bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How to Detect Culture and Its Effects
Authors: Ballinger Pamela
Published: September 2009

This article considers ways to detect culture or identify culture and its effects. It offers a historical overview of how scholars have treated culture in order to suggest that in reconnecting and detecting the social and the cultural in our analyses, both anthropologists and political scientists may find that ‘old theories’ and ‘second editions’ point to more effective ways of taking account of culture. It explains that traditional means by which anthropologists have studied culture has been through field research because they believed that fieldwork is synonymous with participant-observation. Detecting culture requires heeding our senses in order to contextualize the realms in which social practices and their symbolic representations operate.
Race, Ethnicity, Religion
Authors: Jung Courtney
Published: September 2009

This article examines the relevance of religion, ethnicity, and race in political analysis. It discusses the relation between political power and constructivism and evaluates the influence of the politics of race, ethnicity, and religion on democratic consolidation. It explains that political scientists and other observers of contemporary politics treat race, ethnicity, and religion as problems and they believe such social categories threaten the survival of democratic political institutions and the fabric of national society. It also proposes solutions to the problems caused by social heterogeneity in order to ensure the survival of democracy.
Why and How History Matters
Authors: Tilly Charles
Published: September 2009

This article examines the importance of history in political analysis. It suggests that explanatory political science can hardly get anywhere without relying on careful historical analysis and describes social movements in history. It discusses the historical importance of the processes of state transformation and the conception of social movements as political innovations. It concludes that every significant political phenomenon lives in history and requires historically grounded analysis for its explanation.
Uses of Local Knowledge
Authors: Kalb Don
Published: September 2009

This article looks into the concept and uses of local knowledge and its relevance to contextual analysis. It describes radical democratic, corporate, and expert driven projects and suggests that local knowledge is always locked in a dialectical relationship with the actions of accumulated capital and coercion. Thus, what experts often tend to classify as a thing called local knowledge can better be seen as the contingent product of a complex and dynamic field of power relationships, both among locals as well as between locals and their external interlocutors. It is a negotiated project or program rather than an empirical fact.
The Politics of Demography
Authors: Curtis Bruce
Published: September 2009

This article examines the politics of demographic knowledge both in terms of its political conditions of possibility and its practical utility. It explains that demographic knowledge is inherently a political and administrative knowledge because it is based on conventions for establishing equivalences among human subjects and events, for attributing identities to them, and for locating them in time and space. It suggests that demographic knowledge can create powerful new possibilities for configuring and re-configuring social relations and processes in keeping with a great variety of interests and that demography can participate in rational social planning, in the identification of the environmental circumstances that surround disease clusters, and even in ethnic cleansing.
The Gender Politics of Technology
Authors: Wajcman Judy
Published: September 2009

This article examines gender difference issues related to the politics of technology. It discusses feminists' identification of men's monopoly of technology as an important source of their power and women's traditional lack of technological skills as an important element in their dependence on men. It explains the concept of the so-called technofeminism and shows that such a perspective on technology adds a new dimension to the political analyses of gender difference and sexual inequality. It suggests that the process of technical change is integral to the renegotiation of gender power relations and that the recognition that gender and technology are mutually constitutive opens up fresh possibilities for feminist scholarship and action.
Technology as a Site and Object of Politics
Authors: Jasanoff Sheila
Published: September 2009

This article analyses the conception of technology as a site and object of politics. It presents four narratives that provide a rationale for a lively politics of technology and each case had given rise to its distinctive conceptual dialectic articulated through specific constellations of political actors, controversies, discourses, and forms of action. It suggests that technology as a site and object of politics displays itself clearly in four linked yet separate aspects: as risk, as design, as standard, and as ethical constraint. On each front politics has played out as a dialectic between competing propositions. The article concludes that the politics of technology is the play and the ploy through which today's citizens can assert control over potentially dangerous extensions of their ambitiously inventive selves.
From Patristics to Early Christian Studies
Authors: Clark Elizabeth A.
Published: September 2009

Charles Kannengiesser's presidential address to the North American Patristics Society in 1990 was a lament originally titled ‘Bye, Bye Patristics’. Most of the classically educated French scholars who had revitalized patristics as part of what Kannengiesser termed ‘the spiritual and humanistic revival in Europe after World War II’ were dead, and educational support for these studies in Europe was dwindling. This article describes the passage from ‘patristics’ to ‘early Christian studies’. It also examines how patristics emerged as a discipline by looking at France, Germany, and Great Britain.
Literature, Patristics, Early Christian Writing
Authors: Vessey Mark
Published: September 2009

