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"Complexity theory has become popular in the natural and social sciences over the last few decades as a result of the advancements in our understanding of the complexities in natural and social phenomena. Concepts and methods of complexity theory have been applied by scholars of public affairs in North America and Europe, but a comprehensive framework for these applications is lacking. A Complexity Theory for Public Policy proposes a conceptual synthesis and sets a foundation for future developments and applications.

This essay offers some experience-based observations about electoral phenomena that academic political science misses because of a focus on conceptual and theoretical debates that often take pride of place over the empirical phenomena that gave rise to the ideas and concepts that we highly value. We suggest that academic political science is increasingly committed to models and methods that serve a theory or an idea more than they account for observable empirical regularities. Practitioner methods and innovations for persuading voters and winning elections under varying electoral conditions are largely unknown to scholars, with consequences for our collective factual knowledge and ability to test current hypotheses and theories about elections in an appropriate wide range of circumstances.

This essay offers some experience-based observations about electoral phenomena that academic political science misses because of a focus on conceptual and theoretical debates that often take pride of place over the empirical phenomena that gave rise to the ideas and concepts that we highly value. We suggest that academic political science is increasingly committed to models and methods that serve a theory or an idea more than they account for observable empirical regularities. Practitioner methods and innovations for persuading voters and winning elections under varying electoral conditions are largely unknown to scholars, with consequences for our collective factual knowledge and ability to test current hypotheses and theories about elections in an appropriate wide range of circumstances. Adapted from the source document.

Foreword.--pt. I. Democracy in America. The French question. Political symptoms and popular rights. Theory of political representation. Life and policy of Canning. Hartford convention.--pt. II. Misrepresentations of America. Classical learning. The prophet of St. Paul's. Modern English tragedy. Bryant's poems. Aaron Burr, a fragment.--Verse.--Meeting of the bar.--Obituaries. ; Mode of access: Internet.

A characteristic of recent decades of scholarly work in the social sciences has been the increased amounts of empirical research. Access and availability of data are prerequisites for further research, replication work, and scientific development. As international peer-reviewed journals have gradually become the central forum for research debate, moves towards data sharing are dependent upon the policies of journals regarding data availability. This dataset presents data availability policies in political science in the year 2011.

AbstractMultilevel governance poses several challenges for the politics of climate change. On the one hand, the unequal distribution of power and interests can serve as a barrier to implementing coherent policy at a federal level. On the other, these features also enable policy leadership among sub‐federal units. In the context of wide variation in climate policy at both national and sub‐federal levels in Canada and in the United States, this paper utilizes an original data set to examine public attitudes and perceptions toward climate science and climate change policy in two federal systems. Drawing on national and provincial/state level data from telephone surveys administered in the United States and in Canada, the paper provides insight into where the public stands on the climate change issue in two of the most carbon‐intensive federal systems in the world. The paper includes the first directly comparable public opinion data on how Canadians and Americans form their opinions regarding climate matters and provides insight into the preferences of these two populations regarding climate policies at both the national and sub‐federal levels. Key findings are examined in the context of growing policy experiments at the sub‐federal level in both countries and limited national level progress in the adoption of climate change legislation.

Not solely the province of "prescientific" peoples, who created myths to explain the origins of their universe, myths are constructed by modern Western peoples in the arena of public policy to direct attention away from equally valued but contradictory societal principles. Policy myths & their related organizational myths are constructed at those points where the implementing agency is most vulnerable, ie, around actions undertaken to achieve goals that are publicly unspeakable because there is no explicit public consensus underlying them. Policy myths fill silences in discourse about public policy matters, & facilitate the tacit understanding of & communication about verboten goals. These points are illustrated in a case analysis of the Israel Corporation of Community Centers, an agency created to implement national social policies. 52 References. Adapted from the source document.