The Patient Scholar

Denmark and open source software

A story from C|Net notes that the Danish Board of Technology has issued a report that strongly supports a move to open source software.

Proprietary software, according to the report, tends to foster a small group of suppliers or even a monopoly. The report states bluntly that in these situtations

[i]t will only be possible to achieve competition … by taking political decisions that assist new market participants in entering the market.

Government embrace of open source technologies would be exactly this type of political decision.

The C|Net article also notes that the report offers strong criticism of

closed, proprietary standards such as Microsoft’s Word format, arguing they go against the principles of e-government by requiring citizens to use particular software and reinforcing monopolies.

This item is of particular interest to me. At my work (the Division of Administrative Rules), we pride ourselves on being as platform independent as possible. While not completely perfect, our web pages are served using valid HTML 4.01, with a great deal of the presentation provided by CSS. Our online rule-filing system uses pages useable by IE, Mozilla, or Netscape, (probably even Opera, but we haven’t tried). Our goal has always been to provide as much information as possible to as broad a user base as possible. As such, this criticism resonates with me. Why on earth would we (government) want to consciously engage in any action that would depress citizen participation?

English 101

This may seem a bit remedial, but I have been having trouble working out how best to use source material I have gathered for the proposal. I have decided to draw on instruction given in The Macmillan College Handbook, 2nd ed., by Gerald Levin. I have taken the following outline from chapter 40.

1. Collect sources pertinent to your topic.
2. Sort the sources into groups (an initial outline of the paper is useful in this regard).
3. Create further groupings of the sources within the main groups (for example, one source may only be understood if preceded by another source).
4. Take notes on the sources.

Taking notes on the sources is composed of two tasks:

1. Create a bibliography card. This card will contain the full bibliographic information of the source (including, as I remember Booth et al., location information [e.g., library and call number, etc.])
2. Create the note. The note will be a direct quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Accompany notes with thoughts, analysis, or initial interpretation of the source.

How to focus the literature review?

What is too much and what is not enough in the literature review section of the proposal? I ask the question because I’m running into trouble inserting filler (at least I think so). There isn’t much that I have discovered as yet in the mainstream political science literature regarding the LDS Church specifically. The American Political Science Review hasn’t had an article about the Church specifically in the last three years (and maybe [probably] longer; that’s all the further I have looked). There are other articles in other sections of the behavioral science literature that deal with the Church, but how many of those do I want to reference?

Ultimately, I guess, the point is to demonstrate that my question (why does the Church choose to act politically in certain circumstances) is one that hasn’t been addressed, or hasn’t been deeply addressed. This demonstration would form part of the justification for the question in the first place.

Worthy but untimely distractions

I spoke with my brother Steven tonight. He is not a big fan of Microsoft, and called to ask my opinion about installing Linux on his home PC. Normally, I am delighted to hear about people who wish to be free from Microsoft’s (intentional or not) complete domination of the home PC market (or the world). But, as I thought about Steve’s question, I found that I could not, in good conscience, endorse his goal. Why?

Whether we like it or not, Microsoft is personal computing for most of us. We run its operating system; we use its office suite; we view mail with its (security hole ridden) email client; we use its browser. But even more, other software vendors (or should I say licensors) write software only for Microsoft’s operating system. In Steven’s case, he relies a great deal on Windows-based music packages and equivalent packages are simply not available (yet) for Linux. Thus it is in Steven’s best interests to postpone his operating system rebellion and use the tools that he has to do the work he needs to do.

I tell this story because I think that the move to Linux is a worthy action, but an untimely distraction for Steven as it would be for me. I would dearly love to make my entire software computing environment free, but there are other things that have a prior and better claim on my time and effort. I should attend to those first rather than pursue the worthy cause of freeing myself from Microsoft’s monopolistic grip.

Of course, I do try and use non-Microsoft, open source and free software whenever I can. Thus, I draft my blog entries using XEmacs; my browser and email client of choice are Mozilla; and my office suite is OpenOffice.org. There are some things that I can do. I just can’t let them get in the way of the more important things.

Journal links

The following journals can be viewed online (from computers at the Marriott Library, from computers within the University of Utah’s domain, or by connecting through the Marriott’s proxy server):

Journal of Church and State

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

The research question continued

After an email message sent to members of my graduate committee, I received a response from Dan Levin. After reading my message and my blog entry of 11 October 2003, Dan noted that I seemed to be having a little trouble focusing my research question.

The question in its current state does seem rather wide open. After all, a question that seeks to study the exercise of political power by the LDS Church is broad to say the least. The LDS Church has acted politically almost since its inception. The very act of registering the new church under the laws of New York state in 1830 was essentially a political act. So, how do I focus the question?

One method of focus would be to restrict the study to either internal or external exercises of power. I seem to remember from Dan McCool’s public policy class that in some views of special interest groups, groups are seen as exercising power outside of the group, in terms of influencing policy, and inside the group, in terms of keeping the faithful in line.

Another way to focus would be to restrict the study to one, or maybe two events in which the Church acted politically. Of course, the question that is begged is “what is meant by ‘acted politically’?” I’m not sure as yet how best to answer that question, but I do plan on selecting only one or two events. At least one of the events will be quite contemporary, i.e., within the last five to ten years. A good candidate would the Church’s involvement with California’s Knight Initiative.

Peri suggested a possible approach to the question in her response to my draft. She suggested:

An alternative way to proceed would be to choose a particular instance of church action (or two instances) and compare three alternative explanations for church action: philosophy; power; socio-political context.

1. The philosophy – as inferred in the manner above.
2. Power – this is complex but one possibility would be a rational-actor perspective that emphasizes the actions of individual leaders
3. Socio-political - this could be a version of “power” that is less actor oriented, more Foucaultian

If you could develop “pure” or “ideal type” explanations of these three, then you could assess which is the best explanation for the instance under examination… .

Research question

One of the comments that Peri made in her assessment of my most recent (and now quite old draft) was that I needed to clarify my research question.

Booth et al. (1995, 42–45) suggest creating a research question by: 1) identifying the topic; 2) suggesting a question based on the topic; and then 3) finding a motive for the question.

Thus, with the guidance of Booth and friends and based on other comments Peri made on the draft, I think my question is taking shape along these lines:

1. I am studying the exercise political power by the LDS Church,
2. because I want to find out why the LDS Church might act as a political rather than a proselytizing or pastoral social entity,
3. in order to better understand how the LDS Church specifically, and other churches generally, might effect policy decisions in electorally contested policy questions.

The third item in the list seems a little awkward. This item is where I’m trying to establish the importance of the research question. This is hard for me, but perhaps this part will become more clear as I spend more time in the literature and as I discuss it with my committee.