Public Administration Commons^™

Can Non-State Certification Systems Bolster State-Centered Efforts To Promote Sustainable Development Through The Clean Development Mechanism, Jonathan G.S. Koppell, Kelly Levin, Benjamin Cashore

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Increasing economic globalization has coincided with the emergence and escalating influence of non-state actors and organizations in domestic and international policymaking, from shaping policy agendas to promoting private authority. The latter phenomenon has arisen, at least in part, from a critique of states' failures to adopt effective and enduring environmental policies. Rather than contest "command and control" institutions, non-state strategies embrace market approaches built around incentives and price mechanisms. Several forms of non-state authority have emerged, including corporate social responsibility, provision of information through labeling, and self-reporting.

How An Ethnic Store Impacts A Community - The Case Of Kam Sen Foods In White Plains, Tiantian Tang

Master in Public Administration Theses

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Public Administration, Dyson College of ARts and Sciences, Pace Universtiy.

The Managing Of The Presidency: Applying Theory-Driven Empirical Models To The Study Of White House Bureaucratic Performance, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

We argue that scholars of the presidency should begin to apply their rich descriptive understanding of White House organization and personnel to questions of causality. To help guide this effort, we offer a theory-driven empirical model that explains organizational performance. Importing theory from the public management literature, we show how scholars can use the Meier-O'Toole (MO) model to explain performance outcomes and dynamics for key political and policy functions within the institutional presidency. We introduce the MO model and discuss its potential impact on the field of presidency studies.

Obama’S Empty Cupboard: Contending With Administrative Vacancies And The Threat To Neutral Competence, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos

Departmental Papers (PS)

In this essay, we focus on the public administration challenge concerning the rising number of politically motivated administrative vacancies resulting from George W. Bush's tenure in office with which President Barack Obama must now contend. We argue that the hyper-politicization of personnel decision-making during the presidency of George W. Bush left many parts of the federal bureaucracy understaffed, yet more densely populated by staffers chosen more for ideological and political congruence than administrative competence. For President Obama to achieve key aspects of his policy agenda, he must first attend to fixing these staffing problems and then to reforming the personnel …

The Effect Of Mental Models On Creating Organizational Alignment Around A Change Vision, William A. Brantley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The communication of an organizational change vision is a key to the success of organizational transformation. Theorists have prescribed models of how to make change vision communication successful but these models have no empirical data to support them. The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy of change agents in communicating a change vision that compels employees to accept a perception of reality (mental model) that aligned with the change agents' vision. A case study of the merger of two metropolitan agencies was conducted to examine the relationship between the communication of a change vision and its effect …

Jessica Burley On Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. By Richard Dowden (New York: Public Affairs, 2009). 592 Pp., Jessica Burley

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles. By Richard Dowden (New York: Public Affairs, 2009). 592 pp.

Faith-Based Assumptions About Performance: Does Church Affiliation Matter For Service Quality And Access?, Anna A. Amirkhanyan, Hyun Joon Kim, Kristina T. Lambright

Public Administration Faculty Scholarship

To date, the common rhetoric and assumptions on the performance of faith-based organizations (FBOs), ironically, appear to be faith based rather than empirically supported: There is a paucity of research evaluating the effectiveness of FBOs that uses sufficiently rigorous methods and multiple measures of organizational performance. This study seeks to inform the debate on the relative effectiveness of FBOs by comparing religiously affiliated and secular nonprofit nursing homes using two distinct but complementary measures of organizational performance: service quality and access for impoverished clients. Using nationally representative panel data on 11,877 church-affiliated and secular nonprofit nursing homes, this study examines …

Determinants Of Increased Safety Belt Use By High School Students In Motor Vehicles: The Influence Of Parents And Peers And Implications For Virginia's Graduated Driver Licensing Laws, Georjeane Linley Blumling

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of injuries and fatalities for persons 15-19 years of age in the United States. The higher fatality rate is caused in part from the lack of driving experience and the increased risk taking behaviors of adolescent drivers. Graduated driver licensing laws have been enacted in most states to address the risks associated with inexperience by adding restrictions on nighttime driving and limiting the number of teen passengers in the vehicle for novice drivers.

Inconsistent use or non-use of a safety belt when riding in a motor vehicle is a prevalent risk taking …

Collaboration As Paradox : The Case Of The Patuxent River, Md Nutrient Control Strategy, Morris Bidjerano

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Collaboration has increasingly emerged in recent years as a new paradigm in public management. This collaborative trend, however, has contradicted the longstanding American political tradition of conflictual contestation of competing interests and adversarial legalism. Consequently, it has presented public managers with the challenge of dealing in reality with the "tensions between alternative forms of management practice" (Huxham and Vangen 2005, 245). In most accounts, watershed management has recently become a particularly active arena for that clash of opposing collaborative and conflictual managerial practices.

A Case Study Of Intended And Implemented Tanf Policies In The New York State Bridge Program, Yi-Jung Wu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act changed public policy. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), affecting both educational policy and social welfare policy. Simultaneously, policy implementation responsibilities devolved to states.

