Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons^™

Carceral Degrees: Successful Postsecondary Educational Pathways For Students Impacted By The Criminal Justice System In Maine, Mara Sanchez Phd

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

The benefits of postsecondary degrees are striking for populations who have experienced incarceration, yet little is understood about how this population succeeds with educational attainment upon release from incarceration. This qualitative collective case study examined to what extent and how six formerly incarcerated individuals who started educational programming while incarcerated successfully persisted with postsecondary degrees after being released back into Maine communities. This study found that participants related education to self-care or treatment, described their own education journeys as different, or taking a different path, and felt motivated to persist with education despite external expectations, which one participant labeled “transformational …

Redefining Missing In The Third Space Of Sovereignty: Collaborative Governance On Idaho's Missing And Murdered Indigenous Persons Policy, Melanie Fillmore

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This three-article dissertation addresses how Indigenous and non-Indigenous state and non-state policy actors collaborating on Idaho missing and murdered Indigenous persons (MMIP) policy shift the Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance (IFCG) policy context to the ‘third space of sovereignty’ (Bruyneel, 2007). In a space of competing narratives of authority across time, and space, paper one addresses how Indigenous and non-Indigenous policy actors are shaped by the “drivers” of collaboration. The second paper addresses three key configurations of collaborative governance regimes. The third paper reassesses the scope of Idaho MMIP through a comparison of MMIP cases in 2021 and 2023 as …

Oregon Community College Trustee Survey: A Look At The Role Of Ambition And Recruitment In Community College Board Members’ Decision To Run For Elected Office, Abby Lee

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Previous research on candidate emergence has typically focused on high-profile national and state offices. Absent from this topic is a focused interest in community college trustees and the factors contributing to their taking a trustee position, including their recruitment to a board (Mellow & Heelan, 2008). Through the lens of candidate ambition theory and political recruitment theory, this study investigated the demographics, characteristics, and perceptions of elected Oregon community college trustees concerning their recruitment and ambitions for service as board members. My research addressed the following three questions:

1. What role, if any, does recruitment play in the decision to serve …

Human Rights Violations Against Legal Immigrants In Minnesota, John Ewu

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite legal entitlements to protections under the International Bill of Human Rights, legal immigrants in Minnesota face human rights violations, including discrimination, harassment, and denial of essential services. These violations hinder their well-being, social integration, and economic stability, exacerbate existing disparities, and their ability to provide for their families and secure legal representation. The purpose of this study was to provide information that could be used in considering policy reforms to improve the treatment of immigrants in Minnesota. This was achieved by exploring how Mexican, Somali, and Hmong legal immigrants experienced human rights violations in Minnesota as a vulnerable population …

Health Professional Regulation And Provision Of Quality Health Services; Cross Sectional Analysis Of Private Health Care Providers In Wajir County, Kenya, Ali Ahmed Mohamed Qadar, Wanja Mwaura-Tenambergen, Eunice Muthoni, Luke Wahome Kinyua

Population Health, East Africa

Background: Health professional regulatory bodies oversee and enforce standards in healthcare to safeguard patient safety and prevent harm. However, international consistency in these regulations remains limited. The Kenya health sector relies on various bodies to enforce standards among professionals and institutions, albeit constrained by financial and human resources that hinder effective oversight. This study aimed to assess how regulatory practicessuch as licensing, training oversight, inspection of practice, and quality assurance mechanisms- affect the quality of healthcare provided by private providers.

Methods: The study targeted 108 healthcare providers from 36 private health facilities, primarily nurses and clinical officers. A sample of …

Coproduction Revisited: From Theory To Practice., Brenton Clarke Hereford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coproduction, or the interaction of citizens with their public service provider, has been used in policy responses to a myriad of service delivery problems, especially policing. This dissertation uses a three-manuscript approach to revisit coproduction both as a theory and a practice. The first manuscript tracks the evolution of coproduction as a theory from three different disciplines: economics, urban theory, and public administration. In addressing the three disciplines, the manuscript explains what broadly united the coproduction literature and the differences that hindered the early development of the concept. It concludes with how the concept is used today, and how future …

American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa) Local Government Investments In Nevada, Sean Curry, Madison Dwyer, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet examines data from the Brooking Institution’s Local Government ARPA Investment Tracker, an online database that tracks the spending of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund dollars at the local government level. This fact sheet examines ARPA spending data from six Nevadan cities and counties: Washoe, NV; City of North Las Vegas, NV; City of Las Vegas, NV; City of Reno NV; City of Henderson, NV; and Clark County, NV.

