Reblogged from securitypolitics:

Reblogged from securitypolitics:

Reblogged from securitypolitics:

Reblogged from Gender Politics at Edinburgh:

Dr. Meryl Kenny (UNSW) and Dr. Fiona Mackay (University of Edinburgh)

Political parties have been quick to promise action after ‘sobering figures’ about the continued ‘male, pale and stale’ face of Scottish politics. Dr. Meryl Kenny and Dr. Fiona Mackay reported that less than 1:4 candidates in the forthcoming local government elections are women, 1:7 contests are male-only, and all the major political parties are fielding less than 30% female candidates.

Read more… 1,121 more words

Scottish parties promise action on equality after report by Meryl Kenny and Fiona Mackay on women council candidates. Read their response on the new gender politics @ edinburgh blog.

Reblogged from Gender Politics at Edinburgh:

By Dr. Meryl Kenny (UNSW) and Dr. Fiona Mackay (Edinburgh)

Thirteen years after devolution heralded a ‘new dawn’ in women’s representation – with Nordic levels of women MSPs elected to the first Scottish Parliament – the story remains very different at local government level. Less than 1 in 4 candidates for next month’s local government elections are women, leaving the face of local politics looking decidedly ‘male, pale, and stale’

Read more… 1,914 more words

Meryl Kenny and Fiona Mackay have completed an analysis of the candidate numbers for the upcoming Scottish local government elections. Less than 1:4 candidates are female; 1:7 contests are male-only; all the major parties are fielding less than 30% female candidates. They argue that the time has come for tough action on women's representation - or nothing will change anytime soon. See the full information on the new gender politics @ edinburgh blog: http://www.genderpoliticsatedinburgh.wordpress.com

Well it was quite a summer. The US and Greece ran out of money, and some other places came close. Their credit ratings fell. A young man was shot dead by police and the response of some Londoners was that they needed new TVs and trainers. Their actions were compared to MPs who exaggerated expenses claims.

Meanwhile the protesters of Syria and Libya were pushed right out of the news, thereby suffering a second repression, this time at the hands of the riot squad in combination with the British media. That gave me an idea: give the London police to the Syrians and the Syrian police to the London rioters, and both sides will have the police they deserve.

The rioters reminded me of Juanita. As usual, I spent some time working in Mexico City this summer. Juanita sets up her taco stand outside my house there most days. She takes a bus from home, two hours in each direction, loaded with things she has cooked or prepared to be cooked, gets the brazier going, puts up the tarp, and feeds passers-by for 10 hours or so. Sometimes when it’s hot she has to lie down on the grass for a while to rest. At 8 or 9 pm, after she’s packed everything away, she scrubs the sidewalk with soapy water. It’s the cleanest pavement in Mexico.

Life is much tougher for women in countries such as Mexico – developing countries with macho cultures and few opportunities. Juanita looks after neighbours, grandchildren, and struggles to earn enough to support herself. She’s about 50 but looks older, a hardworking granny.

If Juanita lived in England she could be a rioter. She could be idle, and make someone pay. But in Mexico if you don’t work – hard and long – you get nothing from anyone. No income support, housing benefit, tax allowances, family credit. So Juanita developed a talent for cooking (instead of a talent for blaming others), and she cooks like an angel. Chocolate tamales, quesadillas with courgette flowers and cheese, buñuelos (my favourite). A buñuelo is basically a cinnamon doughnut one millimetre thick.

Mexico is the 13th richest country in the world according to the World Bank, a member of the OECD, the G20, and many other important international organisations. Mexico is closer in development terms to the US than it is to Honduras or Haiti. It is wealthier per capita than some EU member states. But it still has shocking poverty. From the Mexican perspective it’s easy to look at the London rioters and see a lot a spoiled whingers.

If the UK was closer to Mexico, Juanita could try to sneak in. As it is, a lot of Mexicans go to the US, where the money is better than in Mexico. Not many come to the UK, though they don’t need a visa to enter, unlike the US.

