Local politics in an international context: a linguistic analysis of community resiliency in Memphis, TN

ABSTRACT

This paper utilises the framework of state capacity from international relations, including the quality of institutions, bureaucracy, and enforcement mechanisms, to evaluate community resiliency. We take a global perspective on the problems of disorder, crime, and social capital, contextualising these issues with a broader global literature of how communities respond to systemic stressors driven by both endogenous and exogenous factors, including social problems and corresponding policy prescriptions are defined in terms of poverty, inequality, and civic participation. Locally, these issues are framed as individual-level problems, such as crime and blight. Our work provides a bridge between the international relations perspective and the local governance perspective. Using macro-level global political research drawing on international relations scholarship on quality of governance, we examine micro-level processes with Memphis, Tennessee, USA as a case study. Our data include reports from the Memphis 3–1-1 system alongside crime, weather, social capital and governance indicators.

KEYWORDS:

• Governance
• computational linguistics
• 311
• resilience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. However, citizens use this service at disparate rates (see online appendix).

2. Using a Cox proportional hazards duration model, we estimated time to completion (see Figure 5) for 3-1-1 ticket time to completion.

3-1-1 ticket time to completion, by creation channel (phone or Internet).

Additional information

Funding

The work reported here was funded by the FedEx Institute of Technology at the University of Memphis and the Smart City Initiative, Memphis.

Notes on contributors

Leah Cathryn Windsor

Leah Cathryn Windsor is a research assistant professor in the Institute for Intelligent Systems at The University of Memphis. Her interdisciplinary approach to understanding political language is situated at the intersection of political science, linguistics, and cognitive science. She researches governance, persuasion, and multimodal communication to answer the question: how does our language reveal who we are?

Andrew J. Hampton

Andrew J. Hampton is a research scientist assistant professor at the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis. His research interests include computer mediated communication, human factors psychology, and cognitive science. His paper on psycholinguistic cues in social media won the 2016 Human Factors Prize for Excellence in Human Factors/Ergonomics Research.

James Grayson Cupit

James Grayson Cupit is a senior research software developer for the Institute for Intelligent Systems and a master’s student in electrical and computer engineering. As part of his work for the Institute, he deals with the implementation and architecture of various natural language processing and intelligent tutoring systems. His research interests lie primarily at the intersections of language, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

Alistair James Windsor

Alistair James Windsor is an associate professor of mathematical sciences and is the Director of the Institute for Intelligent Systems. His pure mathematics research is in the areas of ergodic theory and dynamical systems. He has wider interests in education and was previously the director of a mathematics and science teacher preparation programme. As part of his work for the Institute, he deals with natural language processing and intelligent tutoring systems.