Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

Causality In Contemporary American Sociology: An Empirical Assessment And Critique, Brandon Vaidyanathan, Michael Strand, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, Thomas Buschman, Meghan Davis, Amanda Varela

School of Peace Studies: Faculty Scholarship

Using a unique data set of causal usage drawn from research articles published between 2006–2008 in the American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review, this article offers an empirical assessment of causality in American sociology. Testing various aspects of what we consider the conventional wisdom on causality in the discipline, we find that (1) “variablistic” or “covering law” models are not the dominant way of making causal claims, (2) research methods affect but do not determine causal usage, and (3) the use of explicit causal language and the concept of “mechanisms” to make causal claims is limited. Instead, we …

Impacts Of Public School Choice Act Of 2013, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Public School Choice Act of 2013 (Act 1227) allows students to transfer to a nonresident district. Previous school choice law restrictions based on race, were removed in the new law. As a result, concerns have been raised about the possible negative impacts of choice on districts’ racial balance. This brief addresses these concerns by examining the impact of the Public School Choice Act of 2013 on district enrollment and racial integration.

Waste And Duplication In Nasa Programs: The Need To Enhance U.S. Space Program Efficiency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The U.S. Government faces acute budgetary deficits and national debt problems in the Obama Administration. These problems have been brought about by decades of unsustainable government spending affecting all agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA). An outgrowth of this fiscal profligacy is the presence of wasteful and duplicative programs within NASA that prevent this agency from achieving its space science and human spaceflight objectives. These problems occur due to mismanagement of these programs from NASA and the creation of these programs by the U.S. Congress and congressional committees. This occurs because congressional appropriators tend to be more …

预算幸与堕韧的中严阶层, Tan K. B. Eugene

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

Advantages Of A Polycentric Approach To Climate Change Policy, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Lack of progress in global climate negotiations has led scholars to reconsider polycentric approaches to climate policy. Several examples of subglobal mechanisms to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions have been touted, but it remains unclear why they might achieve better climate outcomes than global negotiations alone. Decades of work conducted by researchers associated with the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University have emphasized two chief advantages of polycentric approaches over monocentric ones: they provide more opportunities for experimentation and learning to improve policies over time, and they increase communications and interactions — formal and …

Quality Counts 2015, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In an attempt to gauge the educational progress of the nation and each state, Education Week has published state report cards since 1997 in its annual Quality Counts series. The 19 th annual report - Quality Counts 2015 - was released in January. Overall, Arkansas received an grade of C– and was ranked 36th among the 50 states. This policy brief examines Arkansas’ rank in each category of the report as well as the quality of the report itself.

Clash Of The Titans: Medicaid Meets Private Health Insurance, Sara J. Rosenbaum

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

Throughout its first forty-eight years of life, the federal Medicaid statute lacked a viable insurance pathway for most low-income adults' ineligible for employer-sponsored coverage. In what is arguably the most important public health achievement since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid fifty years ago, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) fundamentally alters this picture. Building on earlier breakthroughs for children, the ACA restructures Medicaid to cover poor adults and juxtaposes its new architecture against an affordable and accessible private insurance market for people ineligible for employer-sponsored or government insurance.

Torch (January 2015), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Of Drones And Justice: A Just War Theory Analysis Of The United States' Drone Campaigns, Ethan A. Wright

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

The Bathtub Ring. Shrinking Lake Mead: Impacts On Water Supply, Hydropower, Recreation And The Environment, Ning Jiang, Season Martin, Julia Morton, Skyler Murphy, Colorado River Governance Initiative

Books, Reports, and Studies

4 pages (includes color illustrations and color maps).

The Value Of Water In The Colorado River Basin: A Snapshot Of A Fluid Landscape, Brian Annes, Colorado River Governance Initiative

Books, Reports, and Studies

33 pages.

Navigating A Pathway Toward Colorado's Water Future: A Review And Recommendations On Colorado's Draft Water Plan, Lawrence J. Macdonnell, Colorado Water Working Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

40 pages (includes color illustrations).

A Look At The Interim Guidelines At Their Mid-Point: How Are We Doing?, Colorado River Research Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

4 pages.