How does one distinguish more from less ‘literary’ texts of the early Christian centuries? What does ‘literary’ mean in such contexts? The failure to address these basic questions of language and method is a weakness of many contemporary scholarly treatments of early Christian literature and literary texts. Rather than propose a single, generally applicable literary methodology for early Christian studies, this article attempts to bring some clarity to current discussions by supplying elements of a genealogy of terms and methods hitherto in use. By observing past approaches to the ‘letter’ of early Christian texts, one may be reminded of the substantial dependence of modern idioms on text-based, ‘literary’ knowledge, including literature on western, Latin, and Christian institutions.
Which Early Christianity?
Authors: King Karen L.
Published: September 2009

It would seem that the questions ‘Which Christianity?’ and ‘Whose Christianity?’ were posed very early, even before the gospels and most of the New Testament literature had been composed, and at a time when the number of believers must have been very small indeed. Throughout the history of Christianity, diverse beliefs and practices would ebb and flow on the tides of historical change and conflict, navigating and sometimes floundering with ever-shifting geographical, social-political, and cultural contexts as Christianity expanded from a tiny movement to a global religion. The question is how to represent this ever-shifting diversity adequately. This problem has become increasingly urgent owing to several factors, prominent among them the rise of critical historical methodologies and new frameworks for the study of early Christianity; astonishing discoveries of previously unknown ancient texts from Egypt; and questions arising from new contexts, especially from ecumenism and the realities of local and global pluralisms.
Material Evidence (2): Visual Culture
Authors: Jensen Robin M.
Published: September 2009

Like other students of culture, historians of ancient Christianity deem the visual art, artefacts, and architecture of the early church as resources indispensable to discerning how various early Christian communities expressed and transmitted their religious beliefs. The study of visual images not only supplements and balances documentary research, but often affords scholars access to objects which are not only of great beauty, but which act as powerful agents of message and meaning. Furthermore, it opens the question of how vision itself functioned in religious practice. The insights gained from the study of visual culture are achieved not only from comparing textual evidence with material evidence, but also from the appreciation of the interpretive role, expressive power, and aesthetic qualities of physical remains in their own right, along with the analysis of the visual experience itself as a meaning-constructive activity.
Pagans and Christians
Authors: Salzman Michele R.
Published: September 2009

As Christianity ‘triumphed’ over the course of the fourth century, so too did Christians' growing intolerance for pagans, and also Jews and ‘heretical Christians’. In the traditional narrative, Christians ended the fourth century by persecuting pagans and coercing their conversion. The political conflict was constant. The balance of power only shifted after Constantine, as Christians came to persecute pagans in the new Christian empire. This clear, simple model of pagan–Christian political conflict, leading, in the first three centuries, to persecution and martyrdom, and ending, in the fourth century, with Christianity triumphant, has been challenged, if not displaced, by nuanced studies of the interactions of pagans and Christians in Roman society.
The West (2): North Africa
Authors: Rebillard Éric
Published: September 2009

Rather than provide a continuous narrative, this article tries to bring to the fore some exceptional documents that allow the historian to go beyond the received view of the history of Christianity in North Africa. It also deliberately focuses on the literary sources, although the archaeological and epigraphic evidence is abundant. The article examines: the origins of Christianity in North Africa; Tertullian and the Christians in Carthage at the end of the second century; Cyprian and the organization of the African church in the third century; the persecutions in North Africa; the origins of Donatism; Donatist martyr stories; the Conference of Carthage in 411; interpretations of Donatism; Augustine and the limits of the Christianization of North Africa; and the end of Christianity in North Africa.
The East (2): Egypt and Palestine
Authors: Brakke David
Published: September 2009

Few if any regions in which ancient Christianity thrived capture the modern imagination in the same way as Palestine and Egypt, whose famous cities and equally famous desert regions provided the settings for Jesus and his first followers, and later, for innovative theologians and legendary monks. This article focuses on problems or themes that shape the current study of both of these regional varieties of ancient Christianity. Despite the numerous significant differences between Egypt and Palestine, and between the courses that Christianity took in them, the churches in these areas shared common features. In both cases, forms of Christianity originated as forms of Judaism. The formidable Origen spent his career and left his mark in both Egypt and Palestine, which were later troubled by disputes over ‘Origenism’. Monasticism took root in both areas, where it contributed in different ways to reconfigurations of sacred space and to processes of Christianization.
The East (3): Syria and Mesopotamia
Authors: Van Rompay Lucas
Published: September 2009

