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81. 800 languages and counting: Lessons from Survey Research Across a Linguistically Diverse Continent

Author:
Carolyn Logan
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Afrobarometer
Abstract:
Using data on more than 800 home languages identified during Afrobarometer Round 5 (2011/2013) surveys in 35 countries, as well as information on multilingualism gathered in 20 countries in Round 4 (2008/2009), this paper explores linguistic diversity and multilingualism at the individual level, within communities, and across countries. Afrobarometer data offer a unique perspective on the distribution of languages and language capabilities from the viewpoint of the users of language rather than those who study it. The paper also identifies some of the challenges encountered in collecting public opinion data in linguistically diverse environments. The findings reveal that even in many rural zones, many Africans are living within ethnically and linguistically diverse communities, and preliminary analysis suggests this may have important implications for social and political attitudes. The data have untapped potential for understanding language evolution and for studying language both as a product and as a variable driving attitudes and outcomes.
Topic:
Research, Language, Survey, and Identity
Political Geography:
Africa

82. Education in the Arab World: Measuring Up Or “Upping” Our Measures?

Author:
Fida Adely
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Professor Adely discusses how flawed quality measures often shape our understanding of education in the Middle East and what a closer look at these measures can tell us.
Topic:
Education, Children, Economy, Research, and Youth
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arab Countries, and North Africa

83. Conference Brief: SVRI Forum 2017 - Partnerships for Policy Action.

Author:
SVRI
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI)
Abstract:
There are few spaces where people working on violence against women and girls can come together to learn new ideas and approaches, meet the experts and influencers in the field, network, explore new ways of doing research, absorb positive energy and ideas from likeminded colleagues, and, just as important, re-energise and have fun. SVRI Forum is that space. The Forum is the key bi-annual event for research on violence against women and related forms of violence stemming from and driving gender inequality.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Research, Gender Based Violence, Sexual Violence, and Conference
Political Geography:
Brazil and Global Focus

84. ‘Many-Citedness’: Citations Measure More Than Just Scientific Impact

Author:
Carlo D'Ippoliti
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Citation indexes are increasingly used to measure the scientific impact of researchers and institutions, though their application is often criticized. Most authors agree that citations do not measure only scientific quality; there is disagreement however on what else they do capture. We study the network of citations of all publications indexed in Web of Science authored or coauthored by Italian tenured academic economists between 2011 and 2015. By estimating the determinants of the probability that any author is cited by any other author in the sample, we find those factors to involve not only similarity in methods and topics but also, significantly, various measures of social community as well as of ideological proximity. We conclude that, at least in the case of economics, citations cannot be interpreted as unbiased proxies of scientific impact, and their use to produce indexes and rankings may require careful rethinking.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Research, Academia, Community, and Citation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

85. What does the field of International Relations look like in South America?

Author:
Marcelo de Almeida Medeiros, Israel Barnabé, Rodrigo Albuquerque, and Rafael Lima
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
Abstract:
This article provides a comprehensive picture of IR in South America by applying content analysis to 7,857 articles published in 35 journals from six South American countries from 2006 to 2014 in order to discover what the predominant theories, methods and research areas in this field are, how scholars tend to combine them in their research designs, and what the profiles of regional journals are, regarding their epistemological, methodological and subject preferences. The findings reveal a predominantly Positivist and largely Qualitative discipline, resembling North American and European IR.
Topic:
Research, International Relations Theory, Academia, Knowledge Production, and Content Analysis
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

86. The Politics of Reading: CCAS's Qatar Postdoctoral Fellow reflects on the uses of literature as a tool for cultural understanding

Author:
Elizabeth Kelley
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Oh, I just loved The Kite Runner,” people in North America sometimes tell me when I explain what my research is about: the translation and circulation of Arabic novels in English. In these cases, the individuals, who are not usually scholars or students of Arabic or the Arab world, go on to explain how much they enjoyed Khaled Hosseini’s novel, how they felt it helped them to learn about life in Afghanistan and what it was like to grow up there. In some ways, The Kite Runner is quite far from my research topic, given that the novel was written in English, was not translated from any language, and that the author had been living in the United States for decades prior to writing it. Not to mention that Arabic is not the language of Afghanistan, and although it is part of the Muslim world, Afghanistan is not generally considered part of the Arab world. Thus, linking Afghani literature with literature of the Arab world may rely on collapsing regional, linguistic, and cultural differences under the undifferentiated sign of Islam.
Topic:
Research, Literature, Higher Education, and Translation
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Middle East, and Arab Countries