Cyber Threats, Cyber Risks, And Cybersecurity Responses: Modeling Whole-Of-Nation Strategy Implementation For American Organizations And Citizens, Vincent Leon Guerrero

All Dissertations

Amid a landscape of cyber attacks on America occurring below the threshold of armed conflict, strategic national policy efforts recommend a whole-of-nation approach where individuals and public and private organizations increase their defensive posture in cyberspace. Motivation to address the risk of a cyber event includes a continuum of cyber threats that can range from low-level disruptive events to cybercrime and cyber espionage to the possibility of a potentially catastrophic attack on critical infrastructure. In this dissertation, I conduct a survey experiment of various cyber threat conditions and cyber policies to model cybersecurity responses, risk perceptions to a possible cyber …

Cultural Theory And Climate Change Risk Perceptions: Factors That Affect Support For Climate Change Mitigation Policy In Arkansas, Benjamin Galloway

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intricate interplay between climate change perceptions, policy preferences, and the role of Cultural Theory in shaping public opinion. It begins by acknowledging the multifaceted impact of the climate crisis and emphasizing the critical importance of policy responses to mitigate its effects. Recognizing the diverse perspectives within the general public, the dissertation adopts a nuanced approach, leveraging Cultural Theory to investigate climate change risk perceptions and policy preferences. First, I examine disparities in fracking policy preferences between the general public and policy elites, employing Narrative Policy Framework-style narrative treatments. It reveals divergent responses to narrative elements, signaling …

Beyond Single Connections: An Exploration Of How Overlapping Networks Drive Policy Change Among State Legislators, Melanie B. Hoskins

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current research on policy diffusion and innovation primarily focuses on the policy idea as the unit of analysis. While diffusion studies incorporating social network theory often examine networks at the collective entity-level, they tend to neglect the actions of individual members. This study investigates how state legislators' exposure to novel policy ideas through their multiplex network ties influences their sponsorship of related bills and how legislators’ collaboration and coordination within these networks may significantly impact public policy outcomes. This three-article dissertation addresses three key areas by: 1) examining Arkansas legislators' participation within the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) network; 2) …

Is Parking Cash-Out Worth It? Comparing Cost-Effectiveness And Climate And Equity Benefits In The Bay Area And South Coast Air Quality Management Districts, Fynnwin Prager, Tianjun Lu, Ashley Membere, Parveen Chhetri

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research explores the potential impacts of California parking cash-out policy changes on the Bay Area and LA County. Parking cash-out—a California law since 1992—requires that certain qualifying employers who subsidize employee parking offer employees the option to give up their parking space and receive cash instead. Studies show parking cash-out substantially reduces VMT and emissions, yet enforcement remains voluntary. Current policy covers few firms (<1%) and employees (around 11%) in the study regions. Policy reform to include companies with 20+ employees could increase this to 18%. Our experimental-design survey (n=963) explores behavioral changes in response to multiple policy variables and finds that 76.9% of employees would accept cash-out if offered, and that participants who had to pay the market rate for parking and were full-time commuters were more likely to switch to using public transportation at lower cash minimums. VMT related to employees covered by parking cash-out are substantial (5.6 million in the Bay Area; 5.7 million in LA County), and account for a combined 6,593 daily tons of GHG. As even limited adoption could have significant environmental benefits, parking cash-out would be a more cost-effective approach to reducing VMT than traditional TDM programs such as trip-reduction programs, workplace parking taxation, or transit subsidies and road diets, though further evidence on the direct influence of parking cash-out on commuter behavior is needed.

Impact Of Placement Disruption On School Outcomes In Maltreated Youth, Mallory Constantine

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

School attendance is a crucial component of a youth’s ability to access resources and attain educational success. Maltreated youth are at increased risk for school absences, poor school performance, impairment in cognitive processes, and development of psychopathology. Disruption from their known systems (i.e., family, social, school) as a result of removal from home creates unique and substantial barriers for maltreated youth in attending and engaging in school. The present study used a sample of maltreated youth and binomial logistic regression analyses to determine if the number of lifetime placements impacts school outcome variables of school attendance, classroom behavior, and academic …

The Effect Of Crime On Tourism In Indonesia, Muhammad Farhan, Hera Susanti

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Tourism sector is widely known as one of economic sectors that can be the engine of economic growth in an effort to reduce poverty in a country. However, growth in the tourism sector can be influenced by safety factors. Tourists tend to avoid tourism destination areas with high crime rates in order to avoid becoming victims of crime. This study aims to analyze the effect of crime on the number of tourist arrivals in Indonesia by using four proxies of crime, which are total crime rate, property crime rate, violent crime rate, and fraud crime rate. This study utilizes a …

Participating In Childcare Subsidy Programs Increases Employment And Annual Earnings For Working Parents, William Clay Fannin, Colleen Heflin, Taryn Morrissey, Siobhan O'Keefe

