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11. Underrepresented Students in US Study Abroad: Investigating Impacts

Author:
Laura C. Engel
Publication Date:
10-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
Underrepresented Students in US Study Abroad: Investigating Impacts synthesizes existing research on the association of study abroad with positive academic outcomes for minority and other underrepresented students, with the goal of ultimately helping enhance pathways of access to study abroad for all students. Enhancing pathways of access to study abroad for all students remains an essential objective for higher education institutions, researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. Yet, not enough is definitively known about the impacts of study abroad on different groups of students, particularly racial/ethnic minority students and, one step further, what program approaches and strategies are most effective in bringing about these positive impacts. Underrepresented Students in US Study Abroad: Investigating Impacts aims to fill a notable gap by providing a synthesis of existing research on the association of study abroad with positive academic outcomes, degree retention, and completion rates for racial/ethnic minority and other underrepresented students.
Topic:
Education, Representation, Diversity, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

12. Making Human Rights Campaigns Effective While Limiting Unintended Consequences: A Literature Review on Human Rights

Author:
Elizabeth Heger Boyle, Cosette Creamer, Amy Hill Cosimini, Yagmur Karakaya, Suzy McElrath, Florencia Montal, and Wahutu James Nicholas Siguru
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a team of political scientists, sociologists, and lawyers—synthesizes scholarship from diverse research traditions on the following Learning Agenda question: What are the consequences of human rights awareness campaigns? What makes a human rights awareness campaign successful? Why do many campaigns fail? What are the unintended negative consequences of both successful and failed campaigns? How do local norms and other cultural factors constrain or enable the translation of campaigns from one context to another? This report synthesizes scholarship bearing on these questions from diverse research traditions and assesses the interdisciplinary state of knowledge regarding the effects, both intended and unintended, of human rights awareness campaigns and the characteristics that make such awareness campaigns effective. This review is divided into five sections: A broad overview of the steps involved in designing an effective awareness campaign. A review of research on campaigns generally, drawn from a broad range of fields, such as marketing, communications, public health, and political science. An overview of human rights awareness campaigns specifically, building on the well-known precept that to be successful, human rights campaigns must be adapted to the local context. The authors identify the mechanisms that facilitate and the barriers that impede local adaption, particularly the use of frames. Drawing on framing theory, the report highlights four points in communication where framing is critical: contexts, communicators, targeted populations, and message design. A discussion of effective media strategies, including ways to approach both traditional and new media, with the most effective campaigns combining traditional print media strategies with new social media forms. A discussion of the unintended negative consequences of campaigns, including backlash, confusion, desensitization, and/or frustration among targeted audience. This section also identifies the typical causes of these outcomes and ways to avoid them.
Topic:
Development, Human Rights, Governance, Democracy, and USAID
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

13. Election Forensics Toolkit and Guide

Author:
Allen Hicken and Walter Mebane
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
There is an acute need for methods of detecting and investigating fraud in elections, because the consequences of electoral fraud are grave for democratic stability and quality. When the electoral process is compromised by fraud, intimidation, or even violence, elections can become corrosive and destabilizing—sapping support for democratic institutions; inflaming suspicion; and stimulating demand for extra-constitutional means of pursuing political agendas, including violence. Accurate information about irregularities can help separate false accusations from evidence of electoral malfeasance. Accurate information about the scope of irregularities can also provide a better gauge of election quality. Finally, accurate information about the geographic location of malfeasance—the locations where irregularities occurred and how they cluster—can allow election monitors and pro-democracy organizations to focus attention and resources more efficiently and to substantiate their assessments of electoral quality. Election forensics is an emerging field in which scholars use a diverse set of statistical tools—including techniques similar to those developed to detect financial fraud—to analyze numerical electoral data and detect where patterns deviate from those that should occur naturally, following demonstrated mathematical principles. Numbers that humans have manipulated present patterns that are unlikely to occur if produced by a natural process—such as free and fair elections or normal commercial transactions. These deviations suggest either that the numbers were intentionally altered or that other factors—such as a range of normal strategic voting practices—influenced the electoral results. The greater the number of statistical tests that identify patterns that deviate from what is expected to naturally occur, the more likely that the deviation results from fraud rather than legal strategic voting. Through a Research and Innovation Grant funded by USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance under the Democracy Fellows and Grants Program, a research team from the University of Michigan, led by Professors Walter Mebane and Allen Hicken, built an innovative online tool, the Election Forensics Toolkit, that allows researchers and practitioners to conduct complex statistical analysis on detailed, localized data produced through the electoral process. The Election Forensics Toolkit presents results in a variety of ways—including detailed country maps showing “hot spots” of potential fraud—that allow practitioners not only to see where electoral fraud may have occurred but also the probability that the disturbances in the election data that the statistical analyses detect are attributable to fraud, rather than to other cultural or political influences, such as gerrymandering or geographic distribution of voting constituencies, among others. The team also produced two publications under the DFG grant: a Guide to Election Forensics and a more detailed Elections Forensics Toolkit DRG Center Working Paper. The Guide provides a more general introduction to election forensics as a field, and the DRG Center Working Paper focuses on presenting in detail the results of applying election forensics to specific elections in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Libya, South Africa, and Uganda
Topic:
Corruption, Politics, Elections, Democracy, Election watch, and USAID
Political Geography:
Uganda, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, Libya, South Africa, Cambodia, Albania, and Global Focus

