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This Special Issue and its seven contributions seek to shift the gaze of public policy scholarship toward the authorities, legitimacies, and influences of transnational actors on the creation and implementation of global policy and its transnational administration. It is, in large part, both a demonstration of the analytical and explanatory value of accounting for the influence of non-state actors on global issues as well as a normative reflection on what this means for already tenuous connections between publics and those that make decisions on their behalf in global forums. This Issue breaks with heterodox public policy approaches that center on the capabilities of states and international organizations to determine and to deliver global public policy and outcomes. Instead, we widen our gaze to capture the influence of transnational actors such as global commissions, transnational public–private partnerships, philanthropic foundations, non-government organization networks, domestic associations with global influence, quasi-judicial authorities, and global citizen activists. The articles discuss the impact of transnational actors on the policy and administrative spaces of global actors and states alike. By dispensing with the notion that the state and state-created international organizations are the primary locus for public policy and public administration scholarship, the included papers conclude with the implications for scholarship on transnational actor authorities and legitimacies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides information about the contributors and resources available at the Bibliographical Society Library and Archive. The contributors include experts in various fields such as Spanish literature, medieval studies, and bibliography. The library is currently located at the Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex and offers open-access shelving. The archive is housed at the Bodleian Library and covers the Society's activities from its foundation in 1892 to 2008. The document also mentions the availability of virtual issues of the journal, grants offered by the Society, and the different series of the Transactions and The Library publications. [Extracted from the article]

Between 2003 and 2010, the College of Arts and Letters of the University of Notre Dame had two rival economics departments, one that was resolutely mainstream and the other that was just as resolutely heterodox. This unusual organizational arrangement was an effort to accommodate a paradigmatic conflict about the kind of economic scholarship needed to lift the university in national rankings while, at the same time, maintaining its Catholic identity, a conflict that unfolded over three decades and that resulted, ultimately, in the closure of the heterodox department in July 2010 and a full embrace of mainstream economics. This article traces the history of this conflict and documents the kind of organizational, political, and personal issues that together influenced this extended, intense, and highly divisive case of paradigmatic warfare. Our analysis shows how the goal of becoming a major research university and the use of rankings to measure the performance of academic departments created contested terrain, where existing interests and commitments struggled to maintain legitimacy in the face of the emergence of new strategic priorities and set off a variety of conflicting moves and counter moves that engaged identity and power and that required forceful leadership to resolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of technology on the humanities, arts, and social sciences (HASS) is already profound and will only escalate as time goes on. The challenge that HASS scholars face is: will they create the world they are in the process of entering or is this world going to be created for and imposed on them? If the latter, progress in HASS will certainly be impeded; if the former, then cyberinfrastructure in the HASS will be created in the image of those who best understand what they require. This article explores the question of how cyberinfrastructure for the HASS might facilitate the development of digital technologies and applications that will meet the specialized needs of scholarship. Formidable barriers that exist are discussed—especially those peculiar to humanities and social sciences—that impede the development of specialized technologies and applications. Also addressed is the interplay between various players directly involved with developing specialized technologies and applications tailored for the HASS. Finally, changes in academic perspective are discussed that may result in transformations in cyberinfrastructure to improve the likelihood of success in creating specialized technologies and applications. The authors’ observations are based primarily on lessons learned in the development and deployment of the InscriptiFact Image Database along with experiences with InscriptiFact’s sister archival imaging project, the West Semitic Research Project, both at the University of Southern California. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although affirmative action programs for minority students form just one of several criteria for preferential admissions to American colleges and universities, little research has compared the impact of other large "affirmative, actions" programs such as those for athletes and legacies. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey, of Freshmen (NLSF), a sample of nearly 4,000 students in 28 elite American colleges and universities, we develop model that test claims about the effects of affirmative action--namely mismatch hypothesis and stereotype threat--on college performance in three groups: minorities, athletes, and legacies. First, we estimate models predicting two direr and indirect effects suggested by stereotype threat: hours studied per week and the degree of psychological performance burden reported by students. Next we include these direct and indirect measures of stereotype threat and the mismatch hypothesis on grades earned through the end of sophomore year and the likelihood of leaving school by spring of junior year. We do not find strong evidence for the mismatch hypothesis as applied to minorities and athletes, although legacies who enjoyed a greater admissions bonus earned lower grades. Minorities attending institutions that practice greater affirmative action were less likely to drop out but did report lower grades. We also find that legacies and athletes who attend a school that practices institutional affirmative action are indeed more likely to drop out of school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]