study in recent years. Literary historians note that “cultural Cold War” institutions such as the International Writing Program have been funded by conservative organizations to inculcate core Western values like liberal democracy as a bid to counter communism. Hence, whether individual Chinese writers during the Cold War era gave in to or resisted ideological brainwashing has become a critical field for study. By focusing on Wang Anyi’s American experience and its influence as described in her 1983 Utopian Verses, this article argues that in addition to the analyses of institutional constituencies, the current cultural Cold War paradigm has to take into account the actual interaction between writers and the institutions, and among the writers themselves. I examine how Wang was skeptical of, yet deeply attracted to, the Taiwanese left-wing novelist Chen Yingzhen’s religious and socialist utopianism. Chen’s socialist ideals and his religious faith provided Wang with a concentric framework to first position China and Chinese literature within a worldly context, and next, within the concept of utopian idealism. Nonetheless, such idealized utopianism was conditioned by the Cold War backdrop of ideological conflict.

Nancy Mitchell Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War Washington, DC

Reviewed by : Robert Anthony Waters Jr, Ohio Northern University r-waters@onu.eduHistorian Nancy Mitchell has written a very good book about Jimmy and the Cold War in Africa, focusing on his response to crises in White-minority-ruled Rhodesia and the Horn of Africa. The width and depth of her research is a model that diplomatic historians should aspire to achieve, her writing flows, and she places Carter's Africa policy within the larger context of US foreign policy and politics. At times she provides an hour-by-hour account of events, and the pace rarely drags. Despite these strengths, the book is ultimately unsuccessful because Mitchell is trapped in the anti-Cold War paradigm that dominates US diplomatic history.In Southern Africa, Mitchell claims for the mantle of true foreign policy realist: he assessed Rhodesia as a potential Cold War hot spot, but also made a careful study of the African context, giving his policy nuance and suppleness. Mitchell praises for his refusal to lift sanctions even after the White-minority government turned over a large share of power to nationalist Black leaders who opposed the Marxist guerillas, arguing that without the guerillas, the civil war would have continued and probably led to Cuban and Soviet intervention. She concludes: Carter ... had to ... claim the moral high ground but not end up on the same side as the (670). In other words, he could not allow his support for peace and Black-majority rule to end in Soviet and Cuban intervention and regional war. Only a negotiated involving all parties could prevent that outcome.Mitchell argues that in the Horn, behaved as a traditional Cold Warrior. When Somalia expelled the Soviet Union, moved to fill the vacuum in exchange for use of the strategic port at Berbera. Implicit in the bargain, the United States would ensure that weapons flowed to Somalia as it prepared to invade and annex Ethiopia's Somali-majority Ogaden region. Mitchell portrays this as an example of the reflexive amoral Great Power Diplomacy that Henry Kissinger had practised in Africa during the Gerald Ford administration: secretive, unconcerned about African norms such as the inviolability of colonial borders, and focused purely on the Cold War without concern for the Africans themselves. It was exactly the kind of foreign policy that had renounced in his campaign for president.Carter's policy in the Horn lacked nuance and true realism, Mitchell argues, because the opportunity was unexpected. Somalia expelled the Soviets just when his new administration had its hands full with momentous policy changes vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, the Mideast, the Panama Canal, and Rhodesia. With little time to do his normally exhaustive due diligence, Carter's instinct was to better the US strategic position without concern about antagonizing African leaders or violating his own commitment to rein in international arms sales. The Horn Crisis shows that, contra his conservative critics, in his heart Jimmy was a Cold Warrior.Mitchell's conclusions about both crises are questionable.In Rhodesia, Mitchell is simply wrong that the United States could not accept a that left the United States on the same side as the Soviets. In fact, the British believed that would be the optimal outcome. Their candidate to rule Zimbabwe was Soviet-supported guerilla leader Joshua Nkomo, whom they considered the most talented and flexible of the colony's leaders. They saw the other guerilla chief, Chinese-supported Robert Mugabe, as an overly doctrinaire and inflexible Marxist. Mitchell shows that Nkomo was close to joining an internal settlement that would have left out Mugabe. Had joined the British, he could have induced Nkomo to make peace and form an electoral coalition with the leading opponent of guerilla war, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, a match that would have given the internal solution Nkomo's prestige as a freedom fighter while bringing together Nkomo's minority Ndebele tribe and Muzorewa's majority Shona. …

Losing the So-Called Paradigm War: Does our Confusion, Disarray, and Retreat Contribute to the Advance?

