We introduce a real-time problem-based simulation in which students are tasked with drafting policy to address the challenge of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in postearthquake Haiti from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. Students who participated in the simulation completed a quantitative survey as a pretest/posttest on global empathy, political awareness, and civic engagement, and provided qualitative data through postsimulation focus groups. The simulation was run in four courses across three campuses in a variety of instructional settings from 2013 to 2015. An analysis of the data reveals that scores on several survey items measuring global empathy and political/civic engagement increased significantly, while qualitative student comments corroborated the results. This format of a real-time problem-based policymaking simulation is readily adaptable to other ongoing and future global crises using the framework provided in this paper.

In the past three years, the Trump administration has taken unprecedented actions to slow the flow of refugees to the United States and undermine the foundations of the world’s largest refugee resettlement system. This article considers both the empirical substance of the White House’s anti-refugee policies, as well as their broader theoretical significance as a critical example of the Trump administration’s so-called “administrative deconstruction” agenda. Analyzing refugee policy as a theory-building case study, this article advances a novel argument reframing the administration’s actions through the lens of strategic disruption. Short of systemically deconstructing targeted programs, I contend that the Trump administration is engaged in an improvisational and deliberately antagonistic campaign to upend existing policies for the sake of disruption itself. Ultimately, Trump’s open disregard for established laws and conventions is a distinguishing feature of the administration’s approach, which limits its ability to implement lasting and legally binding change. In the case of refugee resettlement, this approach has produced a series of temporary and highly controversial policies, which have done measurable harm to refugees and humanitarian aid organizations. However, the legal and institutional foundations of the resettlement system remain firmly intact.

Daniel Beers looks at the experience of judicial reform across the post-communist cases, and gleans several lessons. Among the most important is that “institutional solutions have important limitations as drivers of the reform process.” Not only do informal practices sometimes negate the effects of institutional reforms, but when they do, the entire concept of judicial reform is undermined by cynicism. Moreover, highly autonomous courts can be as hazardous as dependent ones, because they can become targets of politicians jealous of their authority. Beers finds two important sources of meaningful reform. First, the European Union has played a widely acknowledged role in judicial reform in the post-communist region. More surprisingly, Beers finds a strong positive role for low-level actors—individuals and firms who turn to the courts to resolve disputes and court employees committed to improvement.

This study analyses factors associated with the perceived effectiveness of committee oversight in the Ukrainian Rada. Based on two waves of original survey data, it attempts to discern whether Ukrainian MPs view the committee oversight process primarily as an extension of partisan politics, a forum for constituency representation and resource distribution, or a politically independent process of information acquisition and regulation. The findings of the analysis suggest that partisan political considerations do not play a significant role in shaping MP attitudes towards committee oversight. Rather, deputy evaluations of the oversight process are influenced mainly by distributional and informational factors, suggesting that committee oversight is one area in which legislative institutionalisation appears to be taking root in post-communist Ukraine.

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