Challenging The Political Assumption That “Guns Don’T Kill People, Crazy People Kill People!”, Heath J. Hodges, Mario Scalora

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Every time an infamous mass shooting takes place, a storm of rhetoric sweeps across this country with the fury of a wild fire. “Why are we letting these people carry guns?” “Why were they not hospitalized?” “The government needs to crack down on this issue!” What is the government’s response to these cries of concern? Politicians and the media attempt to ease public fears by drawing tenuous connections among a handful of poorly understood tragedies. The salient commonality is that these high-profile shooters had some history of mental illness. A cursory review of the Internet will paint a troubling picture …

‘Please Be A Lady… You Are Not Going To Be Heard’: The Debate Over The Ratification Of The Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women, Kasie Durkit

International ResearchScape Journal

Why did the United States fail to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women? This overarching question forms the basis of this paper and will be answered using an array of primary and secondary sources. This paper gleans most of its evidence from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings of 1994 and 2002, letters from both President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Congressional Research Service reports on CEDAW from 2013 and 2007, several Senators’ statements in the Congressional Record, Congressional testimony, and the text of the CEDAW treaty. This …

Ua12/8 Annual Campus Safety & Security Report, Wku Police

WKU Administration Documents

A statement of current campus policies regarding procedures for students and others to report criminal actions or other emergencies occurring on campus and policies concerning the institution's response to such reports.

Action For Dental Health Year Two Progress Report, American Dental Association

Action for Dental Health

No abstract provided.

Legal Primer, Hampton Roads Sea Level Rise Preparedness And Resilience Intergovernmental Pilot Project, Legal Working Goup

Hampton Roads Intergovernmental Pilot Project: Reports

A legal primer developed by the Legal Working Group of the Hampton Roads Sea Level Rise Preparedness and Resilience Intergovernmental Pilot Project. Includes a memo from Roy A. Hoagland, Chair of the IPP Legal Working Group and Director of the Virginia Coastal Policy Clinic at William & Mary Law School to Jim Redick, Chair of the IPP Steering Committee, dated August 13, 2015.

High Times: Is The Federal Legalization Of Marijuana Next? What The Food And Drug Administration Could Learn From Its Existing Regulations, Christopher B. Erly

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

This student comment examines the efficacy of marijuana being regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The author discusses and applies potential FDA regulatory models that could be used to regulate marijuana. The comment concludes marijuana could be easily regulated under the current Food and Drug Administration regulatory scheme and suggests that marijuana should be regulated in a manner akin to tobacco rather than as a drug.

The Lived Experiences Of Limited English Proficiency, Spanish-Speaking Male Ex-Offenders, Paula Nery Sanchez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of Spanish-speaking men in the United States with limited English proficiency following their release from prison. The study specifically examined the experiences of these men in their efforts to access health care treatment, housing, education, and employment in Central Pennsylvania. An empirical, phenomenological research design was employed that used self-stigma, critical race, and self-determination theories for in-depth interviews with 8 men who spent 5 to 24 years in prison. A tiered coding method was used to generate 6 interconnected themes that tell the story of these men's lives: …

Risks Of Driving While Talking On Mobile Devices: Soccer Parents' Perceptions, Tonisha Dawn Joyner-Bagby

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The number of motor vehicle accidents that occur as a result of driving while talking on

mobile devices increases each year. Distracted driving is dangerous; however, policy

researchers have not focused on adults who talk on mobile devices as they drive children

to and from daily events. This study focused on the experiences of soccer parents, an

important focus because of soccer's year-long duration that requires a large amount of

driving in addition to the other daily tasks of parenting. The purpose of this

phenomenological study was to investigate the perceptions of parents of child soccer

players regarding the motivations …

The Effect Of A State Legitimation Process On Child Support Payments And Father-Child Relationships, Chalonda L. Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

For noncustodial fathers, having legal rights and leaving an inheritance to their child or children are important aspects of being an active father. Georgia state law sees a difference between paternity and legitimation, and for some noncustodial fathers, although paternity is established and they are responsible for supporting that child financially and medically as deemed through child support enforcement, they have no legal rights to their children, nor can they petition the courts for visitation until legitimation is established. This correlational study examined the impact that the legitimation policy has on noncustodial fathers and their relationship with their child, as …

Correlations Between Childhood Obesity And Obesogenic Environmental Variables Within Durham County, North Carolina, Eureka Capri Daye

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The application of geographic information systems was used to map obesogenic conditions by zip code tabulation areas in Durham County, North Carolina and evaluated associations between those conditions and the understudied area of early childhood obesity. Of the thirty one percent of the children in Durham County, North Carolina who were considered obese in 2010, four hundred and thirty three (1:5) 2 - 4 year old children who received supplemental nutrition services for women, infants and children were obese with BMI levels greater or equal to the 95th percentile and were used as the criterion variable in the study (N=433). …

