CU News
News from the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Deadline approaching for scholarships available to multicultural students
Apr 7th
Boulder County, Colo. – Scholarships ranging from $500-$1,000 each are available to low-income students through Boulder County’s Community Action Programs.
Applications are due by Friday, April 15 and are available at www.bouldercounty.org/government/pages/multiculturalawards.aspx.
Applicants must meet the following criteria:
• Minimum one year residency in Boulder County
• Currently attending university, community college or technical school as a full-time undergraduate or graduate student
• Low to moderate income level
Scholarships are made possible through proceeds from the Community Action Programs’ annual Multicultural Awards Banquet. Preference is given to students actively involved in a student or community organization.
Prior scholarship recipients are not eligible to apply again and scholarships are not available to students graduating from high school this spring or summer.
Students of color are strongly encouraged to apply. Please contact Sheila Goetz at 303-441-3976 or sgoetz@bouldercounty.org for more information.
WHO WANTS TO DELIBERATE WITH POLITICIANS? MORE THAN SOME EXPECTED, STUDY FINDS
Apr 4th
Given that, the thinking goes, it’s reasonable to conclude that citizens want less, not more, involvement in politics.
But that widely accepted theory does not survive empirical scrutiny, a team of researchers that includes a University of Colorado Boulder political scientist found.
Rather than rejecting political discourse, most people express strong interest in deliberating with real politicians, the team found. Further, when citizens are offered the chance to discuss political issues with their legislators, significant numbers do.
The view of the American public as desperate to avoid politics is “deeply misleading,” the team wrote in a recent edition of American Political Science Review. The work joins a growing number of studies applying empirical analysis to political theories of deliberative democracy.
The team was led by Michael Neblo of Ohio State University and included Kevin Esterling of the University of California, Riverside, Ryan Kennedy at the University of Houston, David Lazer of Northeastern University and Harvard University, and Anand Sokhey of CU-Boulder.
Sokhey and his colleagues suggest that some political theorists reached an erroneous conclusion because they started with the wrong question, namely, “Who actually deliberates?”
The answer, of course, is that few people engage in deliberative democracy.
But Sokhey’s team essentially posed a different question: “Who is willing to deliberate?” The team found that large majorities of citizens, even those disgusted by politics, are willing to participate—and, when given the chance, many do.
Sokhey puts it this way: “If people perceive politicians to be more responsive and less corrupt … would people be more willing to be involved?” The answer is yes. “They’re happy to be involved.”
That was surprising, he says, adding that the kinds of people who wanted to participate also was unexpected. The traditional view is that people who are older, wealthier, well-educated and white are more likely to become engaged in politics.
“We don’t find that a lot of that holds here,” Sokhey says.
The team found that younger people and non-whites were willing to join political deliberations.
The researchers set out to test two competing theories of political involvement. One theory, dubbed “stealth democracy,” holds that people are often disgusted by politics, believe politicians are generally corrupt, and that when they do join the political process, they do so largely to thwart political corruption.
If politics were less corrupt, the theory holds, citizens would happily retreat to their private lives and let government run quietly and efficiently in the background.
But the theory of stealth democracy contradicts one of the deliberative theory’s central claims: that citizen apathy is actually caused by frustration and disempowerment in the system. “If the political process could be rendered more rational and responsive in their eyes, then they would be moreinclined to engage in it robustly,” the authors write, adding:
“The disagreement between the stealth thesis and the deliberative thesis could hardly be clearer, and the stakes on which is right could hardly be higher.”
The research team began with hypothetical questions posed to 404 subjects.
For instance, they asked the following: “If politics were [less/more] influenced by self-serving officials and powerful special interests, do you think that you would be more or less interested in getting involved in politics?” Respondents indicated their interest on a 1-5 scale.
Those who would participate less if politics were less corrupt fit the stealth-democracy thesis. Those who would participate more fit the deliberative thesis.
The results were significant. Eight times more people fit the deliberative profile than the stealth profile, suggesting that the “stealth” view is not widely held.
But that was just the response to items about stealth vs. deliberative attitudes. When the researchers made a real offer to deliberate with a real member of Congress, 65 percent agreed.
The study’s participants were offered the chance to deliberate online with their congressional representative. The members of Congress came from 12 congressional districts spread across four major geographic regions. The politicians included five Republicans and seven Democrats who were ideologically diverse.
Most surprisingly, the authors note, both those holding “stealth” and “deliberative” views were eager to discuss politics with real politicians. But according to the stealth thesis, such eagerness should have been found mostly among deliberative democrats.
The explanation, the authors conclude, is that “People do not really hold stealth democracy as their first preference. Instead, they will settle for stealth democracy if the civics-textbook version of deliberative representative democracy is not achievable.”
The work of Neblo, Sokhey and the rest of the team was funded by a grant from the Digital Government Program of the National Science Foundation.
Read more on this story soon in Colorado Arts & Sciences Magazine at http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/.
–
COLORADO BUSINESS LEADERS’ CONFIDENCE AT HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE 2006, SAYS CU LEEDS SCHOOL INDEX
Apr 1st
Colorado business leaders’ confidence is at its highest level since the second quarter of 2006, according to the most recent quarterly Leeds Business Confidence Index, or LBCI, released today by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business.
For the second quarter of 2011, the LBCI posted a reading of 56.8, with the most significant change to the index coming in hiring plans. The index measuring hiring plans rose from 52.5 in the first quarter to 56.3 in the second.
While confidence in the state and national economies has leveled, expectations for sales, industry profits, hiring plans and capital expenditures all recorded aggressive gains, according to Leeds School economist and Business Research Division Director Richard Wobbekind, who conducts the quarterly survey.
“A continued upward trend in all of the indicators suggests that Colorado business leaders see sustained growth over the next quarter and even beyond,” Wobbekind said. “Higher sales and profits are fueling a lot of the business confidence that is out there now, and this is clearly turning into plans to invest in capital equipment and hiring more people, which is very important for the long-term growth of the economy.”
An index of 50 is neutral. An index greater than 50 indicates positive expectations, while an index lower than 50 indicates negative expectations, according to Leeds School researcher Brian Lewandowski, who compiles the survey results for the index.
Colorado’s unemployment rate actually has increased over the past couple of months, even though the business leaders’ index for hiring rose at a hefty rate this quarter. Wobbekind said such mixed messages concerning unemployment rates are common during economic recoveries.
“One of the things that happens with the unemployment rate is it typically goes higher as firms start to hire because people who have been out of work start to come back into the workforce again,” Wobbekind said.
However, that’s only part of the story, he said. Colorado’s unemployment rate was recently revised to a higher rate based on population gains.
“I think this is actually a good thing because it signals to the rest of the country that this isn’t an ‘easy place’ to get a job,” Wobbekind said. “This will probably slow down some of the flow of jobseekers into the state, which is good until we get our employment growth a little further along.”
Business leaders remain positive, but somewhat subdued, regarding national and state economic growth, according to Lewandowski. The national index increased from 53.2 to 53.6, while the state index fell slightly, from 56.5 to 55.5.
Capital expenditures had an index value of 56.1, up from 53.6 last quarter. The sales and profit expectations of business leaders are back to prerecession levels, and are at their highest level since the second quarter of 2007, according to Lewandowski. The sales index was 61.4 and profit index was 58.1.
To access the complete report visit http://leeds.colorado.edu/lbci.