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Political Science

University of Massachusetts Amherst

2009

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Successful And Abandoned Sourceforge.Net Projects In The Initiation Stage, Charles Schweik Dec 2009

Successful And Abandoned Sourceforge.Net Projects In The Initiation Stage, Charles Schweik

National Center for Digital Government

[first paragraph] Chapter 6 provided an open source project success and abandonment dependent variable. Chapter 7 described data available in the Sourceforge.net repository and linked these data to various independent variable concepts and hypotheses presented in the theoretical part of this book. Chapter 7 also described the Classification Tree and Random Forest statistical approaches we use in this and the following chapter. This chapter presents the results of the Classification Tree analysis for successful and abandoned projects in the Initiation Stage, which in Chapter 3 (Figure 3.2), we defined as the period before and up to the time when a …

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The Dependent Variable: Defining Open Source "Success" And "Abandonment" Using Sourceforge.Net Data, Charles Schweik Dec 2009

The Dependent Variable: Defining Open Source "Success" And "Abandonment" Using Sourceforge.Net Data, Charles Schweik

National Center for Digital Government

[first paragraph] From the very beginning of this research project, we understood that we needed to define what success meant in open source so that we could use that definition to create a dependent variable for our empirical studies. Does success mean a project has developed high quality software, or does it mean that the software is widely used? How might extremely valuable software that is used by only a few people, such as software for charting parts of the human genome, fit into this definition? In this chapter, we establish a robust success and abandonment measure that satisfies these …

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Web 2.0 In The Process Of E-Participation: The Case Of Organizing For America And The Obama Administration, Aysu Kes-Erkul, R. Erdem Erkul Oct 2009

Web 2.0 In The Process Of E-Participation: The Case Of Organizing For America And The Obama Administration, Aysu Kes-Erkul, R. Erdem Erkul

National Center for Digital Government

The presidential campaign of Barack Obama during the 2008 elections sparked new discussion about the public engagement issue in the political processes. The campaign used Web 2.0 tools intensively to reach the general public and seek support and collect feedback from voters. In this paper, we analyze the major website of this project, “Organizing for America” (OFA) from the perspective of e-participation, which is a concept that include all the processes of public involvement via information and communication technologies.

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Information & Communication Technologies And Digital Government: The Turkish Case, Turhan Mentes Sep 2009

Information & Communication Technologies And Digital Government: The Turkish Case, Turhan Mentes

National Center for Digital Government

The technological innovations of the last decades have opened the doors to a new and different world for businesses and governments. As access to the Internet penetrates more populations each day, ICTs continue to shape societies all over the world. This presentation will explore the development of ICTs and e-government in Turkey. It will include significant figures and statistics about e-government in Turkey and discuss the social consequences of such developments.

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Formulating Older Driver Licensing Policy: An Evaluation Of Older Driver Crash History And Performance, Heather A. Rothenberg Sep 2009

Formulating Older Driver Licensing Policy: An Evaluation Of Older Driver Crash History And Performance, Heather A. Rothenberg

Open Access Dissertations

This research sought to understand the relationship between licensing policy and the opportunity for the development of a scientifically-based approach to identifying high risk older drivers based on prior driving history. This research focused on five tasks: 1) review of the literature, 2) compilation of information on licensing policy for use by decision-makers, 3) assessment of charges and payer source for older driver crashes using linked crash and hospital data , and 4) the development and 5) validation of an older driver crash prediction model. There is relatively little available in the way of information for policymakers regarding licensing, and …

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City Marketing And Gated Communities: A Case Study Of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Carlos A. Suarez-Carrasquillo Sep 2009

City Marketing And Gated Communities: A Case Study Of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, Carlos A. Suarez-Carrasquillo

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the dynamics of gated communities with attention to the municipality of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Despite the growing numbers of gated communities worldwide, research on this matter remains scarce. I argue that a “gated community consensus” has emerged in Puerto Rico. The hypothesis is that in Guaynabo, the municipality facilitates the emergence of gated communities in order to change the face of the city and reap an economic windfall. Interviews demonstrate the municipality’s commitment to facilitating the construction of new communities and lending support to older communities. Most of these gated communities respond to high end income …

