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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2014

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Series

Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

U.S. Lethal Drone Policy In The Execution Of The Global War On Terrorism: The Case For Reforming The Tactics, Techniques, And Procedures For The Tactical Application Of Lethal Drone Strikes, Gordon E. Adams Jan 2014

U.S. Lethal Drone Policy In The Execution Of The Global War On Terrorism: The Case For Reforming The Tactics, Techniques, And Procedures For The Tactical Application Of Lethal Drone Strikes, Gordon E. Adams

School of Public Policy Capstones

Over the past decade-and-a-half of continuous warfare by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Africa, lethal drone strikes have assumed a critical role in the expeditious, time-sensitive environments which U.S. military personnel and private security contactors find themselves operating in. Contentious since their inception, lethal drone strikes, as a tool of war and as a center-piece of U.S. counterinsurgency tactics, require significant policy changes in the form of increasing transparency for legislatures. Equally important, lethal drone strikes also require tactical revision in their application in order to effectively apply the methods of counter insurgency, nation-building, and relationship-development …

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Improving Flexibility To Increase Housing Affordability, Russell L. Pandres Jan 2014

Improving Flexibility To Increase Housing Affordability, Russell L. Pandres

School of Public Policy Capstones

This paper utilizes Census Bureau and USPS-HUD data sets to examine the relationship between address vacancy and percent of residents who are housing cost burden at the Census Tract level. This research determines there is a statistically significant positive linear relationship for four of the six New England States. Additionally, I examine spatial autocorrelation patterns among the residuals to determine if error term is clustered, dispersed, or random. Finally, I compare my results to how building codes disincentive rehabilitating buildings and incentivize greenfield development. I offer a number of policy suggestions to assist at the local, state, and Federal level …

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Environmental Highest Courts’ Decisions: Investigating The Factors That Influence Mining And Oil Cases In Ecuador, Nathalí Costa Unda Jan 2014

Environmental Highest Courts’ Decisions: Investigating The Factors That Influence Mining And Oil Cases In Ecuador, Nathalí Costa Unda

School of Public Policy Capstones

The present research is meant to find out some of the factors that influence the Ecuadorian Highest Courts decisions in environmental cases. For answering my research question I analyzed these decisions, from 1998 to 2014, which constitutes the whole population of the decisions in environmental cases. For the Capstone, I focused in oil and mining cases. The research required three steps. First was to collect data from the corps of decisions in the national Court cases. Second, was to design a database: create variables and a codebook to organize them. Third, was to develop an analysis model using this data …

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From Battery Cages To Barns: A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of A National Standard For Cage-Free Egg Production, Jonathan Ward Jan 2014

From Battery Cages To Barns: A Cost-Benefit Analysis Of A National Standard For Cage-Free Egg Production, Jonathan Ward

School of Public Policy Capstones

Legislation concerning the well being of farm animals has become a major focus in the animal rights movement, especially as it pertains to intensive confinement systems, such as housing egg-laying hens in battery cages. Informational asymmetries in the market for eggs represent a market failure, as producers have few incentives to inform consumers on modern egg production methods, which they may perceive as cruel. This study uses cost-benefit analysis to examine the effects of a hypothetical U.S. ban on caged egg production to assess whether such a standard would produce use and non-use benefits in excess of producer and consumer …

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Negotiating Invisibility: Addressing Lgbt Prejudice In China, Hong Kong, And Thailand, Hunter Gray Jan 2014

Negotiating Invisibility: Addressing Lgbt Prejudice In China, Hong Kong, And Thailand, Hunter Gray

Master's Capstone Projects

This research serves as a consolidation of information regarding the global response to LGBT prejudice, and in particular, the response of organizations situated in China, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Interviews with activists and researchers from organizations that address LGBT prejudice served as the main form of data. Findings and subsequent analysis point to the ways in which organizations respond to the lack of visibility of the LGBT community, and how this invisibility is related to various manifestations of LGBT prejudice. Strategies that organizations have developed to respond to LGBT prejudice reveal how organizations negotiate contextual variables in their attempts to …

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Patterns In Trash: Factors That Drive Municipal Solid Waste Recycling, Jared Starr Jan 2014

Patterns In Trash: Factors That Drive Municipal Solid Waste Recycling, Jared Starr

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Municipal recycling is driven by a variety of factors. Yet how these factors change over time is not well understood. I analyze a suite of contextual and program variable in multiple time periods, spanning 16 years, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Based on the models run, I reach the surprising conclusion that most program variables have an insignificant effect on recycling rates. These findings can inform municipal officials and waste managers as they seek new ways to increase municipal recycling participation.

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