87. Forced Migration and Internal Displacement in the Arab World and Beyond

Author:
Rochelle A. Davis, Fowzia Abdullahi Abukar, and Emma Murphy
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
Since 2010, Professor Rochelle Davis has conducted research among the refugee communities in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, working with MAAS Alum Abbie Taylor. With 60 million people counted as refugees or internally displaced, we are currently witnessing the largest global forced displacement since World War II. These displaced millions are primarily fleeing war, conflict, and persecution, but a host of other factors also contribute to the unstable conditions they face in their home countries: forced conscription; lack of access to health care, jobs, and education; drought and environmental degradation. More than half come from the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa. Despite the news of migrants arriving daily in Europe, the overwhelming majority of those displaced remain in or near their home countries.
Topic:
Migration, United Nations, Refugees, Islamic State, Research, Displacement, and Conflict
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Somalia

88. Exiled in Babylon: Refugees and the Politics of Language

Author:
Noga Malkin
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
In the city of Mardin, the Tower of Babel cliché holds particular relevance. The old city—a beautiful array of historic stone houses stacked on a mountain slope in southeast Turkey—is located at the northern edge of Mesopotamia, once the land of Babylon. More than geography, the linguistic panorama of the area evokes the Genesis Babel story, the myth used to explain the variation of human tongues. Mardin is a microcosm of the Ottoman Empire’s ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural diversity, largely eroded by nationalism’s drive for homogenization. A large Kurdish population lives in Mardin, holding on to their mother tongues despite decades-long Turkish “assimilation” policies. A sizable Arab population lives here too, separated from Arabs in Syria and Iraq after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Linguists classify their language as “Mesopotamian Arabic,” related to bygone Iraqi dialects. Most Mardinites grow up speaking at least two—sometimes three—languages, learning either Kurdish or Arabic at home, the other on the streets, and Turkish at school. Further adding to the linguistic diversity, there remain several hundred neo-Aramaic speaking Assyrians and even fewer Armenians who once made up the majority of the city’s population; despite their now meager numbers, they attract tourists who come for the locally produced Assyrian wine and traditional Armenian and Assyrian silver crafts.
Topic:
Refugees, Research, Linguistics, Language, Kurds, and Arabic
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

89. Innovation and Access to Finance

Author:
Michele Cincera and Arabela Santos
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO)
Abstract:
Promoting Research and Development (R&D) activities is the main goal of the EU 2020 Strategy in order to achieve an R&D spending at least 3% of GDP. The Innovation Union is one of the seven flagship initiatives of the EU 2020 Strategy, which has the aims: to improve access to finance for R&D; to get innovative ideas to market; to ensure growth and jobs (European Commission, 2014b). The aim of the present paper is to identify and explain the main mechanisms related to four commitments of Innovation Union: i) Commitment 10 (Put in place EU level financial instruments to attract private finance); ii) Commitment 11 (Ensure cross-border operation of venture capital funds); iii) Commitment 12 (Strengthen cross-border matching of innovative firms with Investors); iv) Commitment 13 (Review State Aid Framework for Research, Development and Innovation). To this purpose, a review of both theoretical and empirical literatures about ’Innovation, Access to Finance and SMEs’ based on more than 80 scientific and other articles and analyses is presented. The paper provides an analysis of the main alternative financial instruments to bank loans, namely Risk-Sharing Facility Financing, Venture Capital, Business Angels and public subsidies. We found some evidence in the literature that Venture Capital could have a limited impact in enhancing innovation in the long- term and that some public support schemes could be more effective than other, depending on the firm’s maturity state.
Topic:
Development, Markets, European Union, and Research
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

90. How Much Is That Star in the Window? Professorial Salaries and Research Performance in UK Universities

Author:
Gianni De Fraja, Giovanni Facchini, and John Gathergood
Publication Date:
07-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
Using individual level data on the salary of all UK university professors, matched to results on the performance of academic departments from the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, we study the relationship between academic salaries and research performance. The UK higher education sector is particularly interesting because professorial salaries are unregulated and the outcome of the official research evaluation is a key financial concern of universities. To frame our analysis, we present a simple model of university pay determination, which shows that pay level and pay inequality in a department are positively related to performance. Our empirical results confirm these theoretical predictions; we also find that the pay-performance relationship is weaker for the more established and better paying universities. Our findings are also consistent with the idea that higher salaries have been used by departments to recruit academics more likely to improve their performance.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Inequality, Research, Higher Education, and Academia
Political Geography:
United Kingdom