View from the Street
Bangkok, Thailand. September 7, 2008. Image: Shubert Ciencia (cc/by)
USA: Motherload of Election & Voting Research
Our friends at IssueLab have a round-up of public interest research on US voting and elections that provides a refreshingly substantive break from the faux empiricism of daily tracking polls and instant pundit scorecards. IssueLab’s key findings: Racial disparities in the criminal justice system translate into higher rates of disenfranchisement in communities of color, resulting…
IREX Media Sustainabilty Index for 2008
Norah Mallaney reports from the launch of the IREX Media Sustainability Index, which examines the working conditions for independent media worldwide. Today, the Center for International Media Assistance hosted an event to publicize the release of the International Resource and Exchanges Board’s (IREX) Media Sustainability Index (MSI). This report “provides in-depth analyses of the conditions…
Corruption in Afghanstan In the US Spotlight
Corruption in Afghanistan becomes an issue in the the US Presidential race, but solutions are hard to come by. In the September 26 presidential debate, both Obama and McCain acknowledged the potential security risk that Afghanistan holds for the United States. Obama repeatedly expressed his concern of the growing opium economy is Afghanistan. In a…
Ibrahim Index of African Governance, 2008
The second annual installment of the Ibrahim governance index, which aggregates third-party and original data to create a five point scorecard in every country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The summary lays out the Ibrahim Foundation’s focus: The essential political goods can be summarized and gathered under five categories: Safety and Security; Rule of Law, Transparency, and…
USA: Does Obama’s “Google for Government” Work?
With talk of “Google for Government” highlighting budget transparency, we take a look at the US Congress’s performance on the issue compared to other nations, and take USAspending.gov for a test drive. A week ago in the first presidential debate, Senator Barack Obama mentioned he worked with Senator Tom Coburn “to set up what we…