If she came now she’d find the atmosphere a lot more hostile toward immigrants than two years ago. Something happened. It’s called Gillian Duffy. Remember her? She’s the one who complained to Gordon Brown during the 2010 elections that there were too many east Europeans coming to Britain (now she knows how they feel in the Costa del Sol. Lots of Brits, barely a word of Spanish). In fact one of the rioters in Manchester told the BBC that he needed to riot because of Polish workers taking all the jobs.

Anyway, my wife, who’s Mexican, tried to get her visa changed this summer. She sent off her application and got it back two months later with a letter saying the credit card charge had been refused by the bank. Only thing is, the bank said that no charge was ever attempted by the Border Agency. Oops. I guess someone in the Border Agency just decided it was easier to send it back without processing it.

Foreign students are also beginning to feel the full force of Duffy-politics. Immigration is managed according to the pulse on ‘The Avenue’ – Middle England’s answer to the Arab ‘Street’. In March the Home Office announced its intention to cut the number of students from outside the UK by 25%. Reason: it’s worried about dodgy degree programmes in the UK accepting bogus students, whose real aim is simply to get past the Border Agency. A few could be terrorists, others looking to work illegally.

Educating a foreign student amounts to a British services export, just like tourism (imagine the outcry if ministers reduced the number of tourists by 25% – some could be terrorists). And there is a lot of demand from foreign students to study here – around 300,000 non-EU students per year. In 2008-9, fee income and other spending in the UK by these students amounted to about £5 billion, according to the Home Office.

Obviously, limiting the number could be very harmful, and the danger of an anti-foreign student policy is that it sends a chilling effect throughout the higher education world. Message from Britain: study in your own country! For those of us who rely on global sources of talent and global markets, reducing places in British universities for overseas students is as unwise as ‘British jobs for British workers’ (Gordon Brown’s 2007 policy).

23 February 2011

6.00. Out of bed. Have banana and a massive tea and start working. I’m rewriting an article on how Mexican politics has changed since NAFTA. It’s extracted from more than five years of research. An earlier version was rejected by the journal World Politics, and this new version is very different. I had some great help from colleagues in the department, who gave me ideas on how to reshape it. I’m optimistic, but standards to get into the top journals are very exacting.

8.00. Take a break and have breakfast with Leticia, who’s up now too. While she gets ready for the day I switch gears and grade applicants for PhD financial aid. I’m amazed at the range of interests among them and the variety of life experiences they’ve had. I also compose the ‘day-list’ – a post-it note with all the things I need to do that day. Together with my diary, it’s the daily bible. Old technology perhaps, but it works. If it’s not on that list, the chances of remembering it plummet. It all began five years ago when I forgot to deliver 200 exam scripts to Pleasance Sports Hall. Oops.

9.00. Drop Leticia at the Morningside Oxfam, where she volunteers on Wednesday mornings, and head for the office.

10.00. First of more than seven hours of almost back-to-back meetings. Professor Mick Moran is visiting for the day from the University of Manchester. Mick was on the 2008 RAE panel, which means that he was one of about 15 academics responsible for assessing the research of every politics department in the country. PIR made big improvements in 2008, which we want to continue in the next round (2013-14). The outcome will have reputational and financial repercussions and it’s really important for us (hence all my agonizing over the Mexico research). He gives me and two colleagues the benefit of his insights. There’s some great news for us – we’ve learned that Charlie Jeffery will be on the next panel (called the REF this time), and he’s with us in the meeting. Someone has brought biscuits and I eat too many of them.

11.45. I try to make a scheduled call to a student but am interrupted by a colleague who wants to talk about his role next year. This is a really important conversation, and very sensitive.

12.00. Next meeting. A part-time peripatetic lecturer is interested in becoming an Honorary Fellow in the department. I know him well. He’s very solid. He has a PhD and has taught in several UK universities – his speciality is the Middle East, and Egypt in particular. We’re expanding our Middle East offerings, with two new taught MSc degrees, and a new lecturer coming on board (Dr Ewan Stein). But there are College rules on what Honorary Fellows need to do – essentially to provide some kind of pro-bono service. So the Middle East specialist would do some voluntary dissertation supervision and possibly some teaching in an area of growing interest. No brainer for me.