The Influence Of A Juvenile's Abuse History On Support For Sex Offender Registration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, M. C. Stevenson, J. M. Salerno, T. R. A. Wiley, B. L. Bottoms, K. M. Farnum

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We investigated whether and how a juvenile’s history of experiencing sexual abuse affects public perceptions of juvenile sex offenders in a series of 5 studies. When asked about juvenile sex offenders in an abstract manner (Studies 1 and 2), the more participants (community members and undergraduates) believed that a history of being sexually abused as a child causes later sexually abusive behavior, the less likely they were to support sex offender registration for juveniles. Yet when participants considered specific sexual offenses, a juvenile’s history of sexual abuse was not considered to be a mitigating factor. This was true when participants …

Equity By The Numbers: Measuring Poverty, Inequality, And Injustice, Matthew D. Adler

Faculty Scholarship

Can we measure inequity? Can we arrive at a number or numbers capturing the extent to which a given society is equitable or inequitable? Sometimes such questions are answered with a “no”: equity is a qualitative, non-numerical consideration.

This Article offers a different perspective. The difficulty with equity measurement is not the impossibility of quantification, but the overabundance of possible metrics. There currently exist at least four families of equity-measurement frameworks, used by scholars and, to some extent, governments: inequality metrics (such as the Gini coefficient), poverty metrics, social-gradient metrics (such as the concentration index), and equity-regarding social welfare functions. …

Coming Into The Anthropocene, Jedediah Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews Professor Jonathan Cannon’s Environment in the Balance. Cannon’s book admirably analyzes the Supreme Court’s uptake of, or refusal of, the key commitments of the environmental-law revolution of the early 1970s. In some areas the Court has adapted old doctrines, such as Standing and Commerce, to accommodate ecological insights; in other areas, such as Property, it has used older doctrines to restrain the transformative effects of environmental law. After surveying Cannon’s argument, this review diagnoses the historical moment that has made the ideological division that Cannon surveys especially salient: a time of stalled legislation, political deadlock, and …

Perceptions Of Climate Change And Water Governance Vulnerability In The Aysén Region Of Chile, Michal I. Helman

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

While the majority of Chile’s intact watersheds are located in the largely uninhabited southern Patagonia regions of the country, the majority of the Chilean population lives in the nation’s parched central regions. In the face of recent trends in climatic change, including dramatic decreases in snowpack, diminishing glaciers, and shifts in precipitation cycles and seasons, mountain contributions to local watersheds are predicted to continue dwindling as aridification worsens around the world and throughout Chile. Problems associated with aridification are further complicated by Chile’s water history, which has largely revolved around the nation’s fresh water caches subject to private claims and …

Law’S Power To Safeguard Global Health: A Lancet–O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Commission On Global Health And The Law, Lawrence O. Gostin, John T. Monahan, Mary C. Debartolo, Richard Horton

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The law-–global, national, and subnational–-plays a vital, yet often underappreciated, role in safeguarding and promoting the public’s health. In this article, we launch the Lancet-O’Neill Institute, Georgetown University Commission on Global Health and the Law. Commissioners from around the world will explore the critical opportunities and challenges of using law as a tool, while evaluating the evidence base for legal interventions. The Commission aims to define and systematically describe the current landscape of law that affects global health and safety.

Commissioners were chosen from disciplines that range from health, policy, and law to economics and governance. The Commission aims …

The Greek Debt Crisis: The Need For "Heroic" Economic Policy Reforms In The European Economic And Monetary Union, Peter Robbins

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Greece is in the midst of a devastating economic and financial crisis that the European Union has been trying ardently to resolve since the default of Lehman Brothers in 2008. A significant number of other European Union (EU) Member States are also in crisis due to various state-level economic and monetary causes. Meanwhile, the European Union has consistently used the existing treaty articles and legislation within its competence to impose traditional and homogenized austerity measures on highly indebted Member States, most notably Greece. In sum, the European Union has zealously advocated for fiscal conservatism driven by the German "diber-fear" of …

Using A Community-Based Strategy To Address The Impacts Of Globalization On Underwater Cultural Heritage Management In The Dominican Republic, Lydia Barbash-Riley

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This Note addresses the management of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) in the Dominican Republic as a case study of the effects of two aspects of globalization on cultural and environmental resource management in the developing world: the international convergence of values and the horizontal delegation of state power to private actors due to economic constraints. This Note posits that even as the global community of states moves toward a consensus on the ethical management of the UCH, this convergence combined with the global trend of horizontal delegation may incentivize some lesser-developed countries to deal with the economic pressures of …