Syriac Christianity emerged in northern Mesopotamia, an area of encounter between various peoples and civilizations in which Aramean settlement began as early as the end of the second millennium BCE. In the first Christian centuries, this area was a buffer between the Roman and Parthian Empires. The origins of Syriac Christianity can be traced back to the second century, when Christians began to use the Aramaic of Edessa as their literary language. The Edessene language itself goes back to an earlier period, as is evidenced by pagan Syriac inscriptions, and it continued in a pagan or non-Christian context well into the third century. But it was Christian use that made the language popular over a wide area and a convenient vehicle for the spread of Christianity wherever there was a substrate of spoken Aramaic.
Creeds, Councils, and Canons
Authors: Ferguson Everett
Published: September 2009

Creeds, councils, and canons are interrelated topics. Disputes over beliefs and practices prompted the meeting of church councils, which defined acceptable statements of belief (creeds) and drew up rules (canons) governing conduct, discipline, organization, and worship. The two most widely used and ecumenically acceptable creeds are also historically the most problematic: the Apostles' Creed in the western churches and the Nicene Creed, originating in the East and accepted in the West. The classic work of J. N. D. Kelly was the nodal point in twentieth-century study of the creeds. The second section of this article discusses the work of H. J. Sieben, local and regional councils, and ecumenical councils. The third section considers the contributions of Jean Gaudemet, other sources in the East, and the disciplinary work of the ecumenical councils.
Church and Empire
Authors: Drake Harold A.
Published: September 2009

Persecution contributed to the development of Church and Empire in two fateful ways. First, it made opposition to Rome an important aspect of Christian identity, embedding the heroic role of the martyrs in both literature and liturgy. Second, persecution solidified communities around the person of their bishop. Constantine's alliance with Christian bishops set that relationship in motion. This article considers the political implications of his reign. It also discusses the way in which a newly muscular Christianity used that relationship to suppress variant means of understanding divinity, and the analytical tools which scholars have used to explain that phenomenon. The final sections consider the implications of these developments for the concepts of Church and Empire.
Early Christian Apocryphal Literature
Authors: Shoemaker Stephen J.
Published: September 2009

The apocryphal literature of early Christianity consists primarily of narrative traditions about the life and teaching of Jesus, his family, and his apostles, as well as letters, apocalyptic visions, and other-worldly journeys attributed to these individuals that fall outside the biblical canon. These writings, however, do not always correspond to the literary genres of the New Testament. The production of apocrypha in antiquity was of course not limited to early Christianity or to Christian themes. The various expressions of ancient Judaism also produced a wealth of extra-biblical writings about the many personages of the Hebrew scriptures. These apocrypha, perhaps more commonly known today as the ‘pseudepigrapha’, were also embraced by various early and medieval Christian groups, who made these writings their own, often redacting them according to Christian interests and concerns.
Homiletics
Authors: Mayer Wendy
Published: September 2009

Undervalued and largely ignored until the last decade of the twentieth century, the topics of early Christian preaching and the early Christian homily have only recently begun to receive the attention they deserve. What is beginning to emerge from this growing area of research is a realization that the homily and the preaching of it are of far greater interest in their own right and are far more complex than had previously been imagined. That aside, the field itself is a minefield and full of traps for the unwary. If one is to take advantage of the riches offered by early Christian sermons and their preaching, one needs to approach every aspect of this complex field with care. This article describes the earlier approaches to this topic; revaluing early Christian preaching; the origins and early development of Christian preaching; problems of definition; basic Sources; and methodological issues.
Early Christian Historians and Historiography
Authors: Adler William
Published: September 2009

A wealth of historical writing survives from the early church: ecclesiastical histories, memoirs, universal histories and chronicles, biographies, historical fiction, and accounts of the acts of martyrs. This article focuses on works that either illustrate basic trends in early Christian historiography or had a lasting impact on its development. It examines the work of Eusebius of Caesarea (260–340), focusing on Ecclesiastical History. Once Eusebius established the model for the writing of church history, numerous works of the same genre followed in its wake. The Ecclesiastical History, not the Life of Constantine, is the work that has earned Eusebius the title ‘father of Christian history’.
Christian Philosophy
Authors: Drobner Hubertus R.
Published: September 2009