12.30. I finally get through to the student, who’s doing joint honours with Modern Languages. She’s on a year abroad and working rather than studying, which means that she needs to write two essays of 4000 words each. She wants to do the first on women in politics. I think to myself, she started her first year in a lecture theatre of over 300 students. Now she’s talking to a lecturer one-on-one. Ratios change. If she becomes a PhD student she’ll have meetings with two lecturers sometimes.

We talk about how to frame a research question. I ask her to think of essay questions in earlier courses, and search for some kind of puzzle or unexpected outcome. For example, why do women not have more power (or why are social outcomes still unequal) despite legislation and other good-faith efforts to address the imbalance? We talk about independent research and the need to stay focussed. It’s a challenge for her because she works all day too, and needs to do her research and writing in the evenings and on weekends. I know how she feels. We decide to talk again in a few days.

12.50. I have a few minutes to eat lunch. Eating six biscuits in the morning has left me less hungry than usual at this time of day. Must exercise more self-restraint. I reflect that the phone call will be my only interaction with students during the entire day. 

1.00. Department research seminar. Mick Moran gives a paper on business power post-2007. He contrasts the aftermath of the financial collapse to the 1979-2007 period, which he calls ‘the great complacency.’ Great title, I think to myself. He’s done exhaustive historical research on policy changes and decisions in the wake of the collapse. It’s a real case study in how to carry out research. But the bottom line is a little depressing – not much has changed. Business stills wields tremendous power. 

2.00. Back to the office to prepare for a meeting at 2.15. I scan the papers, make a coffee and have a seventh biscuit. Lucky seven.

2.15. School Management Committee meeting. This threatens to stretch all afternoon, but the agenda is full of important things. Student satisfaction and a new website on best practice in feedback and assessment. Several people in the School (including my colleagues) have devoted a lot of time to working on this issue. Postgraduate programmes. Financial aid for PhD students. Administrative reform, including how to rethink the DoS system. Preparations for the REF, which is how I began this string of meetings. There are one or two moments of ill-humour, but by and large things go smoothly. Everyone wants the best for the School. Disagreements over how to get there are ironed out in a few minutes.

I have my (occasional) daydream in which we’ve made all the admin reforms we need to make, and we achieve a kind of utopian equilibrium where everything works perfectly, and we can return to teaching and research. It’s utopian because teaching and research are what we want to do, and what fulfils our mission. But the reality is different. There are constant re-evaluations of processes and procedures, new ideas about how to govern organizations, changing demands from those who regulate us, new generations of students with new interests. All of it must be accommodated. I estimate that managing the department I’ve headed for the past seven months takes at least two-thirds of my time. In the rest I teach, do research and run a European Commission project called MERCURY, along with several colleagues. I eye the biscuits provided for the meeting but decide I’ve had enough.

5.15. Meeting over. Head for the gym.

6.30. Back in the office. A day of meetings has left my email inbox in an alarming state. I start to chew through them, waiting for Leticia to pick me up. 

8.00. Dinner over, I make a phone call to a colleague we’ve just hired from the University of Kansas named Julie Kaarbo. She’s going to be a great addition – she works on political psychology, foreign policy analysis, and how Cabinets make foreign policy decisions.

9.00. Transfixed by the news from Libya. 

10.00. Watch a programme on the history of the Rolling Stones. The email inbox is gnawing away at me and I work it down to six or so as I watch. I thought I knew everything about them, since they were my favourite band until I was about 30, but I learn that Keith Richards was a choirboy who sang at Westminster Abbey in front of the Queen. How ironic. I wonder how the Stones would react if someone forced them to participate in a periodic ‘Music Excellence Framework’ similar to what we do on research, in which all British bands were assessed according to their output, impact, and environment.

Speaking of environment, it occurs to me that instead of ‘sex and drugs and rock-and-roll’, the best way to describe their lives would be ‘divorce and jail and rock-and-roll.’

