Public Administration Commons^™

The Role Of Boundary Organisations In The Social Status Of Climate Change Knowledge, Robert Hoppe, Anne Wesselink, Rose Cairns

Robert Hoppe

A plethora of institutional forms has emerged whose remit is to link climate change science to policy-making. These can be understood as boundary organisations where science and politics meet and intertwine. This article examines the role of boundary organisations in the production and social status of climate change knowledge. A multi-level conceptual model is outlined which demonstrates how context is crucial to understanding the operation and impact of boundary organisations. The framework is applied to analyse climate governance boundary arrangements at the international level and a number of national contexts. In the framing years of the global climate change issue, …

In Third Parties We Trust? The Growing Antitrust Impact Of Third-Party Green Building Certification Systems For State And Local Governments, Darren Prum, Robert Aalberts, Stephen Del Percio

Darren A. Prum

According to the American Institute of Architects, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of municipalities with a green building program in place since 2007. And 24 of the country's 25 largest metropolitan areas are built around a city with green building legislation on its books. Reducing buildings' environmental impact is a noble - and critical - goal. But governments' reliance on private, third-party standard-setting organizations - and the rating systems that they promulgate - as the basis for that legislation may be legally problematic.

This Article reviews one of those potentially problematic bases: antitrust. In order …

Unanswered Questions Of A Minority People In International Law: A Comparative Study Between Southern Cameroons & South Sudan, Bernard Sama Mr

Bernard Sama

The month July of 2011 marked the birth of another nation in the World. The distressful journey of a minority people under the watchful eyes of the international community finally paid off with a new nation called the South Sudan . As I watched the South Sudanese celebrate independence on 9 July 2011, I was filled with joy as though they have finally landed. On a promising note, I read the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying “[t]ogether, we welcome the Republic of South Sudan to the community of nations. Together, we affirm our commitment to helping it meet its …

Data Sharing By Scientists: Practices And Perceptions, Carol Tenopir, Suzie Allard, Kimberly L. Douglass, Arsev Umur Aydinoglu, Lei Wu, Eleanor Read, Maribeth Manoff, Mike Frame

Kimberly L Douglass

Background: Scientific research in the 21st century is more data intensive and collaborative than in the past. It is important to study the data practices of researchers – data accessibility, discovery, re-use, preservation and, particularly, data sharing. Data sharing is a valuable part of the scientific method allowing for verification of results and extending research from prior results. Methodology/Principal Findings: A total of 1329 scientists participated in this survey exploring current data sharing practices and perceptions of the barriers and enablers of data sharing. Scientists do not make their data electronically available to others for various reasons, including insufficient time …

The 2011 American State Litter Scorecard:New Rankings For An Increasingly Environmentally Concerned Population, Stephen [Steve] L. Spacek

Stephen [Steve] L Spacek

By popular demand--a NEW, up-to-date State Litter "Scorecard" is now released for the 2011 ASPA Baltimore event--measuring each state’s overall environmental quality through public property/spaces debris removal efforts. The “CARD” uses tried-and-true, hard-to-publicly obtain objective and subjective measures, leading to a total overall score for each measured jurisdiction. Readers can thus gain a realistic "picture" of "what's going on" within one or all of the 50 states. Littering/dumping remains harmful, serious American environmental crimes, creating dangers to public health and safety, and contributing to the deaths of over 800 Americans in debris-attributed motor vehicle accidents. The first, original 2008 Scorecard …

Innovation Cooperation: Energy Biosciences And Law, Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

Prof. Elizabeth Burleson

This Article analyzes the development and dissemination of environmentally sound technologies that can address climate change. Climate change poses catastrophic health and security risks on a global scale. Universities, individual innovators, private firms, civil society, governments, and the United Nations can unite in the common goal to address climate change. This Article recommends means by which legal, scientific, engineering, and a host of other public and private actors can bring environmentally sound innovation into widespread use to achieve sustainable development. In particular, universities can facilitate this collaboration by fostering global innovation and diffusion networks.

An Organizational Context For Scientific Data Practices, Kimberly L. Douglass

Kimberly L Douglass

No abstract provided.

Spanning Policy Silos In Urban Development And Environmental Management: When Global Cities Are Coastal Cities Too, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

No abstract provided.

