Daniel Philip Hepworth and David Russell White
The purpose of this paper is to examine the 22-month life of a three-officer specialized Traffic Enforcement Unit (TEU) within one mid-sized municipal police agency. The case…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the 22-month life of a three-officer specialized Traffic Enforcement Unit (TEU) within one mid-sized municipal police agency. The case study allowed for the examination of the impact of this structural change from a generalist to a specialist approach on the rate of traffic citations. Additionally, officer attitudes related to the change were considered.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a mixed method approach, which included both an objective output (traffic citations) and the results of a management survey to consider officers’ attitudes.
Findings
Despite the fact that most officers reported the introduction of the TEU did not change their commitment to traffic enforcement, the findings indicate citations by non-TEU officers declined sharply over time. Likewise, citations by the three specialized officers also dropped, which, when combined with non-TEU officers, resulted in no real differences between the generalist and specialist approach on the number of citations issued.
Research limitations/implications
Beyond the natural limitations of a single case study, the use of a management-issued survey concerning attitudes was not ideal.
Practical implications
The study provides some evidence that generalists approaches – at least as they apply to traffic enforcement – may be just as productive as specialist approaches.
Originality/value
While there has been a significant amount of rhetoric over the years, it seems scholars have largely ignored real differences between the generalist and specialist approaches on objective organizational outputs. This is an area that needs to be subjected to additional research.
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This study compares filmic and televisual representations of fictional black presidents to white Americans’ reactions to the advent of the United States’s first African American…
Abstract
Purpose
This study compares filmic and televisual representations of fictional black presidents to white Americans’ reactions to the advent of the United States’s first African American president. My main goal is to determine if there is convergence between these mediated representations and whites’ real-world representations of Barack Obama. I then weigh the evidence for media pundits’ speculations that Obama owes his election to positive portrayals of these fictional heads of state.
Methodology/approach
The film and television analyses examine each black president’s social network, personality, character traits, preparation for office, and leadership ability. I then compare the ideological messages conveyed through these portrayals to the messages implicated in white Americans’ discursive and pictorial representations of Barack Obama.
Findings
Both filmic and televisual narratives and public discourses and images construct and portray black presidents with stereotypical character traits and abilities. These representations are overwhelmingly negative and provide no support for the argument that there is a cause–effect relationship between filmic and televisual black presidents and Obama’s election victory.
Research implications
Neither reel nor real-life black presidents can elude the representational quagmire that distorts African Americans’ abilities and diversity. Discourses, iconography, narratives, and other representations that define black presidents through negative tropes imply that blacks are incapable of effective leadership. These hegemonic representations seek to delegitimize black presidents and symbolically return them to subordinate statuses.
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Tom Schultheiss, Lorraine Hartline, Jean Mandeberg, Pam Petrich and Sue Stern
The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the…
Abstract
The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.
The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains…
Abstract
The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.
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The white nationalist project of establishing a racially homogeneous state out of the United States hinges on the pursuit of power through the fragmentation of national spaces…
Abstract
The white nationalist project of establishing a racially homogeneous state out of the United States hinges on the pursuit of power through the fragmentation of national spaces along racial lines. In a shifting political context, prominent ideologue Jared Taylor perceives Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory as an opportunity to further engage his audience. This chapter offers a discourse analysis of seven audiovisual productions published by Taylor on the online magazine American Renaissance between the 3 November 2020 presidential election and the 6 January 2021 Capitol Hill riot. Through a multidisciplinary approach encompassing political science, race studies and information science, this case study illuminates how white nationalism uses fragmentation as both an objective and an argument. A fracture of the information contract seeks to define extremism as a bastion of objective truth, countering perceived mainstream media bias. The electoral dynamics subsequently serve as a vehicle for reshaping political dynamics and recasting partisan divisions as racial polarisation. Ultimately, this narrative arc steers towards a new strategic orientation, redefining the contours of territorial fragmentation and the white nationalist agenda itself.
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David Norman Smith and Eric Allen Hanley
Controversy has long swirled over the claim that Donald Trump's base has deeply rooted authoritarian tendencies, but Trump himself seems to have few doubts. Asked whether his…
Abstract
Controversy has long swirled over the claim that Donald Trump's base has deeply rooted authoritarian tendencies, but Trump himself seems to have few doubts. Asked whether his stated wish to be dictator “on day one” of second term in office would repel voters, Trump said “I think a lot of people like it.” It is one of his invariable talking points that 74 million voters supported him in 2020, and he remains the unrivaled leader of the Republican Party, even as his rhetoric escalates to levels that cautious observers now routinely call fascistic.
Is Trump right that many people “like” his talk of dictatorship? If so, what does that mean empirically? Part of the answer to these questions was apparent early, in the results of the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES), which included survey questions that we had proposed which we drew from the aptly-named “Right-Wing Authoritarianism” scale. Posed to voters in 2012–2013 and again in 2016, those questions elicited striking responses.
In this chapter, we revisit those responses. We begin by exploring Trump's escalating anti-democratic rhetoric in the light of themes drawn from Max Weber and Theodor W. Adorno. We follow this with the text of the 2017 conference paper in which we first reported that 75% of Trump's voters supported him enthusiastically, mainly because they shared his prejudices, not because they were hurting economically. They hoped to “get rid” of troublemakers and “crush evil.” That wish, as we show in our conclusion, remains central to Trump's appeal.
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Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).
This paper examines the ideas of David Hume and their importance to American public administration writing and practice. Hume’s ideas on empiricism, scepticism, and…
Abstract
This paper examines the ideas of David Hume and their importance to American public administration writing and practice. Hume’s ideas on empiricism, scepticism, and constitutionalism have indirectly, via their impact on modern philosophy, encouraged both support for and criticism of empiricist approaches in public administration. Also, Hume’s ideas on constitutionalism, because of their influence on the Founders' writings and design, provide an important legacy for the practice of public administration. The paper argues that Hume’s notion of mitigated scepticism, as well as his constitutional ideas, have continuing relevance for the study and practice of contemporary public administration. This paper examines the ideas of David Hume and their importance to American public administration writing and practice. Hume’s ideas on empiricism, scepticism, and constitutionalism have indirectly, via their impact on modern philosophy, encouraged both support for and criticism of empiricist approaches in public administration. Also, Hume’s ideas on constitutionalism, because of their influence on the Founders' writings and design, provide an important legacy for the practice of public administration. The paper argues that Hume’s notion of mitigated scepticism, as well as his constitutional ideas, have continuing relevance for the study and practice of contemporary public administration. This paper examines the ideas of David Hume and their importance to American public administration writing and practice. Hume’s ideas on empiricism, scepticism, and constitutionalism have indirectly, via their impact on modern philosophy, encouraged both support for and criticism of empiricist approaches in public administration. Also, Hume’s ideas on constitutionalism, because of their influence on the Founders' writings and design, provide an important legacy for the practice of public administration. The paper argues that Hume’s notion of mitigated scepticism, as well as his constitutional ideas, have continuing relevance for the study and practice of contemporary public administration. This paper examines the ideas of David Hume and their importance to American public administration writing and practice. Hume’s ideas on empiricism, scepticism, and constitutionalism have indirectly, via their impact on modern philosophy, encouraged both support for and criticism of empiricist approaches in public administration. Also, Hume’s ideas on constitutionalism, because of their influence on the Founders' writings and design, provide an important legacy for the practice of public administration. The paper argues that Hume’s notion of mitigated scepticism, as well as his constitutional ideas, have continuing relevance for the study and practice of contemporary public administration.