Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Economic Development On U.S. Native American Reservations: A Case Study Of The Tribes Of Florida, Diane Benitez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unlike most native American reservations in the United States, the Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes in Florida are more economically developed. The purpose of this research is to understand this economic development process of the tribes in Florida. Accordingly, there are three key questions guiding this study:

1. What have been the priorities of the Native American reservation population in conceptualizing sustainable economic development?
2. What external institutional factors have enabled or hindered economic development on Native American reservations?
3. What internal tribal governance factors affected sustainable economic development on Native American reservations?

I interviewed Seminole and Miccosukee tribe members and leaders to obtain …

The Gendered Long-Term Recovery Priorities Of Internally Displaced Persons In Post-Earthquake Haiti, Nicki Fraser

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Professor N. Emel Ganapati, Major Professor

Despite a growing body of research on gender and disaster, little is known regarding the long-term recovery priorities and participation of internally displaced women in the long-term recovery process. Focusing on this important scholarly gap in the public administration literature, the overall goal of this study is to understand the long-term recovery processes of populations displaced by the 2010 Haiti earthquake through a gendered lens. The study’s specific aims are to: (1) understand the rebuilding priorities of IDPs in Haiti through a gendered lens; (2) determine factors that enable or hinder IDP women’s participation …

School Climate In The School Choice Era: A Comparative Analysis Of District-Run Public Schools And Charter Schools, Christopher Damian Duszka

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Comparative analyses of district-run public schools and charter schools are limited to performance outcomes. There is a dearth of research on how the school-types vary on factors consequential to performance such as school climate. Public-private distinctions, such as in organizational autonomy, value orientations, funding structures, and management practices, could result in school climate dissimilarities between district-run public schools and charter schools.

The aim of this dissertation is to assess the influence organizational factors have on school climate and determine if school-type affects school climate. Student and staff school climate survey data from the Miami-Dade school district were utilized for this …

Facing The Rising Tide: How Local Governments In The United States Collaborate To Adapt To Sea Level Rise, Vaiva Kalesnikaite

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While communities in the United States are already experiencing the effects of climate change, scientists project that sea level rise, increased precipitation, and record-breaking extreme weather events will devastate vulnerable regions in the following decades. The absence of federal strategies for climate change adaptation leaves state and city governments with broad discretion to undertake climate change adaptation measures. Yet cities may be unable to adapt to climate change without external assistance, particularly in states where the state leadership has not recognized the need to provide political and financial support to local governments. Collaboration allows cities to pool resources and work …

Election Administration Within The Sphere Of Politics: How Bureaucracy Can Facilitate Democracy With Policy Decisions, Nicholas S. Martinez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public bureaucracy finds itself in a strange place at the intersection of political science and public administration. Political science finds that, within representative democracy, discretion granted to bureaucrats threatens the nature of democracy by subverting politicians who represent the will of the people – bureaucracy vs democracy. At the same time, public administration holds that, in the interest of promoting democracy, bureaucracy should be objective in its implementation of policy in a way that eliminates the influence of politics from decision-making – politics vs bureaucracy. Those positions are seemingly contradictory in nature. From one perspective, bureaucracy is undemocratic because it …