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The People And Me: Michael Moore And The Politics Of Political Documentary, Jon Scott Oberacker May 2009

The People And Me: Michael Moore And The Politics Of Political Documentary, Jon Scott Oberacker

Open Access Dissertations

Perhaps no one has had more influence on the role of political documentary in the contemporary public sphere than filmmaker Michael Moore. His unique melding of committed political arguments with an ironic reflexive style have changed the very look and feel of documentary film, contributing significantly to the form's newfound popularity. Furthermore, his steadfast commitment to progressive politics has given the issue of socioeconomic "class" the kind of attention it rarely receives within the mainstream media. However, Moore's films have also been the recipient of viscous attacks from his political opponents, and subject to some of the most contentious public …

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W. Bush’S Judicial Legacy: Mission Accomplished, Sheldon Goldman, Sara Schiavoni, Elliot Slotnick May 2009

W. Bush’S Judicial Legacy: Mission Accomplished, Sheldon Goldman, Sara Schiavoni, Elliot Slotnick

Sheldon Goldman

No abstract provided.

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Conference Proceedings, Youtube And The 2008 Election Cycle Apr 2009

Conference Proceedings, Youtube And The 2008 Election Cycle

YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States

The YouTube and the 2008 Election Cycle in the United States Conference took place April 16-17, 2009 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The conference brought together political and computer scientists to explore the electoral impact of user-created YouTube technologies and to demonstrate new technical and analytic opportunities associated with new media technologies and politics. The conference proceedings includes copies of all papers presented at the conference as well as abstracts of all posters and keynote presentations.

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Leviathan’S Rage: State Sovereignty And Crimes Against Humanity In The Late Twentieth Century, Cecil Bryant Lawson Feb 2009

Leviathan’S Rage: State Sovereignty And Crimes Against Humanity In The Late Twentieth Century, Cecil Bryant Lawson

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

This dissertation explores the relationship between state sovereignty and major instances of crimes against humanity committed in the latter 20 th century. In order to examine this dynamics of this relationship, the author analyzes the history and theory of the concept of sovereignty and examines five case studies of crimes against humanity: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Argentina during the military junta from 1976 to 1983, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda in 1994, and the ongoing conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. State sovereign power is shown to be an important facilitating factor in these atrocities as …

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The Open Source Software Ecosystem, Charles M. Schweik Jan 2009

The Open Source Software Ecosystem, Charles M. Schweik

National Center for Digital Government

[first paragraph] Open source research in the late 1990s and early 2000's described open source development projects as all-volunteer endeavors without the existence of monetary incentives (Chakravarty, Haruvy and Wu, 2007), and relatively recent empirical studies (Ghosh, 2005; Wolf {{243}}) confirm that a sizable percentage of open source developers are indeed volunteers.1 Open source development projects involving more than one developer were seen to follow a “hacker ethic” (Himanen, 2000; von Hippel and von Krogh, 2003) where individuals freely give away and exchange software they had written so that it could be modified and built upon, with an expectation of …

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Obama And The Federal Judiciary: Great Expectations But Will He Have A Dickens Of A Time Living Up To Them?, Sheldon Goldman Jan 2009

Obama And The Federal Judiciary: Great Expectations But Will He Have A Dickens Of A Time Living Up To Them?, Sheldon Goldman

Sheldon Goldman

This essay speculates on what an Obama judiciary might look like and how the selection process is likely to play out. This is presented against the backdrop of past experience. First, the essay traces the demographic diversification of the federal bench from the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt through George W. Bush. Second, this essay considers ideological diversity and presents voting data from the first three completed terms of the Roberts Court. Third, the essay considers the selection process, including confirmation of lower-court judges by the Senate. It concludes that President Obama can be expected to promote further gender, race, and …

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Are We Progressing Toward Equal Representation For Women In The Minnesota Legislature? New Evidence Offers Mixed Results, Sally J. Kenney, Kathryn Pearson, Debra Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Sharrow Jan 2009

Are We Progressing Toward Equal Representation For Women In The Minnesota Legislature? New Evidence Offers Mixed Results, Sally J. Kenney, Kathryn Pearson, Debra Fitzpatrick, Elizabeth Sharrow

Political Science Department Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

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