Center for Policy Research

Finding affordable childcare can be a struggle. Childcare subsidy programs help reduce barriers to stable childcare options and support parents’ employment, but due to administrative hurdles, such as recertification periods and income reporting requirements, many eligible parents are not using these programs. Using quarterly employment and earnings data from 2016-2019 Virginia administrative data, this brief describes associations between childcare subsidy program participation and household employment and earnings outcomes among low-income families in Virginia. Results show that, following initial childcare subsidy receipt, working parents increased their labor force participation, earned more money, and experienced more economic and employment stability compared to …

Advocating For Data Access, Nathan D. Grawe

Numeracy

Participants in the numeracy movement have long recognized that an understanding of the social construction of quantitative evidence holds a place in the center of critical thinking about quantitative reasoning. Often, social construction manifests itself in choices about what should be counted and how. But an equally important choice is what data should be made available and to whom. As the movement matures, numeracy advocates must take their place alongside librarians in lobbying for broad access to basic data related to public policy.

Integrate To Win From Competition Through Conflict: Create A Joint Force Information Warfare Component Commander, Tam N. Pham, Walter A. Berbrick

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhroughout the history of warfare, militaries have sought advantages by conducting information warfare (IW) to affect the perception and behavior of adversaries. Advances in IW capabilities are increasing the reach, speed, and effectiveness by which individuals, organizations, and systems can collect, process, disseminate, or act on information—and deny adversaries the same. The United States is not the only power to recognize the importance of IW in achieving national objectives. Russia and China have made great strides in improving and employing their IW capabilities to offset U.S. joint (and allied combined) forces in competition and conflict. Russia’s and China’s ability to …

The New Fire: War, Peace, And Democracy In The Age Of Ai, John P. Ringquist

Joint Force Quarterly

Ιn November 2023, the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer of the Department of Defense (DOD), Craig Martell, stated, “Technologies evolve. Things are going to change next week, next year, next decade. And what wins today might not win tomorrow.” This sense of rapid technological change and disruption echoes what Ben Buchanan and Andrew Imbrie have written in The New Fire. The authors are deeply steeped in the world of cyber and AI. Buchanan is the former Director of the CyberAI Project at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), currently Special Advisor for AI at …

The Political Thought Of Xi Jinping, Ian Forsyth

Joint Force Quarterly

Νot long after Xi Jinping assumed the post of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in November 2012, a debate among China-watchers emerged over the nature of Xi’s leadership. How ambitious was he? Would he try to change the norms of institutionalization that had existed since Mao Zedong’s death in 1976? What bureaucratic constraints would he face, and could he overcome them?

From Peril To Partnership: U.S. Security Assistance And The Bid To Stabilize Colombia And Mexico, Nerea M. Cal

Joint Force Quarterly

Recent scrutiny from Congress on U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan has stimulated among both scholars and practitioners an increased interest in the topic of security assistance. One book that neatly bridges the gap between these two communities is Paul J. Angelo’s From Peril to Partnership. In this comprehensive and detailed account, Angelo conducts a comparative historical analysis of two multibillion-dollar security assistance initiatives—Plan Colombia in Colombia from 2000 to 2011 and the Mérida Initiative in Mexico from 2007 to 2016—to assess the effects of security-sector reform in different domestic contexts.

Five Truths For Foreign Area Officers, Michael L. Burgoyne, Albert “Jim” J. Marckwardt

Joint Force Quarterly

Colonel John Collins served in the U.S. Army through three wars and went on to be a revered military strategist and scholar. He founded the Warlord Loop, an organization of defense and security thinkers that remains active today. In 1987, Collins captured five “truths” regarding special operations forces. In so doing, Collins helped define the principles and attributes of special operations forces, which had been misunderstood by the larger conventional military. Foreign area officer (FAO) is another often misunderstood specialty in the military that would also benefit greatly from an exploration of its own truths. This is especially important given …

Winning In The Competition Continuum With Engineer Civic Assistance Projects, James M. Ward

Joint Force Quarterly

With a credible threat gap between the United States and competitor states shrinking, strategic dialogues increasingly emphasize competition to gain relative superiority prior to armed conflict.1 To frame the term competition, Joint Doctrine Note (JDN) 1-19, Competition Continuum, states, “Rather than a world either at peace or at war, the competition continuum describes a world of enduring competition conducted through a mixture of cooperation, competition below armed conflict, and armed conflict.”2 The JDN 1-19 perspective suggests that a state’s policies and objectives vary by its temporal position in the competition continuum.