The (First) American State Litter Scorecard (2008), Stephen [Steve] L. Spacek

Stephen [Steve] L Spacek

ABSTRACT Littering is an American environmental crime, creating a danger to public health and safety. Experts nationwide have done little research on litter’s impingement upon state jurisdictional environmental degradation. Unfortunately, the 50 American states do not collect uniform litter data measures, such as volumes of waste collected, total litter eradication expenditures, the number of persons injured or killed by litter/dumping-related incidents. For the first time, a "litter scorecard" is created, measuring each state’s environmental quality indicators and litter eradication programs. The research first examines salient social and political mores that influence littering and statewide environmental degradation through a review of …

A Multiple-Perspectives Construct Of The American Global City, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

PAPER ARGUES AND TESTS THE PROPOSITION THAT THE GLOBAL CITY IS BEST DESCRIBED AND ANALYZED FROM A HOLISTIC CONSTRUCT OF COMPETING PERSPECTIVES. IT EMPLOYES FACTOR AND K-MEANS CLUSTER ANALYSIS TO DIFFERENTIATE 53 US URBANIZED AREAS.

Social Class, Politics, And Urban Markets: The Makings Of Bias In Policy Outcomes, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

No abstract provided.

Chapter 10: Upper-Middle-Class Politics And Policy Outcomes: Does Class Identity Matter?, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

This chapter in Clark and lipset's book on class in American politics resulted from a multi-day workshop at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in the summer of 1999. The piece reverses the normal causality of class politics. It does not analyze citizens in elections, but government officials creating policies. It asks why policies differ across localities (specifically public transit decisions in 42 U.S. metropolitan areas). It probes how some government officials work with an "upper-middle-class" citizenry in mind, while others do so less. The chapter then tests for differences across localities and finds quite distinct patterns. The chapter …

Institutionalism: Intergovernmental Exchange, Administration-Centered Behavior, And Policy Outcomes In Urban Agencies, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

This article inquires about the sufficiency of institutional exchange theory in explaining the impacts of intergovernmental power structure on agency policy making. Based on rational behavior, transactional exchange, and game playing, this so called new institutionalism points to the degree of autonomy held by an agency in its collaboration with other government jurisdictions as a principal determinant of a patterned bias in agency policy outcomes. The author first summarizes theory arguments and derives hypotheses about agency outcomes that are skewed to favor some interests over others. He then reports results of a multiple regression analysis of a sample of forty-two …

Global Shift In Container Traffic And Its Implications For Economic Development Along The American Land Bridge, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

Since the “container revolution” in the 1970s, seaports on the Pacific Coast have been the engines of economic development, regionally, nationally and globally. But circumstances continue to change that threaten the long-term viability of the intermodal “land bridge” system that emerged from that revolution. These circumstances include railroads not maintaining rail lines critical to transcontinental container traffic and the shift in the locus of global production that raises the question of obsolescence for the existing infrastructure moving trade West to East from the Pacific Rim. The implications are enormous, especially for policy makers at the regional and local levels as …

Analyzing Performance Skewness In Public Agencies: The Case Of Urban Mass Transit, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

Previous studies of public organizational performance have focused mostly on operating efficiency, without dealing with the complex accountability problems associated with plural public interests. The fact that an agency exhibits multiple and often paradoxical performances has not been of comparable concern. This failure to account for performance in a multiple-constituencies context has led to a narrow view of how well agencies do. To broaden the research on agency performance, a multiple-constituencies model is introduced and tested for statistically significant variances. The findings confirm the model's robustness in structuring a dependent variable for empirical research on why agencies perform toward different …

Turbulent Transition And Organizational Change: Relating Policy Outcomes To Strategic Administrative Capacities, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

A competitive public economy places greater burden on agencies to cope with uncertainty and change, especially in periods of "turbulent transition." As transition provides new opportunity, we find great variance in the ability of agencies to defend, enlarge or change their public domains. Administrative adroitness seems to be related to both adequate perception concerning change and the capacity to process reliable information, plan innovative programs, and manage conflicting demands. This article looks at critical variables which show promise in explaining how public organizations enlarge their discretion in policy formulation and service delivery during transitional periods. It assesses them empirically using …

Strategic Planning Of Seaport Development In A Global Economy: Observations Of An Executive Port Director, Herman L. Boschken

Herman L. Boschken

Seaport management is central both to the use of coastal resources and to the needs of a global economy. As a major point of supply-chain activity along the coast and as a source of pollution, ports need to be administered strategically to provide the greatest benefit according to economic and environmental demands. This article is an annotated conversation that provides a practitioner's insight into the management of change along the coastal zone. To address the problem, we probe organization theory for new insight and attempt to apply concepts to practice.