Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons^™

Fish Landings At The World’S Commercial Fishing Ports, Tim Huntington, Fiona Nimmo, Graeme Macfadyen

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

In 2009, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) adopted the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing (PSMA). Countries that ratify the treaty commit to exert greater control at ports over foreign-flagged vessels to detect IUU catch before it is offloaded from vessels, and prevent the ill-gotten catch from entering the world’s markets. The PSMA, when effectively implemented globally, will be a major deterrent to IUU fishing. A major challenge to selecting ports for enhanced controls has been the lack of data on which ports are the world’s largest …

Advocacy In Action: A Framework For Implementation Of The American Counselors Association Advocacy Competencies On A Local Level, Jeffrey M. Lown

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Despite calls from within the professional field and external forces, counselors have faced ongoing challenges in their efforts to be effective advocates for their clients and themselves. A review of the literature reveals that throughout the history of the profession, prominent figures have called on counselors to assume advocacy roles, and that some initiatives have been successful in fostering lasting change. However, as counselors and their clients’ needs continue to evolve, so too must strategies to address these needs be reevaluated and new initiatives put into place.

In this paper, I have outlined a committee structure and agenda that seeks …

Adapting To Climate Change: The Case Of Multi-Level Governance And Municipal Adaptation Planning In Nova Scotia, Canada, Brennan A. Vogel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada to use the gas tax as a financial incentive to create a regulatory mandate for ‘Municipal Climate Change Action Plans’ (MCCAPs). The MCCAP adaptation policy mandate initiated and enabled climate change vulnerability assessment and the development of climate risk priorities and adaptation plans to uniformly occur at the local scale in 53 Nova Scotian municipalities. This dissertation seeks to answer the question: What are the social factors that impacted municipal climate change adaptation policy and planning processes in the multi-level governance context of Nova Scotia’s MCCAP?

The study develops and operationalizes a …

Opening Address: Mark Ensalaco, University Of Dayton Human Rights Center, Mark Ensalaco

Mark Ensalaco

No abstract provided.

Applications Of Cultural Theory And Empirical Analysis Of Sustainable Energy Policy Preferences In Arkansas, John Henry Kester Iii

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The local policy arena is ripe for research on policy elite decisionmaking because where policy diffusion is concerned, previous studies focus on state-to-state and city-to-city dynamics. Therefore, there is a significant opportunity to expand understanding about the adoption of policies and policy diffusion at the local level. Identification of individual level determinants that signify policy adoption is a cornerstone to fostering this knowledge. This study examines such preference indicators found among policy elites in select Arkansas cities. For this research, the primary theoretical perspective for evaluating individual determinants is cultural theory, which has shown strong correlation to individual policy preference …

Plenary Dialogue: Sustainable Human Development, J. Brinkmoeller, Ejim Dike, Kate Donald, Natalie Hudson, Jane Sloane

Natalie Florea Hudson

J. Mark Brinkmoeller is director of the Center for Faith-based and Community Initiatives with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Ejim Dike is executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network. Kate Donald is director of the Human Rights in Development program at the Center for Economic and Social Rights. Natalie Hudson is director of the Human Rights Studies program at the University of Dayton. Jane Sloane is vice president of programs for the Global Fund for Women.

Analysis Of The Impact Of Technological Change On The Cost Of Achieving Climate Change Mitigation Targets, Robert W. Barron

Doctoral Dissertations

There is widespread consensus that low carbon energy technologies will play a key role in the future global energy system. Many of the low-carbon technologies under consideration are not yet commercially available, and their ultimate value depends on a host of deeply uncertain socioeconomic, environmental, and technological considerations. While it is clear that significant investment in the energy system is needed, the optimal allocation of these investments is unclear. This dissertation develops a methodology for (1) analyzing the impact of low carbon energy technologies on the cost of meeting emission reduction targets (policy cost) and (2) using this information to …

