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Describes the Political Science Department's assessment activities for the academic year 2010-2011. ; The Political Science Department's annual assessment report to the College for the Office of Academic Assessment. The report details the use of the department's Progressive Direct Assessment (PDA) model to assess ten samples of final exams or final papers from the following courses: Political Science 371, Political Science 471C and Political Science 471D. Two members of the assessment committee were asked to read the samples and score them following the department's assessment rubric. The department also participated in the Simplifying Assessment Across the University Pilot Program which asks departments to assess signature assignments from gateway and capstone courses.

Emails received by the authors since the publication of "The
Political Science 400: A 20-Year Update" (Masuoka, Grofman, and Feld
2007) called attention to mistakes in the
citation counts of a number of scholars. Corrections to the citation
counts are posted in an EXCEL file at www.socsci.uci.edu/∼bgrofman/. Once we have
entered all corrections, an erratum will appear in a later issue of
PS. Please address any corrections to that article to
BGrofman@uci.edu.

Discusses the value of field experimentation in political science. The key features of experiments are elaborated, demonstrating why well-conducted experiments are more persuasive arbiters of causality than comparable nonexperimental research. Issues arising in the design & analysis of experiments in the field & laboratory are addressed, scrutinizing literature featuring both types of investigation. Applications for field experimentation are considered before attending to the leading criticisms against experimentation centered on the inability to manipulate key political variables, cost & logistics, external & internal validity, generation of contradictory results, production of no clear-cut sense of causality in some cases, the capacity to narrow the scope of inquiry, & ethics. These criticisms are found wanting, & it is argued that randomized intervention into real-world settings should be a prominent methodology. J. Zendejas

List of figures -- List of tables -- List of authors -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Resilient reporting: An introduction -- 2 Ireland: political, economic, and media systems -- 3 The media and political change -- 4 The role of the economy in media coverage -- 5 Gender bias and Irish election coverage -- 6 Party leaders and personalisation of politics -- 7 Commercialism and election coverage -- 8 Economy and crisis coverage -- Conclusion -- Appendix 1: An overview of elections in Ireland since 1969 -- Appendix 2: Data and methodology -- References -- Index

The methodological problems of research on judicial behavior are examined through a review of the existing research in this area. Four components of methodology are examined: research design; data sources & generation procedures; operationalization & measurement of concepts; & statistical methods & measures. Judicial behavior is understood to have a primary focus on the explanation of the behavior of individual decisionmakers, but also includes decision making within or by groups of decisionmakers & by courts. 147 References. Modified HA.

Comprising three volumes of contributions from expert authors from around the world, The SAGE Handbook of Political Science aims to frame, assess and synthesize research in the field, helping to define and identify its current and future developments.

We examine scholarship on the role and influence of advocacy organizations in the U.S. political process. We identify common theoretical questions in the disconnected literatures on social movements, interest groups, and nonprofits, and we propose a unifying conceptual framework for examining advocacy organizations. Focusing on the post-1960s growth in advocacy organizations, we examine major organizational characteristics including organizational structures, membership and participation, resources, and interorganizational networks and coalitions. Our analysis of organizational influence focuses on five dimensions of the policy process: (a) agenda setting, (b) access to decision-making arenas, (c) achieving favorable policies, (d) monitoring and shaping implementation, and (e) shifting the long-term priorities and resources of political institutions. Finally, we identify recurrent theoretical and methodological problems, including the compartmentalization of research within disciplines, an overreliance on studies of large national organizations, a disproportionate focus on recruitment and selective incentives, and limited research on the influence of advocacy organizations. We conclude by highlighting productive pathways for future scholarship.