Gaining Access

A textbook on gaining access to field settings for qualitative researchers in the social sciences. Prescriptive advice and a series of vignettes from actual research projects.

Through a comprehensive analysis of American agricultural politics in the past half-century, Gaining Access shows when, how, and why interest groups gain and lose influence in the policy deliberations of the United States Congress. By consulting with policy advocates, John Mark Hansen argues, lawmakers offset their uncertainty about the policy stands that will bolster or impede their prospects for reelection. The advocates provide legislators with electoral intelligence in Washington and supportive propaganda at home, earning serious consideration of their policy views in return. From among a multitude of such informants, representatives must choose those they will most closely consult. With evidence from congressional hearings, personal interviews, oral histories, farm and trade journals, and newspapers, Hansen traces the evolution of farm lobby access in Congress. He chronicles the rise and fall of the American Farm Bureau, the surge and decline of party politics, the incoporation of the commodity lobbies, the exclusion of the consumer lobbies, and the accommodation of urban interests in food stamps. Brilliantly combining insights from rational choice theory with historical data, Gaining Access is an essential guide for anyone interested in the dynamics of interest group influence.

This thoroughly revised and updated version of David Clark-Carter's catch-all reference book will prove invaluable to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, bringing clarity and reliability to each stage of the quantitative research process.

Bridge the gap between research and practice with Introduction to Research: Understanding and Applying Multiple Strategies, 5th Edition. This easy-to-read edition covers all the major research design strategies: qualitative, quantitative, naturalistic, experimental-type, and mixed method. And with the text’s up-to-date research information and references, you will have a solid foundation from which to critique and understand research designs and their applications to healthcare and human service settings. Case examples provide real-life snapshots of what it is like to participate in different types of research processes, identify research dilemmas relevant to chapter subjects, and alert you to problems you might encounter. Authors make the topics more accessible, so research becomes more relevant - and topics come to life. Covers experimental-type, naturalistic, and mixed method design strategies to improve your ability to compare, contrast, and integrate different methods. Presents complex information clearly in a highly readable, and easy-to-understand, manner. Includes detailed discussions of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, a unique and balanced focus that makes this text more comprehensive than others in its field. NEW! Up-to-date research methods, strategies, and references, like digital sources, visual methods, and geographical analysis, give you the latest information on research in diverse areas of health and human services.

This edited volume offers useful resources for researchers conducting fieldwork in various global conflict contexts, bringing together a range of international voices to relay important methodological challenges and opportunities from their experiences. The book provides an extensive account of how people do conflict research in difficult contexts, critically evaluating what it means to do research in the field and what the role of the researcher is in that context. Among the topics discussed: Conceptualizing the interpreter in field interviews in post-conflict settings Data collection with indigenous people Challenges to implementation of social psychological interventions Researching children and young people’s identity and social attitudes Insider and outsider dynamics when doing research in difficult contexts Working with practitioners and local organizations Researching Peace, Conflict, and Power in the Field is a valuable guide for students and scholars interested in conflict research, social psychologists, and peace psychologists engaged in conflict-related fieldwork.

Financial institutions, as gateways to the financial system, to economic power and possibilities, are one of the major vehicles for money laundering and therefore also represent an important means to prevent this type of crime. The compliance officer symbolises a part of this private investment in anti money laundering (AML) and as a bank employee is responsible for the implementation of governmental objectives, trapped between crime fighting objectives and commercial goals. The duality of the involvement of private partners in the AML complex and the vastness of the system serves as a background for a new book looking at the functioning, values and perceptions of actors within this system. With thorough analysis of original empirical date, Verhage provides a rich and illustrative insight in the world of compliance officers and the sometimes paradoxical AML system that they have to work within.

The information infrastructure – comprising computers, embedded devices, networks and software systems – is vital to operations in every sector: chemicals, commercial facilities, communications, critical manufacturing, dams, defense industrial base, emergency services, energy, financial services, food and agriculture, government facilities, healthcare and public health, information technology, nuclear reactors, materials and waste, transportation systems, and water and wastewater systems. Global business and industry, governments, indeed society itself, cannot function if major components of the critical information infrastructure are degraded, disabled or destroyed. Critical Infrastructure Protection XVII describes original research results and innovative applications in the interdisciplinary field of critical infrastructure protection. Also, it highlights the importance of weaving science, technology and policy in crafting sophisticated, yet practical, solutions that will help secure information, computer and network assets in the various critical infrastructure sectors. Areas of coverage include: Themes and Issues Smart Grid Risks and Impacts Network and Telecommunications Systems Security Infrastructure Security Automobile Security This book is the seventeenth volume in the annual series produced by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 11.10 on Critical Infrastructure Protection, an international community of scientists, engineers, practitioners and policy makers dedicated to advancing research, development and implementation efforts focused on infrastructure protection. The book contains a selection of eleven edited papers from the Seventeenth Annual IFIP WG 11.10 International Conference on Critical Infrastructure Protection, which was held at SRI International, Arlington, Virginia, USA in the spring of 2023. Critical Infrastructure Protection XVII is an important resource for researchers, faculty members and graduate students, as well as for as well as for policy makers, practitioners and other individuals with interests in homeland security.