Having reached its fully developed form in Plato and Aristotle, Greek philosophy formed influential schools, such as Stoicism, Middle Platonism, and Neoplatonism, which were to have a major impact on Christianity. When Rome eventually incorporated Greece into its Empire in the second century BCE, Greek language and thought began to pervade the whole Mediterranean culture. When Christ was born, this ‘Hellenism’ had shaped a new composite Graeco-Roman culture. However, all studies of Christian philosophy come down to the original question asked at the beginning: What does the juxtaposition of the adjective ‘Christian’ to the noun ‘philosophy’ mean? This article argues that in the same way that philosophy formed the understanding of the Christian faith, faith changed and moulded philosophy. Still, the basic questions of ‘Christian philosophy’ remain: What did Christians accept from philosophy, and how did this change Christianity?
Prayer
Authors: Stewart Columba
Published: September 2009

Prayer is a universal feature of human religious practice. Among early Christians, it had two broad and frequently overlapping categories. First, and primordially, there was communal or liturgical prayer, consisting largely of conventional words and actions. Second, there was individual or ‘private’ prayer, more variable in form. This article focuses on private prayer, though the language of private prayer often drew from liturgical prayer. Silent prayer, like silent reading, was rare in antiquity. The study of prayer in early Christianity highlights the uneasy position of Christian religion in late antiquity. Oriented toward Judaism by their sacred writings and devotional practices, Christians found themselves in their early years struggling on two fronts to define their distinctive religious identity and to justify their understanding of God as disclosed in Jesus Christ.
Penance
Authors: Fitzgerald, OSA Allan D.
Published: September 2009

The study of penance in the early church can be challenging because of the variety of opinions among scholars; it can also be difficult because of the apparent diversity in penitential practices among the Christian communities in the first 600 years. Studies of penance have often described it in terms of its severity, rigour, or laxity. Hence, the terminology for this period should stay as close to the texts of that time as possible, so as to allow frameworks and descriptions to be the result of careful study. Some interpretations of the history of penance have presumed an individualistic appreciation of the penitential experience. Liturgy, however, was a significant dimension of the earliest Christian experience, and the communitarian and liturgical contexts for Christian penance need to be given greater importance than they have yet received.
Doctrine of Creation
Authors: Blowers Paul M.
Published: September 2009

As with other classic themes in early Christian thought, the doctrine of creation was a complex construction. It drew broadly and deeply from the language and imagery of the Bible. Its ultimate contours and coherence were shaped primarily in relation to other major aspects of the Catholic Christian faith: the Trinity, the nature and vocation of the human ‘microcosm’, the Fall, the economy of salvation, the mission of Jesus Christ to usher in the new creation, the final consummation of the world, and so on. It was a doctrine about origins and also a doctrine about grace and nature, about history, about providence and evil, about tragedy and beauty, about corporeality and incarnation, about time and eternity, and about eschatological judgement and perfection.
Feminist Theory and Organization Theory: A Dialogue on New Bases
Authors: Gherardi Silvia
Published: September 2009

Gender has to do not only with bodies, and power, but also with the politics of knowledge, and therefore with organizations as containers of different bodies and sexualities, as arenas of power/knowledge, and with organization theory as a system of knowledge representation. The contention that the ‘organizational theory’ (OT) is male gendered is too well known to reiterate. This article starts from the premiss that neither feminist theory (FT) nor OT is a homogeneous and unitary body of knowledge. It illustrates the multiple points of view expressed by those involved in this conversation. This article briefly surveys the main theories in gender studies, showing how they represent the relation between gender and organization and contributes to the analysis of organizations and organizational processes. It concludes with a reflection on the politics of knowledge in FT and OT and the — ironic, nomadic, eccentric — knowing subjects.
The Styles and the Stylists of Organization Theory
Authors: Czarniawska Barbara
Published: September 2009

Organization theory has many excellent stylists, probably due to its much lamented plurality. This article quotes several exemplars of style-as-theory or perhaps style-as-method, to show that there is a vast repertoire to choose from and to expand. This article adds that this is a posteriori judgment: there are no ‘styles that persuade’, only ‘styles that have persuaded’ — some readers, at a certain place, at a certain time. This article focuses on native English writers, not because they are the only ones to develop a style, but because a rhetorical analysis performed in English on a text written in another language borders on absurdity, and the same analysis applied to a translation from another language raises a host of doubts as to whose style is under description. All analyses are language bound, but a rhetorical one even more so.
Modes of Explanation in Organization Theory
Authors: Scherer Andreas Georg
Published: September 2009