Federalism, Intergovernmental Relations And Implementation : A Broad Examination Of The Politics Of Medicaid Disenrollment, Kathleen Marie Dalton

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Variation in the Medicaid program has frequently been studied across states, and considered a product of political, fiscal and administrative factors. Few studies have considered variation in Medicaid as a product of federal bureaucratic behavior. This study examines federal variation, and uses federalism, intergovernmental relations and public policy lenses to compare two cases where classes of recipients were being disenrolled from Medicaid, in apparent conflict with federal regulations. In one case, when individuals moved from county-to-county and became disenrolled in Medicaid, the federal bureaucrats used most of the implementation tools at their disposal to try to bring states back into …

Leadership Behaviors In Cross-Boundary Information Sharing And Integration : Comparing The Us And China, Lei Zheng

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study comprises a comparative analysis between the US and China regarding public sector leadership behaviors in the context of cross-boundary information sharing and integration. Based on the literature on leadership, public sector information sharing, and cross-cultural analysis, the research begins with an original case study in China set in the product safety and food safety policy domain. The case explores leadership behaviors of middle-level information leaders in the technological, organizational, and legal context of cross-boundary information sharing in this domain. Qualitative data were collected from in-depth interviews and government documents. The data were analyzed with an inductive approach to …

Measuring Street-Level Bureaucrats' Use Of Behavioral Discretion Over Information, Transaction Costs, And Stigma In U.S. Welfare Policy Implementation : A Comparative Analysis Of Public Management In State And Local Government, Do Han Kim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study uses content analysis to investigate caseworkers' use of discretion during application interviews for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamp (FS), or Medicaid (MA). One hundred twenty two application interviews were observed in 2000 for three local offices in both Michigan (1 metropolitan, 1 suburban, and 1 rural office) and Texas (2 metropolitan and 1 suburban office). Previous literature suggested that caseworkers had discretion in three areas--1) manipulating information, 2) distributing transaction costs, and 3) stigmatizing clients.

Organizational Learning And Nursing Home Quality Of Care In New York State, Ting-Wei Chiang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The primary purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between organizational learning (OL) and nursing home quality of care (NHQC). The present study addresses OL through both descriptive and prescriptive approaches. The descriptive approach proposes a prism model that defines OL from psychological perspectives, structural perspectives, and cultural perspectives. The prescriptive approach illustrates how each dimension of OL can be improved by its corresponding organizational learning mechanisms (OLMs).

Critical Mass Or Critical Acts? : An Empirical Test Of The Relationship Between The Presence Of Women In State Legislatures And Their Policy Impact On Agenda Setting And Legislative Success In Fifty Sates, 1995 And 2005, Angela Chen Dalton

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Research on gender and politics often invokes Kanter's (1977) critical mass theory to draw a linkage between women political leaders' descriptive representation and substantive representation. Using the 50 state legislatures as the unit of analysis, I empirically tested the validity of the critical mass theory by investigating the relationship between women's share of legislative seats within lower chambers of state houses and their impact on legislative agenda setting and legislative success in 1995 and 2005. Based on the findings, I argue that the critical mass theory is of limited value in explaining women's policy impact and the field of gender …

Explaining Torture And Its Reduction In A Police Department : A View From Below, Ahmet Guler

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This is an ethnographic study of police deviance and police reform. This study investigates how organizational members rationalize the torture they perpetuated in the past, how they explain their sensemaking process and organizational identity change during the change process using empirical data from a counterterrorism division of the metropolitan police department (MPD) in a prospective member state of the EU.

Qualitative Mapping For Understanding The Collective Judgment Building Process : A Study Of The Federal Open Market Committee, Hyunjung Kim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study develops a mapping method for studying a collective judgment building process in a decision-making group. Environmental uncertainties and a lack of information require a decision maker to make judgments about various issues relevant to the decision task. In a group setting, the members together weave their structural model of the system with available information to build a collective judgment for the decision task.

Performance Management Recommendations For The New Administration, Shelley H. Metzenbaum

Edward J. Collins Center for Public Management Publications

Two simple tools—goals and measurement—are among the most powerful leadership mechanisms available to a President for influencing the vast scope of federal agencies. Goals and measurement are useless, however, unless used. They must be used not just to comply with mandated reporting requirements, but to communicate priorities and problems, to motivate through attention and feedback, and to illuminate where, when, and why performance changes. The President and his leadership team must focus their discussions to deliver results around specific goals and discuss progress and problems relative to them. Otherwise, the goals agencies articulate in written plans are likely to be …

Presidential Staffing And Public Opinion: How Public Opinion Influences Politicization, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn

Departmental Papers (PS)

Scholars traditionally frame presidential efforts to politicize the federal bureaucracy as the result of divergence between the president's preferences and an agency's output. The authors argue that presidential concern with agency output is dynamic and is in part conditioned by the president's relationship with the public. To assess the relationship between politicization and public opinion, the authors use a data set that combines information on presidential efforts to politicize the Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 2004 with that of public attitudes concerning the president's handling of the economy. Their results indicate that public opinion does indeed bear a …

Democratic Institutions Create Civic Health: How Local Jurisdictions Can Enhance Their Problem-Solving Capacities Through Inclusive Governance, Including A Case Study Of Newark, Delaware, Ezra Temko

