scholarly journals The Construction of the Past: Towards a Theory for Knowing the Past

Information ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Thibodeau
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
Digital Form ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Class Diagrams ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Past Theory

This paper presents Constructed Past Theory, an epistemological theory about how we come to know things that happened or existed in the past. The theory is expounded both in text and in a formal model comprising UML class diagrams. The ideas presented here have been developed in a half century of experience as a practitioner in the management of information and automated systems in the US government and as a researcher in several collaborations, notably the four international and multidisciplinary InterPARES projects. This work is part of a broader initiative, providing a conceptual framework for reformulating the concepts and theories of archival science in order to enable a new discipline whose assertions are empirically and, wherever possible, quantitatively testable. The new discipline, called archival engineering, is intended to provide an appropriate, coherent foundation for the development of systems and applications for managing, preserving and providing access to digital information, development which is necessitated by the exponential growth and explosive diversification of data recorded in digital form and the use of digital data in an ever increasing variety of domains. Both the text and model are an initial exposition of the theory that both requires and invites further development.

scholarly journals The evolution of polarization in the legislative branch of government

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (156) ◽  
pp. 20190010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoyan Lu ◽  
Jianxi Gao ◽  
Boleslaw K. Szymanski
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Polarization Evolution ◽  
The Us ◽  
Legislative Branch ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Convergence Point ◽  
Legislative Changes ◽  
Direction Of Polarization

The polarization of political opinions among members of the US legislative chambers measured by their voting records is greater today than it was 30 years ago. Previous research efforts to find causes of such increase have suggested diverse contributors, like growth of online media, echo chamber effects, media biases or disinformation propagation. Yet, we lack theoretic tools to understand, quantify and predict the emergence of high political polarization among voters and their legislators. Here, we analyse millions of roll-call votes cast in the US Congress over the past six decades. Our analysis reveals the critical change of polarization patterns that started at the end of 1980s. In earlier decades, polarization within each Congress tended to decrease with time. By contrast, in recent decades, the polarization has been likely to grow within each term. To shed light on the reasons for this change, we introduce here a formal model for competitive dynamics to quantify the evolution of polarization patterns in the legislative branch of the US government. Our model represents dynamics of polarization, enabling us to successfully predict the direction of polarization changes in 28 out of 30 US Congresses elected in the past six decades. From the evolution of polarization level as measured by the Rice index, our model extracts a hidden parameter–polarization utility which determines the convergence point of the polarization evolution. The increase in the polarization utility implied by the model strongly correlates with two current trends: growing polarization of voters and increasing influence of election campaign donors. Two largest peaks of the model’s polarization utility correlate with significant political or legislative changes happening at the same time.

Radicals and Rebels

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
September 11 ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
State Security ◽  
Environmental Ngos ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
History Of

This chapter adds to the book’s understanding of the shifting nature and great challenges confronting environmentalism, especially more radical strands. A glance at the history of Greenpeace reveals sharp differences as the organization was forming in the 1970s; even today the activism of Paul Watson, who left Greenpeace to spearhead the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, draws the ire of Greenpeace leaders. Since the war on terrorism took root after September 11, 2001, radical activists such as Watson have been increasingly marginalized, with the US government even declaring him an “eco-terrorist.” As this chapter notes, though, many environmentalists who challenge state and business interests face even greater threats, with hundreds murdered over the past two decades. State security agencies are not the only group sidelining radical environmentalists, however; so are business associations, media outlets, and mainstream environmental NGOs.

Twenty-five years of information extraction

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (06) ◽  
pp. 677-692
Author(s):  
Ralph Grishman
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Information Extraction ◽  
Data Base ◽  
Information Content ◽  
Structured Data ◽  
Essential Step ◽  
The Past ◽  
Unstructured Text ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government

AbstractInformation extraction is the process of converting unstructured text into a structured data base containing selected information from the text. It is an essential step in making the information content of the text usable for further processing. In this paper, we describe how information extraction has changed over the past 25 years, moving from hand-coded rules to neural networks, with a few stops on the way. We connect these changes to research advances in NLP and to the evaluations organized by the US Government.

scholarly journals Border Militias

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
John Parsons
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
The Past ◽  
Southern Us ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
The Us ◽  
States Government ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Mexico Border ◽  
Us Mexico Border

Narratives of security and threat are continually used to justify morally contentious activities. In the past three years, the United States’ government has increasingly promoted narratives of “criminal migrants” and “immigrant invasions.” In response to perceived threats, the US-Mexico border has undergone a process of militarization. During this time, various border militias have continued to operate along the southern US border. My research was conducted over 11 months with two militias operating on the US-Mexico border I have labeled Border Watch. This militia provides a snippet of how morality is operationalized in the legitimization of actions and how morality is intrinsically linked to security in the lived experiences of its volunteers. In this article, I argue that the volunteers make sense of their experiences away from the border through the narrative espoused by the US government. The resonance between experience and narrative defines the latter as truth and the ability to dismiss counter-narratives. For the volunteers of Border Watch who adhere to a notion of citizenship through the lens of the citizen-soldier ideal, the narrative delivers a moral imperative to act in defense of the nation. Within the nexus of danger, security, and morality, the volunteers of Border Watch conceptualize their project as one in which moral citizens protect the nation and its citizens from an evil Other.