Organization theory (OT) is concerned with explaining the genesis, existence, functionality, and the transformation of organizations, and by doing so, it is also concerned with influencing organizational practice. OT knowledge differs from individuals' lay knowledge by its systematic and methodic characteristics. There are many organizational theories in textbooks, scholarly journals, etc., which are entirely different from each other. To deal with this variety of topics, the current literature suggests a categorization of themes at different levels of analysis. Depending on whether theories deal with the behaviour of individuals in organizations, with the behaviour of a whole organization, or with relationships among organizations, they could be distinguished into micro, meso, and macro theories of organization. Two distinctions are important in this respect: the research interest of the researcher and the methods used. These distinctions are important to understand the characteristics of different modes of explanations.
Theory and Practice in the Real World
Authors: Weick Karl E.
Published: September 2009

Theory and practice are qualitatively different. This article first examines the terminology used in discussions of theory-practice and discovers that the word ‘understanding’ is a major source of trouble. It then reviews eight different ways in which people have tried to reconcile theory and practice. It is then argued that theory and practice can be partly reconciled if living forward is differentiated into ready-to-hand living and unready-to-hand living, a distinction first proposed by Heidegger. If theorists and practitioners alike focus on the interruptions of unready-to-hand, then the theorist is forced to sense more of the world as it is experienced by the practitioner and the practitioner is forced to detach from the flow of events, objectify portions of what normally is a flow, and adopt a mindset toward barriers similar to that of the theorist. Finally, this article concludes with an example of unready-to-hand theorizing.
Organization Theory and Ethics: Varieties and Dynamics of Constrained Optimization
Authors: Nielsen Richard P.
Published: September 2009

Organizational theory and ethics are not only mutually informing and entangled historically, they may also be codependent. A key foundational principle in both organization studies and ethics is ‘constrained optimization’. The operating and at least implicit primary purpose or reason for being of an organization is what is optimized. Optimization is both a normative idea and a descriptive idea. This article focuses on various types of business organization. What is constrained and optimized for government and nonprofit organizations can be very different. It proceeds, analyzes, and compares how key theorists from the time of Adam Smith, who analyze both ethics and business organizational forms, consider varieties of constrained optimization. This article considers six different types of constrained optimization and analyses change processes through which varieties of constrained optimization evolve.
The Future of Organization Theory: Prospects and Limitations
Authors: Burrell Gibson
Published: September 2009

Organization theory is largely about management in many of its guises and how this intermediate group relates to both its hierarchical superiors and its subordinates. It involves the careful investigation and critique of knowledge about management that has been developed by a community of scholars, where management is seen as a middle-ranking social grouping within organizational contexts and it is only understood in terms of its relations to its superiors and subordinates. This article talks about the new epistemological and methodological orientations that are to be adopted. The question of what interrelationships within organization theory needs to be rephrased to include the encouragement of neo-disciplinarity, the involvement of the young in the dissemination and creation of newly published material, and closer connections of a non-exploitative kind with other social science disciplines.
The Future of Organization Studies: Beyond the Selection–Adaptation Debate
Authors: Lewin Arie Y. , Volberda Henk W.
Published: September 2009

This article explores the coevolution perspective as a new meta-theoretical lens for research in organization studies and for reintegrating organization theory and strategy. It is believed that coevolution frameworks will inform research in organization studies, that spans levels of analyses and involves adaptation or change over time. This article states that coevolution frameworks could prove especially useful for progress on bridging the adaptation-selection chasm and for developing insights into the mutation process of incumbent organizations. The coevolution meta-theoretical lens has the potential for integrating micro- and macro-level evolution within a unifying framework, incorporating multiple levels of analyses and contingent effects, and leading to new insights, new theories, new empirical methods, and new understanding. In conclusion, this article argues that advances in organization studies require moving beyond the adaptation-selection debate and should emerge from building and testing coevolutionary theories.
Introducing Inter‐organizational Relations
Authors: Cropper Steve , Ebers Mark , Huxham Chris , Ring Peter Smith
Published: September 2009

This text draws together a wide variety of research that makes up the study of inter-organizational relations (IOR). It includes many empirical settings and a range of disciplinary and theoretical bases as well as several specific topic areas. It is mainly concerned with representing the state of knowledge in the emerging field of IOR research; in addition, it seeks to suggest fruitful avenues for future research. IOR is concerned with relationships between and among organizations. The study of IOR is concerned with understanding the character and pattern, origins, rationale, and consequences of such relationships. The organizations can be public, business, or non-profit and the relationships can range from dyadic, involving just two organizations, to multiplicitous, involving huge networks of many organizations.
Alliances and Joint Ventures
Authors: Dacin Tina , Reid Douglas , Ring Peter Smith
Published: September 2009