Keith has aged incredibly. Incredibly badly, I mean. Wait a minute. I grab the remote and switch back to the news. Colonel Gaddafi is ranting away to his supporters. Back to the Stones. Keith is giving the finger to the paparazzi. Is it me, or have they been imitating each other?

11.30. Lights out but can’t sleep. I think to myself, maybe I should write a ‘day in the life’ blog.

I got my essay back a few days ago and I couldn’t believe the feedback. I thought it was the best essay I ever wrote. It was on NAFTA – the North American Free Trade Agreement – and how it affects Mexican politics.

The essay was double marked blind – two lecturers read it and they made comments without knowing what the other had said. One of them said it was good but needed work. ‘This paper addresses an important topic and has much promise, but it will need considerable revision.’

The other reviewer gave it a thumbs down. ‘This paper does a good job of cataloguing the relationship between NAFTA side agreement institutions and some changes in Mexican civil society, but it has many limitations that make it unsuitable for publication.’

You see, I thought it was such a good essay it could be published as an article, and in one of the best journals in the world no less.

The editors of the journal said ‘If you were willing to try meeting the standard outlined by these two reviewers, you just might have better luck in a more specialized journal.’ Translation – take it somewhere else.

I sent it to that journal not just because I thought it was a really strong essay, but also because if it was published there, it would probably be considered a 4* article, and I need a 4* article for my publications list. Needing a 4* is sort of like needing a 1st, but for an academic instead of a student.

The reason a 4* is good is that every few years, Politics & IR (and all the other departments in the UK, in every discipline and every university) gets reviewed by a process that they now call the ‘Research Excellence Framework.’ Getting this mysterious body to give a 4* to one of your articles is good for your record and gets your department more money in the long run.

So I was not happy with my feedback. At first I planned to ask for it to be re-read, since the reviewers missed the obvious fact that it was a great essay. But then I remembered when I tried that before and they just told me to stop wasting their time.

Hang on – haven’t I heard all this before? I have – similar arguments come up sometimes when students get their essay results back. Maybe I should learn from my experience just like they learn from theirs. When they say they want their essays remarked, here’s what I say to them: The rationale for a remarking has to be something more than a simple disagreement with the tutor – ie, ‘he said I needed to make my arguments clearer, but I’m convinced I made them really clear.’ It has to relate to a substantive issue that the tutor has clearly missed or misinterpreted.

I guess essay results sometimes bring uncomfortable news that we need to take on board, whether as undergraduate students or as senior academics. Even when we think our work is great, not everyone agrees with us. Taking on board comments in good faith and learning from them is part of how we develop.

So I have an idea. I’m going to get together with some of the lecturers I work with and take advantage of something we call a ‘Master Class.’ It’s for lecturers in the department, and what happens is that a few people who work on the same general area as me sit down and go over my paper with a fine-tooth comb. And I’m going to share the reviewers’ comments with them so they know what’s been said already.

Then I’m going to take very seriously what everyone has said – reviewers and colleagues – and I’m going to make the paper even better. I’m going to read what they suggest I read, consider new angles and arguments and sources of data, and clean up the presentation where it needs cleaning up. Then I’m going to send it to another journal.

Feedback. I guess it never ends – you deal with it all your life, whether it’s on essays or work performance or something else. The trick is to know how to use it to improve what you do.

‘When I was 15, my teacher was so ignorant I could hardly stand to be in the same room. But when I got to be 18, I was astonished at how much he had learned in three years.’  (Mark Twain)

Most academics, when all is said and done, want to have an impact. That’s why they write so much, and why they’re so keen to publish. But whether they realize it or not, their impact is felt just as much through their teaching as through their research.

Like other universities, Edinburgh academics are required to research and publish. It’s what makes our name, influences debates, draws top PhD candidates, links us to world-leading institutes and researchers, and shapes policy. Without research we would simply be a mouthpiece for understandings developed elsewhere – just like your high school teachers.