Presentation: Malawi Research Practicum, Richard Ghere

Richard K. Ghere

To train future human rights advocates and development professionals, the University of Dayton Department of Political Science sponsors an applied research practicum for undergraduate students in Malawi. Working closely with Determined to Develop, a Karonga-based NGO founded and directed by the University of Dayton alumnus Matt Maroon '06, practicum students spend eight weeks living, learning, and serving in the northern region of Malawi. Mr. Maroon serves as the practicum’s in-country coordinator and hosts the students at his economic development lodge, Maji Zuwa. Working closely with the local community leaders and organizations and other Malawian university students, each practicum student designs …

Contemporary Rhetoric, Ethics, And Human Rights Advocacy (Abstract), Richard K. Ghere, Kathleen Brittamart Watters

Richard K. Ghere

This paper will discuss how rhetorical analysis might interpret current ethics conversation related to governance and re-position some of its touchstone rationales. Specifically, efforts in this paper will apply the ideas of preeminent rhetorician Gerald Hauser (the current editor of Philosophy and Rhetoric) about human rights discourses and of a reticulate (variegated) public sphere to intersection of governance and human rights advocacy. Specifically, our paper will examine the rhetoric of various “exemplars” who advocate for causes and actions pertaining to human rights in particular contexts. In particular, we will incorporate case studies reviewing the public actions of the Russian rock …

Literature And Human Rights Violations In U.S. Borderlands (Abstract), Tereza M. Szeghi

Tereza M. Szeghi

This paper offers a comparative assessment of how Ana Castillo (in The Guardians) and Louise Erdrich (in The Round House) craft overtly didactic novels as a means of raising awareness about contemporary human rights violations in the U.S-Mexico and Ojibwe borderlands, respectively. I argue that placing their novels in conversation with one another calls attention to the ways that excess policing of borders and ambiguities regarding jurisdiction in border zones both (albeit differentially) contribute to human rights violations. It is not part of the general U.S. consciousness to think about our internal borderlands (i.e., those surrounding tribal lands), but when …

Privacy And Freedom Of Information In Organizational Contexts: Human Rights Issues In An Era Of Big Data (Abstract), Jo Ann Oravec

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Large-scale information collection and dissemination practices are acquiring greater economic and political significance in the everyday lives of citizens. Privacy and freedom of information issues are becoming more complex as “big data” and machine learning replace traditional forms of dossier collection, statistical analysis, and archiving. This paper explores the varieties of human rights issues that are emerging. The enormous amounts of data associated with social media systems and mobile applications have increased the number of facial recognition, locational tracking, socioeconomic analysis, and related practices being conducted by corporations as well as governmental agencies.

Often corporations and governmental agencies couple their …

Detaining Dialogue: Framing Treatment During The 2013 Guantánamo Hunger Strike (Abstract), Kristen Traynor

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In recent years, prisoner treatment during the “War on Terror” has re-emerged as a prominent topic in news headlines and government debate. However, the media’s framing of such treatment toward prisoners at Guantánamo Bay has received scant scholarly attention compared to that of Abu Ghraib.

With a focus on elite and media framing of treatment during the prisoner hunger strike from February to August of 2013, the goal of this paper is to explain whether government portrayal of prisoner treatment influenced the way the media framed the situation or whether the media acted with more autonomy. In the study, I …

Reciprocal Critique: A Dialectical Engagement Of Theology And Human Rights Discourse (Abstract), Diane Yeager

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Nicholas Wolterstorff puts the problem baldly: “The relation of Christians to human rights is a troubled relationship. It was not always so; it became so in the twentieth century.” A reviewer has accurately (if perhaps overdramatically) pointed out that “the assumption that rights talk is anathema to theology” functions as the ”chief impetus” propelling Ethna Regan’s ambitious and provocative Theology and the Boundary Discourse of Human Rights (2010).