In this article, I argue that what is commonly lamented as the decline of qualitative research might be because of our own inability to reveal something true about being-in-the-world. Four problems with qualitative work are identified: making what is obvious inescapable, confusion around what constitutes qualitative research and phenomenology, uniformed and disrespectful mixing of methods, and devolution into “little t” truth. I finish by calling for bold, evocative interpretation, and posing the question: What is the nature of the revolution that hermeneutics can foment?

Social Learning and the Political Power Dynamics of Executive Privilege in a Cold War Paradigm

Executive privilege is a concept scholars have been debating for decades. While most discussions focus on the constitutionality of executive privilege, some have taken a more political perspective. Leaving aside constitutional arguments, this research provides a new perspective on understanding the politics of executive privilege in the modern era. Through a social learning lens, executive privilege becomes a political football of institutional power dynamics between the legislative and executive branches. Demonstrating a mindset paradigm shift to a Cold War perspective, the president and administrative actors, beginning with Truman, took actions to decrease information flows to Congress. Congress would respond or react to administration actions by seeking to curb executive power, eventually leading to policy becoming a tool of leverage. Following World War II, this research traces the political back and forth of executive privilege as a tool of institutional power, tracing the early development from Truman through LBJ. Understanding the power interactions during this period deepens our insight into contemporary debates. This historical analysis provides for policy as an additional legislative tool of leverage that has largely been ignored by scholars. Analyzing the development of the Freedom of Information Act provides an example of how policy is directly tied to issues of executive privilege and used as a congressional check on presidential power.

Students, Sex, and Threatened Solidarity: East African Bodies and Indian Angst, 1955–1970*

During the late 1950s, Indian leader Jawaharlal Nehru worked to enhance existing connections between India and East Africa, promote an Indian-dominated nonaligned world, and provide an alternative vision to both British imperial and Cold War paradigms of authority. As part of this mandate for third world unity, the Indian government offered scholarships to East African students who possessed their own agendas for furthering their education. By examining the neglected relationship between East African students and the Indians they encountered, this article highlights the transnationality of East African youth as they traveled to India only to experience alienation by the Indian public who, as the hosts in new transnational zones of contact, mimicked colonial anxieties and fears of African intimacy.

Study on `Transformation of the War Paradigm and Implication of War on the Korean Peninsula"

Study on `Transformation of the War Paradigm and Implication of War on the Korean Peninsula"

A Content Analysis of Nine Literacy Journals, 2009-2014

The purpose of this study was to determine the topics being studied, theoretical perspectives being used, and methods being implemented in current literacy research. A research team completed a content analysis of nine journals from 2009 to 2014 to gather data. In the 1,238 articles analyzed, the topics, theoretical perspectives, research designs, and data sources were recorded. Frequency counts of these findings are presented for each journal. Chi-square tests of independence revealed statistically significant differences among the topics, theoretical perspectives, designs, and data sources across the nine journals. These results suggest that the field of literacy research may be fragmented, which has been a concern for literacy researchers since the paradigm wars of the 1980s and 1990s. We urge the literacy research community to continue to demand rigorous research, but to do so in a way that appreciates the power in viewing and studying teaching and learning from diverse perspectives, using diverse methods, and with recognition that a foundational aspect of rigorous research is the match between research questions asked and research methods used.

ELFA vs. Genre: A new paradigm war in EAP writing instruction?

Genre approaches to English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing instruction have recently been challenged by proponents of what is claimed to be a new paradigm for EAP – English as a Lingua Franca Academic (ELFA). From an ELFA perspective, EAP programmes are described as unfairly imposing national or native models on non-native speakers of English, and the genre-based paradigm which informs many EAP writing instruction programmes is characterised as conforming to rather than challenging the status quo. This paper looks critically at this characterisation, drawing on recent research literature and the first stage of a larger empirical study of published academic writing in scientific communication and associated communities of practice. Conclusions reported here indicate that an ELFA paradigm which depends on dichotomies such as Native Speaker (NS) vs. Non Native Speaker (NNS), or NS vs. ELFA is, at the very least, open to question as a starting point for the development of EAP writing programmes. By contrast, a Genre informed paradigm which draws on an apprentice vs. expert dichotomy is considered to offer a more useful basis for both syllabus design and pedagogy in EAP writing instruction. (186 words).

Stay-behind operations, former members of SS and Wehrmacht, and American intelligence services in early Cold War Germany

ABSTRACTAmerican intelligence organizations set up stay-behind operations, equipped and trained a secret irregular army in early post-war Germany collaborating with a large number of former members of Schutzstaffel (SS) and German Wehrmacht. During this cooperation, knowledge became a commodity to be exchanged for protection from prosecution and for future job opportunities. Intertwining different and differing communities of practice and knowledge, they constructed a shared Cold War paradigm that served as the foundation for a transatlantic security architecture.