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Civic health is a community’s economic, civic, and social infrastructure – its capacity to solve its problems. This paper explores how contemporary local governments address the opportunities and challenges facing their communities and how local governments could utilize civic engagement to enhance civic health. It also evaluates the status of Newark, Delaware’s civic health and offers pragmatic steps Newark’s government can take to enhance the community’s civic health. Democratic governance is the 21st century engine for communities like Newark, Delaware to enhance their civic health. Collaborative and inclusive governance can improve a community’s abilities to solve problems. The Newark community …

Impacts Of Nebraska Legislative Policies On Selected Small Nebraska School Districts, Curtis Cogswell

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The commons is a theoretical formalism that is useful in understanding many diverse problems of civil society. A common (or commons) is an economic, political, social, and legal institution that enables joint, shared, mutual or collective natural or social action by agents using a “pool” of shared or jointly held or mutually controlled resources. A substantial body of work exists detailing natural common resource pools acted upon by physical or biological agents. Another large body of work on humanly-directed natural resource pools study the human-natural environment interface, interspecies conflict and population density. Studies of social commons have also looked at …

Air Force Users' Perceptions Of The Value Of Information Technology-Enabled Enterprise Business Systems, Kathleen Thome-Diorio

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Based on the Government Performance and Results Act, the United States Air Force is transforming its business through e-government, the adoption of information technology enabled enterprise business systems. The problem this research addressed was the lack of theory on implementation success of enterprise business systems, especially when users perceive that organizational mission and the value of the systems differ from the enterprise vision and goals. The purpose of the study was to conceptualize the acceptance of enterprise business systems by internal users. The research was based on theories about the influence and interaction of drivers of technology adoption and user …

Growth And Stability Of Local Government Taxes: An Analysis Of The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’S Tax Revenue Portfolio, Nathan Phelps

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Adequate tax revenues are critical for a government to operate and maintain the delivery of services that its citizens depend. The stability of these revenues is necessary for a government to accurately forecast future revenue growth and to ensure that balanced-budget requirements are met. The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) depends upon five primary tax sources for nearly 95% of its tax revenue. These taxes comprise the city’s tax revenue portfolio and include the business net profits tax, employee withholdings tax, franchise tax, insurance premiums tax, and the property tax. Each of tax possesses unique characteristics that dictate their susceptibility …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Utilization Patterns Of Within Facility And Secondary Healthcare Services By Kentucky State Prison Inmates, Sandra Jane Winter

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

The inmate population is increasing, aging and generally in poorer health than the non-incarcerated population. Providing healthcare to inmates is constitutionally mandated, and expensive. Little published research exists to assist corrections health policy makers strategically plan for future inmate healthcare needs. This research provides an extensive description of the healthcare utilization patterns of a sample of 577 male and female inmates incarcerated at state-operated prisons in Kentucky during the period January 1, 2007, to December 31, 2007 and who have at least one of the chronic conditions of diabetes, hypertension or hyperlipidemia. The primary outcome measures were a count of …

Passage And Initial Implementation Of The Supplemental Educational Services Element Of The No Child Left Behind Act: An Historical Inquiry Study, Brad D. Christensen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With reports alleging a sharp decline in student achievement in the last several years, there has been a call for higher standards in the United States education system. In response, with bipartisan support, politicians overwhelmingly passed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. NCLB, the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), mandated increasing the educational performance of all children by focusing on accountability for student achievement, flexibility, higher academic standards, research-based reforms, parental choice, annual testing to measure student progress, analysis of the annual testing data, and sanctions for schools where students did …

Transition Teams Matter, Christine G. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

As President-elect Obama comes to office, his administration faces daunting challenges and yet many expect that his diverse team of cabinet appointees may serve as a model for future transitions. In order for this administration to be truly successful, more is required. There must be functional teams in place not only at the cabinet level but also at the public administration level within each agency that operate according to clearly defined decision-making protocols and understand what they are accountable for and are willing to own the results achieved. This requires leadership, team skill and an alignment process so that progress …

Emergency Managers As Change Agents, Christine G. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Research

Since 2001, FEMA and others have been defining and refining competencies for emergency management professionals. In so doing, they have addressed directly and indirectly the qualities of leaders. We know that leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good. We also know that transformational or change-based leadership has become an organizational necessity given the fact that emergency management as a profession is just now coming into its own and emergency management jobs are not traditional in terms of the how, …

Economic Development In Downtown Ossining Since 1969, Lutonya Russell-Humes

Master in Public Administration Theses

No abstract provided.

The Effectiveness And Adoption Of Market-Based State Health Care Expansion Programs, Nathan Gregory Myers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Market-based state health expansion programs are alternatives to government programs like Medicaid and SCHIP which also seek to expand access to health insurance for uninsured populations. These programs either utilize the private health insurance market or function according to market principles. The market-based policies at issue in this research are state high-risk health insurance pools, limited benefit plans, group purchasing arrangements, reinsurance programs, and Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability waivers. This research addresses two separate but related research questions: (1) Do these market-based programs provide general economic and social benefits for the citizens of a state? (2) What role does …