This article defines collaborations between firms that involve the creation of a separate, autonomous, and legally recognized firm — a ‘newco’ — as a joint venture. Joint ventures usually, but not always, involve parties who have contributed equity in creating the ‘newco’, so the term joint venture in this article refers to equity joint ventures. Joint ventures typically involve collaborations between two parties, but there can be more. This article defines an alliance as a cooperative agreement between at least two firms. These firms combine their resources and capabilities in the pursuit of collective and individual strategic objectives. This article begins with a discussion of the frequency with which firms rely on joint ventures and alliances and the motivations that lead economic actors to develop joint ventures and/or alliances. It provides a detailed discussion of the theory underlying partner selection in joint ventures and alliances.
Policy and Implementation Networks
Authors: Klijn Erik-Hans
Published: September 2009

This article gives an overview of the research using the network concept to analyse policy-making and implementation. It discusses the three main research traditions that have used the network concept as a tool for analysing policy-making and implementation. The range of network types that have been studied from a network perspective is enormous and recently there seems to be a global explosion of research on policy and implementation networks. This article only presents a brief overview of some main findings and trends using a classification of the research on policy formation and implementation. Then, its focus shifts to what the literature has to tell about managing networks and the complex decision-making processes that take place within them. Furthermore, it considers the question of how to research networks of policy-making and implementation. Finally, it concludes with some observations about the future of this research tradition.
Inter‐organizational Relationships in Local and Regional Development Partnerships
Authors: Geddes Mike
Published: September 2009

This article reviews the relationships between institutionalized actors in local and regional development partnerships. Its main focus is on partnerships in the UK, Europe, and the USA, but attention is also given to other parts of the world. Local and regional development partnerships frequently include actors from the community and civil society as well as from formal organizations in the public, for profit, and not for profit sectors, and in this respect, this article is likely to share some concerns with a number of other works, from those on policy and implementation networks and on public service partnerships to those on community and voluntary sector partnerships. This article also discusses the policy and practitioner-oriented literature about the strengths and weaknesses of partnership as a way of pursuing local and regional development and regeneration. Finally, it concludes with an assessment of the possible future of partnership for local and regional development.
Technology Service Inter‐organizational Relationships
Authors: Hui Pamsy P. , Fonstad Nils O. , Beath Cynthia M.
Published: September 2009

This article identifies four dimensions that set technology services fundamentally apart from the commodities-like products theorized and studied in the literature on firm boundaries. Specifically, it argues that: technology services often require capabilities that are specialized and heterogeneously distributed across organizational boundaries; technology services are highly uncertain by nature; the value of a technology service cannot be evaluated by the tangible assets acquired; and the feasibility of a technology service depends on the technology and related capabilities in place in an organization. Different technology services vary along these four dimensions, but they are all substantially different from other products and services on all four dimensions. This article illustrates how inadequate consideration of one or more of these features of technology services contributes to the equivocal character of research.
Perspectives on Inter‐organizational Relations in Economic Geography
Authors: Yeung Henry Wai‐chung
Published: September 2009

This article examines how inter-organizational relations (IORs) have been developed and analysed in economic geography during the past two decades. To make apparent the different perspectives in economic geography that are linked directly to IORs as a field of study, this article reviews and evaluates two major strands of the literature: inter-organizational networks and spatial development; and relational networks and global production networks (GPNs). Whereas the first strand of geographical perspectives deploys inter-organizational networks to explain the nature and characteristics of economic development on local and regional scales, the second body of work focuses primarily on relational networks in GPNs and places a great deal of emphasis on how inter-organizational relations are mediated through complex power relations constituted at multiple geographical scales, particularly at the global scale.
Inter‐organizational Power
Authors: Huxham Chris , Beech Nic
Published: September 2009

Researchers view the significance of power in a variety of ways. Some see this as vested in organizations' need for control in their relationships with others. Others regard power — the power to achieve ends more effectively through joint action — as an important positive outcome from a productive relationship between organizations. For a third group, the significance of power is embodied in the term ‘empowerment’. The perspectives on power in the inter-organizational relationship (IOR) literature also vary across many other dimensions. This article identifies, compares, and integrates views across several of these. Its overall perspective is on what research says about the operation of power in IOR settings: the processes through which things are influenced, what power is used for, and how it can be appropriated. Before introducing these dimensions, however, this article provides a brief overview of some of the IOR contexts in which power issues are raised.
The Role of Social Capital in Inter‐organizational Relationships
Authors: Nahapiet Janine
Published: September 2009

