Great Teaching Resource
Jim Lerch who teaches at the American School of Yaounde in Cameroon wrote to ask, "Have you seen the site PolicyPointers.org?"Here is what it says about itself:
"'Welcome to Policypointers!
"'Policypointers is an online facility created to enable those involved in government, academe and the media to gain rapid access to the research and conclusions of think tanks, institutes and government departments around the world.
"'We believe that policymakers and those who influence the policymaking function can frequently learn from the research done and the results achieved in countries other than their own. This belief is the rationale for creating this website.
"'Policypointers is independent of any government, political party, financial or other influence. Not every think tank whose work is accessible via this website will be similarly independent and so users are advised to check the About Us page on the think tank websites that they access, for clues as to the standpoint from which these organisations approach their work.
"'Because of the nature of our mission, as described above, we will select reports and research for posting on this website according to the following criteria:
- That the work includes research or data. Thus, purely polemical work will not be covered, but we will post research-based campaigning reports on the site. In the case of policy areas such as foreign policy and governance we may also include items that are essentially commentary.
- That the findings or data within the work could have application outside the country in which it originates. For this reason, work which appears to be of parochial relevance only will not be posted. This does not mean that work must be international in scope to qualify for posting; merely that it could be useful in another country.'"
Jim added that there "is a fantastic download of Iranian public opinions. I found it by searching 'Iran.' The polling was done very recently and involves so many of the current events problems that we discuss in class. There are an endless number of lessons to be gained from that one source."
That document is indeed a wonderful resource. I went looking and found other recently posted links like
- Nigeria 2007: Building Blocks for a Peaceful Transition Workshop Report, the Report of a workshop held to discuss electoral violence in Nigeria
- Russia Under Putin: Toward Democracy or Dictatorship? the transcript of a March 2007 talk by Stephen Kotkin, professor of history and the director of Russian and Eurasian Studies program at Princeton University
- How Does Taxation Affect the Quality of Governance? a 2-page UK policy briefing on the relationship between taxation and the quality of governance in developing countries
There are hundreds of other documents cataloged at PolicyPointers. I'd be tempted to assign students the task of searching for and evaluating articles relevant to my curriculum. The best ones would become part of the course.
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:34 AM
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