14. Strengthening Women’s Civic and Political Participation: A Synthesis of the Scholarly Literature

Author:
Wayne Eckert, Kyu-Nahm Jun, Sharon F. Lean, Nicole Gerring, Matthew Lacouture, Juan Liu, and Amanda Walter
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a team of WSU professors and graduate students representing the academic disciplines of communication, history, and political science—synthesizes scholarship from diverse research traditions on the following Learning Agenda question: What are the most effective ways to encourage women’s civic (e.g., volunteer, advocacy, etc.) and political (e.g., voting, running for office) participation? What are the risks to women of these strategies in contexts where resistance to changing gender norms is strong? The team identified four strategies for increasing women’s civic and political participation that are analyzed in academic scholarship: Using quotas to enhance women’s representation. Using social media platforms to mobilize women and amplify their voices. Targeting women as participants or beneficiaries of social programs. Mobilizing women through their intersecting identities. The team found that quotas are effective in increasing the number of women in elected office at the national and local levels and may also encourage women to participate in political and civic activity more generally. However, how quotas are designed and implemented greatly influences their success, and it is unclear whether more women in office leads to substantive changes to women’s agency within the legislature. In addition, although gender equity reforms implemented in the legislature can make such reforms more likely in other institutional settings, quotas are not common in other government branches. Social media is a double-edged sword: it provides a relatively inexpensive, accessible tool for women to participate in civic and political life and bring attention to issues that disproportionately affect women; however, it also creates a new space in which women are contested, harassed, and silenced. Social programs that target women also can be effective, but they almost always impose unanticipated costs, burdens, or risks on the women who participate, and so can depress women’s participation while seeking to increase it. These adverse effects have predictable patterns, and programs that target women as beneficiaries should take these patterns into consideration during the design phase. Mobilizing women through their intersecting identities—as mothers, workers, members of a religious group—is an underdeveloped area of the literature. Although several articles covered cases of this sort of mobilization, the results are ambivalent. In addition, although mobilizing women through certain frames—such as “motherhood”—can be effective, this strategy also reinforces traditional norms of gender roles.
Topic:
Communications, Women, Social Media, Political Science, Representation, USAID, and Participation
Political Geography:
North America and Global Focus

15. Increasing the Civic and Political Participation of Women: Understanding the Risk of Strong Resistance

Author:
Vanessa Ochs, Denise Walsh, Swati Chawla, Dannah Dennis, Paromita Sen, and Catalina Vallejo
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a team of UVA professors and graduate students representing the academic disciplines of anthropology, history, political science, religious studies, and sociology—synthesizes scholarship from diverse research traditions on the following Learning Agenda question: What are the most effective ways to encourage women’s civic (e.g., volunteer, advocacy, etc.) and political (e.g., voting, running for office) participation? What are the risks to women of these strategies in contexts where resistance to changing gender norms is strong? Building on an ODI report, “Women’s Voice and Leadership in Decision-Making: Assessing the Evidence” (2015) that identified seven strategies to support women’s civic and political representation, the UVA team focused on the second half of the research question, using a flexible systematic review process that included defining and operationalizing strong resistance. Overall, the team found that 1) research on resistance that aims to limit or end challenges to the status quo is under-theorized and in need of concept-building before researchers can make the analytical distinctions necessary to assess resistance fully and 2) where the literature does exist, it has an almost exclusive focus on female politicians. With these limitations in mind, key findings include: Resistance—which may include physical and sexual violence; social and familial censure; ostracization by the religious community; and various overt or subtle forms of restriction, deprivation, and exclusion—varies according to multiple factors, including by not limited to gender norms, the broader cultural context, regime type, local power structures, economic opportunities, and the form of participation sought. All women do not experience the same levels of risk, and are not vulnerable to the same types of resistance. For example, even within a single socio-cultural context, women who are marginalized (economically, racially, linguistically, religiously, or otherwise) are likely to bear greater burdens of risk. Strong resistance in response to the seven strategies identified in the ODI report is not pervasive but does occur, and that it can discourage women’s participation. Low to moderate resistance is ubiquitous, but generally has less deleterious effects. Sites where strong resistance occurs vary within countries and even among local areas within a single country, suggesting that a country-level analysis of gender norms is inadequate and ineffective for assessing and understanding women’s risk of strong resistance. The implications of these findings are that practitioner risk assessments should be: Routine and done prior to engaging in any intervention, and require information extending far beyond local gender norms. Focused on low to moderate forms of resistance in situations of backlash, and attentive to the possibility of strong resistance in situations of entrenched resistance. Designed for the specific site where the intervention occurs, while remaining attentive to national- and individual-level factors that shape resistance.
Topic:
Politics, Women, Gender Based Violence, and Participation
Political Geography:
North America and Global Focus