A central challenge in the study of inter-organizational relationships (IORs) is to explain why and how organizations connect effectively, work cooperatively, and coordinate their activities to achieve superior performance. The strategic logic and motives underpinning the increased move to IORs in western economies include access to key resources, particularly information, markets, and technologies, advantages from knowledge and learning, scale and scope economies, as well as risk sharing. Such benefits can be viewed as both inducements and opportunities for firms. This article sets out and explores the proposition that research on social capital provides a valuable answer to the question of why some people and some organizations do better in the sphere of IORs. Specifically, scholars of social capital argue that those who do better do so because, through their connections and relationships, they are better able to access and benefit from a range of opportunities and resources that impact performance.
Freedom of Speech and Religion
Authors: Altman Andrew
Published: September 2009

Freedom of speech and religion are among the central values of modern constitutional democracies. Efforts to understand what these freedoms mean and why they are important, and to translate them into enduring institutional arrangements, constitute a major part of the history of such democracies. As the twenty-first century begins, the political and theoretical debates over these values are not the same as they were in the past. Although centuries of philosophical controversy and institutional experimentation have settled some issues, others have been raised, with some surprising twists. Constitutional democracies rest on the principle that all citizens are to be treated as free and equal persons under the law. The principle is the settled starting point for all reasonable debate about freedom of speech and religion, and it entails that the law must secure for each citizen an equal and extensive scheme of basic liberties, including the liberties of speech and religion.
The Evolving Influence of Psychometrics in Political Science
Authors: Poole Keith T.
Published: September 2009

This article outlines how the measurement of political issue spaces has developed in the past eighty years through borrowings from psychometrics (scaling, factor analysis, and unfolding), additions from political science theories (the spatial theory of voting and ideal points), and confronting the special problems of political survey, roll-call, and interest-group ratings data. Psychometrics is a subfield of psychology devoted to the development, evaluation, and application of mental tests of various kinds. In the 1980s, political scientists began combining techniques from econometrics and statistics with approaches developed by psychometricians. The effect of psychometrics displays no sign of abating in political science. The level of sophistication of psychometric applications in political science has steadily increased in the past twenty years.
On Types of Scientific Enquiry: the Role of Qualitative Reasoning
Authors: Freedman David A.
Published: September 2009

This article argues that ‘substantial progress derives from informal reasoning and qualitative insights’. It shows the role played by causal process observations (CPOs), and qualitative reasoning more generally, in a series of well-known episodes drawn from the history of medicine. Edward Jenner published twenty-three case studies to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of ‘vaccination’. Ignac Semmelweis discovered the cause of puerperal fever. John Snow revealed that cholera was a water-borne infectious disease, which could be prevented by cleaning up the water supply. Christiaan Eijkman's research plan was to use Koch's methods, and show that beriberi was an infectious disease. Joseph Goldberger believed that pellagra was a deficiency disease. Frederick McKay and his connection with fluoridation, and the discovery of Alexander Fleming to penicillin, are discussed. In addition, the breakthrough of German measles by Norman Gregg is reported. Finally, Arthur Herbst offers the association between diethylstibestrol and adenocarcinoma of the vagina.
Studying Mechanisms To Strengthen Causal Inferences In Quantitative Research
Authors: Hedström Peter
Published: September 2009

This article emphasizes various ways by which the study of mechanisms can make quantitative research more useful for causal inference. It concentrates on three aspects of the role of mechanisms in causal and statistical inference: how an understanding of the mechanisms at work can improve statistical inference by guiding the specification of the statistical models to be estimated; how mechanisms can strengthen causal inferences by improving our understanding of why individuals do what they do; and how mechanism-based models can strengthen causal inferences by showing why, acting as they do, individuals bring about the social outcomes they do. There has been a surge of interest in mechanism-based explanations, in political science as well as in sociology. Most of this work has been vital and valuable in that it has sought to clarify the distinctiveness of the approach and to apply it empirically.
Survey Methodology
Authors: Johnston Richard
Published: September 2009

This article addresses three dimensions for data collection: mode, space, and time. It considers the problems of adequately representing persons by ensuring high response rates and measuring opinions validly and reliably through the design of high-quality questions. The advent of the internet and the World Wide Web is dramatically expanding the repertoire for survey research. The evidence suggests that the forces driving response rate down are largely orthogonal to substantive political choices. Surveys overrepresent political interest and its correlates and so may replicate class and other barriers to political participation.
Bayesian Analysis
Authors: Martin Andrew D.
Published: September 2009

