HSD: Issue Adoption in Human Rights Advocacy Networks

为什么跨国网络中的主要倡导组织将某些全球问题解释为国际问题，而不是其他问题？当其他社会问题被搁置一边时，某些问题如何在全球范围内引起关注？这项研究将通过收集关于跨国人权网络中问题的起伏的数据来回答这个问题。首先，它将通过对人权活动家的调查和采访以及对倡导网站的分析来捕捉人权问题议程的变化。第二，它将通过与人权网络中主要组织的活动家组成的一系列焦点小组来探索这种差异的原因。与会者将被问及什么在人权议程上，什么不在人权议程上；这种情况如何随着时间的推移而变化，以及为什么。这些数据将提供关于思想如何在跨国实践社区中传播的见解，并(有时)在跨国实践社区中站稳脚跟。匹兹堡大学和卡尔顿大学的大量硕士和博士生将接受培训，以进行访谈和焦点小组，以及系统地使用定性数据分析软件和科学方法，以得出关于大型非结构化文本数据集的有效推断。这个项目将把严格的、计算机辅助的定性方法整合到跨国网络的研究中。

Why do leading advocacy organizations in transnational networks construe certain global problems, but not others, as international issues? How do certain issues rise to global prominence while other social problems fall by the wayside? The study will answer this question by collecting data on the rise and fall of issues in the transnational human rights network. First, it will capture variation in the human rights issue agenda through surveys and interviews with human rights activists, and analysis of advocacy websites. Second, it will explore reasons for this variation through a series of focus groups with activists from leading organizations in the human rights network. Participants will be asked about what is and is not on the human rights agenda; how this changes over time, and why. These data will yield insights as to how ideas move through and (sometimes) gain footholds in transnational communities of practice.Significant numbers of Masters and Ph.D. students from the University of Pittsburgh and Carleton University will be trained to conduct interviews and focus groups, as well as in the systematic use of qualitative data analysis software and scientific methods for reaching vailid inferences about large, unstructured text datasets. This project will integrate rigorous, computer-assisted qualitatitive methods into the study of transnational networkds.