16. Combatting Corruption Among Civil Servants: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on What Works

Author:
Jordan Gans-Morse, Monica Prasad, Mariana Borges, Alexey Makarin, Theresa Mannah-Blankson, Andre Nickow, Vanessa Watters, and Dong Zhang
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a team of economists, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists—synthesizes scholarship from diverse research traditions on the following Learning Agenda question: In the context of hiring civil servants and providing positive and negative incentives for their behavior, what kinds of interventions are most effective at reducing the propensity (potential and actual) of civil servants to engage in corruption? Overall, as summarized in the chart below, there was not a great deal of rigorous academic evidence either for or against the majority of commonly prescribed anti-corruption strategies, with the partial exception of anti-corruption audits and e-governance. These findings are discussed at length in the publication, and contextualized within a broader analysis why the first wave of corruption reforms has generated so few success stories.
Topic:
Corruption, Bureaucracy, and USAID
Political Geography:
Global Focus and North America

17. Struggles from Below: Literature Review on Human Rights Struggles by Domestic Actors

Author:
Erica Chenoweth, Tricia Olsen, Kyleanne Hunter, Pauline Moore, Jonathan Pinckney, and Heidi Reynolds-Stenson
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute of International Education
Abstract:
In 2016, USAID’s Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance launched its Learning Agenda—a set of research questions designed to address the issues that confront staff in USAID field offices working on the intersection of development and democracy, human rights, and governance. This literature review—produced by a multidisciplinary team of graduate students and professors—synthesizes scholarship from diverse research traditions on the following Learning Agenda question: What do we know about the role of citizens, social movements, and other domestic civic actors (as opposed to transnational actors or government officials) in advocating for particular human rights outcomes in their country? And what can we learn from the successes and failures of their activities? Much of the research on this topic has focused on North America and Europe, but do any of these findings have the potential to translate to other country contexts? Are there particular contextual or tactical variables in these country contexts that make it less likely that domestic civic actors can have an impact? Are there some kinds of rights that are easier to fight for than others? Key findings include: Context matters: democratic political systems allow grassroots human rights activists more opportunities and greater likelihood of success; extreme poverty makes grassroots mobilization harder. Rhetorical framing matters a lot, and is tricky: local activists can be more successful by framing their work as a human rights struggle and by positioning that struggle within broader international conceptualizations of human rights, as captured in founding international human rights documents. However, activists must take equal care to translate these concepts into frames that resonate locally and are culturally appropriate. Connections matter: activists are more successful if they build connections with each other—within a particular rights movement and across rights movements, within a country and across countries—and if they build connections to political and economic elites and to a broad constituency base. These vertical, horizontal, and transnational ties can be supported simply by bringing activists together, but also depend on framing, since framing is crucial to how activists see themselves and their peers, how they engage their base, and how they target elites. Organizational structure matters, but there is not an ideal type of organization that consistently is more successful in advocating for improved human rights; rather, organizational type, formality, and complexity depends on the right being fought for, the goals of the rights movement, and contextual factors such as regime type or level of repression. Tactics matter: activists must use tactics that are appropriate to their rights fight and to their context, and often use many different tactics at different times. However, confrontational and disruptive tactics—such as protests or boycotts—are often more effective.
Topic:
Human Rights, Social Movement, Democracy, and USAID
Political Geography:
Global Focus