This article surveys modern Bayesian methods of estimating statistical models. It first provides an introduction to the Bayesian approach for statistical inference, contrasting it with more conventional approaches. It then explains the Monte Carlo principle and reviews commonly used Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. This is followed by a practical justification for the use of Bayesian methods in the social sciences, and a number of examples from the literature where Bayesian methods have proven useful are shown. The article finally provides a review of modern software for Bayesian inference, and a discussion of the future of Bayesian methods in political science. One area ripe for research is the use of prior information in statistical analyses. Mixture models and those with discrete parameters (such as change point models in the time-series context) are completely underutilized in political science.
Discrete Choice Methods
Authors: Glasgow Garrett , Alvarez R. Michael
Published: September 2009

This article describes the statistical models commonly used to study discrete choices. It concentrates on the ‘basic’ discrete choice models, and the theoretical choice situations that lead to these models. Specifically the choice situation addressed include: the ordered choice situation and the unordered choice situation. In addition, the article discusses two extensions of the basic discrete choice models commonly seen in political science research — models allowing for heteroskedasticity in the choices made across political agents (such as the heteroskedastic probit), and models that estimate substitution patterns across choice alternatives (such as the multinomial probit and mixed logit). Suggestions for further reading are also given.
Survival Analysis
Authors: Golub Jonathan
Published: September 2009

This article provides a discussion of survival analysis that presents another way to incorporate temporal information into analysis in ways that give advantages similar to those from using time series. It describes the main choices researchers face when conducting survival analysis and offers a set of methodological steps that should become standard practice. After introducing the basic terminology, it shows that there is little to lose and much to gain by employing Cox models instead of parametric models. Cox models are superior to parametric models in three main respects: they provide more reliable treatment of the baseline hazard and superior handling of the proportional hazards assumption, and they are the best for handling tied data. Moreover, the illusory benefits of parametric models are presented. The greater use of Cox models enables researchers to elicit more useful information from their data, and allows for more reliable substantive inferences about important political processes.
Case Selection for Case‐Study Analysis: Qualitative and Quantitative Techniques
Authors: Gerring John
Published: September 2009

This article presents some guidance by cataloging nine different techniques for case selection: typical, diverse, extreme, deviant, influential, crucial, pathway, most similar, and most different. It also indicates that if the researcher is starting from a quantitative database, then methods for finding influential outliers can be used. In particular, the article clarifies the general principles that might guide the process of case selection in case-study research. Cases are more or less representative of some broader phenomenon and, on that score, may be considered better or worse subjects for intensive analysis. The article then draws attention to two ambiguities in case-selection strategies in case-study research. The first concerns the admixture of several case-selection strategies. The second concerns the changing status of a case as a study proceeds. Some case studies follow only one strategy of case selection.
Process Tracing: a Bayesian Perspective
Authors: Bennett Andrew
Published: September 2009

This article provides an overview of process tracing, concentrating on the dimensions of this method that are relevant to Bayesian logic. It also briefly outlines the logic of Bayesian inference, emphasizing parallels with the logic of process tracing. The article shows these points with examples from the historical explanation of political events, including the 1898 Fashoda crisis, the end of the First World War, and the end of the Cold War. It concludes that Bayesianism helps in understanding the strengths of case-study methods, including their potential to develop and test explanations even with limited evidence drawn from one or a few cases, and their limits, including the provisional nature of historical explanations and the challenges of generalizing from small numbers of cases. The ‘Degrees of Freedom’ problem is inapplicable to process tracing, even though the more fundamental problem of underdetermination remains.
The Eitm Approach: Origins and Interpretations
Authors: Aldrich John H. , Alt James E. , Lupia Arthur
Published: September 2009

This article describes the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s initiative to close the gap between theory and methods. It also deals with the Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models (EITM) as currently understood as a way of thinking about causal inference in service to causal reasoning. Additionally, it explores the approach's origins and various ways in which NSF's call to EITM action has been interpreted. It makes a brief attempt to explain why the EITM approach emerged, why it is valuable, and how it is currently understood. It then contends that EITM has been interpreted in multiple ways. It emphasizes a subset of extant interpretations and, in the process, offers views about the most constructive way forward. The idea of EITM is to bring deduction and induction, hypothesis generation and hypothesis testing, close together.
Organizational Decision Making: Mapping Terrains on Different Planets
Authors: Hodgkinson Gerard P. , Starbuck William H.
Published: September 2009

This article outlines major historical developments that have shaped organizational decision research and highlights themes focusing on organizational decision making. Several of the themes have been visible for many years; these raise questions about decision makers' rationality, their heuristics and simplifications, their political behaviors, and their interpretations of experience. Other themes, however, are nascent ones that promise to become more visible in the future; these deal with decision makers' expertise, intuitions, and emotions.