The World Is Not About Us: Information And Power In The Current Strategic Environment, Will Reno, Jesse R. Humpal

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe Taj Mahal Guest House made a unique offer: Give us data, get beer.1 The Jalalabad, Afghanistan, café offered beer to anyone who brought video files, voice recordings, documents, and data dumps. The Taj shut down after Jalalabad became too hostile to outsiders, but not before its proprietors amassed extensive fine-grained data on local political and economic matters and supported projects that set up communications networks for local people. At least as important was the Taj’s role in facilitating informal personal relationships across government (foreign and local), commercial, humanitarian, and ordinary social networks. While not overtly a U.S.-led information operation, …

Cognitive Warfare: The Fight For Gray Matter In The Digital Gray Zone, Michael J. Cheatham, Angelique M. Geyer, Priscella A. Nohle, Jonathan E. Vazquez

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe United States is facing unprecedented challenges in the cognitive domain. While democracies struggle to develop frameworks that promote collective understanding, adversaries are employing gray zone tactics—those that never rise to the level of war—as a form of cognitive warfare against the United States and other democratic societies. François du Cluzel, head of innovative projects at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s Allied Command Transformation Innovation Hub, describes the key distinctions of the emerging cognitive domain:

Cognitive warfare degrades the capacity to know, produce, or thwart knowledge. Cognitive sciences cover all the sciences that concern knowledge and its processes (psychology, …

A New Army Air Force, R.D. Hooker Jr.

Joint Force Quarterly

Αfter 75 years, it is time. The U.S. Army needs its own airplanes for sound reasons that deserve careful consideration. This bold assertion should draw a strong reaction from Airmen, but the simple truth is that close air support (CAS) for the Army runs counter to everything an independent, strategic air force stands for. In war after war, bitter inter-Service rivalry recurs over the use of airpower. In the end, the Army needs fixed-wing combat aircraft for the same reasons that the Navy and Marine Corps do. Moreover, the Army cannot get reliable CAS from the Air Force, and its …

After Afghanistan: The Need For A New Noncombatant Evacuation Operation, E.R. "Elle" Klein

Joint Force Quarterly

With the noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) in Afghanistan almost 3 years past and a NEO in South Korea an ever-present possibility, it is time to reevaluate the framework that governs the roles and responsibilities of Federal agencies in these life-and-death operations. What the Afghanistan NEO demonstrated—and what conflict on the Korean Peninsula bodes—is that the present framework buckles, if not collapses, under pressure. The United States must rethink the way it conducts NEOs if it is to properly protect noncombatant U.S. persons and allies in the increasingly unstable geopolitical terrain. This article argues that it is time for a new …

The Marine Corps The United States Needs, Adam Clemens

Joint Force Quarterly

Τhe U.S. Marine Corps is in the process of a bold modernization initiative known as Force Design, and Congress has called for an independent review, assessment, and analysis of this initiative.1 Force Design began during the tenure of the previous commandant, General David H. Berger, and the new commandant, General Eric M. Smith, sworn in last year, endorses it in his official guidance, FRAGO (Fragmentary Order) 01-2024, Maintain Momentum.2 The continuation of Force Design under a new commandant and the congressional attention it is receiving provide opportune circumstances to consider the Marine Corps’ roles and missions.

Engines Of Chaos: Counterlogistics In Competition, 2023-A Class Of The Advanced Logistics Readiness Officer Course

Joint Force Quarterly

U.S. success at the operational level of war has led to a blossoming of competition in domains below the level of open hostility. The 2023 Joint Concept for Competing (JCC) points out that our adversaries seek to “win without fighting” and that the joint force is at risk of “losing without fighting.”2 The JCC attempts to reorient the joint force to better compete below the level of high-intensity conflict.

Jointness As Virtue: Increasing The Value Of Joint Qualification To The Joint Force And Services, Thomas D. Crimmins, Eric S. Fowler, Daryl A. Chamberlain

Joint Force Quarterly

Ιn “Balancing Nonresident Joint Professional Military Education With Military Life,” Commander Doug Morea makes the salient point that the current joint professional military education (JPME) process fails the individual joint warfighter in preparing for the challenges of serving in combatant commands and other joint forces.1 As joint educators, we agree with Commander Morea’s premise and offer that the current JPME model not only fails the individual joint warfighter but is also wholly inadequate for what the joint force requires both today and in an uncertain future. From the start, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense (DOD) Reorganization Act of 1986 enshrined …

Balancing Nonresident Joint Professional Military Education With Military Life, Douglas M. Morea

Joint Force Quarterly

Education has been a top focus in the United States since its earliest days. The Nation’s leaders have recognized the importance of dedicated, formal military education for over two hundred years. Although training in the field, wartime experience, and studying the military profession in foreign countries provided benefits, leaders such as George Washington, Henry Knox, and Alexander Hamilton understood more was needed. The United States would fail in the face of future challenges if its military leaders were not well-versed in the art and science of war.

In Memoriam: Douglas Michael “Dorothy” Morea Commander, U.S. Navy, National Defense University Press

Joint Force Quarterly

Commander Doug “Dorothy” Morea hailed from Port Washington, New York, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering. Doug earned his Wings of Gold in July 2006 and began training in the F/A-18 Hornet shortly thereafter.