7. Federalism in the world

2019 ◽  
pp. 88-116
Author(s):  
Mark J. Rozell ◽  
Clyde Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  
System A ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Degree Of Stability ◽  
High Degree

The US government is the oldest continuing operating federal system, in part because of its relatively high degree of stability and respect for the rule of law. But does that make the US system a model for other nation-states to emulate? “Federalism in the world” compares and contrasts the federal systems of six countries—Switzerland, Canada, Brazil, Australia, India, and Nigeria—to better recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the US system. The idiosyncratic elements of each nation’s federalism are a function of the social, economic, and political forces that contest politics; the nature of the ethnic, linguistic, political, and other cleavages; and decisions made by leaders in the past.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Zagorski
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Delivery Systems ◽  
Future Role ◽  
The Past ◽  
Active Service ◽  
The Us ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Control Regime

AbstractRussia and the US have significantly reduced their tactical nuclear weapons over the past twenty years. The remaining weapons have been moved from active service and stored separate from their delivery systems. However, both still keep tactical nuclear weapons available for eventual deployment, and Moscow maintains not only a larger but also a much more diverse stockpile of such weapons than the US. The prospects for designing an arms control regime covering TNW are complicated by a series of factors. Technically, verifying any limitations or reductions of non-deployed weapons is an extremely sensitive and challenging task as it would require opening nuclear depots for inspection. Politically, the two countries differ in the assessment of a future role of nuclear arms. While the US anticipates that further development of its advanced conventional capabilities would lead to diminishing the role of nuclear weapons, it is exactly the weakness of its conventional forces which causes the Russian defence establishment to project a growing role for nuclear weapons. These two distinct trajectories largely explain the differences in the two countries' approaches to the TNW arms control and make any agreement less likely to materialize any time soon. They also explain why Moscow has become increasingly sceptical with regard to including TNW within an arms control regime.

Mirror, mirror on the wall …: modelling the US Congress as an internal labour market

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
João Ricardo Faria ◽  
Franklin G. Mixon
Keyword(s):  
Labour Market ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Formal Model ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Lower Chamber ◽  
Us Senate ◽  
Peter Principle

Almost one third of all who served in the US Senate between 1943 and 2020 ascended to their positions in that legislative body directly from the US House of Representatives. Thus, we model the legislative branch of the US government as an internal labour market, wherein members of the lower chamber seek ‘promotion’ (that is, election) to positions in the more prestigious upper chamber. This process includes the possibility that some US representatives are being promoted to positions in the Senate for which they are not competent, a situation referred to as the Peter Principle. Another possibility is that the ‘most ineffective’ US representatives are using this internal labour market to attain promotion to the Senate, an outcome that is referred to as the Dilbert Principle. Gallup polling data on the job approval by the public of the US Congress, along with absenteeism data on members of the US Senate, support both possibilities from our formal model.

Fighting Hunger: The Cold War and US Foreign Aid

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 529-531
Author(s):  
Jennifer Clapp
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
International Development ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
The Cold War

History holds important insights for political scientists concerned with contemporary international development issues. Michael E. Latham and Nick Cullather's recent historical accounts of US foreign policy toward developing countries provide excellent examples of the significance of understanding the past in order to interpret the present. Both books highlight the ways in which strategic concerns of the US government during the Cold War shaped its international aid policies.

scholarly journals China’s Accession to Government Procurement Agreement under the Trump Administration’s Trade Policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 237
Author(s):  
Feng Guo ◽  
Fen Zhou
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Trade Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Government Procurement ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Accession Process ◽  
Trump Administration

China committed to initiate the accession to Government Procurement Agreement when it entered the WTO as a compromise to the requirements made by GPA parties, mostly the developed western countries such as the United States. China started its official attempt to join the GPA on December 28, 2007 by submitting the first offer to the GPA Commission. Six revised offer were then submitted during the past years. The position of the United States and China in international trade changed dramatically since then. This article finds that Trump Administration’s attitude toward China’s accession to GPA is mixed and the US government might impede China’s accession with the analysis on the current American foreign trade policy and the latest development in government procurement in the US’s related international agreements and domestic laws. However, this accession process can only be delayed but not terminated even if the standpoint of the US is proved to be negative due to the theoretical and technical analysis on GPA. Effective and significant measures will be taken by Chinese government since the president Xi Jinping made the statement to accelerate the accession to GPA in Boao Forum in early 2018.

scholarly journals Digital Sousveillance: A Network Analysis of the US Surveillant Assemblage

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Burke
Keyword(s):  
Methodological Approach ◽  
The United States ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
Private Organizations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Mass Surveillance ◽  
Vast Network

This paper introduces a new methodological approach to the study of surveillance that I call digital sousveillance— the co-optation of digital data and the use of computational methods and techniques to resituate technologies of control and surveillance of individuals to instead observe the organizational observer. To illustrate the potential of this method, I employ quantitative network analytic methods to trace the changes in and development of the vast network of public and private organizations involved in surveillance operations in the United States—what I term the “US surveillant assemblage”—from the 1970s to the 2000s. The results of the network analyses suggest that the US surveillant assemblage is becoming increasingly privatized and that the line between “public” and “private” is becoming blurred as private organizations are, at an increasing rate, partnering with the US government to engage in mass surveillance.

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