But if we spend time doing research, does that mean our teaching effort goes down? No. I think it’s a positive-sum game.

Research works its way into our teaching in a number of ways. First, some of the most highly-visible and widely-cited of our work is also the most accessible. We use it in our teaching.

Second, even when our research is much more complex, the classroom forces us to communicate complex arguments in simple language. We need to synthesize and make relevant what can seem like arcane, narrow investigations. Teaching helps us make our arguments clear, and can reveal faults in our research design.

Students at all levels contribute to this process. Simple questions require arguments to be clarified. New ideas pop into old heads. Course syllabi sometimes evolve from weekly lecture topics into book chapters. Students even contribute by helping with research projects and tasks.

Research feeds teaching. Students feed research.

Our PhD students are at the interface of research and teaching. They are doing work as advanced as us old-timers, yet their thinking and their communication is often more supple and sympathetic. They are our capillaries of knowledge.

We are also fortunate to have some great teachers among the permanent staff. Chad Damro has been awarded the Political Studies Association award for the best teaching in politics at any university in the UK. Elizabeth Bomberg won the same award in a different year, and has also won the award for best teacher in any department in the University of Edinburgh. Both are active researchers – Damro is on the cusp of making a major contribution to our understanding of the international influence of the European Union. 

Not everyone loves to teach, and as with anything, some are better than others. But it is central to our activities, and stands alongside research as an equal. I can’t do better than to end with a quote from Robert Keohane, one of the giants in the field of International Relations, and a major influence on the thinking of IR scholars:

‘Never disparage teaching. It is an intrinsic part of political science as a vocation. Furthermore, it provides much more immediate gratification than research. If you give a good lecture or teach a lively, thoughtful seminar, the gratification is immediate: you know you accomplished something that day.’

You want to make a cake. You google ‘chocolate cake.’ You check out the recipes, get the ingredients, follow the steps to the letter, and pretty soon you have a cake.

Next day you kit up for your weekly five-a-side footie. Been having trouble scoring lately, so you try a different pair of trainers. You’ve tried other things recently too, like taking shorter steps, kicking more with your instep, cutting through the seam of the defenders and getting inside – even shouting at the keeper to scare him. But progress is slow.

Some things in life are exact and procedural. You find out what the steps are in the process and follow them exactly – and it’s not just simple things like making a cake, but complicated ones like heart transplants and building skyscrapers. Procedure is everything. A bit of creativity can be disastrous.

Other things in life are more creative and flexible. That means that there is no set, exact way to do them, only guidelines, general ideas, and best practice. And it’s not just scoring goals that require creativity and flexible thinking, but also things like writing novels and pop songs (despite their obvious creativity, both are structured too and bear resemblances to other novels and pop songs).

Writing an essay is one of these. You don’t look up the formula for writing an essay with exact step-by-step instructions (first write ‘The’, next write ‘institutions’, then write ‘of’ …) because there are none.

Instead, essays involve a combination of structure and general guidelines, as well as creative thinking. Like in footie, there are some rules. Don’t use your hands (unless you’re Thierry Henry). Don’t plagiarize. Structure means things like beginning with an introduction and ending with a conclusion, and in between, considering perspectives (alternative points of view) and evidence.

Creative thinking means linking concepts, digesting the work of others and distilling it, drawing from it selectively and using it to help answer your research question, and writing it in your own words, clearly and crisply (ie, without fluff, detours, irrelevances, etc).

So it’s more like scoring a goal. The way you get better is by practicing over and over, not by finding the secret step-by-step formula. Different coaches may have somewhat different advice. That’s OK – the world is big enough for both an Alex Ferguson and an Arsène Wenger.

So you get your essay back and you ask yourself, why did I get this mark? Here’s where you need to take careful account of the comments, speak to your tutor, read the various guides to essay writing, and visit a TLA class on making the most of essays and exams (www.tla.ed.ac.uk/services/effect-learn/advice.htm).  And keep working on it! Polishing your writing skills makes you a better communicator, and that will help you in the future. Like scoring goals, it gets better with practice.