While much of the discussion generated by Regan’s argument has centered on her efforts to show the constructive convergence of moral theology and the human rights movement (which she manages dialectically …

Religious Freedom And The Right To Convert: Laws Against Forcible Or Induced Conversion In India (Abstract), Laura Dudley Jenkins

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In early 2015 several Hindu nationalist leaders India have called for a national law against forcible or induced conversion. Laws against “forcible conversion” have been proposed and enacted an increasing number of Indian states in recent years. Some laws include higher penalties for conversions of lower castes or women, reinforcing paternalistic assumptions that they lack the agency or ability to determine their own religion. Based on their timing, anti-conversion laws seem to be politically motivated, used to rally the Hindu majority during elections by playing on fears of their declining numbers and potential threats of mass conversions. Both proponents and …

Catholic Social Teaching And Economic Rights (Abstract), John Sniegocki

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Catholic Social Teaching (CST) has much to contribute to ongoing discussions of human rights. One important feature of CST is its holistic understanding of human rights, which includes social and economic rights along with political/civil rights. This paper will explore the understandings of economic rights and of economic democracy that are developed in the Catholic social tradition, with particular attention to the thought of Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis.

Some implications of these concepts for current realities in the United States and globally will be highlighted. Attention will also be given to critics of economic rights and economic …

De-Centering The Human: Moroccan Islamists And Human Rights (Abstract), Ahmed Khanani

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In a critical contribution to contemporary rights conversations, Blattberg argues that “human rights talk” is simply too “thin” (2009). In particular, he argues that a flaw in scholarly conversations is the move to abstraction: the human is insufficient because it is impersonal. Blattberg lodges this criticism against a host of liberal thinkers, including Nussbaum and Walzer, and contends that the move to abstraction hinders calls to justice insofar as it fails to invest actors in the plights of other people. Yet, even as Blattberg calls to personalize the people to be protected, he does not elaborate on how to flesh …

Social Movements, Protest, And Human Rights: Latin America And Beyond (Abstract), James C. Franklin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The basis of this paper is research I have conducted into protests in Latin America. By recording the demands and actors involved in protests, I have been able to assess human rights-related protests. This, in turn, allows a systematic investigation of the relationship between social movements and human rights. One principal finding is that there are two different types of human rights contention. Argentina and Guatemala experienced national human rights movements, led by human rights organizations and focused on general human rights problems and solutions.

The other countries I studied in the region (Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) experienced …

Turn Up The Volume: The Amplification Of Shame (Abstract), Baekkwan Park, Amanda Murdie, David Davis

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

One important strategy that HROs, and other actors, employ to call attention to human rights abuses around the world is “naming and shaming.” By calling attention to governments for their human rights violations, HROs hope to galvanize world public opinion and increase pressure on these states to halt abuses. While some HROs, like Amnesty International, communicate directly with their large membership bases, the vast majority of HROs rely on the international media to communicate their message to the international community.

Issuing reports and press releases is a major part of their strategy the international community aware of abuses The more …

Human Rights-Based Activism: Lessons From Health Activism In South Africa And Brazil (Abstract), Kristi Heather Kenyon, Regiane Garcia

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Drawing on South Africa and Brazil’s experiences of health activism, this paper aims to provide a full illustration of how human rights-based (HRB) activism can function as an influential agency-based social determinant of health. Social determinants of health (SDH) are usually understood as circumstances and structures that disadvantage individuals by increasing their vulnerability to disease and injury. SDH are typically conceived of as conditions that act upon individuals and communities who are relatively powerless to react against the health impacts of context such as poverty and marginalization.

In addition to this ‘passive’ understanding of SDH, we put forward an ‘active’ …

International Organizations As Normative Agenda Setters: Social Influence And Reputational Costs In The Effects Of The International Human Rights Regime, Alejandro Anaya-Muñoz, Aldo F. Ponce

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This paper focuses on the question of how International Organizations (IOs) influence states. In particular, we assess the role of the mechanism of social influence in shaping states’ normative (discursive) behavior, by looking at the “reporting procedure” of the Human Rights Committee (HRC) of the United Nations (UN). Our study finds that in the definition of the substantive content of their “periodic reports,” states follow the human rights agenda set by the HRC in its “concluding observations.” In this sense, we provide systematic evidence that shows that, through social influence, even poorly “legalized” IOs can have an influence over state …